Castle Aching

[RedGemAlchemist]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

If I ever tackled Norwich West, however, I think I might miss out the substantially complete RC church; it would take years.

You could add it on the backscene, layered in cardboard for depth.

Edited October 18, 2020 by RedGemAlchemist

[James Harrison]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

If I ever tackled Norwich West, however, I think I might miss out the substantially complete RC church; it would take years.

 

You could always model it as a dimly-hinted form behind masses of scaffold (note this would have been timber prior to the 1920s).  I don't think I ever saw Lincoln Cathedral fully unmasked, as it were, even once during my three years studying there. 

[Annie]

 

Alnwick station 1887.

 

Now that is a very nice station James.  Being a little different to the usual kind of terminus with its central platform would make it a very interesting model to build indeed.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

That would leave only 19' or so over the height of the portal.  How practical that would have been ....  As I say, only worth a tunnel if there is a reason you don't want a cutting, like streets and houses above.

 

Alternatively, if a tunnel is not feasible, we can knock a trackbed's worth (single or double?) of houses down and have a series of bridges where the roads cross. 

I’m no civil engineer, but I think you could barely get away with a tunnel with houses on top - in rock, yes, but dicey in anything else I would think.

 

I certainly had in mind the narrow, brick-lined cutting with bridges.

 

You could pull the Leinster Gardens trick, and restore the terraces with false fronts.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Nearholmer

[drmditch]

6 minutes ago, Annie said:

 

Alnwick station 1887.

 

Now that is a very nice station James.  Being a little different to the usual kind of terminus with its central platform would make it a very interesting model to build indeed.

 

 

Indeed it is/will be.

And I need to get on and build my version!

 

[James Harrison]

One of the GC tunnels through Nottingham was so shallow that it broke through the basements of the buildings above it, so there is precedent for very shallow tunnels, but for that situation I would expect other factors to be at play (ie, the sheer expense of buying all the property required for an open-air right of way through the middle of a large city).  It's the sort of thing that can be made to work but the complexities of it (not least of which is preventing the buildings above collapsing into the excavation) makes it not a favoured solution. 

[Edwardian]

Here is the proposed route.

 

It takes the survey of the city made 1880-1883. which, therefore, shows pretty much the exact state of development at the time the WNR dug through it; the story is that the WN was racing the Lynn & Fakenham to Norwich, and the L&F opened Norwich City in 1882, so, whoever won, the WN should hit Norwich within the period of the survey.

 

So now, the key thing is that there is no housing on the north side of, what by 1905, has become Clarendon Road (previously Grove Road).

 

 

If we go to the 1880s survey, we see that there is the terrace on the south of Grove Road in the way and one beyond that.  To save these houses would require a tunnel, and they are problems and expenses associated with the lack of headroom, as correspondents have pointed out.  Still, I am persuaded that it is not impossible.

 

 

What if we have a cutting?  Here the idea is that we can have bridges or short tunnels to get under roads, but not buildings.  Thus, any building in the way are demolished and there is a cutting there and through any open ground/garden grounds.  That produces the version below.

 

 

The key point is that the tunnel would still start  in the same place, at the end of the chalk pit, some distance from Grove Street, to which level it slopes upward.  In the early '80s this is still waste ground, so can be tunneled under, and, indeed, would thus remain open ground.

 

So, from the point of view of the model, I still get my tunnel!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Edwardian
spelling!

[Nearholmer]

Good scheme.

 

There is a case exactly like that in the Medway Towns, where a shallow tunnel was never built over, makings its course clear as an empty strip through later development. My brain refuses to cough-up the exact location at the moment, but if/when it does I will illustrate - there was a used car lot on part of it last time I saw it.

[Andy Hayter]

Sounds like the tunnel between Gillingham under the chalk hillock that led down to Brompton but with the line emerging on a viaduct over the old A2 between Chatham and Luton.

[Nearholmer]

That’s the one, I remembered it while you were typing!

 

Course clearly visible on satellite picture, with no buildings until the hill is high enough to give decent depth over the tunnel.

 

 

[ianathompson]

Might not be strictly relevant but I'd be a bit careful of tunnelling under Norwich because there are lots of caves in the chalk.

Sink holes appear quite regularly and it's only a few years since a double decker bus disappeared down one!

The Civil Service rugby ground, where I played a couple of times, also went the same way.

 

Best of all, if you want something bizarre, was Norwich City's old ground at the Nest.

In their last season there one corner collapsed and the corner flag was twenty feet or so below the goalposts at that end.

It was a weird ground anyway as that was the part where the touchline was up against a cliff around thirty feet high.

Needless to say the Football League were not amused, hence their transfer to Boulton & Paul's ground alongside the works at Carrow Road.

