Oxford 2017 - Announce - 'Oxford Structures'

[Edwardian]

What are the buildings in your pic? They are very well done

 

Thank you.  It was a first attempt, and now I would do a couple of things differently, but overall I'm pretty happy with them.  They are part-invention, but based on some cottage-backs in Castle Acre, Norfolk.  Apart from the chimneys, I think all the textures here are from Scalescenes.  The flint and brick walls and pantiles are from the Scalescenes cottages kit (http://scalescenes.com/product/t019-row-of-cottages/), and use has been made of the terraced outhouses kit and white painted and aged red brick textures.  Many of the windows and doors are from the kits, too. 

 

It shows how adaptable this medium is. 

Edited July 11, 2017 by Edwardian

[Edwardian]

I agree with, I think, The Stationmaster, that the station building might be the closest to a Great Western design, but it will get jolly cold in the booking office and waiting rooms come the winter!

 

I suppose there may be changes to these "approval samples", so I hope that this will include chimneys in this case.

 

 

[Miss Prism]

That's the craziest rendition of the 1902-standard station design I've ever seen. Where did that absurd roof angle come from?

[Edwardian]

That's the craziest rendition of the 1902-standard station design I've ever seen. Where did that absurd roof angle come from?

 

OK, well fair enough.  I see I shall have to dig out CJL's books and under-take a reappraisal!

 

To be fair, even the Dean Goods looks quite like a Dean Goods if you don't know what to look for!

 

What is it with Oxford Rail and chimneys?!?

[57xx]

You can also see exactly how they have ended up with the chimney where it is. Following your design would leave a relatively fragile part on the edge of the mould, so the chimney got moved inboard without making any alterations in height.

 

Alternately "lets move the chimney so it doesn't look like we've copied the Scalescenes model"

Edited July 11, 2017 by 57xx

[RussellD]

I agree with, I think, The Stationmaster, that the station building might be the closest to a Great Western design, but it will get jolly cold in the booking office and waiting rooms come the winter!

 

I suppose there may be changes to these "approval samples", so I hope that this will include chimneys in this case.

 

Also I don't know what Oxford intended for the roof covering texture, but it doesn't look like slate to me.

[Edwardian]

Also I don't know what Oxford intended for the roof covering texture, but it doesn't look like slate to me.

 

I can only assume that slates and chimneys come in due course.

 

I don't think sometimes manufacturers do themselves any favours by rushing out pictures of half-baked samples!

 

Not a criticism of Oxford in particular, but resin RTPs tend to suffer from the insistence on using the medium for as much of the structure as possible.  It is clearly an ideal material for many architectural elements, but features such as engine shed doors (too thick and with monster hinges) and canopy valances are not best represented in resin.  

 

If we weren't so obsessed with the need to use everything straight out of the box, injection-moulded plastic or laser-cut wood would be much better.  Reserve for cast-resin the jobs it's best at.

[dibber25]

Also I don't know what Oxford intended for the roof covering texture, but it doesn't look like slate to me.

 

This is a reasonable model of what I'd call a 'BR-bodge' GWR station. It looks to me like it's based on Moreton-in-Marsh but the yellow with red string courses has been changed to the more common red with engineers blue string courses. It has lost its chimney stacks, like Moreton-in-Marsh. You will note, also the roof covering, which appears to be felt on Moreton-in-Marsh. Presumably the slates were stripped off and the roof boarded and felted to reduce weight on a suspect timber structure. 

