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Dundee Central proposal


scots region
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Hello all. The city of Dundee once had no less that three terminus stations; Dundee East, on the Dundee and Arbroath, later operated by the Caledonian, Dundee West, also operated by the Caledonian and Tay Bridge for services to Fife, worked by the North British. A little fact for aspiring historians, the Dundee and Arbroath railway remained independent right up to nationalisation, operated jointly for well over half a century. With all three major stations practically next door to each other, indeed Tay Bridge and East were linked by tracks both over and under nearby dock street, it was also of note that none of the three stations allowed for city centre access. In 1896 a new station was proposed as a means to combine the three and streamline travel from Dundee both north and south. As shown in the plan bellow.

 

post-9274-0-22926100-1526137296_thumb.jpg

 

The book I found this proposal in, 'The railways of Dundee' by Peter Marshall, records that the proposal came from a Messrs Short and Smith, who proposed removing the King William lockway and the southern portion of the mid quay, and to deepen the King William docks to combine it with the Earl Grey Docks. This would produce a new dock 1,240 feet long by 190 feet wide and a 50ft wide quay that would become the south wall of the new station. The station itself was to be low level like Tay Bridge, and would offer accomodation far in excess of the other three stations combined, at least that's what the advertising says. I won't go into to much detail on the plan itself as I think it fairly self-explanatory. Though I will say that the station was intended to function as a passenger station only, goods services would be worked via dock street tunnel, Tay Bridge would become a marshalling yard, East would be converted into a goods station, its impressive station building becoming a hotel, a far better fate than what actually happened.

 

It would make for a interesting model, I feel particular attention could be paid to the western end of the terminus, which would be a busy seen with trains from both companies departing to Perth or Edinburgh via the bridge, plus a variety of local services waiting in the bay platforms.

 

What are you thoughts on this proposal?

 

Yours

ScR.

Edited by scots region
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I love these proposed schemes that never materialized, they represent to me the absolute perfect subject for modelling.  The back-story/ justification is there, prototype fidelity can be attained easily with the rolling stock that would have been seen, and the surroundings can be modelled realistically as if the facility has been fitted into the known built environment.  

 

What's not to love, I think it's brilliant.  Why can't I find an equivalent for a Borders town....  :angel:

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When considering traffic, you may wish to also take into account that around this time the plan was to create the Dundee Suburban Railway. This would branch off the D&A at Roodyards and loop around what was then the outskirts of the city before joining the Dundee & Newtyle line at Lochee. There were also, on a couple of occasions, proposals to link Dundee with Inverness. One of which would utilise the Dundee Suburban to get out of Dundee on some higher ground. This would, of course, give the possibility of a service departing from one set of bay platforms and potentially arriving in the other!

 

On a slight point of accuracy, the stations that did exist, whilst they were of course connected by rail, were not actually linked, at least not in a way that made any practical operational possibilities. The line north from Tay Bridge station passed by East station at Camperdown Jcn. 

 

The prospect of a Dundee Central station, would - assuming that space is available - make a great layout.

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Just a slight correction to your initial post, Dundee West was a Caledonian station and Tay Bridge was NB.

 

The station mentioned by Peter Marshall was not the first proposal for a Dundee Central Station.  Niall  Ferguson's, in his book  "The Dundee and Newtyle Railway", mentions that in 1871 the NBR, just prior to building the first Tay Bridge, proposed that a central joint station might be built in the vicinity of the docks.  The Caley was interested, but not overly so, and nothing more much happened until 1876 when the NBR submitted firmer proposals for such a station.  It seems that by the end of that year the two companies had agreed on a high level joint station to fit in with the proposed Dundee Suburban Railway.  However, it appears that after this the Dundee Police Commissioners insisted on becoming involved with the consultations and they appear to have offered some pretty serious objections as that was the last that was heard of the plan.  What their objections were is not known.

 

Niall Ferguson makes no mention of the subsequent 1896 proposal which Peter Marshell describes in some detail.  Dundee East would become a goods station and Dundee West a hotel.  Again, the plans seem to have died a death after they were submitted to the town council.

