"Built with Passion –
  The Story of Rail Racing"
A new book by J.R. Davies

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From the liner notes: This is the fascinating story of how rail racing started (and how slot racing started), looking back at the event that led to rail racing becoming the national electric model racing sport. Explore the world of the 1950s with many interviews of the people that were there at the time including the only woman national rail/slot racing champion, Ve Whitbread. The book showcases articles on Walkden Fisher, Tom Cook, Dave Day, Pete Mells and other such figures, with many wonderful rail car pictures  including detailed chassis shots showing the detail and vast range of designs that were used. If you have any interest in slot or rail racing this book is a must, explaining everything you need to know about how it started.  Overall, the book is a great window on life in Britain in the 1950's and the birth of a sport.

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What is Rail Racing? It’s miniature auto car racing on a track that features a raised rail to guide the car around. According to Jeff, it was started in the US in the early 50’s, with the cars being powered by converted model airplane internal combustion engines. I wasn’t aware of this, but I did know of the post-war “round the pylon” tether racers or “Spin Dizzies”, as they were sometimes called.  The rail tracks could be made to represent a more realistic race course than just a circle, and race multiple cars at a time. In keeping with the idea, many of the cars were works of art with hand crafted aluminum bodies and great detail. The European cars were powered by diesel engines. I’m not sure what the US cars used. In the model airplane world, the engines tended to be spark ignition, then the glow plug type. The diesels were used in Europe for the lower fuel cost.

This diesel powered car is called a Movo Sprint,  made to commemorate Ferrari's victory in 1952. To see more Rail Racing Pics,  go to the Rail Racing Photo Gallery

An Excerpt from the book:

Diesel rail racing lead directly to it's electric counterpart (mainly though the activities of one man and his patented "zonkers") and he was one of the people right at the front of both movements. His name was Alban Adams (VSRN NOTE: Adams was the founder of MRRC),  who in 1953 ran a diesel rail racing track (one of the few commercial tracks) at Blackpool daily though the summer season. Once he told me when I meet him down at his Boscombe factory he had invented slot racing and in a way he was right, though I am sure this is not quite the way he would have meant it.  In 1954 the Southport Model Engineering Society (SMES) used a portable diesel rail car track as part of their annual exhibition to raise funds for the society. Alban Adams felt quite rightly that this breached his patent on the guides on their cars as he had made it clear that any club using this system for commercial use had to pay a portion of their profits to him as a royalty, and threatened legal action against the society if they continued to use a diesel rail track for the 1955 exhibition. This forced the society to look for a replacement model racing car attraction. The solution to their problem was an electric rail racing system inspired by the discussions in the recent edition of Model Maker. And so, electric rail racing came to be in this country. This eventually led to slot racing, so Alban Adams was right after all - albeit indirectly.  In the same year as the 1954 exhibition, Alban opened a new indoor circuit for diesel rail cars at Boscombe. This was a very grand affair and for the opening Alban had a team of 40 works built diesel rail cars representing just about every full size racing car from Ferraris and BRMs to Cooper 500s. This must have been at that time one of the largest groups of diesel rail cars ever built by one company (MRRC) in one place, and fortunately many of these cars still exist. The track was housed in a centrally heated building (60x 22ft) and was built to be around waist height, the track followed a basic figure of eight shape 120ft long. The track had a starter disc for each of the three lanes, extractor fans (ex-hairdryers) to suck away excess fumes when cars were at the start and most importantly an automatic lap-scorer.  At the opening of the Boscombe rail racing centre Arthur Weaver remarked that "it may well be that rail racing is the answer to the high cost bogey, and could see the rebirth of rail car racing on an economical level." This of course is relative as diesel rail cars were not cheaper themselves and their replacement, electric rail cars, were considerably cheaper to both build and use. This was rail racing deluxe according to Model Maker. But the missing factor was still there, the racer had no control over his car once it had started and was only really a spectator once the car had left the line. What was really needed was for the racer to have control of his car during the race so he could feel that heart stopping excitement of racing to victory, In all other respects diesel rail racing was the complete package with mind numbing noise. Okay, this can be looked at both ways but it certainly added to the overall excitement: the cars were very fast and everyone who attended a diesel rail car meeting said how exciting it was. In the early 1950s diesel rail racing was seen as the answer to how to bring miniature motorsport to the public…. ********

 

Author Jeff Davis knows what he is talking about. In 2000, he set out to recreate a famous rail racing circuit for a special event at the historical Brooklands Museum, site of the full size race circuit from 1907 until WWII. After a lot of research, and hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work, a working replica of the Southport Model Engineering Club's original rail track was ready.  Taking about “Built With Passion”, I cannot possibly do justice to what went into the construction of the track. Instead, I urge you to read Jeff’s own words at:  http://homepage.ntlworld.com/j.davies4/brk0.htm I particularly enjoyed his comment on the trials & tribulations of the project:  “…and there were times I could quite happily have set fire to the whole thing.” Anyone who has ever been involved is a major project, can empathize with him!

Here are a couple  of  pictures of the only rail car chassis in the world built out of early brass rail, this rail car was one of the first to be built in America around 1957. It has now been restored. The body is Cunningham as raced at LeMans, 1952/53.  The body mold including finishing/weathering is by Charles Lawrence.  The casting (resin) is by  Scott Smith (Noisy Muse) with decals by Howard Frank.  The chassis was rebuilt by John Moxon and he mounted the Body
	This shot clearly shows the pickup system for rail racers. The 2 vertical legs in the middle, straddle the raised rail, which is the negative terminal.  The brass wiper in between rides on top of the rail. The positive side of the electric circuit is a bare wire at track level is offset to the side of the central rail. The large wiper near the front tire rides on the wire. John Moxon, who helped in some of the restorations says: “The method can look a little crude compared to modern flag guides, but performs extremely well. You tend to worry about the two somehow touching both rails at once, so people new to building them go to great lengths to keep them apart, in practice you can get them closer than you'd think. Often one shim is directly soldered to the chassis and the other insulated in some way, usually with a paxolin plate, an early form of circuit board if you like.”
The “Speed Controller” is a telegraph key, giving “on-off”  control. "Brakes" didn't exist.... Jeff tells me that some rail racers who were used to this device had trouble adapting to the "variable" controllers of slot racing.  My first Strombecker slot set had on-off pushbuttons....

  This is John Moxon's recreation of one of Walden Fisher’s original chassis,
in a “newly” recreated resin body, by Marc Gussin, from an original Auto Hobbies glass-fibre shell.
  This is the original wooden carving of a 300SLR, by Pete Mells who used it at the 1962 British Rail Championships at Newport.
It has a working flip-up air brake / headrest, and was prepared as a master to make the two piece glass-fibre mould
shown in the middle, alongside an unused shell from the mould.

Jeff’s book was written with all of the same enthusiasm and intensity that went into the track construction.
Capturing the rapidly fading history of the pioneering days of rail racing, makes this book a real treasure,
and Jeff should be added to the list of  “heros” of Rail Racing.

I'm facinated by the saga of the resurrection of the rail cars! There is so much more to it than this brief article.
You should take the time to check out the website for the National Rail Racing Association: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/j.davies4/

Additional Photos of Rail Racing cars may be found at: http://www.bits.bris.ac.uk/lord_of_lunacy/

Special Thanks to both Jeff Davies and John Moxon, who patiently answered my many questions,
and were kind enough to review this article for technical accuracy!

This great book will be released in September, and is available for preorder at:

www.pendleslotracing.co.uk

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