As such, it's a disappointing choice of prototype - a building that was spoiled by BR in the days when a less significant town would simply have had its station demolished. It's a sad fact that post-Beeching Western Region either demolished or brutalised virtually every GWR station building. I was told, when I was negotiating to save Staines West, that there was a premium paid for every canopy that was demolished and that all the wayside stations on the Thames Valley main line would need to come down because they lacked proper foundations. Most of them have lost at least one of their structures (down fast line platform buildings are virtually all gone) and the buildings that survive have been further brutalised in the name of electrification. It seems that only Brunel stations were considered to be of any importance, and that was because most of them had already been demolished! Tyseley, which passed to the LMR, was one good restoration of a later-style (post-1900) GWR station but I've not been there for years and it, too, may have now been spoiled. (CJL)

Edited July 11, 2017 by dibber25

[Edwardian]

This is a reasonable model of what I'd call a 'BR-bodge' GWR station. It looks to me like it's based on Moreton-in-Marsh but the yellow with red string courses has been changed to the more common red with engineers blue string courses. It has lost its chimney stacks, like Moreton-in-Marsh. You will note, also the roof covering, which appears to be felt on Moreton-in-Marsh. Presumably the slates were stripped off and the roof boarded and felted to reduce weight on a suspect timber structure. 

As such, it's a disappointing choice of prototype - a building that was spoiled by BR in the days when a less significant town would simply have had its station demolished. It's a sad fact that post-Beeching Western Region either demolished or brutalised virtually every GWR station building. I was told, when I was negotiating to save Staines West, that there was a premium paid for every canopy that was demolished and that all the wayside stations on the Thames Valley main line would need to come down because they lacked proper foundations. Most of them have lost at least one of their structures (down fast line platform buildings are virtually all gone) and the buildings that survive have been further brutalised in the name of electrification. It seems that only Brunel stations were considered to be of any importance, and that was because most of them had already been demolished! Tyseley, which passed to the LMR, was one good restoration of a later-style (post-1900) GWR station but I've not been there for years and it, too, may have now been spoiled. (CJL)

 

Very interesting.  Thanks. That would certainly explain the lack of slates and chimneys - assuming OR really does intend to sell it looking like this.

 

But, then, we have a structure that OOB can only represent the prototype in some degraded BR condition?  Though, I presume that it would never have had the wood painted in Stone 1 & 3 whilst in this condition.  

 

I suppose as such it might be of use to the 'Modern Image' modeller, who can repaint the wood-work, or it could be adopted as a station saved by a Preserved Line who have not the funds to restore the station fully and reverse BR's depredations, but who can, at least, afford some proper paint!

 

John Finnemore, he who wrote and performed in the incomparable Cabin Pressure, once did a sketch about those cartoon characters that are painted on ice cream vans.  You know, where you can identify the Disney etc characters portrayed but they look a little odd.  The sketch had it that this was quite deliberate and that there was real skill in painting a recognisable cartoon character, but just slightly "off". 

 

This is how I feel Oxford Rail's output has been.  A Deans Goods or a GW standard station etc, but just slightly off.  

 

I think Oxford Rail clearly have the means to get a lot closer to "dead right".  Yet, as each new "slightly off" release comes round, I just wonder how bothered they are about getting it right.  My naive assumption has been that a manufacturer has some reputational concern about standards generally, including accuracy.  I accept that sometimes this is sacrificed to commercial expediency, not least because of the costs of correcting mistakes by re-tooling, but that, nevertheless, they make a reasonable effort to get things right.  If, however, Oxford Rail can shift enough boxes of "slightly off" products, it may remain content to leave "Excellence" as something pursued, but never gained.

 

How many goes does a manufacturer need before it starts hitting the spot?

 

The answer is still blowin' in the wind!

Edited July 12, 2017 by Edwardian

[The Johnster]

This is a reasonable model of what I'd call a 'BR-bodge' GWR station. It looks to me like it's based on Moreton-in-Marsh but the yellow with red string courses has been changed to the more common red with engineers blue string courses. It has lost its chimney stacks, like Moreton-in-Marsh. You will note, also the roof covering, which appears to be felt on Moreton-in-Marsh. Presumably the slates were stripped off and the roof boarded and felted to reduce weight on a suspect timber structure. 

