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Laying out Helston


MullionPeter

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Need to work on making my images smaller!

Last item for this update is that I have now received the track for Helston and have started laying it out.  Having been working with modern OS maps available on-line and good old Google maps and street view, earlier this week I was faced with a challenge.  Looking at pictures of the station building from the road and looking towards Praze, it did not appear that Station Road continued as it does now, there was a wall that appeared to be in the way and far too close to be Church Hill, which is what Station Road has always connected to in my memory for the past 40 years.  Well to my joy a little more on line snooping brought me to copies of old OS maps that were surveyed in the 1940's and 1950"s.  Bingo, now not old did I have a good scale map that actually showed the tracks and general lay out for the station.  I also saw that Station Road was a dead-end, with just a small area probably for parking etc. just past the station building.  Needless to say that although I printed out the on-line version I have ordered the high resolution downloadable version that should be a lot easier to work with and will at some point be framed to display in the model room (once I get one.  Pic below shows the start of determining where the lines will go with the relevant OS map in the lower left.

Will not be fixing the track for a while as I wrestle with which point motor I want to go with...20200111_100649.jpg.ba39c441cfff7f9f8a20870c0336eecb.jpg

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I'm surprised you seem to have gone for the 6 inch to the mile OS map, when there are more detailed maps available, although they may not be exactly to era you are modelling. For example NLS have to 1:2,500 map for 1908, as attached.

image.jpeg.38b44cd3d11909473e566ae51139cd6c.jpeg

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That looks even better, I must admit that as my first visit, I was struggling with the scales, but was specifically looking for the 50's, but will no doubt return and add to my collection.  Thanks for pointing this out.

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Apart from the usual map sources, Helston has been pretty well documented. I am sure it is in one of the OPC series.

 

By the 1950s, access to the loco shed would be as you have shown it, off the platform road, rather than by a diamond from the loop (shown on that OS map). From memory, that change happened in the 1930s.

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It is, An historical survey of selected Great western stations, layouts and illustrations volume 2. (OPC 1979) A plan scale 106' to the inch.

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An interesting little project last night was to take the 1908 OS map as shown above that I purchased, increase the transparency and then overlay it on the Google Sat image and then adjust the sizes to get the best match that I good.  Low and behold things were not quite as I thought, turns out the station building is under the current Station Road as is the engine shed.  The footpath that I discovered from the map is the current run that runs along the road but at distance quite far from it.  Zooming in and out, it is possible to equate the modern day boundaries (once you know where to look) with the current land features.  Plus it looks like at least the top part of the bank that used to be just inside the station after the bridge on the far side where the loading chute used is be is still there as the bank coming down from the small street and houses that are know there, all of these were apparently built on the "flatter" land at the top of the embankment.

To see the overlay of original you will need to look closely at the image below and perhaps scroll up to the one above to see the original.1800292766_Helstonoverlay.jpg.059bfa596e3ec11fb6991da98a27eab7.jpg

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If you are interested there is a 1944 aerial photo of the station taken as part of the RAF survey. It is not very high res but is useful alongside the 1908 OS map.

Andy

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