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York station in the 1950's.


kirtleypete
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Wow! As a "Yorkie" I will be following this with interest. I can imagine the level of detail and effort required will be something akin to "Heaton Lodge". Good luck "kirtleypete".

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If 900mm is just the hotel, how big is the station ?! 

This layout is going to need an awfully big attic or garden shed to accommodate even 2/3 of York!!  

 

I hope by buildings you mean former signal boxes rather than the ROC - though it must be said the latter would take you rather less time.

 

A good few decades ago I was a member of the Peterborough MRC, and somebody approached us to model the station there in OO.

They rather lost interest when we told them just how big that would be.  We did have a reasonable representation of Crescent Bridge though.

 

Good luck - and yes, you're going to need it.

 

 

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It will be big....it's in an outbuilding and there will be room for Louth station along one side as well!  The overall roof is being reduced somewhat - apart from anything else it might need to be lifted off in case of emergencies. It will certainly be recognisable as York station though. We have original architects drawings, so there's no excuse for getting it wrong. 

 

Peter

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I can think of one or two others!

 

I've been thinking about the brickwork; this is a photo taken a couple of weeks ago but it's much too clean for the 1950's:

 

 

 

 

brk1.jpg

 

I use a picture like this to produce an A4 sheet of brick paper. The two below are much more realistic for the steam age even though they are not from York station:

 

brk2.jpg

brk3.jpg

 

I've also worked out how to do the columns holding up the overall roof; Langley do these lovely castings but they are too short. I cut them in half, superglue a length of brass tube to each piece to lengthen it, and drill to give a fixing point of brass rod top and bottom. The base needs extending with a little plastic card. When painted they will look fine. Sorry I got the two untouched ones upside down in the picture!

 

COLUMN.jpg

Edited by kirtleypete
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Wonderful modelling. But I would suggest being careful with the brickwork. York has a lot of different bricks and many are very rough. However it is very noticeable that there is a very high quality white engineers brick used for both commercial and domestic buildings. They also have very thin mortar and this can be in a contrasting black as well as the white here. These don't appear to weather much if at all. We have them at the end of my road making a considerable contrast to the 160 year old brickwork of most of the other houses. Becareful I think you need to model the brickwork very neatly. I can send you some links to Google maps photos of what I mean. 

 

As to the hotel well one of the worst night sleeps I've ever had. In a high room at the back the 6,00 was on time; the 06.10 was on time, the 06.30 was on time...... And as it was a conference I probably didn't get to bed before 03.00. 

 

Paul

Edited by hmrspaul
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Given the model is going to be in the 1950,s that stone work would be heavily contaminated with Soot. There was a lot of zealous cleaning of stonework from mid 70,s onwards, so you might need to try You Tube for more accuracy for the period. I think there is a British Transport film called "This is York" (in BW unfortunately) from that period which may help. 

 

Mac

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I won't make a decision about the bricks yet, but thanks or your suggestions. Colour pictures from the 50's/60's are surprisingly hard to find and naturally those there are concentrate on the trains. I have taken a series of screen caps of the BT film, but again it's not a lot of help. 

 

Peter

 

 

brk4.jpg

brk5.jpg

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4 hours ago, mac1960 said:

Given the model is going to be in the 1950,s that stone work would be heavily contaminated with Soot. There was a lot of zealous cleaning of stonework from mid 70,s onwards, so you might need to try You Tube for more accuracy for the period. I think there is a British Transport film called "This is York" (in BW unfortunately) from that period which may help. 

 

Mac

What we are discussing is brick work, not stone. I simply stress that all over York there are commercial and domestic buildings made from very hard creamy white bricks with very fine mortar - about 1/3rd of what is usually used. There are also red brick buildings with the same but black mortar. Quite often this is only on a frontage and the back is ordinary local bricks (York has brick pits out near the outer ring road) and those bricks are quite poor. I don't believe they have been cleaned - and yes I can remember my college days in Liverpool (69 -74) when many buildings emerged from their black chrysalis to be colourful sandstones etc. I've never noticed this type of brickwork elsewhere, except where engineering brick is required and these are usually dark blue/black. And I have been sad enough to photograph a brick wall around the old gas works because I wanted to copy it for a model. 

 

There is plenty of brickwork in those two photos which are not stained black, and they are inside the station roof. Look behind the smokebox of the B1 the lower half is in the cream brickwork, the upper half is a rough yellow local brick. Burger King is there now!

 

Paul

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  • 2 weeks later...

There has been a delay while I finished an O Gauge layout for a customer, but now I'm able to get on with the York hotel again. The shell is about complete so I can order all the laser cut windows from York Modelmaking on Monday. In the meantime I'll begin doing the bay windows and fit those. 

 

 

HOT1.jpg

HOT2.jpg

HOT3.jpg

HOT4.jpg

HOT5.jpg

 

Peter

Edited by kirtleypete
spelling correction
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Good luck! 

 

I have begun the detailing work, starting with the large bay window on the basis that it's best to get it out of the way! The pictures are of the actual rooms in the real hotel, taken from their website. 

 

 

YH1.jpg

YH2.jpg

YH3.jpg

 

There is a basement level below this and I am waiting to see if my customer wants to include that on the model. From ground level you don't notice it, but from above you probably would. 

 

 

YH4.jpg

 

Peter

Edited by kirtleypete
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29 minutes ago, kirtleypete said:

Good luck! 

 

I have begun the detailing work, starting with the large bay window on the basis that it's best to get it out of the way! The pictures are of the actual rooms in the real hotel, taken from their website. 

 

 

YH1.jpg

YH2.jpg

YH3.jpg

 

There is a basement level below this and I am waiting to see if my customer wants to include that on the model. From ground level you don't notice it, but from above you probably would. 

 

 

YH4.jpg

 

Peter

 

Wow

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After an e-mail chat with my customer we agreed that including the basement would be a good idea so I've spent today adding it, and it really does improve the model. The decision had to be made now, it would have been very difficult to add it later.

 

Peter

 

 

HOT1.jpg

HOT2.jpg

HOT3.jpg

HOT4.jpg

 

It was finding this picture on the Hotel website that made it possible, as it is almost invisible from ground level.  It's going to be very useful for modelling the roof too.

 

 

YORK HOTEL DRONE 800.jpg

Edited by kirtleypete
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I decided to use the unweathered brick as when I printed the version with a grey overlay it came out slightly green! I can use weathering powders in it if we think it needs it. However this picture from the 50's shows that the brick stayed a lot cleaner than the stonework so it might better to leave it alone. 

 

 

 

 

royal-york-hotel-1955 800.jpg

YK1.jpg

YK2.jpg

YK3.jpg

YK4.jpg

 

Sorry about the fingers - it was in danger of blowing away!

Peter

Edited by kirtleypete
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