ejgray52

New to this thread, but saw Ryde to Yarmouth in 20 mins... I live 4 miles west of Newport and even without the current 'road improvements' it's 30 minutes to Ryde on average. Would that be back in 1971? How we long for those days :-)

I've bought this, for although I am planning to set my layout in Lincolnshire, the local garage needs a corrugated roof, plus a couple of outbuildings etc.... the buildings themselves will no doubt find a home too, suitably modified.

Pity it’s no longer there...

Back in the day I was a draughtsman with the OS; for accurate layouts stick with the 1:2500 for rural areas and 1:1250 for urban areas. These are plans produced at the time in limited numbers. The 1:10000 (or the old 6 inch equivalent) move things according to a set of rules; eg roads that are named have to be a minimum width to fit the name in, a building less than a certain distance from a road will be shown touching it and so on. I did write a few things about it elsewhere here (under real life locations, I think it was), feel free to ask anything and I’ll attempt to drag it out of my memory!

If anyone wants an explanation of 1:1250 and 1:2500 sheet numbers to get a particular plan, I can do a brief class on it here.

One other thing for the lovers of pre-grouping; the original 6 inch series, known as the "County Series" (beautiful things produced from etched copper sheets), were surveyed county by county - hence the name. It was done that way as surveys were done from a datum line; as you move away from the datum it becomes more inaccurate. Therefore the datum was aligned to the longest dimension of the county being surveyed... Imagine Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; The Hampshire datum line would be north/south, the Isle of Wight would be east/west. Which meant of course you could end up with a huge blank sheet with a tiny blob of ink in the corner and county borders would not line up! (We tried it in the office one day, when preparing a display for an official visit). In 1938 the OS went metric, grids changed to km's and County Series went. Going metric got rid of awkward scales over the years, 1 inch for example was 1: 63,360 and 6inch is 1:10,560; 1:50,000 and 1:10,000 are much easier to deal with. The 'Units of Change' mentioned in a previous entry are taken from 1:1250 and 1:2500; each square on a 1:50,000 is half of a 1:2500 sheet (they are 2x1 km) and 4 of the 1:1250 sheets. 1:1250 show urban areas and 1:2500 are generally rural.

Dragged a few more details from my memory; the poster paint was Plaktra, we used red. On large scale plans (1:1250 and 1:2500) the surveyor took an astrofoil of the plan into the field, adding any additions in black ink and crossed out any features that had been removed. They were then printed in negative on a coated plastic sheet, producing orange lines on a brown background. I believe the manufacturers were Ozilid. We used 78rpm steel gramophone needles filed to a 7 thou wide chisel shape in a holder to remove the coating where the lines were; curved lines used the same needle mounted in a perspex tripod allowing it to swivel. Railway lines were done using a set of french curves, known as 'railway curves' and a fixed handle with two needles mounted in it to scribe parallel lines. Points always had their tie bars shown as that gave a reference point for starting the other set of lines and were accurately surveyed. At the same time we ordered any names etc which would be added at the next stage. All this was just the first part of producing the plan; combined with the next stage and all the examinations in between, looking back it seemed a lot of effort for the production of a print run of 75 to 150! I was a Cartographic Draughtsman Grade 4; a Grade 3 ran the office and a Grade 5 was a Cartographic Assistant. When I asked one day the difference, I was told, "You can draw sloping masonry" - Ah the joys of having one more 'O' level...

I worked for the OS as a draughtsman back in the early 70's. Only the 1:1250 and 1:2500 scales, known as plans, are the most accurate. 1:10000 ( the old 6 inch) and above are representations of what is there. I worked on the plans and the 10 thou, as we called it; the later was drawn using ruling pens and poster paint (!) to a set of rules i.e. if a road is named it has to be a certain width, if the houses along side were less than certain distance from it they were drawn touching it and so on. You started with any water and worked back from there. A plan or map was redrawn when so many 'units of change' had taken place, which in the case of a 1:50000 could be quite a while in some cases! Easiest one I ever did was a 1:2500 of Pendine Sands - a line showing the high water line across the top right hand corner. It took longer to travel to the Examinations Department than I took to do it!

I travelled up to Derbyshire back in November; fine going up (Crosscountry from Southampton), but coming back the East Midlands Alfreton to Nottingham train was late, so missed all my onward reservations. The train manager was extremely helpful and advised me which carriages to avoid on the next leg; it was effortless for the rest of the journey, seats all the way. Due to booking in a hurry, I selected the best time to return without checking the route and found myself going, Alfreton - Nottingham, Nottingham - St Pancras, St Pancras - Paddington, Paddington - Reading, Reading - Southampton. At least I avoided Birmingham New Street lol. One variant of the route had the changing time at New Street as 12 minutes! On the Paddington to Reading leg on the Swansea express service, there was an annoucement shortly after leaving apologising for the fact there were only five carriages due to 'technical difficulties'. Looking through the glass door into the next coach they were packed in like sardines while I sat in a half empty one, weird...

Many thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for. I realised after I posted my question that it should have read ‘Great Northern’...oops. I will build mine in its original form, but looking a little careworn as the layout will be set in the early 60’s.

I'm planning a 'what if' layout based on the High Dyke mineral line, which will include a signal box based on the one at the junction with the ECML. I've had a couple of goes at estimating measurements and making drawings, but they all seem to be wrong, maybe because I am assuming standard door sizes etc. I am guessing there are standard LNER box types, so does anyone have the dimensions of that particular type of box? Many thanks in advance....

We used to have a printer shop in town, but there were lease problems and they closed down. A pity, as their generic cartridges were excellent and contained more ink than the originals. I have tried 'cheapo' ones from the internet (not e-bay) and have been disappointed with the quality, so buyer beware, as they say... Manufacturers, I think, has a policy of making their money on the consumables - after all, once the printer is sold, no more profit from the sale. I'm sure there is a printer out there which is cheaper than the replacement cartridges! Looks like I will be trying some of the firms mentioned above...

I worked in Saudi Arabia for a while and some of the translations on signs were hysterical... On a petrol tanker bombing down the highway: 'Nearness prohibited - highly fuel' On the wall of a factory: 'Al-Hasa Animal Droppings Factory' (Guess what they made...) Finally for now, there was a children's clothes shop in town called 'The Fondled Child'; I think they had used a thesaurus for that one! My only attempt to correct one was a sign outside of a local house, made by the chap who worked for the owners, which read: 'Slow, childrens on play'. It was easier just to chat about the weather and drink a cup of tea with him!

That just dawned on me as I read the posts again - but many thanks though, for replying! Now back to that transition era layout I'm planning... (where all the diesels are 1960/70's Triang and Hornby...lol)