As such, it's a disappointing choice of prototype - a building that was spoiled by BR in the days when a less significant town would simply have had its station demolished. It's a sad fact that post-Beeching Western Region either demolished or brutalised virtually every GWR station building. I was told, when I was negotiating to save Staines West, that there was a premium paid for every canopy that was demolished and that all the wayside stations on the Thames Valley main line would need to come down because they lacked proper foundations. Most of them have lost at least one of their structures (down fast line platform buildings are virtually all gone) and the buildings that survive have been further brutalised in the name of electrification. It seems that only Brunel stations were considered to be of any importance, and that was because most of them had already been demolished! Tyseley, which passed to the LMR, was one good restoration of a later-style (post-1900) GWR station but I've not been there for years and it, too, may have now been spoiled. (CJL)

 

It was a period (say 1963-76, when the HST's success changed attitudes) in which, if you wanted to advance yourself in railway management, especially on the WR, you had to establish proven credentials as a slasher and a burner of anything that resembled a traditional railway, at the same time as there were no resources to replace it with anything but bus shelters.  Bristol Parkway, a high profile project, had to wait some time before even basic platform shelters that ran the length of a train turned up; it is still a bleak and windy spot today.  

 

While I was working at Canton, early 70s, a concerted attempt was made to close Pontypool Road station, on the basis that it's former status as a major hub no longer applied to it and it had little local value.  Accommodation had already been reduced to a derelict booking hall and a a brick bus shelter standing forlornly in the middle of a huge island platform, and we were tasked with carrying out a passenger census on trains using the station.  You counted the number of passengers leaving Newport on the up or Abergavenny on the down and counted them again on leaving Pontypool (it had lost the 'road' by then), and the difference gave you the number of passengers who had used the station, didn't it?  If there were 100 passengers leaving Newport and 99 leaving Pontypool, 1 passenger had used Pontypool on that service.  Clearly there was insufficient demand for this station, which should be closed immediately.

 

No.  At the extreme, 199 passengers could have been using the station on that service, 100 off and 99 on.  In fact, we notated the census with the actual numbers of people using the station on each service so that the compilers were in no doubt; the true figures were more like about 50 passengers using the station in peak times, with a difference in totals of about a dozen, and about a third of that off peak;, about 250 passengers a day, a fairly profitable unstaffed station whose only overheads were the occasional changing of the light bulbs and a coat of paint every so often.  But it illustrates the climate of the day; a very senior manager in Cardiff Area told me once that the Area was making as much money selling off land as it was in running a railway, and that once all the land had been sold income would be halved, and this was the general culture of the way WR was being managed in the early 70s.  It had set in before Beeching, and probably dates from the 1955 Modernisation Plan, but Beeching and all he stood for certainly encapsulates it!

[Talltim]

Thank you. It was a first attempt, and now I would do a couple of things differently, but overall I'm pretty happy with them. They are part-invention, but based on some cottage-backs in Castle Acre, Norfolk. Apart from the chimneys, I think all the textures here are from Scalescenes. The flint and brick walls and pantiles are from the Scalescenes cottages kit (http://scalescenes.com/product/t019-row-of-cottages/), and use has been made of the terraced outhouses kit and white painted and aged red brick textures. Many of the windows and doors are from the kits, too.

 

It shows how adaptable this medium is.

I've just found your Castle Aching thread, dunno how I missed it before. Only 180 pages to go... Edited July 12, 2017 by Talltim

[Edwardian]

I've just found your Castle Aching thread, dunno how I missed it before. Only 180 pages to go...

 

It's well hidden in "Pre-Grouping"!

 

You will be most welcome, however.

 

Not sure what to advise to best help you get through it, though, coffee or beer!

[The Stationmaster]

It was a period (say 1963-76, when the HST's success changed attitudes) in which, if you wanted to advance yourself in railway management, especially on the WR, you had to establish proven credentials as a slasher and a burner of anything that resembled a traditional railway, at the same time as there were no resources to replace it with anything but bus shelters.  Bristol Parkway, a high profile project, had to wait some time before even basic platform shelters that ran the length of a train turned up; it is still a bleak and windy spot today.  

