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SE&CR Caterham 1899 (was 'what process can I use...')


Lacathedrale
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Harlequin, great work as always! I'm mobile so will have to reply in greater detail when I'm at my pc.

 

As for posh housing I'm not sure! I'm in a row of semis built in the early 30's opposite Foxley Wood (as it is now!). I haven't seen any big stately homes around here unfortunately...

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So I've finally moved into the new house (no internet access yet, so this is being typed on my phone again hence the brevity). As some light reading I picked up Iain Rice's "Designs for Urban Layouts" and by Jove, he has a version of Caterham in there too!

 

His version is more based on the modern layout with double track but retains the majority if what we have discussed such as the double slip leading to the goods yard. In the 1923 plan we had a turntable but he as a loco pit and coaling stage. He places the loco spur we had trouble fitting in initially on the outside of the goods loop too. His one also somehow fits into 6'6"

 

Anyway, most bracing. Now on to the book by the gentleman's relative recommended in this thread.

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  • RMweb Gold

Congratulations! I hope it wasn't too stressful.

 

I have just started reading Iain Rice's "An approach to model railway layout design" and it is already an eye-opener. I'll have to get the "urban layouts" book too to study his version of Caterham!

Edited by Harlequin
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I wonder if I'm clear to reproduce some of the photos from this book, there are many of the station from the era we are discussing - platform, station, carriage sidings, goods area, etc.

Regrettably not without the permission of the Copyright holder,  whom I guess isn't you.  You could ask I suppose but it is unlikely.  I doubt if they would regard this as "fair use" or "research" as defined in the 1968 Copyright Designs and Patents Act.

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Ok, when I'm back at my pc I will do my utmost to get some sketched approximation up.

 

Bit of a calamity though, my loft hatch measures 22x23" and is cold as fudge. Not sure given the other limitations whether it remains a viable first choice. My garden office is much more amiable, will happily fit an L shaped 8x8 and has lots of natural light, with insulation, power and lighting.

 

I'm quite a fan of the serpentine, which was why it was a bit sad to see that fall by the wayside based on width concerns with attic Caterham.

 

I'm going to put my cap on - maybe we can pull a Rice and distill Caterham 1899 to a smaller footprint (like his 6'6") in order to fit it as a cameo out and back with a traverser along one wall. I think if we can fit prototype ops in there, the fact there's one less siding or the platforms are only half length may matter less. That does remain to be seen unfortunately as with further compression and even less linear run the scope for automation is rapidly diminishing...

 

 

The other wall could play host to another set in suburbia or even (as we have discussed partly) another era, gauge or scale

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I wonder if this could potentially work in 3mm... I'm going to be building everything short of the locos (the c class and h class) anyway so it's not like I'm losing much...

 

I'm not sure this process is actually helping you to "narrow down your layout ideas" much - narrowing the gauge, maybe!

 

:jester: 

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Amen to that! Quite a jump from S7 to14.2-Fine but it will permit four such Caterham layouts in the space I realistically am able to use.

 

I'm also heartened there is just so much meat in the Caterham idea - my original post around it was deliberately titled "Idea #1" as it was due to be one of a few.

 

I finished the other book on the Caterham Railway and I'm very happy about that too - it has brought some great character to the SER and LBSCR (and their petulant squabbles).

 

I signed up to the 3mn society so in the meantime will do a little browsing around that and stretch my mental faculties about any other ideas. I think they may deserve a separate thread though given the great work by Harlequin etc. Here just around Caterham itself)

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I had a lot of fun researching and just drawing up the Caterham/Attic track plans in 4mm so don't worry if you choose to follow a different path.

 

I think Caterham c.1900 (pre line doubling) in any scale would make a great model because of the wonderful architecture, the slightly different Victorian take on the station layout and the wealth of information that's out there. And of course, because you live nearby.

 

But does it meet your original requirements for operational interest??? And does it meet the other requirements, which maybe you are not so clear on yet?

 

Iain Rice suggests a process where, to summarise him brutally; you write down the things you want the layout to do, be, achieve and look like in priority order. At the same time write a list of the practical considerations (including location and being realistic about what you can achieve). Then think through the two lists, re-order, filter out the things that wouldn't work together or are unrealistic and distil them down to describe the essential concept of the layout.

 

(Sorry if that all sounds old hat and a bit obvious - it just reflects my recent reading...)

Edited by Harlequin
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No doubt about it, it's a big and expensive project to make a loft that big comfortable. The plus is that it will add some value to your house and perhaps reduce your heating bills (depending on what insulation you currently have above the ceilings).

 

If your loft hatch is that cold, it will be losing a lot of heat from the house into the loft. Put some insulation on the hatch.

 

If you do decide to put the layout in the loft, well worth the effort and expense to increase the size of the loft hatch or indeed to move to an easier location.

