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Wheatley station on the Oxford to Princes Risborough line


MisterT
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Hi All, I have just joined the forum recently, this is my first post.


I am returning to the hobby after about 40 years, and I am starting to plan a new layout.
Initially using some of my old N-gauge stuff, with a view to maybe switching to 2mm finescale at some point in the coming years, depending on how my skills develop!

 

As always, there is the question of "what" to model. As we actually live in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, I have decided to attempt to base my model on Wheatley station, and maybe also Horspath Halt, which is a bit further up the line, to give a second stopping point.
We live in an old cottage, quite near the site of the old station, so this will give me a chance to make a model of my own actual house!
Of course, I realise this will be a long-term project ... check back in 25 to 30 years to see how I'm getting on!!!

 

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to see if anyone can help with details of the old station buildings. As you probably already know, the station closed in the mid-60's, and the track was lifted and buildings demolished in (I think) 1969.
I have looked in what I think are the "usual" books:
  Princes Risborough-Thame-Oxford Railway by R.Lingard
  Oxford to Princes Risborough - A GWR Secondary Route by C.R.Potts
I have also found quite a lot of old photos on the internet of the track layout and the various buildings.
At the moment I am trying to draw up plans for the buildings by trying to work out dimensions from the photos.
But I was wondering if there was anywhere that I would be able to find actual scale drawings or plans for any of the buildings?

 

Thanks all,
Ed

 

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Nothing much to offer, but I can give you accurate measurements for this if you need them.

 

RIMG0297.JPG.c094ffa78da87177b6bfb4c67bce6182.JPG

 

It has clearly had a blue background at some point, before a final poor quality coat of brown. The other one, now at Didcot was for some time at Longsides, at the top of Ladder Hill, along with much other railwayana.

 

Dave

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No problem, I'll get on to it in the next few days. My father bought the sign from the person who did some of the demolition there after closure. I should have some pictures of two of the Wheatley signals, after they had been transplanted to  Longsides. I will post them here when I find them.

 

Dave

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My few pictures. 6150 in the yard in early 1965.sca024.jpg.55b88e12ebca186c5898eb2ad839dabf.jpg

 

Two signals, understood to be from Wheatley, resited to a private garden. The position of the black/white paint  on the distant suggests it has been shortened. Summer  1964?12-30-2009_007.JPG.dc458da46a8ef6937804555649dd1828.JPG12-30-2009_008.JPG.9b1d345dab6d0f29a460456a3e929b51.JPG

 

 

Wylde is making glacial progress, currently waiting for Peco bullhead single slip, then tracklaying can begin...

 

Dave

 

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Better late than never, I hope, here are a couple of images of the Wheatley sign.

 

The first is a bitmap image, created from a photo by straightening and removing perspective effects. This is of the area inside the white border seen in the photo. This is only a painted edge, the casting is smooth.wheatley6.png.84539ea53ff3fc2a6b727b72ddb54cb4.png

 

The second is a jpg  made from a drawing I have  created in Turbocad, drawn from scratch from measurements taken from the image above,  and  checked from the sign. It still needs a bit of tweaking, but so far I'm pleased with it. I will be drawing up other letters as I have pictures of similar signs contailing most of the alphabet.

 

testw01.JPG.f94b5eb88631931a0c4cd4737864cec3.JPG

 

I have yet to do the cross section drawing.  The  overall size of the sign, ignoring the mounting and locating lugs is 90.25"x23".

If you have a suitable cad program I can let you have the files in an appropriate format..

 

Hth

 

Dave

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Hi Dave,

Thanks for sharing these further details about the sign.

It will be nice to make the sign the correct scale size, and it should help with trying to get the buildings the correct scale size.

Thanks again,

Ed

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Ed

 

There are some pictures of Wheatley Station in "Branch Lines to princes Risborough" - Mitchell & Smith, and in " History of the Railways of Oxfordshire:Part 2" - Simpson. 

I assume you have seen "A Little Book About Wheatley Station" by Robert Avery of Longside, whose grandfather started the timber yard by the station.

I have a copy of a magazine article about Horspath Halt (extracted by another RMWeb member) that has some quite detailed plans.

If you are interested, I am just up the road - so send a PM

 

regards

    Martin

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On 11/02/2020 at 21:09, Martin said:

Hi Ed

 

There are some pictures of Wheatley Station in "Branch Lines to princes Risborough" - Mitchell & Smith, and in " History of the Railways of Oxfordshire:Part 2" - Simpson. 

