Torre Station - Western Region in the 1950's in P4

[Diesel Do Nicely]

Excellent, glad I stumbled across this! As a very regular visitor to Paignton on holiday (at least twice a year lol) I’m looking forward to see this develop. Interestingly, I see your location as ‘near Churston’... my new layout I’ve just started has a very close likeness to Churston station, with some sidings similar to the former sidings at Goodrington Sands. Following with great interest.

[MPR]

Apart from university, I have always lived in Torbay and knew Torre in the 1980s when I was at school close by.

I've always been interested in the branch, starting with books like "Summer Saturdays in the West" and the Bradford Barton books, Peter Gray's photos in the Herald Express and later in colour albums &  more recently "The Day of the Holiday Express" and "Operation Torbay."

 

Growing up in the early 1980's there was also still enough of the remnants of the late steam-era railway around in terms of track, signalling, buildings (and rolling stock) for me to be keenly aware of how recently it had all ended.

 

The photos I have posted show only a couple of completed locomotives, but I have acquired kits to cover most of the types regularly seen from the 1940s to 1960s. There is a quotation in "Operation Torbay" to the effect that to see any Great Western locomotive, all you had to do was go to Paignton and wait! - so I'm not there yet and will fill further gaps later! 

 

I did look very carefully at Churston as a prototype, but in the end decided that it would be difficult to design a visually satisfactory layout within the very limited space constraints I had set myself. I have also followed Trevor Pott's super layout in articles in MRJ and elsewhere http://www.gwr.org.uk/layoutschurston1.html and didn't want to make a pale copy of it!

 

To - "Diesel Do Nicely"  

Please post photos of your layout - it is always good to see interpretations of this most varied of Great Western lines.

 

Edited April 14, 2019 by MPR

[Diesel Do Nicely]

12 hours ago, MPR said:

 

I will do, as soon as i get on with it lol, just at the track laying stage

[MPR]

Time to puzzle out the point rodding runs - thanks to Tony Wright’s thread, I think I have all the resources I need...

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by MPR

[MPR]

Having worked out the point rodding runs, I'm now waiting for the rest of the components to be delivered, so my thoughts have turned to the backscene and lighting of the layout.

 

john "Re 6/6" suggested Palight board, which is available from the supplier below

https://www.cutplasticsheeting.co.uk/pvc-foamex-board/white-standard-foamex-pvc-foam-board-matte-finish/

 

John also suggested a second layer of 5mm Palight  for low relief structures - as used on Balcombe - and I will definitely be adopting this, not least because it will separate the softer natural features of fields and tree-line in the distance from the closer manmade structures of the yard.

very usefully, the material can be supplied cut to size, which will make construction of a transportable solution much easier.

i am trying to decide how high to go with the backscene, making enough allowance for a fascia top  piece to take the LED lighting strip and would appreciate feedback!

 

in the photo below, there is a test print of the sky to give scale - it is  11 inches high. Many of the commercially available backscenes seem to be around 15 inches tall. 

The tallest structure on the layout is the goods shed at 6 inches tall.

The main boards are 8 feet long and 22 inches deep.

Front of layout, showing low-relief structures planned for backscene printed out to scale.

 

End view showing height of fiddle yard view blocker - this is only 10 inches tall which I do not now believe is high enough - putting a top bar across the front will result in a very narrow slot. But how high?

Edited April 18, 2023 by MPR

[MPR]

I’m still waiting for delivery of the various signalling-related components that I have on back order, but I have finally committed to a design for the backscene and placed an order for the material, which will arrive cut to size.

I’ve selected 5mm matte white Palight, which should be stiff enough to be self supporting. In the end I went for 18” height, which will give a little under 15”  above ground level.

There will be a proscenium 4” deep at the front, which will be constructed as a two piece L girder. This should be stiff enough to positively locate over the side parts of the backscene. A second similar beam will locate over the rear of the layout - and both will carry LED strips to light the layout. 

Sketches to follow...

[MPR]

Sketch showing plan for backscene

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, MPR said:

Sketch showing plan for backscene

If you can, try to get a small radius between the sides and back of the backscene, to avoid a visual "crease" in the sky at the corners.

[MPR]

That’s  a good idea - It should be possible, but will have to be limited to no more than 50mm radius due to space limitations. The material is too thick to take a bend itself, so it will have to be done on the sky vinyl layer.