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I think it's halfway there and would certainly be fine during the year - but as you've said it's not quite as simple as slinging up some 2x4 for supports and going hog wild with the baseboards, which is a bit of a shame.

 

I had a lot of fun researching and just drawing up the Caterham/Attic track plans in 4mm so don't worry if you choose to follow a different path.

 

I think Caterham c.1900 (pre line doubling) in any scale would make a great model because of the wonderful architecture, the slightly different Victorian take on the station layout and the wealth of information that's out there. And of course, because you live nearby.

 

But does it meet your original requirements for operational interest??? And does it meet the other requirements, which maybe you are not so clear on yet?

 

Iain Rice suggests a process where, to summarise him brutally; you write down the things you want the layout to do, be, achieve and look like in priority order. At the same time write a list of the practical considerations (including location and being realistic about what you can achieve). Then think through the two lists, re-order, filter out the things that wouldn't work together or are unrealistic and distil them down to describe the essential concept of the layout.

 

(Sorry if that all sounds old hat and a bit obvious - it just reflects my recent reading...)

 

I am gazing out of my new office window and watching the fancy Southern EMUs shuttle past and dreaming of the wheezing, clanking ascent (not to mention the clangour of the the engine shed a few hundred meters in the other direction). I think somewhere between our compressed Caterham design and the Iain Rice Harestone (that is, something around 8' in length in EM) would scale down nicely into TT or 2FS in my new space, but as we've touched on would almost certainly preclude actual RAILWAY modelling and be very close to a diorama. Having seen a number of pre-grouping country termini set deep in the country idylls I'm not altogether convinced that it is for me. Maybe with some judicious use of industry (there was a large electrical plant built just by the station throat by 1905, and the station's original freight was fire stone, red brick earth and aggregates).

 

On the bright side a little more reading has revealed that the Kilby's Livery Stables (whose photo you found) was big building to the right of the picture in the very early etch I found. I'm not clear if the siding ran straight into it as we have surmised however, later on it shows simply a coal wharf and I'm honestly not clear why a rail line would end up in the middle of a stable block - but stranger things have happened. Additionally it looks as though that rather odd two-carriage-long canopy  was put up after the station was completed. There was also a rather large hamper of 'COW DUNG' on the station platform in the photo!  

 

Lastly, a lovely picture of an SE&CR locomotive heading for Caterham coming up 'Brockley Bank' - which if you would believe it, is the station from which I moved to come to Caterham! How is that for poetry?

 

My current thoughts are to test out some track building in TT and 2FS and see where that lies - the former would absolutely support pre-grouping SE&CR (or even SER) given the availabilty of coaching stock, locomotives, etc. The latter I think would be better suited for 'railway' operations (so I will go through your Iain Rice suggested priority list) and could quite concievably model Purley in the early diesel era (with the aggregates, builders merchants, coal yard locally, and both EMU and diesel-hauled trains to the SE&CR's outer reaches (and of course, to Caterham). 

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The book I am currently reading (slowly due to Christmas and being away from home), "An approach to model railway layout design - Finescale in small spaces" by Iain Rice, seems to have much advice that directly addresses your situation. I think you might find it very useful.

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Thank you - seems hard to find, but I tracked down a s/h copy on Amazon along with the 2mmFS society 'Track' book, so hopefully between the two I should be able to synthesise an interesting and realistic layout between them.

 

Everything I have read subsequent to posting this thread has shown me the validity of designing something of an appropriate size and achievable specification in order that it can be actually completed is significantly more important than striving for a magnum opus. I am very aware that I have not completed a layout in EM, P4, S7, 14.2-Fine or 2mmFS - let alone exhibited one. As such I think my primary consideration must ultimately lie in that vein at first.

 
Ultimately despite ruling out the loft as an area for a permanent fixture, it seems I have many small nooks and crannies that could hold anything from a 3' test plank up to the aforementioned 8'6" linear length of the shed (and even longer temporarily in the living room). With this in mind, I have refined my criteria more thoroughly in that the layout should have modular exit point (blue arrow), so that I can fit a straight fiddle yard either directly (for exhibiting) or via a 90 degree bend module (red square, for shed use), have a visible section no longer than 7' in length (black box). If the design conspires to permit a perpendicular exit on the tip of each modular section (noted below in orange) so much the better; but I am expecting this to be a learning process and as such will not cry too hard if the overall design prohibits it.
 
wCad64S.png
It seems that 3mm and 2mm SE&CR is going to be a complete pig - I am not prepared to wait multiple years for the kits or parts to become available, so ultimately it means my SE&CR plans will need to come as a secondary layout in those scales, or be limited to 4mm in a more modest layout than we've previously discussed. On the other hand, Idea #2 (as touched on in this thread and in my other potential layout plan thread here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129319-spa-road/ ) or Southern Region blue diesels is supported very well in 2mm, which given my new available space does lend itself more to 'railway' operation.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Phil, at an 11' length in 4mm I think this could fairly easily be fit into 6' x 2' (and thus be a candidate for my shed layout) in 2mmFS. I'm keeping this on the back burner (particularly since it will require TWO double slips on rail that is approx 1mm x 0.5mm in cross section), but it absolutely wasn't time wasted. Thank you very much !

