“WASHBOURNE”

[Nearholmer]

Don

 

What you outline has a great deal in common with some of the very early model railways that I enjoy reading-up on. 

 

Back-scenes were on the scene very early in the game, before WW1, but beyond that they didn't really do scenery, and concentrated instead on operation (usually clockwork or steam, of course), and having points and signals connected to a lever-frame, sometimes properly interlocked. Some of the layouts were rather like signalling training school set-ups with painted back-drops.

 

In fact, isn't that a model railway, whereas the fashion since cWW2 has been increasingly to create model landscapes, with bits of railway in them?

 

Both have their appeal, of course.

 

Kevin

[Donw]

I was thinking of having some scenic treament  a few bushes and trees perhaps a culvert or two. The idea is to have a length of run such as you might see from a carriage window  of just countryside  so you could run a train round and round without it feeling like you were repeating going through the same station. Nondescript scenery is I supose the idea. What most layouts lack is the ability to create a sense of journey.

Take a space say 18ft x 10ft  you would probably have a 45ft run. A train running at 30mph would cover 44ft/sec  308mm in 7mm just over 1ft

 so just a little slower and you could take 1 min per circuit 3 to 5 circuits would be a nice little run. Compared to a typical BLT where you are lucky if the train can run three times its own length. 

Of course if you want an HST at speed or Mallard with 10 it would not be so effective but for those who love railway byways.....

 

Don 

[Northroader]

I’m all in favour of trains geared down so they do travel slowly, particularly when the journeys are so short. The best example I’ve come across is a big version of Kevin’s description. The LMS built a training school late 30s down London Road in Derby, very elegant modern building. There was a big central hall, and the middle was sunken, with a raised passage all round the outside, railed off. I’d guess now looking back the middle area could be something like 90feet by 30feet, and all round the edge was an O gauge double track oval. Every twenty feet or so was a block section signal box, points, levers, locking frame, instruments, the full monty. I think the whole lot came from Bassett Lowke, just down the road. (I’m afraid to say they didn’t trouble themselves with scenery)

They let us have a play one afternoon in the mid fifties, just moving a train along one side of the oval. (The train  was just a basic tinplate job, but the loco was geared right down to progress at a slugs pace). Use the block instruments and pull off the signals, bell codes, offer, accept, line clear, in section, etc. Despite our best efforts, and the slow pace of the train, it was soon two sections ahead of our attempts at signalling!

Some time much later I’m sorry to say the whole lot was removed, and a lounge area with comfortable chairs installed. The schools still there, but in some private capacity.

[Nearholmer]

BL supplied slug's pace (lovely term) versions of their standard 0-6-0T to Longmoor for their signalling school layout, which I think was inspired by the one you describe. I think there were six such locos at Longmoor and several, possibly all, survive. I was offered one a few years ago and turned it down because the price was c50% above par for a BL Standard 0-6-0T. Stupid decision really, because the price was fair given the provenance.

[NeilHB]

23 hours ago, Northroader said:

I’m all in favour of trains geared down so they do travel slowly, particularly when the journeys are so short. The best example I’ve come across is a big version of Kevin’s description. The LMS built a training school late 30s down London Road in Derby, very elegant modern building. There was a big central hall, and the middle was sunken, with a raised passage all round the outside, railed off. I’d guess now looking back the middle area could be something like 90feet by 30feet, and all round the edge was an O gauge double track oval. Every twenty feet or so was a block section signal box, points, levers, locking frame, instruments, the full monty. I think the whole lot came from Bassett Lowke, just down the road. (I’m afraid to say they didn’t trouble themselves with scenery)

They let us have a play one afternoon in the mid fifties, just moving a train along one side of the oval. (The train  was just a basic tinplate job, but the loco was geared right down to progress at a slugs pace). Use the block instruments and pull off the signals, bell codes, offer, accept, line clear, in section, etc. Despite our best efforts, and the slow pace of the train, it was soon two sections ahead of our attempts at signalling!

