Knitting needles

Two wooden knitting needles with black plastic end caps, formerly part of model overhead line equipment. Part of model railway layout, gauge 1, Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Signalling School, built 1912, by L&YR

Around 1984 the layout was modified to include overhead line electrical equipment. This equipment was made using recycled knitting needles that were inserted into holes drilled into the layout's table and copper wire that was threaded through the knitting needles above the tracks. The catenary was not considered effective and the third rail system was partically renewed two years later in 1986. It was representative of the many functional but sometimes crude modifications made to the layout during its more than 80 year working life at Manchester Victoria.

When the layout was dismantled and subsequently reconstructed at the National Railway Museum the copper wire was in too poor condition to be reinstated on the layout. Two needles were retained to represent this aspect of the layout's history and can be seen next to box C on the layout.