Jump to content
 

Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Signalling the changes...


Recommended Posts

The doors look to be identical in size, and I know that the size discrepancy from different classes of house could be quite large. The door opening (as opposed to size) suggests the bay window house has higher ceilings. As an example, without too much research, I just stepped outside my front door and saw this (the road is completely level, we are not on a slope):

 

P9160144.JPG.52d2466f680569c5080369be42aff701.JPG

Edited by webbcompound
  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you, @webbcompound - that's a helpful photo. Unfortunately, large swathes of Edinburgh are uniformly-sized multi-storey sandstone terraces, so there are large areas (especially in the New Town - largely built between the 1760s and 1850s) with not much variation here. 

distinctive-georgian-terraces-edinburgh-
 

I'll probably still not have the two houses quite next to each other - I reckon that a gradual shift from fancier houses at one end of the street through to the smaller, cheaper ones at the other probably won't look too bad.

  • Like 1
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

On 16/09/2020 at 15:21, Compound2632 said:

The further away, the smaller it looks...

 

Almost certainly sold as "00/H0 Scale"!


Afraid not - they're marked "00 Gauge" on the box! Quite how a house has a gauge I'm not sure, I'm now imagining a Wallace-and-Gromit-esque house on rails which simply trundles down to the beach at holiday times!

I got a little distracted painting interior walls - I decided that I'd look up some late Victorian/Edwardian interior design schemes. I painted up a few walls then realised "Hang on, surely they'd all have net curtains up" followed shortly by "But if it's night, surely the curtains would be drawn and you wouldn't see the lights anyway!". Hmmm. Might have to rethink that one!

 

Interior.jpg.26cf4d7e19601edf9552f9b2085d5297.jpg

The main frontage of the semi-detached houses is complete, and I'm going to start on the shops next week. Or rather, start building them - the painting has already commenced! One is going to be a greengrocer, the other a butcher. I have plans to use the bakery bits for another shop further down the road. I'm wondering though whether the aubergines should be repainted as some form of squash, but I wanted a splash of colour...

20200920_215224.jpg

 

The potatoes have since had a brown wash and some light brown-grey dry-brushing!

  • Like 7
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

they're supposed to be marrows

This was my first thought. A chance to show off lining skills perhaps...?

three-marrows-in-a-box-4bd88c3.jpg?quali

 

Completely unhelpful, but Wiki has this to say about the arrival of the aubergine to these shores, from 1597:

"This plant groweth in Egypt almost everywhere... bringing foorth fruite of the bignes of a great Cucumber.... We have had the same in our London gardens, where it hath borne flowers, but the winter approching before the time of ripening, it perished: notwithstanding it came to beare fruite of the bignes of a goose egge one extraordinarie temperate yeere... but never to the full ripenesse." Too good not to share :)

 

More usefully, 1960s says the Grauniad, 1950s for followers of the Independent (citing Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson and Claudia Roden).  Seems on the early side...

Edited by Schooner
  • Like 1
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you for the advice. The aubergines will become marrows, and thus almost everything visible here will become green. I suppose that's why it's called a greengrocer.

Little modelling has been done over the weekend, as I've been away from home, but a thoroughly pleasant evening or two of heraldry and graphic design with @Corbs has resulted in the Great Southern Railway now having a proper garter crest, with the coats of arms of Guildford on the left (pre-1930 arms were a bit difficult to find!) and the coat of arms of Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (also Earl of Sussex), owner of Bagshot Lodge, to represent Bagshot at the other end of the line. Bagshot did have its coat of arms granted until 1960, so while it is lovely, it's rather too early at the turn of the century!

Anyway, without further ado, Corbs' handiwork:
GSR-crest-2a.jpg

Edited by Skinnylinny
  • Like 13
  • Craftsmanship/clever 5
  • Round of applause 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

Thank you for the advice. The aubergines will become marrows, and thus almost everything visible here will become green. I suppose that's why it's called a greengrocer.

Little modelling has been done over the weekend, as I've been away from home, but a thoroughly pleasant evening or two of heraldry and graphic design with @Corbs has resulted in the Great Southern Railway now having a proper garter crest, with the coats of arms of Guildford on the left (pre-1930 arms were a bit difficult to find!) and the coat of arms of Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (also Earl of Sussex), owner of Bagshot Lodge, to represent Bagshot at the other end of the line. Bagshot did have its coat of arms granted until 1960, so while it is lovely, it's rather too early at the turn of the century!

Anyway, without further ado, Corbs' handiwork:
GSR-crest-2a.jpg

Gorgeous! 

  • Agree 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
On 16/09/2020 at 13:13, Skinnylinny said:

A little more work on the row of houses along the back of Station Road - I managed to get my hands on a pair of the old Hornby semi-detached kits - one Victorian Semi and one pair of matching shops. The plan is to cut the buildings in half, using the fronts as half-relief along the backscene, while the rears will be used over the tunnel used as a scenic break. Perfect! At first glance, things looked good - proper Flemish-bond brickwork, beautifully-moulded displays for the shops (4mm scale chicken, bacon, ham and ribs?, anyone?):

Meat.jpg.d1d15dd5501966a891d34298b5e3f91e.jpg

However, once I started to build, there are a few issues. The fit of parts... isn't great. The corners I have tidied up with a bit of filler, but the windows don't fit very nicely into the front wall - there's a bit of a gap around the edges of the bricks making up the arch. I got the thing built up, and plonked it next to a Petite Properties kit, and. Well.