Some time much later I’m sorry to say the whole lot was removed, and a lounge area with comfortable chairs installed. The schools still there, but in some private capacity.

It’s now the Derby Conference Centre - I used to live round the corner from it, and have been there a couple of times for work away days etc. The sunken area in the main hall was quite fascinating to see, it was just a shame that the railway wasn’t still there! 

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, NeilHB said:

It’s now the Derby Conference Centre - 

The 2MM SA were due to hold their 2020 Diamond Jubilee event there this year. Was postponed until 2021, but now looking like 2022.

 

Jim 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

The 2MM SA were due to hold their 2020 Diamond Jubilee event there this year. Was postponed until 2021, but now looking like 2022.

 

IIMM MMXXII?

Edited November 29, 2020 by Compound2632

[Northroader]

I’m well on the way with the division of the layouts following dropping the rationalisation idea. My American line,  Englefield, now has the scenic back reprofiled, and track ready to lay. After that I can rework the Washbourne side of things. There’s a wagon kit being worked on, but nothing fresh to show yet.

So tonight I just wanted to float an idea that I mentioned a few weeks back, just in case it tickles someone’s fancy as a fresh way of approaching things.  Basically the thought is to have a layout which is built around a particular locomotive, rather than being somewhere where trains appear, just a slightly different stress on presentation. The locomotive is a passenger one, so room is needed for a couple of coaches to pull,  and a small station for it to appear in. To round it off, an accompanying small goods engine with a few wagons is needed. The theme is based on pregroup equipment and buildings, but later on, shewing the change to big four or even nationalisation, so possibly a coach or wagon from there in the mix. The locomotive is coming to the end of its useful life, downgraded and shabby. Very much a bittersweet time, and yes, perhaps muted scenery colours. I’ve got a layout like this, but I’ve slightly upped the dimensions, to allow for two bogie coaches, one old pregroup, one later big four job, and also a little more space at the back.

 

The sizes are for O gauge, and everything is made for a simple layout. The theme was suggested to me by the appearance of the OO LNWR Precedent, so you can appreciate my thinking on this, but going on to several different lines and situations, and so the title for the layout is “The Last 2-4-0”.

Funnily enough, the Southern gets a reputation for old equipment away from third rail electrics, but they never inherited any 2-4-0 tender engines, just two tank classes, the Beattie well tanks which worked the Cornish China clay line, two getting preserved, and the IoW Breyer Peacocks, the last going in 1933.

Moving further North,  the Great Western had the more stylish survivors, with Stella, 3232, and Barnum 2-4-0s lasting into the 1930s, in pleasant surroundings in West Wales an the West Country, with the Barnums lasting on the Crewe line until 1933. Then there’s the ones absorbed from the MSWJ, which lasted into BR days (1954) in the Newbury area.

The LMS gained three Scottish ones from the G&SWR, and one from the Furness, these lasting only a year or so before scrapping. The LNWR and the MR had plenty running through the twenties and into the thirties, the former with Precedents and Whitworths, the Midland having a Kirtley lasting until 1947, and a Johnson reaching the BR until 1950.

The LNER was quite similar, having three old Wheatleys from Scotland, one lasting until 1927, the same year as the last of the GNR ones left Lincolnshire, a GCR one having departed from the county three years earlier. Fletcher 901s and Tennants be found east of York and in West Durham in the twenties, up to 1929. The GER provided the best known survivor, a T26/ E4 lasting well into BR days in Cambridgeshire, finally going in 1959, and becoming the very last one in Great Britain.

 

Over in Ireland, there were a good variety of classes into the 1920s, WLWR G3, GS&WR G4, and DSER G7 on the GSR, GNRI H lasting to 1932, NCC C to 1942 (these stayed in LMS red as well), and BCDR no. 6 in 1950. This left the MGWR which the GSR and then the CIE had. They were still running an express turn, the night Sligo Mail in 1958,  before being downgraded to branchline working, The last was withdrawn in 1963, the last surviving 2-4-0 in the British Isles.