[MPR]

The pre-cut backscene material arrived today - and was very well packed!

The delivery was free, provided the order was above the minimum value (which it was, just)

Even at 5mm thick, the weight is enough that I am glad that I purchased enough material to provide some strategic bracing. Now to find some time to assemble and fix it in place....

 

 

[MPR]

After another long break, my modelling mojo has returned, so I decided to ease myself gently back into modelling over Christmas, starting with the name board that I plan to use to disguise the join in the front pelmet/lighting bar.

This was made by my usual method, drawing it up in the late, lamented free version of Draftsight, then printing out a couple of copies on A4 label paper.

 These were then stuck down to black and white sheets of Palight foam board and the letters and frame cut out. 
The black backing sheet was scored for the letter position and the sticky paper and protective film on the foam board was removed. Finally, the whole lot was assembled with contact adhesive.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by MPR

[MPR]

Next job was to complete the pavement on the station forecourt. I cut this out from styrene sheet some time ago, but it needed further scribing of the kerb stones to complete it, plus a thorough rub down to remove the join between the two pieces. There was also some distortion caused by the backing piece, so this was carefully abraded away just before the pavement was glued down. 
I was worried about using solvent-containing contact adhesive, so I obtained a tube of a solvent-free version for this job.

 - the joint was between card and styrene; I wanted to avoid distortion later. This adhesive  is reasonably flexible when cured.

A few weights to keep everything nice and flat

 

 

I fed a little cyano into the edges to be sure, particularly around the glued joint between the two styrene pieces. 
You can see the etched drain covers in place for the next stage.
 

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by MPR
Added photos

[MPR]

Once the pavement was dry, I marked out the locations of each of the drain covers. These were etched parts from 51L https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/buildings/tbe006/

I then cut pieces of 10 thou styrene sheet the same size as the etched parts, drilled them 1mm in the middle (to aid extraction later) and stuck them in place with a smear of PVA. 

 

I followed the method Captain Kernow has used on “Bethesda Sidings” using white grout to rapidly build surface texture. 

This tile adhesive sticks well to card and dries quickly, but not instantly. It can then be easily, if rather messily, smoothed with sand paper.

It is also not terribly expensive, particularly in the quantities I will be needing for “Torre”

 

 

The station forecourt is pictured part way through application. A thin layer of grout was spread with a plastic pallet knife, then smoothed with a slightly moistened sponge. Final working was done with my index finger, moistened and cleaned repeatedly with the sponge to stop the grout lifting again.

 

Once dry, any unwanted roughness was flatted back with oxide paper. The process was then repeated as necessary until the desired finish and contour were achieved - this process is still ongoing as I work down toward the goods shed.

 

Surface starting to look smooth - note the styrene drain blanks are still in situ - they will be removed at the end of the process.

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by MPR

[Jub45565]

Looking good!

 

Interestingly, my late lamented free Draftsight is still working - for how much longer who knows!  I plan to switch to Nanocad when I need to, but will stick with what I know while I can.

 

I've seen the grout method used to good effect a few times, I need to have a play myself sometime.

[MPR]

Hi Pete

 

My copies of Draftsight still appear to be functioning too (2014 on my work PC, 2018 at home). I guess that it will stop working when the time for re-registration comes round. The move to paid-for is particularly galling considering how much DS charges for SolidWorks each year (and no, Draftsight isn't bundled with it). Thanks for the tip on Nanocad, I'll give that a try when the time comes.

 

Regards

 

Martin

Edited January 27, 2020 by MPR

[Anglian]

What a fantastic layout and thread. Some of the finest architectural modelling I've seen. I very much look forward to watching this develop.

I'm not sure if the piece of sky you've placed is a segment of your intended version – I think you'll get a better result if the sky is much lighter, especially as it meets the horizon. I'd make it as high as you can. From memory that on the EM GWR layout Westcliff was about 30 or so inches tall and it works superbly.

[MPR]

3 hours ago, Anglian said:

I'm not sure if the piece of sky you've placed is a segment of your intended version – I think you'll get a better result if the sky is much lighter, especially as it meets the horizon.

 

Thanks very much for your kind comments, it looks rougher the closer you get! 

