Westerham, + Weald. Tarmac surface for the platform

[westerhamstation]

Back To The Future 2

[westerhamstation]

This is the site of the old engine shed at Westerham Station, which was demolished in the 1930s leaving the old brick base, some railings were added at the same time for what reason is not known.  

[CaseyJ]

Hi,

This is my first visit to your layout pages and first time on this forum for a while. I am really impressed with your model but it has given me a bit of a shock.

I am building a model of Westerham as well, although mine is set in the 1930s.

I lived in Knockholt as a child and have some vague memories of the station just as it was being closed.

I started my research back in 2011 and entered the diorama competition with a small section with the signal box. I have continued the research and built my baseboards and laid some of the track but space for the layout has been a problem.

I have just moved house and now have a room solely for my railway use so I am now making some progress. 

I am particularly interested in your depiction of the Crown and the other surrounding buildings. I have been unable to find many decent pictures apart from the David Gould book and a couple of others and they show very little of the area. I have less space to show the Crown and the school so they are being shown on the backscene. I took some real pictures of the old school and altered them on my computer and printed a piece to put on the backscene. I have been desperately searching for pictures of the Crown and got one showing it in the 1930s before it was painted. I hope to model it in low relief but will only have about 10mm of space to fit it in.

I am currently working on the granary that you have built extremely well. I haven't a clue as to what the non railway side looked like. Is yours from memory or pictures? 

I will try to get some pictures of my layout efforts and some details of the locomotives I am building / converting to suit the 1930s timetable. 

 

Green with admiration

Andrew in East Yorkshire

[westerhamstation]

Hi,

This is my first visit to your layout pages and first time on this forum for a while. I am really impressed with your model but it has given me a bit of a shock.

I am building a model of Westerham as well, although mine is set in the 1930s.

I lived in Knockholt as a child and have some vague memories of the station just as it was being closed.

I started my research back in 2011 and entered the diorama competition with a small section with the signal box. I have continued the research and built my baseboards and laid some of the track but space for the layout has been a problem.

I have just moved house and now have a room solely for my railway use so I am now making some progress. 

I am particularly interested in your depiction of the Crown and the other surrounding buildings. I have been unable to find many decent pictures apart from the David Gould book and a couple of others and they show very little of the area. I have less space to show the Crown and the school so they are being shown on the backscene. I took some real pictures of the old school and altered them on my computer and printed a piece to put on the backscene. I have been desperately searching for pictures of the Crown and got one showing it in the 1930s before it was painted. I hope to model it in low relief but will only have about 10mm of space to fit it in.

I am currently working on the granary that you have built extremely well. I haven't a clue as to what the non railway side looked like. Is yours from memory or pictures? 

I will try to get some pictures of my layout efforts and some details of the locomotives I am building / converting to suit the 1930s timetable. 

 

Green with admiration

Andrew in East Yorkshire

Hi Andrew,

glad to find out that someone else is modelling Westerham Station,I have not found any information about the road side view of the granary building so that side of the warehouse is my own interpretation of it. A good source of pictures of the station is British Railways Illustrated Vol4 No4 January 1995. I got my copy of it from the internet. My version of the Crown Hotel had to be low relief as well, pictures of it are usually in the background, the roof, parapet, and chimneys are quite distinctive features of the building. Another useful source of information is the Orpington to Tonbridge book by V. Mitchell and K Smith published by Middleton Press. thanks for your comments and look forward to seeing how you get on. Regards Adrian

Have posted a couple of pics of the Crown before it was painted and changed into a restaurant.

Edited August 19, 2013 by westerhamstation

[Jaz]

Always good to find someone with a fellow interest and knock some ideas about. Shall look for ward to the discussion.

[CaseyJ]

Adrian, thanks for the pictures and references. I have seen one of the pictures of the Crown and I'm aiming to pose a pony and trap on the road outside on my layout.

I set off building part off the station in the 2011 diorama challenge to refresh my modelling skills in OO. I have been modelling American N gauge for nearly 20 years.

I have built card mock ups of most of the buildings mainly to get an idea of the space and scale area required but I have been forced into 9 feet by about 23 inches excluding the fiddle yard by the household authorities.

 

I have got all the features of the track layout except I put a kink around the position of the water tower to ensure I could fit the back siding. Like you I view from the goods yard side.

I have also used electrical switches for my point operating system, positioned at the front of the board in line with the points they are linked with 2mm dia aircraft control rods, fed through electric terminal blocks for support and linked to the point with fine rod. I use the DPDT switch to change the frog polarity on my electrofrog points. I use some insulfrog points but wired specially for DCC use and apart from one locomotive that shorts on the Y point occasionally I have no problems with stalling at low speed.