 

I hope you can see the possibilities, even with a theme that doesn’t touch on the large, modern, smart side of the railways, but rather the rundown side of past elegance.

 

[Mikkel]

I do like it, as you know. I was pondering why there was a turntable rather than a sector plate. But you have already answered that in the other thread: 

 

On 28/10/2020 at 20:39, Northroader said:

The two tracks converge at the other end on to a small turntable. At present I’m treating this as a sector table, but a turntable is more use in increasing the angle of divergence of the tracks, and balancing the loco when standing on the table.

 

The clever bit is that you don't have to turn the loco if you feel it's un-prototypical for such a small station. You can just reverse back off the turntable and into the light.

 

I can't help thinking of Newcastle Emlyn though, with its small turntable...

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by Mikkel

[Northroader]

A long time ago, I built a layout with a sector table, nice and neat, taking up far less room than a turntable. The pivot was at the back end, and the nose end just slid on a bearing pad. I found the weight of the loco made the sliding action very stiff and jerky, really I should have incorporated some sort of ball bearings in the nose. There’s also the thing that sector tables aren’t really that common, there was Snow Hill, and that was about it. With a turntable you get a much smoother action, even without ball bearings. It takes up a lot more room in proportion, so I place it off stage, accessed by an overbridge, giving the suggestion it might just be a through line and not a terminus.

Hope you’re alright over there, I see the lockdown precautions have been increased, and it looked a bit grey outside the window in your last pictures, so best wishes for the season.

p.s. Does a barrel or three of Carlsberg get tipped into the horse trough outside the Farthing stables at Christmas?

Edited December 9, 2020 by Northroader

[F-UnitMad]

41 minutes ago, Northroader said:

There’s also the thing that sector tables aren’t really that common, there was Snow Hill, and that was about it.

You mean Moor Street? Same city, same line, next station.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

There’s also the thing that sector tables aren’t really that common

IIRC, they were used on a few German branch lines, but were a proper engineering job.

 

The small table at Newcastle Emlyn, like that at Cardigan, was used for 6-wheeled locos (517s, 850s and their respective successors), but were too small for the larger ones which came along later, e.g. prairies.

[Donw]

Moor Street was a traverser rather than a sector plate. These were removed before we moved to Birmingham as the services to Moor Street were all diesel railcar units. The traversers were a sideways movement rather than rotational. 

 

I have a feeling that most of them used as a sector plate were pivoted in the middle  but  either couldn't or weren't used to swing more than 45 deg. 

 

Don

[Northroader]

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1680.htm

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1679.htm

Edited December 9, 2020 by Northroader

[burgundy]

8 hours ago, Mikkel said:

I do like it, as you know. I was pondering why there was a turntable rather than a sector plate. But you have already answered that in the other thread: 

 

 

The clever bit is that you don't have to turn the loco if you feel it's un-prototypical for such a small station. You can just reverse back off the turntable and into the light.

 

I can't help thinking of Newcastle Emlyn though, with its small turntable...

 

Three that come to mind are Ventnor, Bembridge and Seaford. I think all are examples of turntables at the end of the platforms rather than sector plates.

Best wishes 

Eric 

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1680.htm

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1679.htm

Learn something new every day

 

Or alternatively, receive confirmation every day of how much I don't know!!

[Metropolitan H]

Peerhaps Nearholmer is busy elsewhere today, but I am surprised that he hasn't championed "Sheerness Dockyard" Station as having a very natty sector plate . turntable (with off-set pivot) at the buffer stop end of the platforms - see http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/sheerness_dockyard/

 

Regards

Chris H

[Nearholmer]

He's supposed to be working, but has finished now.

 

We've done Sheerness in great detail in another thread haven't we? trouble is, I can't remember which! Probably Castle Aching, because I recall the conversation wandering off into exploding battleships - one of which demolished the station roof IIRC.