 

The piece of sky was very much a test piece, one of two that I found online and printed - this was supposed to be the cloudy/overcast version, the blue sky was much errr... bluer.

I agree with both of your assessments, so I went to 15" for the height, which was about as far as I could go without overwhelming the spare room completely.

For the colour and composition, that is yet to be decided, but it will definitely be much lighter. The station sits in a shallow valley and was open fields in the 1950s with a tree-lined skyline, way above the normal eye-line. I am thinking of representing this, but radically desaturating the colour.

 

The back scene  does show up the one significant planning compromise I made - there are two up mileage sidings completely omitted at the rear, and the third has been pushed very close to the front siding.

(Originally, the baseboard was 6 inches wider, but again this was just too much for the space I had, so out came the jig-saw)

 

This has left very little space to handle the coal office and covered storage - hence the lower back scene layer (shown in the planning sketch) which will handle the transition between modelled and flat.

I set up one of the boards over the weekend with them in place - I will post some photos of this session this evening. 

 

I am still deciding whether to lose the back siding almost entirely in order to restore the spacing - at the point of exit over the back edge of the scene it was buried in tarmac, so this shouldn't be too difficult to arrange and disguise. This area is shown in some of Peter Gray's photos - https://www.transporttreasury.com/p693814479 - images 1309 - 1316 (of which I have purchased large prints!) show this area well.

 

Regards

Martin

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by MPR

[TrevorP1]

Good to see this thread on the go again. Some excellent work going on. 

[MPR]

A few images, as referred to earlier...

Here, the two layers of the back scene are roughly set up, together with the side piece. The front layer is tall enough to form a low relief outline of each of the buildings where required - it has been split into three to reduce the join in the sky/background layer. 

Seen from lower down, the front layer intercepts the sight line - this would be coloured at full intensity, the background less so.

The back siding is very close - keep or remove? There should be a low grassy bank and a fence along this alignment. I think I will have to curve the vinyl round, the corner is definitely more visible than I expected.

Edited April 18, 2023 by MPR

[MPR]

A few more views of the newly surfaced road, awaiting carving of the cobbled areas and a nice wash of tarmac colour.

The kerb is this shallow in real life.

This area is next for surfacing, I have prepared flag stones to close the gaps already. 

Edited April 18, 2023 by MPR

[MPR]

A few more views taken when everything was still set up...

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by MPR

[TrevorP1]

1 hour ago, MPR said:

The back siding is very close - keep or remove? There should be a low grassy bank and a fence along this alignment. I think I will have to curve the vinyl round, the corner is definitely more visible than I expected.

 

I've just had look at this on the National Library of Scotland map website. In reality the siding is about 600 feet long. To help hide the abrupt change from 3d to 2d could you stable a set of carriages here? I don't know if this was done in reality but by all accounts Torbay area was very short of siding space 'back in the day'

[MPR]

34 minutes ago, TrevorP1 said:

 

I've just had look at this on the National Library of Scotland map website. In reality the siding is about 600 feet long. To help hide the abrupt change from 3d to 2d could you stable a set of carriages here? I don't know if this was done in reality but by all accounts Torbay area was very short of siding space 'back in the day'

There is a great Peter W Gray colour photograph showing the Bertram Mills Circus train stabled in these sidings in August 1960. It was used in an article by Chris Leigh in Steam World, November 1996. (It was actually in the outer sidings, but that’s close enough!)

Edited January 27, 2020 by MPR

[Anglian]

It really is already looking very beautiful. The precision to which you are working is fantastic to see – I love really 'clean' builds like this – it's all very inspiring.

[MPR]

I’m a big fan of compact mainline “bitsa” designs like Torre, they offer a lot of potential in a small space. If anything, if I was starting over, I would go even smaller than the 8’ x21” that Torre takes up, I had a good look at Minety and Ashton Keynes as a subject a couple of years back. I reckon you could get a good approximation into 5’ x 18” - two turnouts to access the trailing connection to the yard and the dock would be the only points needed (mirror the design and you could add a single slip and it would have a little more operating interest)  Add a couple of hinged rotating shorty fiddle yards and you have a very nice operational mainline layout in one piece that would be easy to transport and test stock on.
With Tim Horn baseboards and Peco OO bullhead track, it could be very accessible indeed, leaving scope for modelling a very pretty station building, over bridge, signal box and goods lockup.