 

 

On the subject of track I am using Peco Code 100 because it is what I was given 3 years ago with a Hornby Schools class. I know the track isn’t “Finescale” but I will have to live with it. I have been made redundant since starting this layout and I now seem to be too old to get a job but I am too young to retire so I am penny pinching anywhere that I can in my construction. To this end I will be using card for a lot of my buildings. The granary is being constructed with brick paper that I have printed myself and mounted on layers of cereal packet.

 

 

I started the water tower with a Dapol/Airfix kit, cutting it down to size and shape and making girders from Plastruct. I will add some pictures when I can get my camera to function in the macro mode .

I am using the signal box that I made as an experiment for the diorama challenge but I will be rebuilding some of it particularly the steps. You can see it on the 2011 challenge pages: A Twig off a Southern Branch. I also built a working model of the Prescott Railmobile for the challenge.

 

More to follow when I can get my pictures downloaded. Having trouble posting them on here.

Regards

Andrew

[CaseyJ]

Further to my last post some pictures of early stages of construction.

The first baseboard in my garage.

The joint between baseboards showing the end of the platform and the rail ends. Rails are soldered to brass pins and sleepers glued in afterwards.

A picture showing the platform and some of the track. The platform is a piece of timber planed to size and the front covered with brick paper. I cut a very slight rebate on the top front edge and inlaid brick paper so that it lies flush with a layer of 1200 grade wet and dry paper to represent the tarmac surface. The bricks are a little too red for my liking so I will eventually tone them down with a wash of diluted Indian ink.

[westerhamstation]

Adrian, thanks for the pictures and references. I have seen one of the pictures of the Crown and I'm aiming to pose a pony and trap on the road outside on my layout.

I set off building part off the station in the 2011 diorama challenge to refresh my modelling skills in OO. I have been modelling American N gauge for nearly 20 years.

I have built card mock ups of most of the buildings mainly to get an idea of the space and scale area required but I have been forced into 9 feet by about 23 inches excluding the fiddle yard by the household authorities.

 

I have got all the features of the track layout except I put a kink around the position of the water tower to ensure I could fit the back siding. Like you I view from the goods yard side.

I have also used electrical switches for my point operating system, positioned at the front of the board in line with the points they are linked with 2mm dia aircraft control rods, fed through electric terminal blocks for support and linked to the point with fine rod. I use the DPDT switch to change the frog polarity on my electrofrog points. I use some insulfrog points but wired specially for DCC use and apart from one locomotive that shorts on the Y point occasionally I have no problems with stalling at low speed.

 

 

On the subject of track I am using Peco Code 100 because it is what I was given 3 years ago with a Hornby Schools class. I know the track isn’t “Finescale” but I will have to live with it. I have been made redundant since starting this layout and I now seem to be too old to get a job but I am too young to retire so I am penny pinching anywhere that I can in my construction. To this end I will be using card for a lot of my buildings. The granary is being constructed with brick paper that I have printed myself and mounted on layers of cereal packet.

 

 

I started the water tower with a Dapol/Airfix kit, cutting it down to size and shape and making girders from Plastruct. I will add some pictures when I can get my camera to function in the macro mode .

I am using the signal box that I made as an experiment for the diorama challenge but I will be rebuilding some of it particularly the steps. You can see it on the 2011 challenge pages: A Twig off a Southern Branch. I also built a working model of the Prescott Railmobile for the challenge.

 

More to follow when I can get my pictures downloaded. Having trouble posting them on here.

Regards

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

    it seems that we are both going down the same route, my base board is 10ft x 2ft with a couple of small additions at either end, my original idea was to have a fiddle yard on the other side of the partion wall, but I have since changed my plans, as building Westerham has been such fun I intend to have a go at modelling Brasted station (see post 82 page 4). Again we are both using the Dapol Water Tank which involves much alteration to get it to the right size,  your latest post has just popped up as I am typing this , your baseboard looks good and solid. and we have adopted a similar approach to the other buildings and platform.

              Regards Adrian 

[westerhamstation]

Back to the future part 3 Westerham Signal Box,

(off on holiday now back in a fortnight Bye)

[westerhamstation]

Light at the end of the tunnel, or in this case gas light by the water crane at Westerham Station.

     This was made using some left over plastic tube from the point control, a plastic medicine syringe for the shade, some wire for the frame and gas supply pipe, a ratio ladder left over from making the ringed shunting signal, and a blob of Pva glue for the gas mantle cover and ends of the ladder bar. The pictures are fairly self explanatory I hope but if not please ask.

[Jason T]

I like that; I like it a lot. 

 

Very resourceful and very clever.

[Jaz]

I thought the signal box pictures were very evocative, nice work.

Clever idea with the tallboy lights, very impressive......shall be nicking copying  that idea is the future, thanks for the how to, very useful.

