Model Of The Sun - Bishopthorpe, UK - Made for the Millennium on Waymarking.com

The Solar System Model

The model is along the route of part of the original East Coast Mainline railway line between York and Riccall.

The opening of a new large coal mine led to fears that it could cause subsidence along this stretch of railway line so it was diverted onto another route.

After a campaign the abandoned stretch of railway was converted to a cycle and walking trail in 1987. Cycle routes have been extended throughout the UK and this is now part of National Cycle Route 65.

In 1999, the nearby York University that has an observatory, built a scale model of the Solar System along the route as part of the celebrations for the Millennium. They named the model 'Cycle the Solar System' and it was made possible by a Millennium Award to its creators Dave Coulthard, Willy Hoedeman & Peter Thompson.

Along it you can find scale models of the sun and all the planets in our solar system as well as models of the Cassini and Voyager spacecraft. The scale of the model is 575,872,239 to 1. So every 100 metres along the track corresponds to more than 57 million kilometres in space. This means that along the route the speed of light is about 1.16 mph, so it is easy to walk at around 3 times the speed of light and to cycle at about 10 times the speed of light!

The start of the route is close to the Askham Bar Park and Ride site and there is parking at the other end in the streets of Riccall.

Each of the objects stands on the top of a converted sewer pipe on which are information plaques. Nearby each one there is also a signpost pointing to the nearest object in either direction with distances in metres along the path and in millions of kilometeres in space. The exception is the sun which due to its size and weight stands separately to the information plaques and the direction arrow only points one way to Mercury.

The Model Of the Sun

As would be expected the Sun is the largest model along the route. It is made from 2 fibreglass hemispheres manufactured for a septic tank. A hole was cut into one of the hemisphere and then the two halves were fiber glassed together. Next the internal steel work to support the Sun was installed and the sphere sealed before being painted gold. The supporting steel-work was manufactured by Minster Engineering. The foundations were prepared, 10 tons of concrete poured in and finally the finished model was installed.

Related web site: [Web Link] Can you tell us who created the item: Dave Coulthard, Willy Hoedeman & Peter Thompson of York University Condition of the item: Great So what did YOU do for the millennium?: Attended a party

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