Swindon Panel Signal Box

[Boco_D1]

I've been moddeling in N Gauge for a few years now and whilst awaiting my new pendolino will continue to do so for some time. I enjoy moddeling in N Gauge, its advantage of long trains in scenery is great, but recently I've been wanting to build in a bit more detail and I've been thinking about the longer term, what would be more ideal collection to have later in life, the answer of course is O Gauge, but as there's no guarantee I'd be able to fit a full size four track Mainline circuit into any future abode, it would probally be best if I went with OO. So recently I've starting planning for the future and have been building up a collection of 80s and 90s stock for a layout that will be based around my fondest memories of the railway.

 

But whilst I can't start on the construction of the layout right now there is no reason why I can't start building other bits for it and so I decided to build something I've been intending to build for some time, the first signal box I worked, Swindon Panel.

I was at Swindon for four years and typically I didn't take a single photo of the outside, so working with a photo from my old training plan and few shots I managed to search out on line and using my memory for the the bits I couldn't find I sketched out a plan. The size is not going be exact to the model but I managed to count brick courses and using my memory of the size of rooms I worked out a not to far off size.

 

So with a rough estimate of size and with the use of my source material I got the biggest sheet of mount board I could find and began marking up...

 

I've started with Panel Room and half of the relay room on the ground floor, at first I wasn't convinced I had got the measurements right but I decided to go ahead and if it looked wrong I could always start again.

 

Once the walls where folded I was more convinced...

 

So I moved onto the upstairs floor marking out the various rooms, I may have got the width of the building a little short as there should be a bit more space between the office and the corridor but it's only a couple of (scale) feet too short so I can live with that. I intend to make the interior upstairs fully detailed, showing the box the way I remember it and if possible create a representation of the relays downstairs, fortunately the Swindon Panel society have a few photos I can use for that part.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Boco_D1

[ba14eagle]

Looking forward to seeing this develop, as I too worked this panel box.

[Boco_D1]

Hello Mr.H didn't know you where on RMweb

[timbowilts]

You two gentlemen will be aware of the following link?

 

swindonpanel.org.uk

 

Tim T

[Boco_D1]

You two gentlemen will be aware of the following link?

swindonpanel.org.uk

Tim T

Very much so, that's where I'll be going for the photos of the interlocking room.

[Boco_D1]

Work has started on the ops floor, I've started with the corridor wall, marking out where the doors will go and then moving on to the doors.

The doors to the Panel room have windows above, I decided to use thin card folded on itself with the frame cut out one half and the door on the other, using two of the these to sandwich clear acetate to make the full assembly.

All four doors for the corridor done, I found a video on YouTube of the Panel being removed from the building and noticed the kitchen and corridor door didn't have bottom windows! So these where filled in with some plastic putty and filled down. The store cupboard doors are just one piece of card folded on itself. All have various door handles and the entrance to the Panel has the various no unauthorised signage added to it.

The doors where inserted into the wall, I'm not sure why but the store cupboard end bowed up from the floor thus the butchering above the frame and the puddle of glue, I'm not to fussed as the the ceiling is at the top of the frames and the floor will be covered.

With the doors in place I moved on to the cleaners cupboard, in the panel the wall in cupboard had an old notice board with a very worn ordnance survey map of the Swindon area. I've tried to recreate the same here, using various brown and grey alcohol markers to age the map and then using my smallest fineliner to draw the map.

When everything is together the chances of seeing this detailing through the window is going to be small but I still went for it, I find it quite fun adding little bits like this. The vacuum cleaner is made up of a vacuum cylinder from a kit with buffer heads for wheels and some thin brass strip bent to shape. I used a bit of square plastistrut for the boxes and the bottles on the top shelf are made from machine gun ammunition that was a spare part from an Airfix kit. I also added some door closers to the green doors, you can just see one above the kitchen door, I made this out of some spare brake wriging from a battered old kit. Next job will be the kitchen.

[Boco_D1]

Work on the upstairs interior detail has been going strong and I have now completed the corridor side of the floor.

