Imperial Gate - late 90's West london urban branch terminus

[simon b]

Hi all,

 

For a while now I've had a desire to build a small layout for my old lima dmu's to potter about on, well this Bank holiday weekend was the perfect time to do something about it...

 

 

 

Imperial Gate station is based in the London borough of Chelsea, at the end of a short branch spur connecting to the West London line with a triangular junction. It is served by the Kensignton Olympia to Clapham junction shuttle service, train's reversing at the station midway through their journey along the WLL. So far local opposition has prevented closure of the branch, though it has become quite run down and the station is now unstaffed.

 

The station itself is a fairly short island platform affair, elevated above street level with a subway down to the station entrance. There is also a small depot built on the site of the former goods yard, to service the ancient first generation 117 and 121 dmu's forming the mainstay of service's. The tight curves of the junction with the WLL have prevented their replacement by more modern units, though cascaded class 150's have started to make an appearance recently. 

 

 

And so onto the layout itself.

 

Baseboard construction is very much belt and braces technology, using a 2x1" timber frame supporting a 6mm plywood top.

 

 

 

 

Track pinned down, I'm using peco code 100 with electrofrog points. Luckily there are only 2 points and a double slip on the scenic section, so a few hours work saw it all laid out.

 

 

 

 

 

The trackplan is fairly simple, the island platform is between the 2 concrete sleepered lines at the left of the board. There is a kick-back from platform 2 into the dmu depot, the double slip acting as the depot catch point.

 

The dmu depot itself will be a 3 road affair, but I'm only modeling the frontage of it so to act as a scenic break. This also neatly hides the running line exiting the board to the fiddle yard.

 

 

 

This is a mock up of how the station area will look, with a small street frontage and road underneath it. There is also a short section of peco overall roof to give shelter to the subway at the far end of the station.

 

 

 

 

 

Rolling stock is a pair of lima 121 bubble cars in silverlink livery, a lima 2 car 117 in Network Southeast, a Bachmann class 150 in silverlink livery. There is also a lima 33 and 73 that will appear on engineers workings from time to time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More to come soon.

Edited May 30, 2016 by simon b

[simon b]

Thanks go to Steve (EE 8SVT) for helping in my search for the Silverlink class 150, Cheers Steve.

[Zomboid]

You've got the atmosphere just from the mock up. The overall roof still being there feels a bit of a stretch. Though LU stations largely still have them, on a viaduct it would be more likely to have been built as a canopy.

Could credibly have the 3rd rail as well, but doesn't look like a 313 will fit in the platform.

[simon b]

Thanks. I did consider third rail on this layout, but I thought BR wouldn't of gone to the expensive of electrifying something they want to close. A 313 would be a nice unit to have on the layout though, the platform in the pics is a little short. 3 cars will fit in platform 1 but not platform 2.  

 

Would give me a chance to run some modern emu's if I did add the 3rd rail.   

Edited May 30, 2016 by simon b

[Mike Oliver]

I like the look of this very much, I have been pondering something similar for a while. This could be the spur for me to get my finger out. What is the overall size of the board/s please?

[simon b]

Hi mike,

 

The scenic board in the pics is 5ft long and 18" wide, there is also a 4ft fiddle yard board I've yet to finish building. 

[croydon junction]

you could use the front of the shed to hide a fiddle yard where you could have a traverser or sector plate hidden which can also access the main running roads

[simon b]

That's exactly the plan.

 

The shed building is only a few inches deep to provide the scenic break for the fiddle yard, should look quite good with a dmu or two hanging out the doors.

 

I might even model something like this sitting on the siding nearest the board edge.

 

Edited May 30, 2016 by simon b

[stamford]

Hi Simon

My interest is also the WLL, altough my era is the early 60's

Looking good so far, will be following with interest

[simon b]

Hi Simon

My interest is also the WLL, altough my era is the early 60's

Looking good so far, will be following with interest

Thanks Stamford, the routes around London have always had an interest for me.

 

Late 60's and early 70's especially.

[simon b]

Did a little messing around with the street frontage tonight.

 

These are sectional components by design preservation models, and although they are to ho scale they blend in perfectly. I've got another shop doorway section to go in the left side, for a little variety I'm modifying it to set the door itself back by 10mm from the windows.

 

 

I think the 3 shop sections that are in the picture will turn into a sainsburys local.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Possibly make the missing left shop front a subway or greggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The corner building that sits to the right of this on the layout is a ho walthers kit, "Argosy booksellers". More pics to come when I start playing with that.

Edited June 3, 2016 by simon b

[Zomboid]

Sainsburys would have a bigger door than in that kit, but I like the idea. You should put a Tesco next door, my experience of London is that if you walk between 2 tube stations you'll pass at least 2 of each. And 3 Costas.

