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Fort William - 1939 LNER - OO gauge


will5210
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Hi Will

I shall watch this project with great interest. Even though I don't even model UK railways, the old Fort William station has fascinated me ever since spending hours watching  activity there during family holidays in the Western Highlands in the mid 1960s. Despite this being after the end of steam and me being no fan of diesels, the movements were fascinating. I didn't twig just how simple the track layout was but there was nothing simple, about the station's operation.  The crossover between the two bay platforms seems to have been dismantled in about 1955  but, as you say, it had seen almost no use for many years before that and I wonder if it was really a hangover from when Ft. Wiliam was a pure terminus before the Mallaig extension  was built.

 

The answer is probably "of course I have" but do you have John A McGregor's "All stations to Mallaig"? If not I think you'd find it very rewarding. Though it covers the post nationalisation period when he was growing up in Ft. William and closely observing its trains, there are plenty of references to what went before. It was from McGregor that I finally learnt what the sidings on the old quay beyond the MacBrayne's pier had been used for before becoming ad hoc carriage sidings (I'd guessed fish but aparently it was mostly grain being brought in by ship for the various distilleries)  He also wrote a shorter account of the station's daily operations in West Higland News in 1990 which I have.

 

How easy or otherwise was it to use Peco BH points with SMP plain track?

Edited by Pacific231G
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Looks great!   1939 was the year of the K4, with all 6 i service and hauling most if not all of the Glasgow Ft William passenger and goods trains so maybe a bit less interesting than earlier or later when double heading was more prevalent. K4s could not be double headed due to weight restrictions but could handle 9 coach trains unlike the various 4-6-0s which were limited to 8.

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6 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

The answer is probably "of course I have" but do you have John A McGregor's "All stations to Mallaig"?

 

How easy or otherwise was it to use Peco BH points with SMP plain track?

 

Hi, yes I got a copy of “All stations to Mallaig” on your recommendation in another thread. A very useful resource it is too! Particularly useful with details of the shunting arrangements. What I wouldn’t give for a day watching it in person though. 

The SMP track works ok with the Peco points using the new Peco fishplates. There is a height difference as the SMP has thinner sleepers, so I packed it up with thin card around the pointwork. I used SMP as I had 10 lengths lying around. If I was starting now I’d probably use Peco flexi

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5 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

Looks great!   1939 was the year of the K4, with all 6 i service and hauling most if not all of the Glasgow Ft William passenger and goods trains so maybe a bit less interesting than earlier or later when double heading was more prevalent. K4s could not be double headed due to weight restrictions but could handle 9 coach trains unlike the various 4-6-0s which were limited to 8.

Hi, well I’m not hard & fast on 1939 so I’ll squeeze in a K2/Glen or K2/K2 combo here and there.  Of course all the Mallaig trains would be K2 hauled so there’s variety there too. 

I cant see me having room for 8 coach trains in the fiddle yard to be honest. In my head i thought 6 would be enough to give the right impression, though the 8 coach day section of the ‘Northern Belle’ with double headed ‘Glens’ is tempting!

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The Fort William station building is unique & quite a complicated shape.  

https://flic.kr/p/XJEgue

Getting this correct will be tricky but I've been encouraged by this nice version of FW in N gauge: 

So, using the station building plans in Ian Futers' Scottish Layout Plans book I've started effectively drawing up my own card kit using scalescenes textures.

I can print this on matte paper on the large format printer I have at work & mount it on 5mm foamex with pritt stick.  The windows will be cut out by hand and replaced with thin clear plastic. The window frames will be microstrip. The 'tower' will be a separate structure.

985358505_FortWilliamStationBuildingPlans.jpg.1ca99f2923516fdce0368e71975e8a77.jpg

 

Thanks for looking in

 

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6 hours ago, will5210 said:

The Fort William station building is unique & quite a complicated shape.  

https://flic.kr/p/XJEgue

Getting this correct will be tricky but I've been encouraged by this nice version of FW in N gauge: 

So, using the station building plans in Ian Futers' Scottish Layout Plans book I've started effectively drawing up my own card kit using scalescenes textures.

I can print this on matte paper on the large format printer I have at work & mount it on 5mm foamex with pritt stick.  The windows will be cut out by hand and replaced with thin clear plastic. The window frames will be microstrip. The 'tower' will be a separate structure.

985358505_FortWilliamStationBuildingPlans.jpg.1ca99f2923516fdce0368e71975e8a77.jpg

 

Thanks for looking in

 

Hi Will, this looks very interesting.