I laid the kitchen out as I remembered it building the cupboards, cooker, fridge and sink from thin card folded into various box shapes. A few small pieces of detail,can also be seen, the tap is a staple and there is various bits of spare plastic kit parts that make up the kettle and saucepan, with a few dirty plates left lying around.

 

To complete the kitchen scene I added various other details inclusing the bin and a piece of Airfix station platform fence to represent the radiator.

I added shelves above the sink and used a chopped up cotton bud to represent the various cups that where kept on the shelve and hung above the sink, it must be time for another cuppa as two mugs sit next to the kettle.

The kitchen table is an old one from a kit master kit with some new legs. The chairs are made from a platform bench that I chopped down and added legs to.

The final part of the corridor side is the Men's and Women's toilet, things are very tight and trying to get a good photo was proving a tad difficult, but you can make out the various signage and door handles.

The detailing in these rooms is very small and my iPhone couldn't quite focus but hopefully you can make out what I've done. This is the men's loo with a coat hanging on the pegs, electric heater and loo roll on the wall.

This is the ladies, the sink comes from an old kit master kit the tiles are drawn on thin card and the mirror is clear acetate with humbrol no.56 painted on the back.

And no toilet would be complete without a toilet. These are made up of various card components with the bowls made from th off cuts of two posts that I have hollowed out (with a bit of glue n glaze to make the water)

I used to work with a chap who spent an awful lot of time in one of these small rooms, seems his 1:76 equivelant is doing the same!

[timbowilts]

You are doing this in 4mm and not 7mm, aren’t you? That level of internal detail is above and beyond the call of duty IMHO

 

Tim T

[Boco_D1]

It is 4mm, I'm just trying to recreate how I remember the box, downstairs will not be near as detailed as I very rarely ventured into the S&T's mess except for testing the fire alarm, same for the interlocking room. The areas I have done will be seen through the various windows and skylights, I'm also considering making the roof removable.

[ba14eagle]

I used to work with a chap who spent an awful lot of time in one of these small rooms, seems his 1:76 equivelant is doing the same!

 

And he is using the ladies!! Mrs S. wont be happy

In the first picture of the kitchen, dont forget, the freezer was located under the counter, on the wall that backed onto the operating floor.

Im waiting to see all the junk stored in the water tank room and the fish tank on the operating floor :good:

[Boco_D1]

She certainly won't haha, still think the men's needs a pile of nuts magazine's on top of the cistern.

 

I forgot all about the freezer, will certainly have to rectify that, but I don't know if I have enough bits in my scrap box to represent all of Mr G's various stored items in his storage lockup, sorry water tank room.

[Boco_D1]

Ive been neglecting this project for sometime, I bought about 25 Lima PGA wagons to upgrade and have been distracted since (but that’s another story). When I last worked on the project back in January I had been detailing the Opps floor and had completed the panel.

Here is the panel I completed back in January, I modelled it as it was at the end of its life (before preservation) so the track diagram is that of the Swindon area from uffington to box tunnel, the only omission being the the GSM-R terminals, but as intended to model 89-94 that doesn’t matter.

And here’s the panel before the A end was transferred to TVSC a few days latter for comparison.

 

I also added the other details to the opps floor, this will be my main area of concentration for detailing the s&t offices will get a little otherwise the rest I will more than likely leave empty.

 

The panel in place, the change in colour of green is not because I ran out of paint but represents when Thingley junction was added to the end of the panel. I’ve added lockers, the clock and even the first aid box, I still to add the union notice board.

 

And from the other angle is the desks, signaller notice boards, cctv workstation, hot axel box detector unit and most importantly the fish tank. I’ve also done some crude interpretations of Don Breckon’s ‘Country Connection’ and the print of ‘Twighlight of the fifties’.

 

So after neglecting this project for sometime I finally pulled it out of its storage box and started making the other sections of the building.