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  • 8 months later...

My attention has come back to this plan, having succeeded somewhat in my 2FS track laying this morning I wonder if this might be a good candidate to revisit. My thoughts on Katherine St (and pushing forward to prototypical accuracy with the discussion around Hertford East) made me realise I have a rather local terminus I can use!  I can roll the clock forward to post-doubling of the line, but not too far (the whole thing was electrified by 1928) so the locomotives aren't postage stamp sized. Using 2mm:ft instead of 4mm:ft I can let the station really stretch out and still fit some flowing suburban scenery around it.

 

Phil, I hope it's not rude of me to ask, do you think you can work your magic in 1:152? I'd love to see how it would look in boards 18" wide, and in permutations of 3, 4 and 5 feet long! Paypal donation to a charity of your choice for all the hard work you've put into this thread so far :) I found another plan from NLS which shows the track post 1895: https://maps.nls.uk/view/103315894

 

To make it simple for casual browsers of the thread to see the changes, (since I'd just be working off the OS grid map in Templot if it came down to it), this is the 'system diagram' of the station in the pre-war era. The reality is that the length of the station site (approx 1000' from the front of the station building to the mainline crossover) means this is all very sinuous.

 

nw3wgUK.png

 

  • There is a large set of coal bins between the goods shed and the next goods yard road. I have no idea what happened with them, since pictures show they almost span the entire distance from track to track, see this photo LINK
  • In the diagram I have suggested that some tracks can be omitted (orange) but in actuality at least one will need to be modelled. Why, you ask? Because between those two orange tracks was an end loading dock, for the Caterham Guard barracks and potentially traffic to the nearby aerodrome - so military vehicles were common on night freight. How cool is that?!
  • The turntable was about fifty feet in diameter and taken out of use post-electrification in 1925 (hence my rather concrete dates!), there was a plain track adjacent to the turntable, I imagine for the station pilot to hang out - this could be included without much worry.

 

Rolling-stock wise, I've got my 'The Caterham Railway' by Jeoffry Spence handy, and the details are as follows:

 

  • Up to the war, the Purley shed had an allocation of ex-LCDR Kirtley M-class and ex-SER Stirling O-class locomotives. The former would be gone by 1914 (I can't find a single picture) but the latter (in rebuilt form) lasted until the end of steam. Not bad for a locomotive built in the 1870's!
  • After the war, these were phased out to be replaced by half a dozen Wainright H-class  (and Five Q/Q1 classes)
  • When steam wrapped up in 1952, the lone goods loco was an ex-LBSC C.2X . For a few years after this, apparently Bullied Diesel 11001 was a frequent motive power - how's that for idiosyncratic?
  • Other visitors with photograph evidence: an L-class (a 4-4-0 express - a premier locomotive in the pre-grouping era), an ex-Royal Train F1 (kitted out in polished brass) and a rebuilt O1.

So ultimately, this means if I set the layout in 1914, I've got scope for various 4-4-0s, 0-4-4Ts, and 0-6-0's. Coaches up until the 1940's were all SE&CR stock. Livery wise they would have been in that holly green with red underframes and bright green lining. I'm not sure I could do that justice, but it's a little more inspiring than the plain green/yellow or plain GREY of the war/post-war years! :)

 

Operationally, there's alot going on, trip working between Catherham and Bricklayers arms, local freight and shunting work. Commuter trains on quick turnaround and expresses onward (i.e. the L-class mentioned above) to London Bridge, Cannon Street, Charing Cross and Victoria. Night trains of war material to the Guards Depot (top left of maps linked earlier)

 

Track-wise - there is some interesting stuff going on - two single slips (not double) and a scissors crossover (should I choose to model it). This is certainly some hair raising stuff, but (I hope) not impossible.

Edited by Lacathedrale
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That diagram above is pretty dire, so I re-did the trackwork (unfortunately I'm fairly sure it will need another go-over to get the rails and timbers aligned, but I'm really pleased that this works in 8'. I think I could split the layout at the end of the platforms with a bit of jiggling around into two 4' boards.