I assume you have seen "A Little Book About Wheatley Station" by Robert Avery of Longside, whose grandfather started the timber yard by the station.

I have a copy of a magazine article about Horspath Halt (extracted by another RMWeb member) that has some quite detailed plans.

If you are interested, I am just up the road - so send a PM

 

regards

    Martin

Robert Avery ran the Railway Society at my school and it was he who installed the two signals at Longside, the house where he was born. I remember it being a fairly stiff walk up Ladder Hill from the bus stop and when we had meetings there he used to lower the signal to show he was ready to receive us. Richard Lingard who later wrote a book about the Thame branch was in my year and also a member.  I didn't know the Thame branch while it was still open  but we schoolboys went on an OURS train that chugged up and down the closed branch giving their members driving experiences on WR Prairie 6106 . It started and finished at Oxford but spent most of its time shuttling  up and down the closed part of the branch probably between Wheatley and Thame.

Of course, none of this helps with your pictures of Wheatley and I'm afraid mine all got chucked when my parents moved house while I was at University but there is an album on Flickr here which may well include a few shots of Wheatley

https://www.flickr.com/photos/unravelled/albums/72157690327022742

Edited by Pacific231G
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  • 1 month later...

Hi All,

Sorry, while browsing the forums the other day I have only just realised that there have been several more replies that I have missed! So, really sorry for not replying before now ...

 

Martin -

I'm not sure if I've seen those first two books that you mention, I'll have to try and track them down.  But I have indeed seen "A Little Book About Wheatley Station" by Robert Avery; it's a lovely little book, written in a nice chatty style, but also including a lot of useful information.

I would indeed be interested to look at the article about Horspath Halt; I'll PM you later.

 

Ian -

Thanks for the feedback on maps and photos; I had already imported the map into Templot and used it to get a feel of the overall dimensions and turnout sizes; even in 2mm scale the overall station is about 9 feet long! I have also been referring a lot to the "Britain from Above" photo; it's fascinating to see what the village looked like about 70 years ago! At the moment the (very optimistic) plan is to model the whole length of the station, and a very compressed form of some of the more interesting buildings down to and around the High Street; potentially quite a lot of buildings, so of course this will keep me very busy for many years to come!!!

 

David -

I looked at your Flickr album; I think all of these photos are probably of Thame, but they're great to look through, so thank you for that. I would guess that the school that you're referring to is Wheatley Park secondary school? Fascinating to hear your recollections of spending time with Robert Avery, and also that Richard Lingard was in the same year as you. I've seen some notes about Longside, and the fact that there used to be quite a lot of railway memorabilia up there, that must have been really interesting. And lowering the signal ... excellent! You're right ... it is quite a steep walk up Ladder Hill ... I hope I will be able to give a reasonable impression of that in model form, even though I will of course have to compress things quite a bit.

 

Thanks again all of you for your help, and sorry again for not replying before now,

Ed

 

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  • 2 months later...

There are some new photos of the station on the Wheatley Village archive website, including the first one I have ever seen of the station building from the North.  On the archive search page, type 424 in the words box.

 

    Martin

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  • 10 months later...

Mr T, I've just joined this so I can sympathise with you regarding the length of even an N gauge model of Wheatley. I believe there may be photos of the railway under the 'Wheatley' heading on the FrancisFrith.com website. I am mentioned by name in the first memory story there! I have the original photo of 6146 standing on the down platform, and a not-so-good one of Criccieth Castle entering the station on the up line. I think that a diversion due to bridge work towards Didcot caused the aristocracy to come through Wheatley. Incidentally although living now in Derbyshire (close to the Midland Railway Centre, Barrow Hill and Peak Rail) I also decided to model the station but I'm shortening the sidings! I would be happy to share notes.

6146_Mogos.jpg

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Hi all, sorry, just noticed that there have been a few more replies since I last looked here ...

 

@MartinYes, those new photos came, I believe, from @David Bigcheeseplant... I think that the person who digitises the Wheatley Archives knew somebody who knew somebody who knew David's mother, and was then able to get hold of these additional photos! As you say, great to get a view of the "other" side of the main station building.