The box now has the rest of the interlocking room and the boiler housing now attached. Nothing too difficult here but I imagine the stairs on the otherside will be slightly more tricky. They have a door after the first flight which comes out at platform level which I’ll need to get right. But at least it’s starting to look a little more like the building it supposed to be.

[Boco_D1]

The build of Swindon panel continues and I’m pleased to say I’ve built the staircase.

The outer dimensions where a bit of trouble to work out as I couldn’t find a photo of top to bottom where I could count the brick courses so this is a rounded off guess from what I could count.

Inside is pure guess work and memory, the interior was exposed brick although I only had one sheet of super quick red brick paper to hand and my memory is of a more creamy/grey colour but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.

I’m pretty certain the stairs snaked their way up but this is pure guess work and the centre steps are most certainly wrong but fit the dimensions of my build.

But with it all in place they don’t look so bad, I’ve also added the two covered radiators and the box for the fire alarm system.

And to finish the stairs off is Two-hat-Thom the deputy LOM off home with the tuck shop takings book.

[Boco_D1]

With the staircase complete I moved onto the S&T offices, here is where I realised that either the staircase is a little too wide or the whole building was not wide enough.

And my first attempt resulting in the S&T mess room being far too narrow espaecially when compared to photos. As you can see behind is the rebuild, slightly wider but probally still a scale 6-10ft too narrow. However it is far to late to try and start rebuilding.

With all building complete it was time to add the outer skin.

The platform side and...

The front of the signalbox, the brick walls is slater brick plastic sheet, it’s very useful but the brick courses where not quite at right angles to the sheet which made cutting to size slight more interesting. The concrete fashia is made from thin card and slaters corraguted sheet was used for the pigeon loft. I will now start adding the doors windows and internal lighting.

[Boco_D1]

I think it can be said I spent a fair bit of time detailing the interior so I didn’t want to just throw a roof on top. I hadn’t quite planned out how I was going to do the roof but I had left enough gap above the interior walls to fit a ceiling and room from any interior wires to light up the interior.

The ceiling is made from mount board, the tiles lined out using a silver gel pen and then light holes cut out. Originally I cut some clear acetate to size to fit in the holes, by hole number 9 this was far to much a pain in the a*** and so the rest I cut into strips glued on top and used some glue n glaze around the edge of each hole.

I was originally going to wire up some led’s to do the lighting until I watched a YouTube video by New Junction and Richard pointed me in the direction of these led light strips, 10 for 2.99 plus free postage from a well know auction site. They do the job perfectly I wired them up and glued into place.

I will glue the roof on and turn it into a light box, the four holes are for the skylights.

The lights in action, they are certainly bright enough.

The toilets are lit up and signaller TC can use loo unaware of anyone spying on him through the skylight.

[Boco_D1]

The signalmen where complying they where getting wet so i’ve made the signalbox watertight.

So doors and windows have been added. I found a few more photos of the panel in the late 80s and the doors where blue so although it’s too late for the interior doors the exterior have been painted the correct colour.

The kitchen window was rarely kept shut so I’ve modelled it in its standard position. The fire exit has also been modelled in the open position, so firstly you can see in the panel and as I aim to model my layout in spring this was the usual position for the door at that time of year.

 

The stair case is also finished.

As is the S&T mess room.

The work bench and locker room.

And the manager’s office is also complete. Next will be painting the brickwork.

Edited November 11, 2018 by Boco_D1

[Boco_D1]

The updates on this project have been a bit slow but I have been gradually working on the model. I had as planned moved on to painting the walls, an awkward process the motor appears grey and the brick a light red/Cotswold stone colour and trying to get the right balance took several attempts, eventually I painted the motor in humbrol no.32 and the brick in lifecolor stone red and ended up with a satisfying result (if not a little too dark).

When I was reading an article on scratch building buildings, the author mentioned using google earth to measure buildings and that is when it struck me. Not once had I even looked at google earth, I had tried street view which didn’t go right into the car park and therefore I had given up on this tool and worked on my assumptions. What a silly mistake, looking on google earth, I discovered a few things, my building is about 10 per cent too narrow and the boiler house is not joined to the building by another room but is actually an open area housing what I suspect is the UPS generator.