 

While I was working at Canton, early 70s, a concerted attempt was made to close Pontypool Road station, on the basis that it's former status as a major hub no longer applied to it and it had little local value.  Accommodation had already been reduced to a derelict booking hall and a a brick bus shelter standing forlornly in the middle of a huge island platform, and we were tasked with carrying out a passenger census on trains using the station.  You counted the number of passengers leaving Newport on the up or Abergavenny on the down and counted them again on leaving Pontypool (it had lost the 'road' by then), and the difference gave you the number of passengers who had used the station, didn't it?  If there were 100 passengers leaving Newport and 99 leaving Pontypool, 1 passenger had used Pontypool on that service.  Clearly there was insufficient demand for this station, which should be closed immediately.

 

No.  At the extreme, 199 passengers could have been using the station on that service, 100 off and 99 on.  In fact, we notated the census with the actual numbers of people using the station on each service so that the compilers were in no doubt; the true figures were more like about 50 passengers using the station in peak times, with a difference in totals of about a dozen, and about a third of that off peak;, about 250 passengers a day, a fairly profitable unstaffed station whose only overheads were the occasional changing of the light bulbs and a coat of paint every so often.  But it illustrates the climate of the day; a very senior manager in Cardiff Area told me once that the Area was making as much money selling off land as it was in running a railway, and that once all the land had been sold income would be halved, and this was the general culture of the way WR was being managed in the early 70s.  It had set in before Beeching, and probably dates from the 1955 Modernisation Plan, but Beeching and all he stood for certainly encapsulates it!

 

Alas it didn't really work at all like that although that might have been the impression sometimes given.  As far as buildings were concerned, particularly at what were then 'less busy' stations, the money to maintain them simply didn't exist and vandalism was an increasing problem so the only realistic answer was to demolish buildings that would cost a mint to maintain properly and, in effect, give up the fight against vandalism.  At the time passenger numbers, especially on secondary services,were in the doldrums and what money was available was being concentrated where it would produce the best return.

 

The main reason for selling off property and surplus land was very simple - it was a way to get money in which could be spent on modernisation and even maintenance (apart from any of the 'big project' things supported by capital from central Govt).  And yes we were no doubt at times under pressure to reduce costs, and that pressure originated in The Treasury, but the 1970s was far from unique in that respect on BR, it had started on the WR even before Beeching arrived although I think it really got underway once he turned up.  And then it continued right up to the demise of BR in 1994.

[dinkyme]

More images now showing on Oxfords web, church and pub look good and great value.

[Hilux5972]

Hopefully the platforms are actually square ended. Sick of the Hornby Skaledale platforms being slightly skewed.

[it's-er]

I find it impossible to find Oxford Structures on Oxford's website. I've only been able to find it by typing 'Oxford Structures' into their search facility. Doing that, I lighted on this (which may be the page dinkyme mentions?):

https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/search?q=Oxford%20structures*

 

It strikes me that St Catherine's Church is remarkably similar to the stone church Hornby had in their Skaledale range 5 or so years ago.

 

John Storey

[Hilux5972]

Yeah and only 20cm long so still not a size church

[The Stationmaster]

Hopefully the platforms are actually square ended. Sick of the Hornby Skaledale platforms being slightly skewed.

 

They appear not to be straight (although I can''t for the life of me work out why they aren't straight - is it down to trainset ovals of track I wonder?)

[Hilux5972]

They appear not to be straight (although I can''t for the life of me work out why they aren't straight - is it down to trainset ovals of track I wonder?)

Perhaps. If that's the reason then it still doesn't make sense. Surely it can't be that difficult for them to make a mold with 90 degree corners.

[dibber25]

Very interesting.  Thanks. That would certainly explain the lack of slates and chimneys - assuming OR really does intend to sell it looking like this.

 

But, then, we have a structure that OOB can only represent the prototype in some degraded BR condition?  Though, I presume that it would never have had the wood painted in Stone 1 & 3 whilst in this condition.  

 

I suppose as such it might be of use to the 'Modern Image' modeller, who can repaint the wood-work, or it could be adopted as a station saved by a Preserved Line who have not the funds to restore the station fully and reverse BR's depredations, but who can, at least, afford some proper paint!

