Wooferton

[Richard E]

Guys

 

These photo's are gems, I've found one or two of them already but they add so much.

 

The railwaymens cottages arte still extant by the way, I recognise them from my visit to the area. Also one of the photographs gives exactly, in my mind, the same feel as I can my trackplan giving so it confirms I'm on the right track (pun intended).

[Methuselah]

Guys

 

These photo's are gems, I've found one or two of them already but they add so much.

 

The railwaymens cottages arte still extant by the way, I recognise them from my visit to the area. Also one of the photographs gives exactly, in my mind, the same feel as I can my trackplan giving so it confirms I'm on the right track (pun intended).

 

I have many more, - but I didn't want you to think I was hijacking your thread...! If there are any specific details you are after, just ask. The track-plan did alter over the years, but only in detail. If one ignores the later removal of the west bay, then it basically boils down to the removal of the wagon-turntable and the addition of more sidings for the timber-yard. There were sidings associated with the engine shed on the north side of the branch, most of which seemed to have survived until the end - even if disused, because the redundant shed was used for water. There was, as far as my research has shown, no water at Woofferton. The next watering-hole on the branch was Cleobury. Surprisingly, I have seen no evidence of a water tower or crane at Tenbury or any other intermediate points until probably Bewdley. What date are you basing your version upon....? I'm aiming for 1922/23, as then I can bring-in the LNWR, but I think the LNWR signalling wasn't replaced until some time later, so you can run quite a wide period of trains. 

     Attached two images of the old Woofferton Engine Shed. The eastern shot is from a book, the western shot from an old snap. It's quite similar to a number of commercially available kits with it's water-tank over the entrance. The width at the tank is different, so I think that was a slightly later addition, but the shed itself was built in the 1860's I believe. The shed 'officially' closed in about 1900, but was used for water until the station and yard closed.

[Richard E]

Looking to the 1930's as the base period so the shed would have closed by then. Having said that a certain amount of Rule 1 will be exercised so it may well be 're-opened' for some running sessions!

 

The scenic side will be some time yet. Quite a bit of track still to lay, electrics to sort out before even thinking of other bits and pieces but I'll keep the offer in mind - thank you.

[Brassey]

This is a link to the Signal Record Society page on Woofferton showing a signal diagram and other information:

 

https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/gwt/S2977.htm

 

The original signalbox was extended by the LNWR in 1889.  A new frame was provided with 55 working levers for the enlarged cabin.  The above link includes a list of changes in the 1950/60's but what happened in between is subject to further research.

[Methuselah]

A few more snaps;-

 

1. Loco diversity I. This is a wartime snap of the GWR's loco shed at Worcester - with LNER locos far from their home metals.

 

2. An old hand-tinted photo of Tenbury Goods Yard, looking towards the town itself. Hard to date - but probably around 1900-ish.

 

3. Loco Diversity II. One of the ubiquitous LMS 4F's at the ex-LNWR/LMS shed at Leominster post-war.

[Brassey]

Interestingly all the wagons on the back row of the Tenbury shot have their doors open, apart from the big sheeted one.  Some look as though they might have dumb buffers so could be 1890's

 

PS: the GW wagon in red would also confirm that date as the change to grey occurred in the 1900's

Edited September 15, 2018 by Brassey

[Richard E]

Got the signal diagram already, it has been very helpful.

[Methuselah]

Trains At Wooferton.

 

1) A post-war snap of a 4500 in the west-bay at Woofferton, run round and ready to depart. Circa 1950's

 

2) A snap of a 1400 and GWR Autocoach waiting on the main southbound platform at Woofferton. It's probably slated to return to Kidderminster, but some did run-on to Ludlow of Leominster in earlier days. (Timetable patterns et al are not my strong point....!). The shot must be late '50's to early '60's, as the crossing diamonds to the West Bay have already gone.

 

3) A northbound GW Castle in BR days dragging a Hawksworth tender.

 

4) A 1400 under the footbridge, probably destined for Kidderminster, probably in the 1950's. The hexagonal gas-lamp in the photo was a bit of an oddball. Most were the usual four-sided.