Thirdly the boiler house has an additional door on the side, something I only discovered when putting google earth into 3D, amazing I used to drive by that door everyday I worked there yet not once did I recall it.

I’d would rather have noticed this mistake before painting but that’s the way things go so I decided to rectify two of the mistakes (the building will have to stay skinny now) and replace some of the doors which I wasn’t happy with.

The old room was cut off cut down and reassembled. I decided to reuse the gate I had previously made (although I had thought at the time it was a vent).

I also opened up the new door way on the side.

I found some more photos of the exterior of the building on the Swindon panel preservation site when the panel was being lifted by crane to go to it’s new home in Didcot and using them I weathered my rebuild accordingly with the heavily paint peeled facia board being a particularly pleasing effect.

With the building now corrected I decided to work on finishing off bits of detail, working from the S&T mess room back towards the boiler house. I added the glass porch to the mess room, skylights to locker area on the ground floor. Skylights to the opps floor toilets, air vents and the drainage channel to the roof. I also tidied any exposed edges etc. Just the boiler house to work on now before building the tricky fire escape and adding the down pipes.

[ba14eagle]

You are welcome to come and measure up Westbury, whenever you like!

[Boco_D1]

You are welcome to come and measure up Westbury, whenever you like!

I’ll have to pop over on my next spare day, although the size of that beast of a power box it will take me years to model.

[Boco_D1]

Things are starting to square up on this build and I’m not too far from completion.

The boiler house now has the louvre vent on the roof, the doors have been replaced and I have added a chimney, although I have seen some updated photos on the Swindon panel preservation site since the box has been demolished and I can’t see where the chimney was connected which suggests it may have been on the opposite building, but google earth suggests the otherwise, so a little more digging is needed and it may need to be repositioned.

And I have completed the task I had been dreading and surprisingly it wasn’t as bad as I thought. The fire escape was constructed with plasticard and various evergreen and plastruct parts.

And I’ve added a coach of primer ready for a coat of Humbrol No. 56.

[Boco_D1]

I think it’s just been over a month since I last updated this, Mostly because I was under the impression I hadn’t done much. However looking back I’ve realised that I have actually done a fair bit.

 

 

 

The model is now all glued together into one peice including the roof, the roofs have themselves been weathered to represent a more weather worn covering with  pencil lines to represent the overlapping over the roofing material. And to make sure the model doesn’t break up into its original modules it now sits on a base representing the surrounding pavement, made from grey card with slaters pavement sheet. 

 

 

I have added drain drain pipes and the fenced off area that will eventually contain a few cabinets.

 

 

I have also begun weathering the building, I wasn’t happy with the door to the S&T mess and after finding a photo of it realised it need a light above it and that it was a bit too tall and the wrong colour. I difficult job to rectify when the whole things is glued in and so in the end I feed some fibre optic wire above the door and built a box to represent the light, it’s not great but it does work. The door itself was lowered with a new strip of card to make a new frame above and the window partially filled in with filler.

 

 

I've also weathered the path and added details such as this bike and...

 

 

... Signalman S having a smoke, this a Dapol figure from the workmen set who originally has his arm outstretched pointing.I chopped the arm off repositioned it and painted the pointed finger white to represent a cigarette. There’s plenty of detail work still to do and I have still to work out what the mystery white box between the two buildings was but otherwise this project edges ever closer to completion.

[ba14eagle]

Signalman S is very pleased with his slim figure

[Boco_D1]

On 27/02/2019 at 12:37, ba14eagle said:

Signalman S is very pleased with his slim figure

 

It’s based on his early 1990s figure 

[Chris64B]

Just followed the link to this from one of your other posts - glad I did, its superb!

 

Love the interior detail - great stuff!

[Boco_D1]

Thanks Chris, i’ve Actually finished the model now just need to get round to putting some pictures on here.