Researching for model railway project - beginner!

[Marvin63]

Hi to all. I want to do a layout based on Chingford station in 1940s but haven't got a clue how to start research. All my family come from this area so is of special historical interest to me. Can anyone help ?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

There are a few leads in this article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chingford_railway_station

 

Originally constructed by the GER, and would have been an LNER operation in the 1940s passing to BR(ER) in 1948. There are groups and websites supporting these aspects.

 

Are you sufficiently nearby to visit a library serving Chingford? It should offer a search facility for what titles the Borough service may hold as reference material, and can advise on access to other archived material.

[Reorte]

Thumb through any books you can find that might cover the area. Have a look at old maps - https://maps.nls.uk/ It's the National Library of Scotland, and the menu images just show Scotland but it covers the entire country, with good quality scans of old large scale maps.

[joppyuk1]

It depends on how you want to do your research, and how far you want to go. There's the easy way of using the internet, but remember it's not all on there , or there's the hard way. Write to the local newspaper(s)** and county magazine asking for anyone with memories to get in touch, check with the area archives (usually the county library) to see what they have, join the appropriate railway society, whose members will know far more and can probably point you in other directions. Each enquiry will usually give another point to chase up and could take a while to track down. Of course, you could get so involved in research that you never get round to building the model.

 

** remembering to check which ones were extant in the period you want, as they may have articles in their back copies as well.

[The Johnster]

Visit the site, even if it is drastically changed/modernised/rationalised.  You will get a feel for the lie of the land, local landmarks such as church towers and spires that would be visible from the station to include in your backscene, and look at the alignment of bridges, approach roads, and such; these will often retain very old boundaries and angles, as will building plot 'footprints', though not necessarily the buildings on them.  Parks are often unchanged in outline over very long periods, and councils tend to replace trees when they die off with similar ones.  Photos are your friend here.

 

Given your period and area, it may be checking press reports of bomb damage for photos that might include snippets.  If you can find an old timer in a pub, ask what he remembers; what factories were situated where and what they made, but these are getting thin on the ground now.  The cost of a beer or two for him will be well spent, but try and cross check his memories, which will at least point you in the right direction.  Even someone who remembers the early 60s will have very useful things to say; who ran the station newsagents, where the old pubs now long gone were, that sort of thing.

 

Try and get a copy of the 6 inch to the mile Ordnance Survey; one from the 20s or as late as the late 50s will have most of the detail you want.  Trackplans on these are pretty accurate, and details such as signal posts, cabins, and water columns are marked.

 

You will be surprised at the information that is there or can at least can be reasonably assumed from the snippets you pick up; you will soon develop a feel for what is probable and what does not sound right, and be able to produce a model that captures the essence of Chingford in the 40s with a good degree of accuracy and plenty of atmosphere.  Things to look out for might include a row of Victorian shops with a 1950s looking building in the middle; this could well have been a bomb site in your era.  A wine bar that looks like it used to be a bank would have been a bank then, and the name was probably carved in the mock stonework.  

 

Everything needs to look run down and dingy, war worn and weary and covered with dust and smoke stains from the bombing; Chingford is downwind of East London, which was not far off flattened by the Luftwaffe.

Edited February 15, 2018 by The Johnster

[jonny777]

My advice would be to enter as many variations of Chingford, Railway and Station as you can into search engines and see what turns up. 

 

One item that I found is for sale here - http://www.transportpasttimes.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=4304