RMweb Premium 47137 Posted October 22, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 22, 2015 I have a retaining wall for my new layout - a moulding by Langley Miniature Models - and I have trimmed the bottom of this so the top of the parapet wall is 14 mm above the tops of the rails. This height represents 4 feet at 1:87 scale, and I believe four feet is the proper minimum, tho' I am relying on a 1960s book "Starting in Scale 00" for this. The moulding has a string course which looks like the foundation of the parapet. Could anyone tell me, should this string course be level with the bed of ballast below the sleepers (as I have it at the moment), or lower down, level with the foundation of the road bed i.e. about 5 mm lower. Or perhaps this is not defined? If I end up with a parapet which is too low I'm happy to add a handrail on top it, I think this would look good. It's difficult to find a prototype where I can get access to look and measure. - Richard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Interesting question Richard. I'd not given it a second thought until I looked at my own walls. I have the string course at ground level, simply because it was easier to build that way and looked correct. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 ...The moulding has a string course which looks like the foundation of the parapet. Could anyone tell me, should this string course be level with the bed of ballast below the sleepers (as I have it at the moment), or lower down, level with the foundation of the road bed i.e. about 5 mm lower... The external arch form suggests lower down. The crown of the arch - if it extends level under the track formation - must be at least below the ballast bed, and preferably a little below that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Smith Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 I wouldn't have thought that the height was important unless there is pedestrian traffic expected beside the line. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 22, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 22, 2015 Ground level at the top should definitely be above the string course (as it is immediately on top of the arch key stone. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 47137 Posted October 22, 2015 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted October 22, 2015 Gordon's model looks as right as my mine looks wrong. I shall trim the bottom of the moulding so the top edge of the string course is just below the top of my foam board track bed. This way, the crown of the arches will be a scale 14 inches or so below the base of the ballast bed, assuming the ballast is 12 inches thick. Doing this will make the visible parts of the parapets lower on the inside. I need to add some stonework to match here, it only needs to go down as far as the top of the ballast so there is less work to do here :-) Jeff - I doubt whether the height is terribly important too. If it looks wrong, I might add a handrail along the top, but really the more of the trains I can see the better. Thanks everyone. - Richard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Smith Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Richard, I assume your moulding represents arches that have subsequently been filled in so your suggestions for arch height relative to the track bed are about right. Yes, the more you see of the trains the better..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 47137 Posted October 22, 2015 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted October 22, 2015 Richard, I assume your moulding represents arches that have subsequently been filled in so your suggestions for arch height relative to the track bed are about right. Yes, the more you see of the trains the better..... Well! - I bought the mouldings as a "retaining wall" not "blocked up arches" but I suppose they could be either. For my layout, I am thinking of putting a door on one of them to represent access to some kind of store room, which I will imagine was built at the same time as the rest of the structure. For example an ice store, for use with fish packing. In Victorian times, labour was cheap while brick (and I imagine, quarried stone) was not, so the railways built quite intricate designs of walls to save on materials. Whereas nowadays, labour is more expensive than the materials, so everything is done as simply as possible even if this uses more materials. I have a low embankment behind, I hope it's a retaining wall and not one side of a viaduct. I have trimmed it down as discussed: Looking at the location on my layout, I'd like the ground level to drop down a little at the right-hand two arches. So the store room would be by the tube of glue. The arches at the left will be too low to be useful for much, and will be mostly hidden behind an engine shed and a refuelling point. At the end of the day, I can hardly expect a freelance model to be "scale" (because it isn't a model of anything), but I would like it to be "plausible" or "believable". It has been known for UK manufacturers to produce kits of implausible buildings, but I thought I was safe with a row of arches! All suggestions welcome as sooner or later I will have to make up my mind and make the back of the parapet, and then paint it all. Edit: I should add, it looks a lot better now. I think it is "right" - Richard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chubber Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 47137, this may be a 'camera angle' thing, BUT it looks like you have your batter wrong. The 'pillars' [buttresses] should be leaning backwards slightly from the vertical and the walls between set up vertically. To me, your top walls seem to be leaning outwards but as I have said, this may, hopefully just be a camera angle thing.... In Gordon's, the construction has been dealt with differently, i.e. the 'pillars' are set up vertically, and the batter applied to the infill walls. Doug Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 47137 Posted October 22, 2015 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted October 22, 2015 47137, this may be a 'camera angle' thing, BUT it looks like you have your batter wrong. The 'pillars' [buttresses] should be leaning backwards slightly from the vertical and the walls between set up vertically. To me, your top walls seem to be leaning outwards but as I have said, this may, hopefully just be a camera angle thing.... In Gordon's, the construction has been dealt with differently, i.e. the 'pillars' are set up vertically, and the batter applied to the infill walls. Yes - battered pillars, vertical infill. It may be partly the wide angle lens, but mainly I think because the moulding is hanging in mid air. It will look more like this when I glue it down: I might reinforce the back of the moulding to hold the horizontal curve and stop it twisting, before I add the back of the parapet and the store room door. - Richard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Now I'm curious as I followed the work of Dave Shakepeare on Tetley Mills. Is it incorrect to have the walls leaning back and the pillars vertical? Tetley's looked so right, it never occurred to me otherwise. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chubber Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Yes - battered pillars, vertical infill. It may be partly the wide angle lens, but mainly I think because the moulding is hanging in mid air. It will look more like this when I glue it down: DSCF3531.jpg I might reinforce the back of the moulding to hold the horizontal curve and stop it twisting, before I add the back of the parapet and the store room door. - Richard. Yup! That's so much better! Sorry I started this hare running, and Gordon, both are prototypical, so apologies also for sowing 'worry - seeds'! Doug Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 47137 Posted October 23, 2015 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted October 23, 2015 Now I'm curious as I followed the work of Dave Shakepeare on Tetley Mills. Is it incorrect to have the walls leaning back and the pillars vertical? Tetley's looked so right, it never occurred to me otherwise. I have done some image searches on Google. Walls and buttresses can be vertical, battered, or vertically curving i.e. battered at the bottom and vertical at the top. Most permutations seem to exist and certainly the Tetley style is correct. The moulding I have has got battered buttresses, vertical arches and curving infill panels. I can't haven't found a picture of one of these, but I have lost most of the curvature by trimming off the bottom of the mouldings. - Richard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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