Burton-on-Trent South - Adding Buildings

[61656]

6 minutes ago, ISW said:

Now don't get me tempted ... Strange as it seems, I've had a couple of beers in the fridge for most of this year, untouched. I can see beer and running trains being rather relaxing, so long as there are no derailments!

I tend to stick to the alcohol free variety, but the odd beer from the local brewery and a trans-pennine Peak do help get through a stressful day. 

[ISW]

13 minutes ago, 61656 said:

I tend to stick to the alcohol free variety, but the odd beer from the local brewery and a trans-pennine Peak do help get through a stressful day. 

I'd just replace that with a North East / South West (Table 51) Peak on Mk1s...

 

Ian

[61656]

21 hours ago, ISW said:

I'd just replace that with a North East / South West (Table 51) Peak on Mk1s...

 

Ian

What year are you modelling? Surely the Peaks would have been on a mix of  air con and pressure ventilated mk2s with mk1 catering and BG?

[ISW]

29 minutes ago, 61656 said:

What year are you modelling? Surely the Peaks would have been on a mix of  air con and pressure ventilated mk2s with mk1 catering and BG?

I'm 'aiming' at the middle of the 1970s, so I don't think air-con stock would have made it to the NE/SW corridor by that time. However, there would have been some Mk2/2a mixed in with the Mk1s.

Ian

[61656]

43 minutes ago, ISW said:

I'm 'aiming' at the middle of the 1970s, so I don't think air-con stock would have made it to the NE/SW corridor by that time. However, there would have been some Mk2/2a mixed in with the Mk1s.

Ian

Mid 70’s. Well.  
 

I know nothing about that then!

[ISW]

31 minutes ago, 61656 said:

Mid 70’s. Well.  
 

I know nothing about that then!

Don't tell me; "you're too young to remember" ...

 

I'll check back through my old coach spotting notebooks to verify. Yes, coach-spotting was an 'thing' by the mid-1970s following the publishing of the 'Coaching Stock of British Railways' by RCTS in 1974.

Ian

[mallaig1983]

1 hour ago, ISW said:

Don't tell me; "you're too young to remember" ...

 

I'll check back through my old coach spotting notebooks to verify. Yes, coach-spotting was an 'thing' by the mid-1970s following the publishing of the 'Coaching Stock of British Railways' by RCTS in 1974.

Ian

Oh it was still a ‘thing’ in the mid 80s Ian. Greatly aided by a dictaphone. I do remember my Dad thinking I’d lost the plot tho. I drew the line at wagon spotting though. Even the dictaphone would have struggled to keep up with an MGR racing through the centre roads at Oxford. Oh happy memories……..

[ISW]

12 hours ago, ISW said:

 

I'll check back through my old coach spotting notebooks to verify.

So, out came my coach spotting books. I looked at August 1977 for trains through Burton-on-Trent (no particular reason, that just where the book opened!) and all the stock was Mk1, Mk2, or Mk2a. Frankly I'm amazed my memory of that time is as good as it appears.

 

10 hours ago, mallaig1983 said:

Oh it was still a ‘thing’ in the mid 80s Ian. Greatly aided by a dictaphone. I do remember my Dad thinking I’d lost the plot tho. I drew the line at wagon spotting though. Even the dictaphone would have struggled to keep up with an MGR racing through the centre roads at Oxford. Oh happy memories……..

In my opinion (oh dear, here we go ... cue disagreements) coaching spotting really started with the RCTS book of 1974. It probably became a little more 'mainstream' in 1979 when Platform 5 brought out their own version of the Coaching Stock book. I'd say it became 'normal' (that's probably not the word most people would associate with coach spotting) around the mid-1980s when Ian Allans' 'Combined Volume' started including coach numbers (the 1983 version does not include coaches, but the 1988 one does). Which year did it start?