[Northroader]

That’s an interesting setup. I never realised originally the trains had to reverse somewhere else before what I think of as Sheerness proper. They had a bit more room there than there was at Birmingham, but it’s neat how they share the traverser between the two platform roads, presumably to increase the run round length.

I fancy the Board of Trade must have put their foot down on traversers, sector tables, and turntables, where they placed on passenger lines, and you must always have a track available, open to the approaching train, until the table was actually in use. That’s why the Snow Hill one had three tracks, although only the centre one could be used to traverse, and the Moor Street traverser was similar. Likewise you see the NER one at Alston had a point added immediately off the table, which rather defeats the idea of saving a point, and I think NBR Langholm was similar.

On the practical side when I was using a sector table on my layout, you always had to line the table up with whichever way the point was set at the other end of the runround when doing any shunting, as otherwise you’d always end up with something down in the well!

Good, I see Kevin’s off work now, no, I can’t remember a thread with exploding battleships and stations.

[Mikkel]

12 hours ago, Northroader said:

Hope you’re alright over there, I see the lockdown precautions have been increased, and it looked a bit grey outside the window in your last pictures, so best wishes for the season.

p.s. Does a barrel or three of Carlsberg get tipped into the horse trough outside the Farthing stables at Christmas?

 

Thanks. Well it's very dull, not helped by 10 days of continuous overcast and everything cancelled, but you've all been through it so who am I to complain. As for Carlsberg, what with all these micro-breweries we've almost forgotten them 

 

To match Snow Hill, here are the Moor Street traversers: 

https://warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrms1697.htm

https://rcts.zenfolio.com/buildings-and-infrastructure/trackwork-and-infrastructure/hD28C66F4#hd28c66f4

 

 

[Simond]

Sheerness & exploding ships, possibly the Richard Montgomery, which hasn’t exploded.  Yet.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

It will make the evening news when it does.

 

atb

Simon

[Nearholmer]

HMS Bulwark and HMS Princess Irene.

[Northroader]

That’s a sorry tale.

http://historyhubulster.co.uk/tag/hms-princess-irene/

Edited December 10, 2020 by Northroader

[Northroader]

A bit of cross fertilisation, as I’ve posted this on the Castle Aching thread, then realised its a wagon I need for Washbourne. Drawing from MRN 8/62:

 

https://basilicafields.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/great-eastern-railway-wagons-part-1-round-ended-opens/

 

[Northroader]

We’re running down to the last week of the year, but it’s been a year right outside anyone’s experience. I think we all gain some comfort from the fellowship of like minded people on RMweb, trying to hang on to some piece of normality, so thanks and best wishes to everyone who’s come on this thread with rich comments and posts, as well as giving reactions, and even merely lurking.

Going up to the loft and looking around, what’s been going on? I started  the year with a grand reorganisation plan, but it gradually dawned on me not to be so silly. The vacant space where Washbourne had been is now occupied by a new Continental layout to support the thread, badly in need of scenic work and cassettes. I had ideas for a 7’ broad gauge line here for a time, but there was more continental stock around, and that got priority.  Over along the back wall where the combined layout was happening, dimensions have been juggled around, and there are now in effect two layouts end to end, both sort of terminus to fiddle yard jobs.  The American one is nearly workable, using reworked boards, track and scenery, and I’m just completing wiring.  Then I hope to get cracking on regurgitating the existing Washbourne with reclaimed track in around a month. At the far end there’s a forlorn Whimsy line, more experience has shewn that you can’t really hope to hang your narrow gauge hat on ancient second hand 00 locos with low gear ratios and badly fitting wheelsets. Ah me, it’s at the back of the queue to sort out along with any broad gauge scheme, so there’s plenty to keep me going, and occasionally some unfinished rolling stock kit appears.

 To conclude, Best wishes to everyone, a Happy Christmas with your loved ones, and New Year, well, who can say? I do hope it is better for all of us. Remember to keep warm.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Northroader