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Dockyard surface material c.1900?


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Hello everyone,

 

My question is - what would the ground surface around the rail tracks in an 1890s-1900s UK dockyard be? Concrete, cobbles, paving, other...?

 

I'm building a small super-micro layout (link to follow once I do a build log) as a bit of a combination lockdown project and return to the hobby after a couple of decades and practice board before I mess up too much on a bigger project!

 

Having treated myself to the Dapol B4 Guernsey in the original dark green (which I believe I read somewhere on here is representative of her in about 1897) and a couple of LSWR wagon kits, I'd like to model something believable for a small corner tucked away of Southampton Docks. To that end I would like to model the tracks inset into the yard surface for road vehicle/rail dual use as is often seen in industrial and dockyard settings.

 

I'm finding it hard to find many photos with identifiable surfaces that definitely date from that sort of period. Some reading up online suggests concrete may have been used at that time although fairly new. City streets apparently would likely have been paved with granite setts or cobbles, and the surfaces in more rural settings may have been graded gravel macadam-style or just gravel or even mud. All of which would require rather different approaches to modelling them!

 

Does anyone have any information on what might have been in place at Southampton? Any information appreciated.

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12 hours ago, CornishKnocker said:

I would say that it would be cobbles or granite setts 


That, or possibly heavy balks of timber, which were (and still are in some places) common on the actual wharf itself

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Looking in the pictures of 150 years of Southampton Dock (Bert Moody), it varies.  Large coping stones at the top of the dock wall, with granite sets or gravel paving for the surface (the later probably in less heavily trafficked areas).  Jetties commonly wooden.

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Not a brilliant view, but it appears to be gravel for Ipswich docks in the early 1900's - particularly with an apparent uneven surface and lots of puddles. The only cobbles or metalled surface is on the main roadway (Bridge St) that crosses left to right...

 

884495930_StokeXing3.JPG.d34cfbf1f0d572d7578f410392034f25.JPG

 

This slightly later photo shows the surface better...

 

DX792.JPG.f4e1e7072bbde9ac56695baa4859c020.JPG

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Fantastic, many thanks everyone! I'll probably go with setts/cobbles on a more trafficked "road"-like section alongside the loading dock, and gravel otherwise except for maybe timber around some complicated bits. @Johann Marsbar, those Ipswich photos are brilliant visual reference. 

 

@skipepsi I will follow up with Peter too, thanks for the pointer.

Edited by LightBrigade
corrected typo on timber
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Hi, my virtual ears are burning!  The photos I have access to since retirement are mostly in books.  The most useful for this topic is Southern Rails on Southampton Docks by Ian Drummond.  Photos of the general docks area c1900 show a fairly uniform flat surface, possibly concrete or rolled macadam.  In the actual dockside areas the tracks are set into this.  I observed some machine-dug holes in the earliest part of the Old Docks (c1840+) but don't recollect any cobbles or setts beneath layers of concrete.  Interestingly we located and recovered some massive timber piles with iron points at the bottoms.  GPS and digital mapping showed that these were on the lines of the earliest railway tracks at the dockside and were interpreted as support for the tracks in the then freshly reclaimed land overlying tidal mud.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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