And a kebab and fried chicken shop.

[simon b]

I think a Costa coffee will look good in the corner building, as you say they are everywhere you look in London.

 

Put the first coat of paint on the sainsbury's frontage today, helps me picture what it will all look like.

 

[simon b]

The length of the platforms has been bugging me this week. Platform 1 which is to the rear of the layout will easily take a 3 car dmu, but platform 2 can only take 2 cars because of the point for the depot kickback. I've ordered a medium radius y point which will allow me to move the depot point further out, and should give just enough room for 3 cars in the platform road.

 

I've also started construction of the fiddle yard / dmu depot board, should be interesting to see what I can fit on that.

 

The lima nse 117 has gained a center car, and also I have another 3 car nse 117 in the post from ebay. SE flush glazing kit's, and craftsman detailing packs are waiting for these two.

[simon b]

A quick overveiw of the dmu fleet on the garden table, still need to make time to fit the craftsman detail kits to the 121.s and 117's.

 

Edited August 14, 2016 by simon b

[simon b]

So the platform road's have been extended to take 3 car dmu's in both platforms. 

 

 

I really need to start getting the buildings in place now, I plan to build the terminus end of the layout first and work my way out to the other board.

[simon b]

A pair of new arrivals, a lima 33 and 73 in ews livery. These will be detailed up at some point, need to finish the dmu's first though.

 

[Karhedron]

Would give me a chance to run some modern emu's if I did add the 3rd rail.

And not so modern. The Bachmann 2-EPB in NSE livery would look the part. Although it was mainly the Bulleid 2-EPBs that saw service on the North London Line, the BR units cropped up there too.

 

[50030]

Although it was mainly the Bulleid 2-EPBs that saw service on the North London Line, the BR units cropped up there too.

 

 

I'm glad you've said that, I've only seen pics of the bulleid epb's on the NLL, so I can run my bachy BR version on a planned NLL layout .

[velotrain]

I'm disappointed to see that this topic/layout has apparently been abandoned.

[simon b]

I'm disappointed to see that this topic/layout has apparently been abandoned.

Far from abandoned I'm pleased to say, just not had time to do a proper update. I'll post some pics of progress soon.

[simon b]

It's update time!

 

The reason for a lack of progress is that I just wasn't happy with the layout, the short platform length and cramped trackwork seemed to get worse the more I looked at it. Also the base board wasn't the best constructed idea, so a few weeks ago I decided to have a redesign.

 

A new bigger, better, baseboard was constructed entirely from 12mm ply. This being a much better design than the 2x1 framing the old board had, feels much more solid too.

 

 

A size comparison between old and new. The old board was 5.5ft x 16", the new is 6ft x 20".

 

 

The concept of the layout has remained the same, though with a few small changes. Here is an overview of how things are now.

 

 

Trains enter the layout from behind the DMU depot as they did before, though this time access to the depot is only from the fiddle yard. The building itself is an old Hornby hst depot, and each road can hold a 3 car dmu on the scenic section.

 

 

The station platform itself has been lengthened, each road can now easily take a 4 car dmu and looks much more realistic than before. I can now couple dmu's together in the platform to form a peak hour service.

 

 

The siding at the rear of the layout is a new addition. This serves a print works of some sort, and allows me to do a little shunting giving more operational interest to the layout. 

 

 

Trains of pallet vans or parcel coaches serve the loading dock here, normally hauled by 73's but anything can turn up. There is no runaround loop at the station so trains are top and tailed along the branch, which means a bit of shunting is involved.

 

 

 

The station is still elevated above the streets below, although there are a few extra buildings going in now. The yellow looking office building will gain a few extra floors to act as a veiw blocker, this preventing a direct veiw looking along the tracks exiting the layout.

 

 

And finally an over view from the other end.

 

 

 

This new setup looks a lot more realistic to me, much less awkward than before but with more operational interest. 

 

Hope you all like the changes I've made,

Edited November 7, 2017 by simon b

[Guest]

With just a few extra inches on the length and width, and the alterations to the track plan, you've made the whole thing feel more spacious. Looking good.

[simon b]

With just a few extra inches on the length and width, and the alterations to the track plan, you've made the whole thing feel more spacious. Looking good.

Thanks Pete. It's amazing the difference a few extra inches makes!

[simon b]

Started building the dmu depot tonight, this is based on the old Hornby hst depot, now sold by guagemaster. I'm very impressed how easily this kit goes together, I got to the point you see in the picture in under an hour. Looking at how visible the interior is when no units are stabled inside, I think I'm going to add a pair of peco inspection pits and various workshop clutter to bring it to life.

 

One thing I wont be using is the doors supplied with the kit. These are a working up and over setup as built, but I 'm going to model some roller shutters and frames on this one.