 

When I was coach spotting, dictaphones were not available, well not on my pocket money. I did try a cassette recorder once, but it wasn't a great success. It took tool ong to play the recording back to transcribe the numbers, during which time you'd miss the next Sidings. I learnt to write lists of numbers without looking at the paper, and devised methods of reducing 5-digit coach numbers (the most common back then) to 3-digits by remembering 2 and writing 3. Mk3 trains were the easiest (I used to cycle down the A38 to Lichfield Trent Valley, not something I'd recommend these days) as you only needed the last 2-digits, once you'd kept 1st class from 2nd class.

 

You've really got me going back in time with this thread.

 

Ian

 

[5BarVT]

56 minutes ago, ISW said:

(I used to cycle down the A38 to Lichfield Trent Valley, not something I'd recommend these days)

Not sure that I’d have recommended it back then either!  Mind you, I did cycle on the A52 from Spondon roundabout through Chaddesden.

Paul.

[ISW]

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

Not sure that I’d have recommended it back then either!

What's worse is that 2 of us would cycle down to Lichfield in an evening, after school, from Burton-on-Trent and meet up at Lichfield Trent Valley, and then cycle back together in the dark! We'd regularly do the 15km (~9 miles) distance in about 30-minutes.

 

Ian

[5BarVT]

4 hours ago, ISW said:

We'd regularly do the 15km (~9 miles) distance in about 30-minutes.

So decent bikes too.

Paul.

[ISW]

33 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

So decent bikes too.

Paul.

Paul,

 

Indeed. I recall mine was a Peugeot 15-speed. I put 2 lights on the front and 2 on the back; seemed prudent for A38 in the dark!

 

Ian

[young37215]

7 hours ago, ISW said:

So, out came my coach spotting books. I looked at August 1977 for trains through Burton-on-Trent (no particular reason, that just where the book opened!) and all the stock was Mk1, Mk2, or Mk2a. Frankly I'm amazed my memory of that time is as good as it appears.

I reckon the first air cons to appear on the NE/SW route were on the Edinburgh Plymouth diagram in the late 70's followed by the  Newcastle Bristol diagram. Everything else remained steam/dual heat Mk1's and early Mk2's until the 80's, in some cases this was the case until they were replaced by HST's.    

Edited October 13, 2021 by young37215

[ISW]

5 minutes ago, young37215 said:

I reckon the first air cons to appear on the NE/SW route were on the Edinburgh Plymouth diagram in the late 70's followed by the  Newcastle Bristol diagram. Everything else remained steam/dual heat Mk1's and early Mk2's until the 80's, in some cases this was the case until they were replaced by HST's.    

Rob,

 

That all sounds about right. I tootled off to University in 1977 so lost touch of the stock through Burton-on-Trent from then.

 

Ian

[ISW]

Signalboxes

 

The layout is going to need 2 Mainline signalboxes; one for the Leicester Line Junction, and another for Station South. The former is a Midland design '4-panel' long type and the later '2-panel' long. They can be seen below:

 

Leicester Junction:

 

Burton Station South:

 

For the latter box, I've acquired a Ratio kit 536 signalbox (modelled on one at Swadlincote) that is a good representation of Burton South. Only the windows seem to be 'wrong' as they are 6 panes of glass. Are 'correct' 4-pane windows available? For the Leicesterline Junction box I was considering purchasing 2 more Ratio Kit 536s and 'butchering them together' to obtain the required length.

 

Has anyone out there any experience with Ratio kits and/or can advise on the potential for 'gluing 2 kits together'? I realise the roof would be 'incomplete', but anything else?

 

Also, are there any alternatives to the Ratio Kit 536? I've had a look on t' internet, but haven't seen anything.

 

Ian

Edited March 31, 2022 by ISW
photos re-uploaded

[5BarVT]

St Enodoc is butchering two GWR Ratio kits to make Par signalbox on mid Cornwall lines.  Might give you some idea about feasibility.

Paul.