I am sufficient of an anorak to have specially visited the site which puts me one up on most Norwich supporters of my acquaintance.

 

Probably thread drift but....

 

Ian T

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Highly relevant to the proposed site of the station, it would appear (or more likely it would disappear). https://www.edp24.co.uk/edp-property/no-decision-on-when-norwich-s-plantation-garden-will-open-following-discovery-of-sinkhole-1-4489482

 

Interesting cameo possibility for a corner of the layout, inspired by the photo of an M7 trying to climb down the Armstrong Lift to the Waterloo and City Line maybe?

[Edwardian]

8 hours ago, ianathompson said:

Might not be strictly relevant but I'd be a bit careful of tunnelling under Norwich because there are lots of caves in the chalk.

Sink holes appear quite regularly and it's only a few years since a double decker bus disappeared down one!

The Civil Service rugby ground, where I played a couple of times, also went the same way.

 

Best of all, if you want something bizarre, was Norwich City's old ground at the Nest.

In their last season there one corner collapsed and the corner flag was twenty feet or so below the goalposts at that end.

It was a weird ground anyway as that was the part where the touchline was up against a cliff around thirty feet high.

Needless to say the Football League were not amused, hence their transfer to Boulton & Paul's ground alongside the works at Carrow Road.

I am sufficient of an anorak to have specially visited the site which puts me one up on most Norwich supporters of my acquaintance.

 

Probably thread drift but....

 

Ian T

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Highly relevant to the proposed site of the station, it would appear (or more likely it would disappear). https://www.edp24.co.uk/edp-property/no-decision-on-when-norwich-s-plantation-garden-will-open-following-discovery-of-sinkhole-1-4489482

 

Interesting cameo possibility for a corner of the layout, inspired by the photo of an M7 trying to climb down the Armstrong Lift to the Waterloo and City Line maybe?

 

Oh, indeed, I believe that one of Norwich's most famous sinkhole incidents occurred in 1988, right in front of the projected WNR terminus on Earlham Road ....

 

 

Still, didn't stop the Duke of Norfolk building a bl00dy great church next door!

 

According to the Eastern Daily Press's Brief History of Sinkholes 

 

The number 26 bus fell into the 26ft deep hole on Earlham Road on March 3, 1988....

 

An old chalk mine, dating from the 11th century, gave way as the driver was pulling off.

Fortunately the passengers managed to scramble off before the vehicle slipped further into the cavernous pit.

 

[St Enodoc]

11 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

The number 26 bus fell into the 26ft deep hole

Good job it was only a no 26 and not something like a 113...

[Nearholmer]

A hole has appeared in the Earlham Road. Officials of the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company are looking into it.

 

(as it says in crackers)

[Regularity]

Ah, the old ones are still the old ones...

[RedGemAlchemist]

11 hours ago, Edwardian said:

The number 26 bus fell into the 26ft deep hole on Earlham Road on March 3, 1988...

And in doing so inspired the name of my favourite chocolate bar.

Edited October 19, 2020 by RedGemAlchemist

[Edwardian]

21 minutes ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

And in doing so inspired the name of my favourite chocolate bar.

 

Nothing funny about that

 

[snickers]

 

Norwich, it appears, is a giant Aero bar.

[Nearholmer]

I thought that, in my more stressed moments, I’d eaten every variety of chocolate-based confectionary known time mankind, but the “Bristol VR in a Chasm” is one that’s escaped me.

[Shadow]

Maybe the driver had just dropped his packet of Polos.

 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Shadow

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I thought that, in my more stressed moments, I’d eaten every variety of chocolate-based confectionary known time mankind, but the “Bristol VR in a Chasm” is one that’s escaped me.

All I could think of was "Bus Bar" but I don't think that's the right answer either.

[RedGemAlchemist]

7 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

All I could think of was "Bus Bar" but I don't think that's the right answer either.

No. I'm actually on about Double Decker. It certainly featured in one of their ad campaigns - namely "Nothing fills a hole like a Double Decker" during the early 90s.

Edited October 19, 2020 by RedGemAlchemist

[Edwardian]

Returned from the school run today to a pleasant surprise ....

 

 

[Shadow]

On 08/10/2020 at 16:29, Edwardian said:

The new old Y14 has arrived.

 

It's a runner.

 

I post some pictures of it with the Hornby J15, so the detail differences between early and late conditions can be seen easily.

 

 

 

 

 

Just been looking through some old slides and came across these from late 70's/early 80's from the North Norfolk Railway

 

GER Y14 564, LNER J15 7564

 

 

 

 

and a cabriolet B12 (aka 8572 in the re-making)

 

 

 

[Edwardian]

Great Y14 detail pictures, thank you.

 

The 'spree' prompted by my latest financial crisis, continues ...

 

 

 

 

With 'firebox glow'