 

5) A southbound GW Castle thunders past a GWR railcar, almost certainly waiting to head-off the Kidderminster. Again, probably 1950's. The spotters seem highly animated... It looks cold....!

 

6) A GW Diesel Railmotor is loading/offloading parcels & post on the south-bound platform - again 1950's.

 

7) This shot was probably taken at the same time as (1) above. The branch train may be awaiting connection to the north-bound train that has been given the Right O'way.

[Methuselah]

     A late-build GWR Hall hurries south under the Park Lane Bridge with nine coaches during the ealy 1960's. Both northbound and southbound refuges are in use and in good order. In LNWR days, they were not ken to allow the GWR's 4-6-0's onto this line. After Nationalisation, the line became available  even to Castles and Kings. One wonders if the mighty 4700's ever strayed this far from their usual rails....

     Just behind where the photographer was standing, used to be the old entrance to the Ballast Pit Sidings for the gravel-pits.

[Brassey]

     A late-build GWR Hall hurries south under the Park Lane Bridge with nine coaches during the ealy 1960's. Both northbound and southbound refuges are in use and in good order. In LNWR days, they were not ken to allow the GWR's 4-6-0's onto this line. After Nationalisation, the line became available  even to Castles and Kings. One wonders if the mighty 4700's ever strayed this far from their usual rails....

     Just behind where the photographer was standing, used to be the old entrance to the Ballast Pit Sidings for the gravel-pits.

 

Interesting that the cess, even in these late steam days, is still kept very clear and is a lighter colour on the main lines than the ballast!

[Richard E]

Firstly I apologise for the lack of posting - sciatica since October has rather put paid to progress until very recently.

 

Secondly thank you to everyone who has posted photographs above, some I have not seen before and they are going to be very helpful when building the station buildings. One thing I am not doing is sticking with the LNWR style signal box though and a GWR style box will go in its place.

 

So, on to some progress. I was, originally, going to use stone overbridges either end of the station on the main line for ease of building but I then found the laser cut girder bridge from In the Greenwood, it is supposed to be rail over road so you would expect a couple of feet of 'roadbed' from base to track level:

 

 

I've taken this and hacked it a lot for the northern end narrowing it to the width of a typical farm track overbridge which is what it is on the prototype. I've got a representation of the turnout for the goods lines north of the station under here, it looks a bit rough on the ballasting at the moment but that still needs some cleaning up. On the top of the bank to the right the track will turn sharp left to parallel the railway to fields on the skyline. Not quite as per prototype but it is an acceptable compromise for the space that I have available:

 

 

 

And a bit for the southern end to create a skew bridge that carries the public road over the line. Again I've narrowed it to a typical width which actually is massively helpful in putting it on the skew. I think the ballasting looks better here. To the left of the bridge seen here there will be a short length of line on view before it disappears behind a row of trees and undergrowth. In reality it will turn under that line of trees, on the prototype it would follow them:

 

 

Still a fair bit of work to do on painting and getting the road levels right. The sides are set a bit high at present as it turns out that I've assembled the sides to the base incorrectly so I'll now look at that. The piers are to be finished to represent blue engineering brick.

 

As can be seen the platform will run under the bridge on one side as per the prototype. In both instances the bridges will act as a scenic break, when viewing from the normal side, the east side of the station, hiding the curve of the mainline which to the north is in the wrong direction and to the south the model is just plain wrong! However it should be possible to use trees and hedges to fool the eye into thinking that the line goes in the correct direction as I've said above.

 

The photographs are a bit cruel at the moment in showing up unfinished bits (but I'm impressed as they were taken on an iPhone) and embankments that are, at present, at impossible angles for earth slopes. That will be addressed now I've seen them but isn't really obvious from the intended viewpoint.

 

Where the branch goes under the main road the trackplan has been compressed quite severely, I'll use a stone single track overbridge here, I suspect the prototype would have been brick.