 

Other than reducing the platform length by about 1/4 it's pretty faithful to the OS maps. A few small liberties have been taken but I think it very much keeps the character of this charming mid-sized branch line terminus. I would imagine modelling it in the early spring - greys, browns and trees bare, with a foggy backscene and that hazy sunshine that goes with the crisp March air while holly green and carmine steam locos shuffle the dark varnished carriages for commuter trains and specials, and sooty black tanks shunt the yard.

 

The trackwork is complicated, but there's not a huge amount of it and breaks into four chunks - the scissors, the goods fan, the slip into the goods and the slip into Platform 1.

 

rJBYDAh.png

 

I keep wishing this wasn't such a good option! It really makes everything else just pale in comparison :)

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Hi Bill,

 

That looks and sounds really good! I can see a few tweaks, mostly to do with alignment, I'd like to suggest but they are difficult to explain so I need to draw them, really.

 

One thing I really would suggest is modelling Station Avenue and the buildings on the other side of it in low-relief. That really would set the railway in the landscape properly - make it a model of a place, not just a station. (So maybe have two boards 4.5ft long or three boards 3ft long to provide room for Station Avenue???)

 

Would you consider using ready made trackwork so that there are fewer hurdles to get a working layout? Maybe save hand-built track for a future project?

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Hi Phil, I could shift the whole trackplan 6" to fit the station building and Station Avenue in, capped by some low profile houses. There may even be space for those livery stables in the front-left corner :) My maximum train length would be five 50' and a 4-4-0 generally, but I'd like to fit four 60' coaches and a pacific (strictly speaking that would be out of period, but means i could forward-date the layout to the post-grouping, pre-electrification period and invoke rule #1 to get a Lord Nelson or King Arthur-class on there.).  The long and short of that is, my maximum train length would be around 2' 4" - so a 3' board with 6" sceniced and the remainder used as a platform for cassettes (or traverser, I guess) eminently doable.

 

One reason for keeping the main layout boards summing 8' is not purely whimsy - tho now I have an office with an 11' wall, at some point my wife and I are hoping to have kids, and the only room in the house that could be come a kid's bedroom is my office - so I'm sure I'll be turfed out into the garden cottage which is approx 8'6" square. Of course, I could always have it up in the loft but this way I'm ensuring compatibility with the lowest common denominator.

 

I certainly could look into commercial track for this project - it seems however there is a chap in the 2FS society who will build complex pointwork on commission for very reasonable rates - which is where I think I'd prefer to spend my money if it came to that, rather than Peco Code 55. We'll see - I'm still high off of fixing my dodgy PCB pointwork and building a new one and it all generally working as one might hope - that joy may turn to ash in my mouth when tackling the slips and scissors above.

 

ps. Thank you for being a very kind contributor to this thread, your work has driven this project much further than I could have hoped :)

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Just quickly, this is sort of what I was thinking of:

post-32492-0-50126600-1539072016_thumb.png

 

I straightened and aligned the platforms to try to get more space to fan out the goods yard and to set the line into the goods yard on a distinctly different curve to the main lines.

 

I haven't succeeded, I'm afraid. Needs more work.

 

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That's really nice - I was trying to avoid going parallel but I think it might be required so that the 'fan' fits.

 

With regard to geometry it looks good. Two observations:

 

  • The Platform 2 road and runaround need to be spaced wide - on a 10' way (hence that rather odd joggling) in my plan, all the runarounds should be a hair over 7"
  • On one hand I really like the long goods headshunt - it feels very 'railway' - but as you have quite admirably demonstrated, by shifting the junction with the running lines and shortening the headshunt, the goods yard benefits greatly from a separate alignment and gives room to the staithes between the lines (as per prototype).  Maybe somewhere between is a good compromise?
  • If we assume hand laid turnouts,  and that I need to maintain a 2' minimum radius, would it fit? I think it'd be cutting it quite tight around the Platform 1 access road.

 

Thanks again :)

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Just so I could get a sense of the size, proportions and amount of compression involved, I grabbed and scaled a map from the link you posted above and overlaid a rectangle, aligned with the platforms and roughly covering the station limits and station avenue:

post-32492-0-49233500-1539084136_thumb.png

 

I've checked the distance from the station building to the corner of Colin Road on Google Maps so I'm confident my scaling is correct. :-)

 

At 1:152 the inner rectangle is roughly 9ft 2in by 1ft 9in. The station has a bit of space around it for scenic setting and the whole goods yard siding fan fits in the width!

 

I'm not saying you should build at that size or that orientation - it's just interesting that an accurate track plan very nearly fits into the space you're thinking about. Shows that even after compression it could be a faithful replica.

 

P.S. Your loft might accomodate an N-gauge roundy-round representing the Caterham branch line: Kenley and fiddle yard on one side and a countryside section terminating in Caterham on the other. (The roundy-round would continue non-scenically behind the countryside and Caterham station.) Just a thought... ;-)

 

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