20200916_074240.jpg

There's a bit of a size discrepancy! Normally I'd disguise this by saying that the right-hand one is a more up-market building (presumably further from the station with its soot and grime?) while the left-hand building is more of a worker's house, with lower ceilings, smaller rooms etc. I think this might be one of those cases of early building kits being made to a slightly smaller scale so as to fit better (read: more!) on a train set board.

 

A good way to check sizes of houses is estate agent's particulars - As they look similar to the Victorian terraces round here, I've found this one, for which the front bedroom is 16' 1" wide, and the garden is listed as 16' 5" - so you'd be looking at ~66mm in 4mm/ft (so 132mm for the pair). Another similar one is 13'2", and this one, over in Horsham, is 13'11"

  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Victorian / Edwardian terraced houses were standardised at 15 ft, 18 ft, 21 ft widths, at least in Reading. So I imagine the plots of land were marked off in yards. Of course those dimensions are also integer multiples of the standard 9" brick (including mortar).

  • Informative/Useful 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Well something different again (Yes, I do seem to jump about a lot, don't I?).

The laser cutter software played ball today, much to my surprise, so I managed to get some bits cut, including my first laser-cut acetate (for which I still need to play around with the settings to get a clean cut). A few mists of spray paint, a couple of dabs of Sharpie, some brush painting, some wire bending and gluing... and we have:

20200927_212753.jpg

Even better, it moves! This one was mainly intended as a proof-of-concept, and I will probably re-laser the spectacles in acetate rather than card once I get the settings dialed in properly, but it looks like the GSR standard slotted-post signal design is coming along nicely.
 

 

  • Like 5
  • Craftsmanship/clever 12
Link to post
Share on other sites

A slightly better picture of the signal in question, now that it has been painted  and had various detailing parts added. I'm in two minds on whether to fit a "proper" finial or just leave the post with a plain cap. I suspect that a spiky finial, while being more painful if not paying attention while rail cleaning, is more probable.

20200928_205832.jpg

  • Like 6
  • Craftsmanship/clever 9
Link to post
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That would shout North Eastern Railway. That might or might not be what you want.

 

5 minutes ago, Annie said:

A simple peaked cap would be a lot less costly regarding sticking plaster purchases.


Both good points. I'd prefer to avoid anything that brings to mind any real company, while still trying to stay within the realms of plausibility. This may have something to do with why I'm saving up for two rakes of the Hattons Genesis carriages, which, while professing to be generic are in fact very close to accurate models of GSR rolling stock. The panelling style matches, the only major differences are that GSR 6-wheelers had continuous footboards, and the guard's lookouts on GWR carriages had a different profile. 

Looking at photos, plain peaked caps seem to actually be fairly rare in pre-grouping settings. Given the signalling was ostensibly carried out by Saxby & Farmer (hence the appearance of their 'box on the layout) perhaps I should go for one of their patterns... 

Wizard Models show a nice simple Saxby & Farmer "pagoda type" cap as seen on LBSC signals (among others):
 image.png.b0084934ca20e1f9d05f7bda42827d90.png

Although there's also this rather nice NER one, also by Saxby & Farmer...
  

image.png.eda7a2c086098ce206071cd9f1fb62b5.png

And this frankly terrifying McKenzie & Holland type, which I think I'd want cast in some form of flexible rubber!

image.png.7252a274e7263130b85db0a4c22c88a7.png

  • Like 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm still torn. I do like the idea of the Saxby & Farmer Pagoda style cap and they ought to be easy enough to 3D print. 

The signal has now been planted on the entrance to the station - the down home on the far right of the plan below.
image.png.03cd4660998688345d76f45e7ac08035.png
I felt like I had to run a ceremonial "first signalled train" (although not that ceremonial, or I would have tidied up a bit!


The next signal to be worked on will be the bracket platform starter on platforms 1 and 2 (where 1 is the end-loading/dock). Because platform 1 will, strictly speaking, be a goods line, it's getting a ringed arm thus:
image.png.f43513814b350987d7c7f4dd3899be4d.png
 

The rocking arms for the operating wires will be sandwiched inside the bracket structure and thus (hopefully!) invisible from most viewing angles. After this will be the signal for departing from platform 3 (a simple single-arm signal allowing access to the up line over the crossover - I can't see any reason to allow access back to the down line? It doesn't give access to anywhere other than platform 3, then the big complicated one on the up line allowing shunting access to anywhere in the station, and the yard. From left to right I imagine this will need:

- Miniature arm for access to yard
- Entry to Platform 3 (possibly with a calling-on arm?)
- Entry to Platform 2 (with calling-on arm)
- Miniature arm for access to Platform 1 (parcels bay)

That's going to take some building!
 

The bits for the Platform 1/2 starter have now been drawn up, and since it's my day off today, I'm going to go for a wander down to the hacklab later on...

  • Like 5
  • Craftsmanship/clever 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, I went to the lab and cut the first version of the bracket signal. I came home and had a go at building it but found several problems with the design. There were several places where I hadn't left enough clearance for moving parts, and I'd made the rocking lever very fragile. A quick redesign and another trip back to the lab, and I had a much better chance at getting it to work correctly. In fact, after about an hour of fiddly assembly (with operating wires repeatedly jumping out of holes - they're held in place by other parts assembled later) I now have the basics functioning. Next step is painting and then fitting spectacles and back blinders.

 

20200930_225644.jpg

 

20200930_225730.jpg

 

But that can wait for another night!

  • Like 5
  • Craftsmanship/clever 6
  • Round of applause 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...