 

Edited February 28, 2019 by Richard E
misplaced photo

[Brassey]

The signal box is not LNWR.  The signal boxes on the S&H were designed for that line which was joint LNWR/GWR when the signalling was installed.  There is a drawing of the box in Richard Foster's book in the joint lines section towards the back

[The Johnster]

On 17/09/2018 at 00:01, Methuselah said:

Trains At Wooferton.

 

1) A post-war snap of a 4500 in the west-bay at Woofferton, run round and ready to depart. Circa 1950's

 

2) A snap of a 1400 and GWR Autocoach waiting on the main southbound platform at Woofferton. It's probably slated to return to Kidderminster, but some did run-on to Ludlow of Leominster in earlier days. (Timetable patterns et al are not my strong point....!). The shot must be late '50's to early '60's, as the crossing diamonds to the West Bay have already gone.

 

3) A northbound GW Castle in BR days dragging a Hawksworth tender.

 

4) A 1400 under the footbridge, probably destined for Kidderminster, probably in the 1950's. The hexagonal gas-lamp in the photo was a bit of an oddball. Most were the usual four-sided.

 

5) A southbound GW Castle thunders past a GWR railcar, almost certainly waiting to head-off the Kidderminster. Again, probably 1950's. The spotters seem highly animated... It looks cold....!

 

6) A GW Diesel Railmotor is loading/offloading parcels & post on the south-bound platform - again 1950's.

 

7) This shot was probably taken at the same time as (1) above. The branch train may be awaiting connection to the north-bound train that has been given the Right O'way.

Photo 5 shows a Hawksworth 10xx County, not a Castle; straight steam pipes and plate frames, with a plate frame bogie.  The boiler is a Swindonised domeless version of a Stanier 8F’s, as Hawksworth used the tooling for the batch of 8Fs built at Swindon during the war.  

[Methuselah]

12 hours ago, Brassey said:

The signal box is not LNWR.  The signal boxes on the S&H were designed for that line which was joint LNWR/GWR when the signalling was installed.  There is a drawing of the box in Richard Foster's book in the joint lines section towards the back

 

What that book called please...?

[Brassey]

6 hours ago, Methuselah said:

 

What that book called please...?

A Pictorial Record of LNWR Signalling by Richard D. Foster

[Richard E]

OK, sorry for the lack of posting but I have been making progress.

 

To be fair it isn't going to be a truly faithful model as I've said before but I'm aiming for the feel of the area.

 

Scenic work is now under way, a week ago the south end of the station looked like this, please excuse the 9F, it is just a place holder for now. The platforms are in place. I really need to get my head round depth of field and/or focus stacking from the look of this - taken with a Canon DSLR:

 

 

I'm using a generic backscene but it works for me even though the hills are a bit too high. I just do not have the skills to produce my own. So, the south end of the station with a skew road bridge now looks like this after a little bit of work:

 

 

Still a lot to do - the platform surface and walls need dealing with, stop blocks need fitting on the end of the lines in the background, the bridge piers need to be completely bedded in, the far one isn't quite complete as yet. Then there will be station buildings to erect, stock and buildings to weather, hedges and fences to plant, road surface to get right, but, compared to what I have done in the past, this is beginning to look more like a model railway than anything I've produced in the past.

 

It's not going to be in the league of many of the layouts on here but, as it is really a first effort at a fully scenic model I am feeling fairly happy so far especially as this is in N - I don't feel that it looks overly like N in the picture (which, by the way, was taken on an iPhone).

 

 

[Methuselah]

Just a Pre-Grouping Luggage Label from Woofferton - a minor link with the past... :-)

 

 

 

[Blowke]

Morning morning,

What a thing to stumble across.
I actually live on the Skew Bridge at Woofferton! We back on to the ballast pit just before the Skew Bridge and seeing someone model what essentially is my back garden is utterly amazing. The view of the scale Skew Bridge with Clee Hill in the background is really quite faithful, as you can imagine, it's a view I see many times a day and considering you're working from old photos and scraps of information, you've done amazingly well.
Are you still working on the project? If yes, you'd be more than welcome to stand in my garden to take a panorama for the background. I make decent tea!
Alex

 

[Richard E]

On 02/02/2020 at 12:54, Blowke said:

Morning morning,

What a thing to stumble across.
I actually live on the Skew Bridge at Woofferton! We back on to the ballast pit just before the Skew Bridge and seeing someone model what essentially is my back garden is utterly amazing. The view of the scale Skew Bridge with Clee Hill in the background is really quite faithful, as you can imagine, it's a view I see many times a day and considering you're working from old photos and scraps of information, you've done amazingly well.
Are you still working on the project? If yes, you'd be more than welcome to stand in my garden to take a panorama for the background. I make decent tea!
Alex

 

 

Wow, thanks for the compliment. I hope having snatched this picture from the road doesn't offend. I really need some better pictures before I start scratchbuilding to suit my layout. At least I get a start to the feel of the building even if I was guessing a bit at scale. I now feel I need to revisit at some point or rely on local input

 

 

I did a site visit a couple of years ago with plenty of pictures taken albeit from the road. The resulting view across the bridge is how I pictured, in my mind, the way it would look. The whole idea, for me, was to get something that worked in providing a realistic view even if it wasn't totally faithful.

 

Unfortunately work stalled a bit at the end of last year due to an incident in another hobby that has weighed on my mind much more than I had realised. The next fortnight should finally see closure on that though so I'm hoping motivation will return soon.

 

The biggest issue is a lack of prototype photographs in period so a lot is going on interpretation and infill on what is available. Also I'm shed based so better weather will help, it's not pleasant with a heavy frost on the shed roof despite the shed being insulated.

 

Just as a teaser I'll add this picture that represents the branch where it went under the main A49 road near the pub, still very much a work in progress. That view just does not exist these days, the area once occupied by the railway under the bridge has been filled in. It will be more fiction than reality though around here especially as the yard layout isn't totally faithful. Not a bad picture given it was taken on my phone ...

 

[Dave47549]

.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Dave47549
Removed pointless guff

[Blowke]

4 hours ago, Richard E said:

 

Wow, thanks for the compliment. I hope having snatched this picture from the road doesn't offend. I really need some better pictures before I start scratchbuilding to suit my layout. At least I get a start to the feel of the building even if I was guessing a bit at scale. I now feel I need to revisit at some point or rely on local input

 

 

I did a site visit a couple of years ago with plenty of pictures taken albeit from the road. The resulting view across the bridge is how I pictured, in my mind, the way it would look. The whole idea, for me, was to get something that worked in providing a realistic view even if it wasn't totally faithful.

 

Unfortunately work stalled a bit at the end of last year due to an incident in another hobby that has weighed on my mind much more than I had realised. The next fortnight should finally see closure on that though so I'm hoping motivation will return soon.

 

The biggest issue is a lack of prototype photographs in period so a lot is going on interpretation and infill on what is available. Also I'm shed based so better weather will help, it's not pleasant with a heavy frost on the shed roof despite the shed being insulated.

 

Just as a teaser I'll add this picture that represents the branch where it went under the main A49 road near the pub, still very much a work in progress. That view just does not exist these days, the area once occupied by the railway under the bridge has been filled in. It will be more fiction than reality though around here especially as the yard layout isn't totally faithful. Not a bad picture given it was taken on my phone ...

 

 

Hi Richard,

Not at all! Research is an entirely neccessary animal!
Our garden does have access to the ballast pit and old sidings just before the a49 Skew Bridge, although it's not official, it's our and the neighbours only pedestrian access to the village of Woofferton and Brimfield just accross the way. Although the sidings are gone, you can still find all the old track and buffer stops amongst the undergrowth between ours and the mainline, which is situated between the Park Lane and Skew Bridges.
I'll get snapping for you, please do let me know which bits are most useful and those which you've been unable to gain access and i'll happily oblige. My boss is the daughter-in-law of the Woofferton and Ashford Carbonell Signalman and has pictures and books stashed away, although she also has MS, which makes finding them a time consuming business, so i'm sorry, but I can only try with those.
How exciting!
Were you aware that the land was purchased from the Leominster Canal Company and did indeed used to be a canal, before being filled in and the track laid? Parts of it have been turned into a footpath that can be walked from the A456 junction at the Salwey Arms down towards Little Hereford where it joins the Teme where you can find an old aquaduct amongst lots of other intereresting things, There is also an abandoned 300ft Tunnel a little further down, between Woofferton and Orleton.
The Station building and Engine shed now form part of the premises for the Ludlow Salvage and David Ward Firewood yard, Kev is an excellent sort and would probably let you have a proper nose about if you asked him nicely. There is also sure to be a bit of a campaign to get the station reopened under the new Beeching-reversal bill, so i'll keep you updated if I hear of an open day or some such fundraising.
Let's me nose!