[ISW]

12 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

St Enodoc is butchering two GWR Ratio kits to make Par signalbox on mid Cornwall lines.  Might give you some idea about feasibility.

Paul.

Paul,

 

After searching on RMWeb I located the thread, and some more searching narrowed it down from the 228 pages. Now I understand why some threads have 'Indexes' at their beginning.

 

I'm sure I'll learn something from his work. Thanks. I actually think mine will be easier, as Midland boxes are built from standardised panels, and no brickwork base. Hopefully' that'll make 'stitching' 2 kits together a bit simpler.

 

Ian

[ISW]

Garden Centre

 

Now, this is an unusual posting. We were at a local Garden Centre near Doncaster and they had a full pallet of clear plastic sheets. Each one is 71cm x 36cm (28"x ~14") and, I think, are meant for greenhouse glazing. The sheets are 20-thou thick.

 

Anyway, at 40p or 4 for £1 (25p), it was an instant purchase. Such plastic sheets will have a multitude of uses from building glazing through to structures (when suitably painted). I might even go back for some more ...

 

Ian

[61656]

How thick is 20 thou? I’ve been using 2mm clear plastic from B&Q. It’s got great structural strength but it is the devil’s own work cutting it. 

[5BarVT]

4 hours ago, 61656 said:

How thick is 20 thou? I’ve been using 2mm clear plastic from B&Q. It’s got great structural strength but it is the devil’s own work cutting it. 

1”=1000 thou

=> 2.54mm = 100 thou

=> 1mm ~ 40 thou

 

I thought you were an Engineer. 

Paul.

[ISW]

4 hours ago, 61656 said:

How thick is 20 thou?

 

38 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

1”=1000 thou

=> 2.54mm = 100 thou

=> 1mm ~ 40 thou

 

As Paul has correctly 'calculated', 20-thou is ~0.5mm thick and is quite easy to cut with scissors or a craft knife. I was originally going to give the thickness in mm, but it seems 'common' on styrene sheet to give the thickness in thousands of an inch.

 

Ian

[5BarVT]

5 hours ago, 61656 said:

I’ve been using 2mm clear plastic from B&Q. It’s got great structural strength but it is the devil’s own work cutting it. 

I had some 60 thou plasticard from way back (70s) and that was difficult to cut.  Sawing rather than scribing and snapping was the only viable option.  2mm (= 80 thou) I can imagine would be even worse. 
Paul.

[61656]

21 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

1”=1000 thou

=> 2.54mm = 100 thou

=> 1mm ~ 40 thou

 

I thought you were an Engineer. 

Paul.

I am. I just wasn’t born in 1757! (Although metric was in use pre-railways - go look at any canal signs.)

 

Imperial remains only for measuring vehicle efficiency and real ale. 
 

0.5 mm sounds ideal, although maybe prone to warping?

[5BarVT]

20 minutes ago, 61656 said:

I just wasn’t born in 1757!

In that respect I am fortunate being unit bilingual.  Has its downsides when I can’t remember when a particular design is in core imperial or metric units!  Learning times tables up to 12 helped too.

Paul.

[ISW]

7 hours ago, 61656 said:

0.5 mm sounds ideal, although maybe prone to warping?

That's why my original thought was for building glazing. However, if properly 'triangulated' I'm sure that 0.5mm thick styrene could be suitably strong enough for building walls / floors.

 

7 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Learning times tables up to 12 helped too.

You were lucky. I had to learn 14 and 16 times tables as well at end of the 1960s, to cope with Stones, Pounds, and Ounces. Did anyone else have to learn long division of Pounds, Shillings, & Pence?

 

After years of using both metric and imperial units, I find myself using one or the other exclusively for certain objects. A know the dimensions of rail sections and track gauge in mm, but anything involving timber I feel easier in feet & inches. Weird I know. Ask me to picture 165mm and I'll automatically convert that to 'just over 6 inches'.

 

Ian