Modeling A Gas Works-History, Operation, Kit Selection
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- Gas works were a common industry in many villages, towns, and cities in the UK as well as the rest of the industrialized world from the early 1800s until the late 1960s in the UK. However kits for modeling them are difficult to find making kit bashing a necessary option. Fortunately there are many generic industrial building kits suitable for modeling gas works and both Hornby and Walthers have offered models of gas holders which may be found on eBay and at model train sales. In this first in a series of videos I'll provide a little background on gas works and show how I went about selecting a kit for a small operation for the town of Teignbury along the River Teign in south Devon.
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Good job Larry! This sparks so many memories of gas tanks in Sheffield in the 1950s and 1960s; the demise of steam engines in the Clay Cross/Bolsover areas were there was a gas plant that made coalite of which a by product was coal gas; the remaining gas street lights in Sheffield; Pears coal tar soap. The list is a long one. Too many memories for this forum I think.
Interesting topic. Some guys are building a model railroad, almost finished, at our local museum based on our city in the 1930s. It includes a coal gas retort structure and storage tank. The storage tank still existed when I moved here in 1970. Certainly some out of the ordinary structures. Well done. Thanks.
In Wolverhampton UK , we had a big gas works with two or three huge round gasometers on top. We had the towns main supply and We also had a few local large refrigerator food storage areas with its own gas supply. I was about 7 or 8 years old when I would play with my friends 'over the greeny' (which is what we called it because of the colour of the water) , workmen at the gasworks kept the grass tidy so it made an ideal play area for our activities. We enjoyed many happy hours there. 1946 ...
Hi Larry, an alternative to the “vertical railed gas holders” where the tanks rose and fell on the rails as the gas tanks filled and emptied there were also “spiral guided gas holders”.
Nice one Larry , Thank you, uk
The prototypes for this gas works were located in Ashburton and Moretonhampstead, Devon and another in Cornwall. I found a couple of photos of them as well as a fleeting glimpse of the Moretonhampstead one in a RUclips video. The gas holder shown was used in Fakenham, Norfolk and is still there as part of an industrial museum. I believe the Walthers gas holder kit was of the large telescoping design. However the last I checked neither it nor the Hornby one were in production.
When I was a child some of my family lived near a local gas works and I remember the family doctor was always advising my aunt to move away from the gas works as it was bad for her health.
There are still a few gas holders around in North West England, but they are gradually disappearing.
Thanks for a very interesting video Larry.
Hi Larry, here in the UK I don't recall ever having seen such a small gas holder, typically the framework for the sliding tanks was much higher with the tanks themselves of a telescopic design, there might be as few as two or three levels of horizontal support rings (fairly common) but I have seen as many as 8 rings, typically there would also be diagonal bracing between the junctions of the rings with the towers and the level below, as a child in the 70's I used to get driven past two large gas holders on my way to school every morning
Going further back beyond the 1970s and into the earlier days of coal gas production there were many gasworks that served a specific function such as attached to industrial areas, small villages or even to supply a specific business. Such gasworks were obviously then a lot smaller than the town sized ones that were so typical in the 60s and 70s. In the very early days of town gas production you might even find plant for such specific purposes as large stately homes, obviously not using the same type of water sealed gas holder. If you go to the Fakenham Gasworks Museum in Norfolk, UK, you will see an example of a much smaller gas holder.
I recommend digging into Peter Denny's Buckingham Great Central layout, he had a small gasworks on 2 generations of the layout. It is a model based in the UK set in the pre-WW1 period.
You beat me to it, I've just bought the book he wrote on his layout, just for his gasworks.
Hi Larry, Hattons has 2 Gaugemaster gas holder kits in stock as of now,
Good Video Larry though I think this would be the tiniest Gas works I’ve ever seen. Gasometers alone are huge structures. I have the Pola one. Incidentally the ConCor structures were made by Pola as well, now part of the Faller range. Joachim
Larry, the gas tank in Aldershot was cut up only a few weeks ago
Gas works were only located in towns and cities but not in villages.
The village I lived in is 4.5 miles from the nearest town and we never had gas.
Here in the UK we know the old coke gas as Towns Gas as the gasworks was run by the local town corporation (no national network till late 40s)
I used to be a gas engineer, and even now 50 odd years after the change to natural gas when you cut a gas pipe that’s old enough you can still smell the towns gas in the metal
Did you know there was a 'coal tar soap' made by a company called Pears.
It was a product I used as a kid. Odd smell but effective.