I've not tackled anything quite this ambitious but, being a poor draughtsman, I've found generating my own "card kits" on the computer to be extremely useful. It both enables me to generate them from architects elevations (mostly for railway buildings) and also to have buildings that are unique to me (there are techniques for developing elevations from oblique images such as old postcards). 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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While looking for something else (as you do) I came across this - http://www.poppyswoodtech.co.uk/ - look under "4mm scale" and scroll down to "Valances".  I've pointed out to them that Mallaig is on the "West Highland" not the "Highland", but some searching through published pics suggests that with a little adaptation this type of valance might be suitable for other locations on the NBR system, eg Fort William.

 

HTH.

 

Alasdair

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Oh that’s very useful indeed! Thanks for posting that. I was thinking of ordering one of their chassis jigs too. 

Heres the real thing along with a useful interior shot:

612A95D4-3A9B-4109-8097-839EF1C91C3D.jpeg.564eb635901885b0a6fb842ecd37aae8.jpeg

Does anyone know where I can get etched or plastic girders in that style or similar?

 

Cheers

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Hmm, I hadn’t considered 3D printing. I’ll need a lot of it so it could get expensive. All the valence is mounted on the same type of girder, but that’s hidden away so a simple X shaped plastic section would suffice there. The Girders between the canopies could be more detailed using 3D prints, etched brass or scratch build brass construction. A4DE7BC4-DA96-4D7D-9390-1896F39D86C1.jpeg.74e371056b091a306fda5c4ba7099966.jpeg

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correct 3d printing can be costly, but thats mostly the time it takes to print, as a CAD tech i bought a simple FDM printer as my fingers started to hurt cutting out windows, and needed a lot of point roding, both of these kind of ment it paid for its self in the end and now i print soooo much

 

an example canopy i drew and printed, but note i do not print it complete, but rather make my own arfix kit see https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2856669/apps/print/#apps

 

b99c02d35577579794a8ff227a8aa88a_preview_featured.jpg.04807c83dff301c2a9b4fee537f34403.jpg

 

the only thing i have to think about is the layering and min size of walls etc (0.5mm) , as its like layers of icing on a cake and bridging (suspened in mid air) is problematic due to nature of printer, but thats why i kit it and think about each component.. for example.. :)  that took 20min to draw so not long  but crude gues at dims (for OO) and would only take 5min to print at a cost of peneys .

 

but you can see that the front diagonals make there way all the way back :) 

 

Capture.JPG.76203f619e8a3da95a1bdf40703a7a8f.JPG

 

 

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i bought a cheep... very cheep in fact to cheep... :) chines knock off based on a "i3 prusa" from ebay came in kit form, and as too cheep had to tweek a lot, but its a printer so you print the parts needed :) it cost around £200 and after a few mods probably about £300 in total.. but after doing 6+ 3m runs of point rodding that cost is gone.. :) 

 

to start with it was ok (ish) on low level parts upto about 10mm high which was fine to start with, but used to woble to much to print higher, but as i like to tinker this suited me fine and i could just work on slowly making it better. and learn whats going on but still print windows, doors etc. 

 

so it depends on skill/effot levels, but

£100 = basic will do ish but amendments will have to be done, and will be kit based (budget version)

£200 = basic but might need tweeking

£300 = should work out of box, but can be improved

£400 and up = if it dont work complain... :) 

 

thats the UK, not sure what part of this ball you are in/at.. :) 

 

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This looks like a great layout developing. I’m also busy preparing a model of FW circa 1960-64 with slight additions. To date baseboards are nearing completion with trackwork starting in the next month. I suppose I should start a thread rather than just read others.

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On 05/04/2019 at 17:23, Sandpiper said:

Looking forward to watching this develop. I didn't realise that freights had to reverse down to the station. I don't think I have ever come across any photos of freights in the station.

AFAIK, they didn't actually enter the station and wouldn't normally have gone beyond the the "trident" of stop signals that protected the three platform roads. That was 62 yards down from the box and the home signal protecting the level crossing was 119 yards up from  the box. I don't know if any goods trains on the line were longer than 180 yards  but if they were they'd presumably have had to either be cleared into the lochside platform no 1 or foul the crossing while the token was being picked up from the box.  

Though it doesn't include any actual token handovers, my slightly vague memory of observing activity there in the 1960s was that the line between the station thoat and the points giving access to it was effectively used as a head shunt for the smaller goods yard on the town side of the line and that the level crossing, which AFAIK only gave access to the main goods yard  and MPD, was closed for quite long periods while shunting, then normally in the hands of an 0-6-0 diesel shunter, took place.

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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1 hour ago, Sandpiper said:

Looking forward to watching this develop. I didn't realise that freights had to reverse down to the station. I don't think I have ever come across any photos of freights in the station.

Yes there’ll be a bit of fudging fact and fiction here but my signal box will be closer to the station due to selective compression, so I should’ve said freight trains will reverse close to the station i.e into the scenic section 

 

cheers

Edited by will5210
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