Jump to content
 

Christleton Junction - 1986 - Gateway to North Wales


61656
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • RMweb Premium
9 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

The coke hoppers were unique, put a search for PAB. 

Good old Penmorfa has some good information on it. 
 

http://www.penmorfa.com/Archive/three.htm

 

The earliest photo is 5 years after today (!), but they can’t have changed much since introduction in 1971. 
 

There are so many unique pieces of rolling stock in North Wales at the time, it’s a real challenge deciding what to model. In the short term, I think this will run as some form of tank train.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
8 hours ago, beast66606 said:

Re Pet Cokes

 

When I was part of the Mostyn team we obtained permission from Rio Tinto to visit their site and photograph the Pet Cokes, @PaulCheffus posted some of my photos (with my permission) here

I only saw Mostyn once, amazing layout. I’d love to have that attention to detail, but there’s just one of me on a part time basis!

 

Useful reference photos for the future though. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi

I have enjoyed reading through your thread and seeing the progress you have been making. so much so that I finally signed up to RMweb to comment. I like the whole back story to how Christleton Junction came to be. I have been planning my own North Wales coast layout in N gauge for the past 10 years and after three house moves I am finally going to have a dedicated space to start building. I am slightly earlier than you and setting my station somewhere between 1981 and 1984, due to my love of the class 40 hauled holiday trains. It also means I can make use of the wealth of timetable information on 2D53.co.uk, a lot of the passenger and freight workings are the same as in your timetable. I started with customised plans for both Holyhead and Bangor for my location, but have taken inspiration from you and started putting together a back story about how Holywell Junction station defied the Beeching cuts and stayed open. The presence of the Courtaulds factory attracted more business to the area and numerous housing developments. The rest of the back story is still to be written!

 

Thanks for all the inspiration and ideas you have given over the last 27 pages. I look forward to seeing how Christleton continues to develop and now i have the challenge of playing catch up and getting some track on baseboards. It's about time I had a decent bit of track to run all the stock I have collected over the years.

 

Regards

 

Mark

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
21 hours ago, EuroMST said:

Hi

I have enjoyed reading through your thread and seeing the progress you have been making. so much so that I finally signed up to RMweb to comment. I like the whole back story to how Christleton Junction came to be. I have been planning my own North Wales coast layout in N gauge for the past 10 years and after three house moves I am finally going to have a dedicated space to start building. I am slightly earlier than you and setting my station somewhere between 1981 and 1984, due to my love of the class 40 hauled holiday trains. It also means I can make use of the wealth of timetable information on 2D53.co.uk, a lot of the passenger and freight workings are the same as in your timetable. I started with customised plans for both Holyhead and Bangor for my location, but have taken inspiration from you and started putting together a back story about how Holywell Junction station defied the Beeching cuts and stayed open. The presence of the Courtaulds factory attracted more business to the area and numerous housing developments. The rest of the back story is still to be written!

 

Thanks for all the inspiration and ideas you have given over the last 27 pages. I look forward to seeing how Christleton continues to develop and now i have the challenge of playing catch up and getting some track on baseboards. It's about time I had a decent bit of track to run all the stock I have collected over the years.

 

Regards

 

Mark

Mark,

 

Welcome to official forum membership! Thank you for your kind, and inspirational, words. For me, Christleton is my interpretation of lots of my favourite bits of other people's layouts, so its nice to come full circle and provide inspiration for others. As a fairly new modeller, without the skills to match my ambition and ideas, it's always a little odd when someone finds inspiration from my work, which can usually best be descried as 'not a total disaster'!

 

The location and period sort of chose itself by a process of elimination when I listed through the trains I wanted to run (electrics, mainly blue with some intercity livery, peaks and 40s). The benefit of modelling the North Wales Coast, or the approach to it, is the variety of stock that ran there in the 80's. Adding the electrics is just pure indulgence!

 

Looking forward to seeing your own efforts in the Parish News soon!

 

Andy 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

A little bit of progress with the arches at the end of platform 4. I wasn’t sure I was going the right way with this, but I’m fairly happy with how this little cameo is coming together. 
 

The left most arch is a station store, where signs and barriers are kept. A handy place for a quiet cig and a cuppa. The middle arch has seen most progress towards becoming the platform level Red Star office. The next one across will be the long talked about Travellers Fare cafe, home of the famous Christleton buttie. 
 

 

A49E0D43-2F92-4121-A974-717DB1EFE805.jpeg

  • Like 11
Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, 61656 said:

A little bit of progress with the arches at the end of platform 4. I wasn’t sure I was going the right way with this, but I’m fairly happy with how this little cameo is coming together. 
 

The left most arch is a station store, where signs and barriers are kept. A handy place for a quiet cig and a cuppa. The middle arch has seen most progress towards becoming the platform level Red Star office. The next one across will be the long talked about Travellers Fare cafe, home of the famous Christleton buttie. 
 

 

A49E0D43-2F92-4121-A974-717DB1EFE805.jpeg

Looking good so far. Will the butties be 3D printed affairs? Cheese and ham for me please.

  • Funny 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
17 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Passing through Chester today, I was wondering when the Merseyrail service will be extended to Christleton? 

 

Unfortunately, after the date of this layout.

Paul.