 

John Finnemore, he who wrote and performed in the incomparable Cabin Pressure, once did a sketch about those cartoon characters that are painted on ice cream vans.  You know, where you can identify the Disney etc characters portrayed but they look a little odd.  The sketch had it that this was quite deliberate and that there was real skill in painting a recognisable cartoon character, but just slightly "off". 

 

This is how I feel Oxford Rail's output has been.  A Deans Goods or a GW standard station etc, but just slightly off.  

 

I think Oxford Rail clearly have the means to get a lot closer to "dead right".  Yet, as each new "slightly off" release comes round, I just wonder how bothered they are about getting it right.  My naive assumption has been that a manufacturer has some reputational concern about standards generally, including accuracy.  I accept that sometimes this is sacrificed to commercial expediency, not least because of the costs of correcting mistakes by re-tooling, but that, nevertheless, they make a reasonable effort to get things right.  If, however, Oxford Rail can shift enough boxes of "slightly off" products, it may remain content to leave "Excellence" as something pursued, but never gained.

 

How many goes does a manufacturer need before it starts hitting the spot?

 

The answer is still blowin' in the wind!

I think I'd have a shot at applying Scalescenes slates (download and print) and adding my own card or balsa chimney stacks. Matching the brickwork might be the only tricky bit. I guess cast and finished chimney stacks would have made this a much more expensive model but loss of chimney stacks ruins a building so it's not a condition I'd ever want to model. My builder wanted to take down one of the two stacks on my house. I made sure he kept it but I've no doubt I paid for the privilege! (CJL)

[The Johnster]

I've seen the loss of a chimney stack ruin a building.  Blew down in a storm and took out the rear gable end; luckily the elderly lady that lived there was in her middle room watching tv at the time.

 

I know that's not what you meant, dibber, and absolutely agree with you (with a few exceptions, builders should never be allowed anywhere near buildings).  It is the same reason I won't model graffiti on my layouts, despite some of it being a very good indicator of period.

[Widnes Model Centre]

Station, Signal Box, Church and Pub due in to us next week.

[dibber25]

Just noticed - confirming my earlier suggestion that the station building is Moreton-in-Marsh, the signal box is also Moreton-in-Marsh, a typical Cotswold line box (the one at Ascott-under-Wychwood is in the same style). The real MiM 'box has had its windows replaced with single-panel double-glazing, so at least Oxford has back-dated its windows. (CJL)

[Froxfield2012]

Thank you dibber 25 for the identification of the signal box as Moreton-in-Marsh.  Looking at images of that box, it appears that the "strange brick plinth" under the stairs, originally commented on, is a reasonable rendition of the prototype.  So it seems that Oxford got this right.   The brick colour is somewhat more yellow than the real thing, but presumably easily rectified if it offends? 

[dibber25]

Thank you dibber 25 for the identification of the signal box as Moreton-in-Marsh.  Looking at images of that box, it appears that the "strange brick plinth" under the stairs, originally commented on, is a reasonable rendition of the prototype.  So it seems that Oxford got this right.   The brick colour is somewhat more yellow than the real thing, but presumably easily rectified if it offends? 

 

I haven't checked pictures but I suspect that it is similar to the surviving 'box at Ascott-under-Wychwood and to other OW&W line 'boxes such as Chipping Campden. I have a feeling that the brick-built landing was a feature of this design. It certainly didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary when I first saw it. However, I only associate that design with the Worcester line and we still await a ready-to-run version of the true 'standard' red brick GWR 'box. Kernel (KERNOW - damned spell-corrector!) came close with Truro but that's a big 'box for the average model station. The new kit from Ratio should fit the bill for this style of 'box but why there's been so much concentration over the years on non-standard 'boxes, is hard to explain. We've been lulled into accepting that Highley signal box was typical. It wasn't - by a long shot! (CJL)

Edited February 14, 2018 by dibber25