A belated up-date !

Since my witterings in March, I have been attempting to draw the buildings to scale and finding that the information to hand is not easy to translate onto a drawing.

A visit in May this year followed by another early in July gave opportunities to measure a few accessible items and take more Photos to aid in the counting of brick courses in attempts to fill in the dimensional gaps.

Immediately obvious in May was that the large square shop was changing hands again, the windows were white-washed and there was no sign of any work being carried out. This building is a prominent feature at the entrance to the lower station and I want to model it as it appears currently.

However, in early July, I was fortunate to see a couple of men working on the building, who told me that the Undertakers currently occupying the rear half of the building have acquired the whole thing, and that a new name sign will eventually appear. Quite what will be visible through those big windows is something I’ll have to wait and see.

The building was at one time an Electricity showroom and had the local Substation in the yard. I discovered that what I had thought was a brick garage in the yard is the Substation, still in use, the give-away being the new and freshly painted steel doors. They have been there long enough for the building’s Ivy cladding to have encroached onto the door opening.

A small triumph was getting permission from the hotel’s owner to photo the rear yard and to check the building’s shape and size, and to get details of the storage building at the back of the yard. A surprise was that the yard is at street level, and thus about 6 ft. lower than the station entrance on the other side of the boundary wall.

Some parts of the Guest house above the lower station remain a mystery, but I have enough to be able to draw all its outside features.

I have taken measurements inside the lower station, and had sufficient access (without contravening H&S) to be able to photograph the rail-side walls of the building, and confirm that the lowest point of the track is about 5 ft. below street level. This has enabled me to fix the position of the platform doors, and the relationship between building and the track incline which has been a sticking point until now.

The upper station had fewer mysteries, and a few measurements and pictures taken during the two visits should sort that out.

Base boards

The drawings which I did for the quarter-size mock-up shown in an earlier blog, have been corrected and printed out at 4mm/ft scale in sections since I don't have access to a A2 printer. So I have been able to return to the problem of base-boards.

The incline frame-work made a year ago was modified to fit the track section. The extended dowels have been removed (seemed a good idea at the time!) and replaced by more sturdy blocks and a stiffening central rib. The original construction, whilst light, had no resistance to twisting, and had to go!

and with the track section attached

The drawings of the two station areas and the incline / track section were set out on a sheet of ply, and the likely outline of the base board pencilled in. This will not be cut yet!!

There is also at the foot of the incline a card “box” representative of the shape / size of the carriage underframe.

Wood for stiffening the base has been purchased, but the position of some stiffening may be affected by how the incline unit is attached to the base, something (another thing!) yet to be decided!!

As indicated in earlier blogs the main base will be made after the sub-bases for the two stations, so that they will (hopefully) form templates for, and slot neatly into, the main base with its attached panels and frame work which will form the model’s surrounding “Box”.

I don’t anticipate many problems with the lower station sub-base, despite the slope from front-to-back and side-to-side over part of the area, but the base(s?) for the top station will need a few “sky-hooks” during construction.

The carriages and underframes are yet to be tackled, and the "motive power" yet to be sourced.

Interesting times ahead???