[westerhamstation]

Some time back I mentioned that building Westerham Station had proven to be such an enjoyable retirement project that subject to lottery funding becoming avilable I would have a go at building the next station along the line which was Brasted, well i am pleased to say my Lucky Dip Lottery ticket has produced results and the £10 win to be split equally with Mrs W.Station 30/70 in her favour will enable a start to be made.

This time I will try to chronicle progress right from the start, as when I started to build Westerham I was some months into it before I discovered RMweb, and missed postings it's beginnings, so with that in mind I am posting some background pictures from the past and present and how the M25 effected the line.There are quite a few other pictures on the net of Brasted station but i am not sure about copyright so have not posted those, but a Google of Brasted Station will link you to these if you are interested.

My plan is to build Brasted Station on the opposite wall of the garage and will connected to Westerham Station in a U shape, the curved part of the U shape will be the other side of the partion wall in the garage and will not be seen.

[DLT]

A fantastic site for looking up old stations is the Disused Stations website at:   http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/  and their lists  http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/sites.shtml

The guys behind it are doing an amazing job of creating an excellent historical reference and archive site. 

Highly recommended but take care; you can lose yourself for hours browsing it, and comparing the remains on Google maps! 

Their entry on Brasted is here:   http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/brasted/index.shtml  but they don't have an entry for Westerham (yet!)

Cheers, dave.

[David C]

I'm looking forward to seeing Brasted develop, having greatly admired Westerham. The resourceful way in which you scratchbuild items from scrap materials that aren't available commercially is fascinating.

 

The photos of the station juxtaposed with those showing what the site looks like today are also fascinating - it made me realise that I drove over the Brasted station yesterday whilst delivering wife and oldest daughter to Gatwick!

 

David C

[pushpull33]

I have just sat here and read this from begining to end. What an amazing layout, it's a credit to you. As so many others have said, the attention to detail, the history lesions and research is second to none. 

 

You can have big layouts with lots of train running, work commissioned out for other people to build, a mate of mine did this another mate of mine did that, but you have done this all your self and to my mind this is what the hobby is all about. i admire you for that, for bringing something back to life that was.

 

Well done.

 

Colin

[Jaz]

Some lovely snaps of potential cameos. Shall look forward to progress. As said above good research and incidental information regards the staton in question gives it much more 'life'. Well done.

[westerhamstation]

I have just sat here and read this from begining to end. What an amazing layout, it's a credit to you. As so many others have said, the attention to detail, the history lesions and research is second to none. 

 

You can have big layouts with lots of train running, work commissioned out for other people to build, a mate of mine did this another mate of mine did that, but you have done this all your self and to my mind this is what the hobby is all about. i admire you for that, for bringing something back to life that was.

 

Well done.

 

Colin

Many thanks Colin for your kind comments, and for taking the time to read through all my ramblings,as I have said before I did not realise when I started this project how it would take me in so many different directions and be such a challenge and fun all at the same time. So I am really looking forward to building Brasted station.

Regards Adrian

[pushpull33]

Hi Adrian.

 

I am really looking forward to watching you build Brasted station. It's going to be good. 

 

Colin

[David Todd]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?newwindow=1&rlz=1C1CHFX_enGB530GB530&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=5GNEUu3PHcG00wXhhoDICg&ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=643&dpr=1&q=images%20for%20Brasted%20station

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=westerham+station+images&newwindow=1&rlz=1C1CHFX_enGB530GB530&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=h2REUtrYGafY0QXb-YHYCA&ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=643&dpr=1

[JCL]

Hi Adrian.

 

I am really looking forward to watching you build Brasted station. It's going to be good. 

 

Colin

 

Me too.

 

You can see that Mr. Westerhamstation used a whole load of great techniques in the making of the station named after his family. I think that not only will reading about the creation of the new station from the very start be entertaining, I've a feeling we will learn a thing or two!

 

cheers

 

Jason

[westerhamstation]

Thanks Jason,

kind words of encouragement indeed, I just hope it all goes to plan (reminder must think up a plan).

I will try to post progress as it occurs,or not as the case may be.

Regards Adrian

[JCL]

I know what you mean, it's been many a day since I've even had time to comment, let alone actually get something done. The dark days of autumn are looming, so I'll be lighting the fire, filling the teapot and getting started again

[westerhamstation]

Before I start work on the baseboard for Brasted Station I thought it best to make a full size drawing just to make sure everything would fit, the size of the board will be 10ft x 22" at its widest points narrowing to 15" at either end. When I had finished drawing it up, I realised that the shape of the baseboard was a reverse image of the Westerham board, it's something I like as it seems to give a meandering feel and makes the baseboard seem bigger than it is.

Apologies for the quality of the image as I had to take the pictures in 3 sections on the kitchen floor, but it will give an idea of the shape of the board and the track plan.

[john flann]

Adrian, a lot seems to have happened here since I last looked and is very interesting.

 

Regards,