 

I think such a station would make a splendid model, assuming that you have enough room and stock!

 

DT

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I like to draw track plans in Anyrail, it helps me relax in times of stress and anxiety, and so for your perusal, here is something I drew up in Code 55 N Gauge. The base dimensions are 17ft2in by 9ft9in. I scaled the scale ruler on the plan to draw the layout to 1/148. The geometry of the pointwork doesn't allow a faithful reproduction, and I've tweaked the curves a bit so it's more flowing, but it has the flavour I think.

post-19592-0-32204400-1526386955_thumb.jpg

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I like to draw track plans in Anyrail, it helps me relax in times of stress and anxiety, and so for your perusal, here is something I drew up in Code 55 N Gauge. The base dimensions are 17ft2in by 9ft9in. I scaled the scale ruler on the plan to draw the layout to 1/148. The geometry of the pointwork doesn't allow a faithful reproduction, and I've tweaked the curves a bit so it's more flowing, but it has the flavour I think.

 

Scotty, that is absolutely fantastic, I must ask how did you get the original plan into anyrail and how did you get the gridlines to go over it?

 

 

A great prospect in terms of the trains that one could run.

 

Just the usual difficulty of such stations in being able to see the trains.

 

I suppose one possibility is to flip the plan and have the docks as the back scene, with the viewers lining up along Dock Street as it were, you could even put scenic portals in through the tunnel.

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I don't think that  the track, as drawn, works very well.

 

But nothing to stop you adopting the basic idea and designing a better track layout.

 

I still think that it would be better still on a viaduct.

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Just been looking at Dundee on old-maps and various other websites.

 

What a great railway location. One could really dream and imagine a group of modellers each modelling one of the stations (East is very pretty, West very grand).

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Scotty, that is absolutely fantastic, I must ask how did you get the original plan into anyrail and how did you get the gridlines to go over it?

 

 

 

 

Hi,

 

It's probably a lot quicker/simple to do than explain, but I'll give it a go. I assume you're familiar with the basics of Anyrail..........

 

1)  Save a copy of the plan in the OP onto your computer.

 

2)  In Anyrail draw a surface by right clicking anywhere on the screen and selecting "Add Surface". The size matters not, just draw a four sided shape.

 

Once you've drawn four corners, right click to end the drawing.

 

3) Left click on one of the edges of your new box. The edge lines should go green.

 

4) Select "Load Image" from the toolbar at the top of the screen and then find and select the image you saved in step 1. Then click on "Adjust Outline". The image will then expand to be enclosed by the box.

 

5) The scale indicator on the image runs from 0-1,500ft. Work out what 1,500ft equates to in your chosen scale (in my case 1:148 so 1500/148 = 10.13ft. Convert that to inches = 121.56.) (In oo, that would be 1500/76 = 19.76. Convert to inches = 237.15.)

 

6) (sticking with n gauge calculations for the purposes of the exercise) Right click on the screen select "Add Ruler". Move one of the ends of this ruler until it is 121.56 inches long.

 

7)  Left click on an edge of the box again. In the Width box on the toolbar change the figure until the ruler and 0-1,500ft indicator are the same length (make sure that "Maintain Aspect Ratio" is ticked.) This process is trial and error, so just persevere until the lengths match. You will need to keep pressing "Adjust outline" after each attempt to keep seeing the whole of the image.

 

8) Once the image is scaled using step 7, you can start laying track on top. The Anyrail grid should be visible.

 

9) Left click on the box again. You can change the opacity of the image to suit your needs by moving the slider on the toolbar below "Line Colour" and "Fill Colour".

 

NOTE: This is not a foolproof method of scaling, mainly because it relies on the accuracy of the map/image and also its resolution, but it's within acceptable tolerance for me. I've drawn many track plans using old maps as a template.

 

I hope that is of some help. If there's anything not clear, let me know.

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I like the idea of Glasgow North but the proposed layout was a bit dull. It's another one where I would take the story but build it differently.