  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
36 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Unfortunately, after the date of this layout.

Paul.

Interestingly*, I have wondered about including a new line under construction to take the Warrington lines straight into Chester, as if BR sorted out the reversal problem in 1988 and Christleton disappeared. Which is why it’s just plain line today…

 

*to me. 

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

I’m looking for some photos to use as interiors for the Red Star office and The Travellers Fare cafe. I thought a quick Google search and print out would do the trick, but I can’t find anything even remotely suitable. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

Obviously being low relief, I can’t make an actual interior without taking some bricks out of the chimney breast (hmm…). 

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Some more progress on the buildings at the South end of the station.  
 

The Red Star office and Travellers Fare Cafe have been completed. I’ve used various home made prints to go behind the 2mm glass to hide their lack of interiors. 

67D0B218-0E8E-4390-999D-DF31A26736B0.jpeg.eb9c813376582d3aa80121e2d1d87d79.jpeg

 

With this section complete, and some basic paint applied, I can start to build up the brick structures that link the whole section together. On the left are the beginnings of the lift tower, that will allow parcels access from street level, whilst on the right there’s a large wall around the base of North Western Tower. 
 

54AA6582-D272-45D7-935D-BA103C5F5568.jpeg.35be479a0972cd41894c4f026f7a98f9.jpeg

 

7240F8D2-D575-4736-B070-E4C89CA9AB9E.jpeg.e3610480b79de34e1ffea0180ab7ca2d.jpeg

  • Like 13
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Some more progress, with the Parcels tower starting to take shape. This is proving to be a lot more enjoyable than I expected it to be. Plus, so far at least, I haven’t made a complete dog’s dinner of it yet! I really thought that scratch building my own stuff would be beyond me and I’d end up unsatisfactorily hacking card kits about. Anyway, get your parcels wrapped, the Christleton south lift shaft is on its way!

 

The angle with the road is quite oblique, so I’ll probably straighten that slightly, but not to a full 90 degrees. Then I need to start thinking about roof tiles, drain pipes and weathering. The modelling bug is back. 

 

379FFCD2-9CC9-4717-B9F8-5A9876A3CA56.jpeg.8455db546fc20b6767f4e4d63e95cfc9.jpeg

 

56BF2053-2931-42C2-A251-7B56CBF13C3E.jpeg.1a182d059bca5491327a931acf24d659.jpeg

  • Like 13
  • Round of applause 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Despite not having any kind of clue as to what I’m doing, I am really pleased with how this is turning out. The parcels tower is all kinds of funny angles as it doesn’t run square to either the backscene or road, but it’s proved surprisingly easy to build. Both roof sections are really odd shapes, but very easy to cut to size as the building makes a ready formed template. 
 

I think I’ll use pre-printed slates for the roof, but any other suggestions gratefully received. 
 

I’ve also noticed, that for every job I complete, I think of another 5 to do next. It makes you think that maybe Lord Lucan is just “doing one more thing” on his model railway and he’ll reappear any day now. 

 

B5F000AC-32F6-458C-BBE5-CB3885F0CE8B.jpeg.8ba9846f76c1a3a2a32519d5c9de36f5.jpeg

 

BAB578ED-235F-4FB2-AF14-2DA683A95CCE.jpeg.5bed24b378e9d0e081ab450a4b8b2f11.jpeg

  • Like 10
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

A few photos from tonight’s running session - a little collection of what it’s all about. 

A 25/1 emerges from the gloom light engine. 
 

0DFB44B3-7786-4A25-B22B-661212B4E41F.jpeg.b1f4dfa3e530be9a484af0fbe3c97ba9.jpeg

 

A class 33, one of the highlights of North Wales in the mid-eighties, takes a Cardiff service southbound. 
 

CE3CB94E-81A5-4CFD-80B4-3B11401ABB1C.jpeg.9261d2b3f1cf52ff006b2425830e38ff.jpeg

 

The afternoon Speedlink service for Llandudno and Bangor accelerates out of Christleton. 

 

26EDF65A-BC0D-4B5E-8289-8630C4ECC686.jpeg.9c0bd4db8ef77068c68c955cf56cfc98.jpeg

 

Is there anything better than a 40 on oil? Celebratory 40, 40122, finds a turn on the Stanlow tanks. 


7A84C7DD-FE1C-46E2-BC3F-AD6B332F9755.jpeg.f80ee5559d1ff2df7c6b7e569e85e3d0.jpeg
 

This is what I really wanted… a class 45 has pulled forward from its rake of Trans-Pennine coaches. Red Star offices, Travellers Fare cafe, a very run down station. What’s not to love?

 

D4CC802E-219E-4005-8971-6B0112B5DF0A.jpeg.8d61894ea85b2bcf0076b0dd6a38bb4f.jpeg

  • Like 13
Link to post
Share on other sites

The station area really is coming to life now. You’ve done a lovely job on it. Hopefully we’ll perhaps see another running session on YouTube soon? Keep up the good work, this is a great layout build to follow.

 

Andy

  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

BRUTES. You need loadsaBRUTES.

Agree with this comment the red star bay platforms at Chester General were cluttered with Brutes in fact I seem to remember hiding behind several when train spotting in the early seventies as the end of the parcels platform were out of bounds to spotters at that time 

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...