Kelvinbank, a Caledonian Railway project.

I will watch this with interest. Graham

Anyone modelling pregroup deserves to be heard. Good luck with the new line, and with your ceilings!

It's always nice to see one of the Scottish pre-group companies represented.

Hi Dave,

Looking at your first photo, your baseboards look interesting - are they individual"trolleys"? - any more details available?

Many thanks

Richard

Hi Richard,

 

They are a timber frame base, with a deep ply box on the top. The ply box is hinged at the rear, so when the boards are split they can lift up like a car bonnet. My days of upside down soldering are over. All 4 boards are on castors with long 10 mm bolts through brackets, the floor in that room is very dished after 120 years of movement. I can therefore move them about to work from a comfortable angle, and adjust levels easily. The backscene boards are 6mm ply, they are held to the rear ply face with bolts and wing nuts, again so they can be easily removed for access. Alignment between the boards is kept solid by the taper brass type baseboard alignment pins.

 

The deep front face of the plywood box has cutouts for the various control panels, so the local wiring is kept short and is easy to troubleshoot if anything goes wrong. 

 

Hope that describes it , I will post some pics next time I move them out. 

David

 

Having recently found your Blog on Kelvinbank and enjoyed the content and excellent model making and layout construction it got me doing a bit of research on the actual Partick Central (Kelvinhall) station. Whilst I believe the Benalder Street building was demolished sometime in 2007 the ability to personally record/measure the Booking office has now long gone. Any hope of constructing a model of the front of the building would be based on the few photographs that I have acquired, mostly  from the internet. Looking beyond the grubby exterior in latter years the building had a certain Caledonian Railway architectural charm about it even if it was a relatively plain but functional structure. 

 

I may have missed from your Blog on how the roadside station building was constructed by you but were you able to record/measure the building yourself when it still stood or are there architectural drawings that exit somewhere that you obtained or have you relied heavily on photographs to determine the measurements?

 

I look forward to your continual development of the layout and the modelling inspiration provided.

 

Trawest

Thanks trawest, glad you enjoyed the blog. 

 

I have never seen a proper drawing. I measured the front face of the building a long time ago, I noted it was 56 feet (ish) . The rest of the site I scaled from photos, or a rough confirmation from the nls maps.  There was a good article in "The True Line"  , No 103 . That will still be available on CD for members of the CRA. I also took quite a lot of photos in the early 2000s. 

 

Hope that helps. 

 

Dave

 

Thank you for your response. 

 

I had thought of measuring the gap in the Benalder Street Bridge and the height of the bridge parapet to at least enable me to be able to calculate the length and height of the building from the photographs that I have but your measurement gives me something to start with. Did you photograph the CR stone engravings at each end of the front of the building and any close up shots of the stone mouldings around the Doors an Windows? Unfortunately the photographs that I have do not show the detail clearly enough to be accurately modelled.

 

I have recently joined the CRA and am considering purchasing the True Line CD's as there appears to be numerous relevant articles on buildings and structures appropriate for modelling projects. I believe that you have previously penned an article on Kelvinbank for the True Line Publication.

 

Trawest 

Hi trawest, I have a lot of photos. Most are from later on.  I'm happy to share them but it is many GB of files. I also have hundreds of silhouette files used to cut all the parts

and many affinity files used to print all the textures. I'm happy for anyone to have them. 

 

 

 

and 

 

 

Thats the south window. The brackets originally  had a ledge for a window cleaner , though I think that was fitted in LMS days. The curtain pole over the window is a mystery. 

 

 

Do bear in mind that Kelvinbank is not a precise model of Partick Central, though that is the main influence. Many aspects are interpreted from similar stations on the L+D line and dimensions have been adjusted to make a working layout in the space available. If I had  a room about 60 feet long I would model Partick Central from Kelvinhall tunnel to the East tunnel under the NB line in its entirety , with the Kelvin as the front and the Partick tenements as a backdrop . If in the unlikely event that any very rich CR fans wish to sponsor such a project I'm just about at retirement and open to offers ..... 

 

Like all of that ;

 

 

 

 

Glad you liked the article on Kelvinbank in TTL . I might do some more, perhaps covering the building of TLM kits. 

 

Dave

 

I have sent you a PM.

 

Trawest