 

[Richard E]

1 hour ago, Blowke said:

 

Hi Richard,

Not at all! Research is an entirely neccessary animal!
Our garden does have access to the ballast pit and old sidings just before the a49 Skew Bridge, although it's not official, it's our and the neighbours only pedestrian access to the village of Woofferton and Brimfield just accross the way. Although the sidings are gone, you can still find all the old track and buffer stops amongst the undergrowth between ours and the mainline, which is situated between the Park Lane and Skew Bridges.
I'll get snapping for you, please do let me know which bits are most useful and those which you've been unable to gain access and i'll happily oblige. My boss is the daughter-in-law of the Woofferton and Ashford Carbonell Signalman and has pictures and books stashed away, although she also has MS, which makes finding them a time consuming business, so i'm sorry, but I can only try with those.
How exciting!
Were you aware that the land was purchased from the Leominster Canal Company and did indeed used to be a canal, before being filled in and the track laid? Parts of it have been turned into a footpath that can be walked from the A456 junction at the Salwey Arms down towards Little Hereford where it joins the Teme where you can find an old aquaduct amongst lots of other intereresting things, There is also an abandoned 300ft Tunnel a little further down, between Woofferton and Orleton.
The Station building and Engine shed now form part of the premises for the Ludlow Salvage and David Ward Firewood yard, Kev is an excellent sort and would probably let you have a proper nose about if you asked him nicely. There is also sure to be a bit of a campaign to get the station reopened under the new Beeching-reversal bill, so i'll keep you updated if I hear of an open day or some such fundraising.
Let's me nose!

 

 

Wow! This really adds to things, Thanks. I have a vague personal connection to the area, albeit 30 miles or so north at Cross Houses/Berrington and also to Ludlow. Possibly a vague connection to Brimfield too but I've not really bottomed that out. I'd looked at stations in the Brimfield area but none fitted what I wanted.

 

Wooferton station itself had all the attributes for my model, scenic breaks on all three 'boundaries' and an interesting track layout. It appears it was also relatively remote from the village, like many stations, so there is less 'architecture' immediately around the station. Some compromises will exist of course, one of those is width of one platform, but it'll satisfy me.

 

The main thing for me is some pictures of what remains of station buildings etc so that I can get a semblance of atmosphere right about the station. I've managed to track down a handful of period pictures that will help but some buildings such as the Stationmasters house, the station building and the goods shed.

[Blowke]

Give me a few days or so and i'll see what I can get.

 

[Brassey]

11 hours ago, Blowke said:

you can still find all the old track and buffer stops amongst the undergrowth

 

Hi Guys,

 

You may have noticed that I am building Berrington and Eye which is (was) the next station down!  Any pictures of the buffer stops and sidings would be gratefully appreciated.  And anything else.

[Phil Bullock]

My ex's Uncle is Rev Selwyn Frost - fireman at Kidderminster in the 50s, subsequently took the cloth and was quoted in one of the books - might be the Tenbury and Bewdley Railway - as despite being on the footplate of the last train he was unable to save the line....

 

My own memories are of a Pannier and coaches taking the level crossing in front of us at Little Hereford and of the line after closure being full of redundant wagons around Newnham Bridge. Tony Barfield's Kidderminster footplate books - When there was Steam, Panneirs and Praries -  are very readable if you havent seen them....

 

Wooferton has always looked attractive to me with modelling potential - really enjoyed this thread, looking forwards to further progress.