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Brackhampton North SB goes all colourful

rovex

Entry posted by rovex

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I have got around to painting the model of Brackhampton (pronounced Birmingham) North Signal Box I made several moons ago. I have been unable to find any decent colour pictures showing how the box was painted in real life and the girder supports were causing me some heartache. "black" seemed too stark and dark stone didn't seem appropriate either.

 

Anyway, last week I was leafing through a new book of GWR structure colours in Ian Allan's Brum bookstore when I found out that some features on GWR buildings were painted "chocolate" and this was before BR(W) region adopted it for surviving GWR buildings - and so I seed was planted.

 

The girders would be painted "chocolate", the rest would be painted in typical light and dark stone colours. So was born what must be one of the most colourful of buildings to grace the layout - Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen would be proud. Of course the whole thing is going to be weathered considerably. I want to aim for a building that hasn't been painted since before the war and has been standing out in Brum's sooty atmosphere for ten years.

 

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railings and a door need to be added, and I shall have to dig out my Coopercraft Signal box name kits and add a name to front and back (it appears to have had plates on both sides - although that on the back looks more like an enamel one on one photo I've seen.

 

With all those windows some representation of an interior will need to be added - as it was an electrical box this means I can avoid having lots of levers.

 

EDIT

 

Some work done on an interior - as its not pianted yet the camera tends to bleach things. But I've built the 37ft electrical lever frame with lots of little levers (thank you Station master :) ).

 

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The photos I;ve seen show a writing slope and two benches at the back. Also a number of cast iron radiators along the front - I'm going to see what I can do to represent these. The false roof I've inserted means I've lost some of the space where block instruments fitted, but again I'll have to see what I can do.

 

Some of the interior photos (http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1772.htm) show some extra instruments added in front of the lever frame. They look like black cylinders about a foot long - one of top of another - anyone know what these were for?

 

A final shot showing a badly painted signalman enyoying some fresh air now the platform is safely railed off.

 

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  • RMweb Gold
The Stationmaster
  • RMweb Gold

Smashing job, really captures the original (or it will once it has been heavily dirtied!).

 

By the way it did have levers - small ones.

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  • RMweb Gold
Mikkel
  • RMweb Gold

What a wonderful sight. They don't build them like that nowadays :-)  A superb model. I think chocolate for the girders is a good call. I have a personal theory that there was some flexibility in when and how the GWR chocolate was used on structures, and that it varied from situation to situation. This occasion seems likely, I think.

 

This will look really special on the layout!

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