 

@David BigcheeseplantHave you got any more photos or information that we haven't yet seen? It would be great if there is anything more that you would be able to share with us :)

 

@Old RoaderHello!  :) Surprisingly there don't seem to be any photos of the railway on FrancisFrith. But I'm sure you're already aware that there are lots of photos on the Wheatley Archives website, and lots of interesting stuff in the Lingard and Potts books. Yes, of course, happy to share any notes ... I'm still in the very early stages of planning, and working out how I'm going to do things, so nothing much to show yet, but I'll PM you.

 

Thanks again all for the feedback, Ed :)

 

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You mean this photo of the rear? I picked this and others on ebay a few years ago, although I can recall a chap Jerry Tremaine showing these many years ago and who I think died a while back, so I would think they were his although no idea who took them.

 

The station building was extended I think in the 1920s  hence there is an additional windon in the front elevation and on the rear the gable projection was increased in size there was origanally a door here, although as it led into the ticket office I dont think it would have been used for the public, the building is a standard Wycombe railway design and there are photos of the rear of the buildings at the other stations and a drawing of Risborough which shows how it was orginally constructed.

 

David 

img920 - Copy.jpg

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Here is another photo of Wheatley plus the rear of Wooburn Green although this has the Wycombe Railway crossing keepers house which was on the following stations Cookham, Bourne End, Wooburn Green, Loudwater and Bledlow, the station building without crossing keepers house was at West Wycombe, Risborough and Wheatley. 

 

I have also added photos of West Wycombe which has the same design.

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$(KGrHqNHJBkE+OMofz8PBP0gc-,EV!~~60_12.jpg

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Thanks @David Bigcheeseplantfor the photos and additional info :)

 

I think all of the Wheatley-specific photos are now available on the Wheatley Archives, so thanks very much for sharing those with us. (I am not directly involved in the archives, but I talk occasionally to the person that maintains the entries on the website.) I am planning to model Wheatley as it was in the 1950s, so with the extra third window on the front and the increased gable projection on the rear.

 

When all these lockdowns are finally over I will pop over to Bledlow or Bourne End to see if I can take some measurements of door/window sizes, etc.

In the meantime I have knocked up some rough-and-ready paper/card mockups of the station buildings to give me an idea of how the layout will look, until I get around to building the proper versions. I hope I've captured the overall look, although I'm not sure I've got the correct door arrangement on the signal box? But please  don't zoom in too closely!

 

Thanks again for all your help, Ed :)

 

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Edited by MisterT
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Looks good although I think the pitch on the station building should be less around 40 degrees pitch rather than 45 which it looks like yours is. The windows on the ground floor look slightly wider apart than the prototype the signal boxes on the line were all opened in 1891 and were all built in blue brick although Wheatley does look like it was in yellow or red brick.

 

The window to the left of the open porch on the station building platform side lines up directly with the window to the left of the gable projection on the rear, many years ago I visited Borne End Cookham and Bledlow and measured then, plus did drawings, I will see if I have them if I can find them. I also have drawings of Thame signal box. 

 

If you PM me I have drawings of Bourne End if you have the Princes Risborough Thame Oxford Railway by Lingard then look at the original drawing of Princes Risbough station they show the 1880 extentions but the core of it is the original Wycombe Railway station building. 

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Edited by David Bigcheeseplant
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Hi Ed,

 

I have just come across this thread and really hope that you are able to progress your model!  I grew up in Horspath and, as a child, we often walked through the tunnel that starts just east of the old Horspath Halt and which runs more-or-less under my childhood home. Of course, it's completely inaccessible these days but it used to be quite the adventure. I also went to secondary school at Wheatley Park. I've often thought it was very short-sighted to close the line as it was frequently used a diversionary route.

 

Cheers,

Ben

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Thanks for the feedback, Dave.

 

I've just measured the roof pitch on my station building mock-up and actually it's almost exactly 40%, maybe just a shade over; so, a happy coincidence that you reckon it should be around 40%.

 

Based on your comments about the window spacing I've taken another look, and I think you're right, I do need to bring the windows a bit closer together; and also widen the entrance to the indoor area; I think a bit like the picture I've attached.

 

Anyway, yes, I'll PM you to get the drawings of Bourne End - that's very kind of you.

And yes, I do have the Lingard book, so I'll take a closer look at that drawing of Princes Risborough to get better aligned with that.

 

Thanks again for your help with this, Ed :)

 

 

 

Compare_Fronts.jpg

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