 

I took the concept and developed it to fit in with my train room space. It now bares practically no resemblance to the projected layout, but it does what I want it to. I imagine that Glasgow North replaces Buchanan Street, and Queen street remains open only for suburban and local traffic. Again, in N gauge:

I like the idea of Glasgow North but the proposed layout was a bit dull. It's another one where I would take the story but build it differently.

post-19592-0-03684100-1526467365_thumb.jpg

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I don't think that  the track, as drawn, works very well.

 

But nothing to stop you adopting the basic idea and designing a better track layout.

 

I still think that it would be better still on a viaduct.

In the interest of developing the Dundee Central discussion on, what would you change with regards the presented track layout?

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In the interest of developing the Dundee Central discussion on, what would you change with regards the presented track layout?

 

I think that it might need four tracks in from the west end.

 

It would seem better for freight to be directed either side or through the middle rather than create two conflicting junctions (although there were examples of this, such as Peterborough).

 

And there needs to be more by way of slips to allow trains to leave the various bays without crossing incoming trains.

 

Also some sidings for pilot locos.

 

Exact layout might depend on the era at which one thought it would have been constructed. Something more like Birmingham Snow Hill, but with bays at the east end as well, would seem bettter.

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I think that it might need four tracks in from the west end.

 

It would seem better for freight to be directed either side or through the middle rather than create two conflicting junctions (although there were examples of this, such as Peterborough).

 

And there needs to be more by way of slips to allow trains to leave the various bays without crossing incoming trains.

 

Also some sidings for pilot locos.

 

Exact layout might depend on the era at which one thought it would have been constructed. Something more like Birmingham Snow Hill, but with bays at the east end as well, would seem bettter.

 

I would agree with you. Dundee Taybridge had a bottleneck approach for historical reasons (they closed Dundee West which previously took the Perth/Glasgow services and then diverted all the Strathmore route trains via Dundee). It would seem crazy to build this into any new station that was being proposed back at a time when the railways were at their height. I remember the station in the early 80's when the Dundee - Edinburgh and Dundee - Glasgow services were loco hauled and required the station pilot to release the engine from the bays. These moves made the west end a very busy place, even with the relatively few services that were left at that time. 

 

The original drawing does show multiple tracks from both the Caledonian lines and for the NB. I would think, as a minimum that these would be required, but the way the through lines are shown this would create an extremely complex set of pointwork to allow the freight services to avoid the platforms.

 

Given that the original drawing was just a proposal, I would think a more effective track plan could be drawn up to allow for the basic premise of a central station, with;

  • additional bays at the west end (required for services to Glasgow Buchanan Street, Perth, Alyth, Blairgowrie, Edinburgh, Glasgow Queen Street [via Fife] and Tayport
  • avoiding lines for freight, accessible from both the Caledonian and NB approaches
  • the east end bays for services via the Caledonian to Forfar and Kirriemuir, plus services over the D&A to Arbroath.
  • through platform faces for, predominantly, Edinburgh to Aberdeen services, with the ability to re-engine these services at Dundee.

The Dundee Central idea would be a very substantial project. I don't think the plan as shown is realistically workable though.

 

John

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I think that the proposal was made with a view to justifying the work on the docks.

 

From a railway viewpoint, it would probably have been simpler to widen Tay Bridge station, with extra passenger platforms to the north side replacing the goods shed and goods traffic moving to the site of Dundee West platforms.

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I think that the proposal was made with a view to justifying the work on the docks.

 

From a railway viewpoint, it would probably have been simpler to widen Tay Bridge station, with extra passenger platforms to the north side replacing the goods shed and goods traffic moving to the site of Dundee West platforms.

Indeed so. 

 

The work they are currently undertaking in the city, creating a large open area [and then filling it in again with yet more hideous buildings] does, however, show that a large central station at street level would have been a possibility. If access to, or removal of some of the docks had been considered, then this street-level station would have been an even better option.

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Looking at it again, I think that if one was building that Dundee Central station circa 1900, the passenger concourse, booking hall, etc would have been built on a wide bridge spanning the whole station.

 

So for a model, one has the possibility of just building half the station which could be done in quite a reasonable space.

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