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York station in the 1950's.


kirtleypete
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The bases for the cast iron gateposts, just visible on the extreme left of your aerial pic, are still there buried below the pavement. There is one amongst the collection of stop valves and manhole covers between the current car park wall and the Marble Arch, York Water Works had some fun routing their mains pipes around it when they were putting those in. From the size of the base I would say they were similar to the extant ones outside the NRM main entrance. 

Edited by Wheatley
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2 minutes ago, kirtleypete said:

I'd love to be able to include those on the model but I don't think there will be room. The same applies to the various small buildings by the entrance, which were presumably coal merchant's offices and the like.

 

Peter

In your last photo (the B&W one), at the centre left, in the vicinity of the single story building with the two windows, was a weighbridge. The remains of which lasted long after the buildings were demolished. Don't know if your client would like to include it - more work for you though if he does, sorry! 

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I thought there must be one; space is pretty tight on that part of the layout so we'll have to see, but it looks like we will have room for the gates and some buildings.

 

Are these the gateposts? 

 

4490215842_587e748d77_b.jpg.6928c97533c5681f0904363f8f773e7b.jpg

 

Pretty solid, aren't they!

 

Peter

 

 

Edited by kirtleypete
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1 hour ago, kirtleypete said:

I thought there must be one; space is pretty tight on that part of the layout so we'll have to see, but it looks like we will have room for the gates and some buildings.

 

Are these the gateposts? 

 

4490215842_587e748d77_b.jpg.6928c97533c5681f0904363f8f773e7b.jpg

 

Pretty solid, aren't they!

 

Peter

 

 

Hi Peter,

 

For the period you are modelling, behind the left-hand gate (where the vehicles are parked - circled in red on attached photo) there was a concrete air-raid shelter, the end that would be nearest the camera was the S&T time office (clocked on/off there a few hundred times). Obviously it was modified after the war to create the time office (i.e. internally to create an "in" and "out" door, and a false wall to create a window for distributing wages on pay day). I seem to recall it was quite a long building, may be 20 yards or so, but the time office only occupied approximately a quarter, or even a third, of the total length.

 

4490215842_587e748d77_b.jpg.6928c97533c5681f0904363f8f773e7b_LI.jpg.d43ec44b0d3e465ee4f43c376209325c.jpg

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That's them. The octagonal base is sawn off (flame cut ?)  a few inches below the tarmac. 

 

If you drive down the car park in Streetview the ends of the supporting timbers and the pad stones for the girder rails are still there (just visible below the foliage) along with the arch spring for the end cells. Screenshot_20201212-145134.png.d3efcb2bc629504c2c4f94bbf01034d5.pngThe pad stones suggest two roads over the cells. I suspect the outer two roads on the NRM side are on what is now the top car park access road. Its hard to see on streetview but dead obvious whan you're walking along it, but there is a distinct hump in the coal cell sidings still reflected in the retaining wall. 

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I know the feeling!

 

Apart from the missing tank panels the water tower is about finished. 

 

tank1.jpg.6a5420e40953f346d98d3229f80bcbec.jpg

 

My customer and I had a discussion about the water; he asked me to give it a green tinge, which I did by painting a thin wash onto the back of the sheet of clear plastic. I wanted to make sure that the detail inside the tank could still be seen:

 

tank2.jpg.30f3aa19b3b77b8f3c8e311ef8449e60.jpg

 

It's difficult to photograph, but looking at it you can see the strengthening ribs. 

 

I have to admit that I think the water would be clear, it empties and fills so often there wouldn't be time for it to grow algae or whatever. At the end of the day, though, it's not my model. 

 

851843489_tank3.jpg.8c0ee6a4245be2ec843c9eb62813a0c2.jpg

 

1488270112_tank4.jpg.a5041aa6404e3be23f8d3402bbdad1e8.jpg

 

Peter

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I agree with you, Peter. Those last two photos look as though the tank has a solid green roof/covering. Would it look better if the bottom and insides of the tank were green with a clear plastic water sheet?

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On 02/12/2020 at 14:45, kirtleypete said:

Why is it that as soon as you publish something you go back, look at a picture and realise it's not correct?! 

 

These two pictures are the best I have seen of the 1904 footbridge as it was before the welded structure replaced it.  

 

 

My understanding is that the footbridge has not been replaced!

 

What was necessary however was to trim the depth of the horizontal girders at the time of electrification and this in turn meant an additional centre support had to be inserted on the site of the removed through lines.

 

That plus the fact that it either never had (or they were destroyed in WW2) ornate parapets means the footbridge we see today looks very much like a modern structure.

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It's got a complicated history, which I think I've finally pieced together. Until 1904 there was subway, and in 1904 a footbridge was built that was to the side of the signal box. The was replaced in the 1930's by the present bridge (which explains the art deco flourishes that I'd been puzzling over), and this was modified as you say when the lines were electrified. The new bridge was built in a slightly different position to allow the 1904 one to remain in use until the new one was ready. 

 

Peter

Edited by kirtleypete
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10 minutes ago, kirtleypete said:

It's got a complicated history, which I think I've finally pieced together. Until 1904 there was subway, and in 1904 a footbridge was built that was to the side of the signal box. The was replaced in the 1930's by the present bridge (which explains the art deco flourishes that I'd been puzzling over), and this was modified as you say when the lines were electrified. The new bridge was built in a slightly different position to allow the 1904 one to remain in use until the new one was ready. 

 

Peter

And the subway is still there. Not walked through it for a while but it certainly was available for public use a year or two back when I Iast tried to do so.

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I am guessing you know this already, so apologies if it is an egg-sucking note, but at least two of the decorative mouldings around the roof support pillars were not replaced in the post-war rebuild. They were/are located close to the buffers of the south end bay platform (east side).

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There are currently two passenger subways in use at York station. One (to the south) of the footbridge extends from platform 3 to platform 10/11 (with intermediate access to platform 5), and one (to the north of the footbridge) extends from platform 3 to platform 5 only. 

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On 12/12/2020 at 14:16, kirtleypete said:

That's interesting - it looks as though only two tracks actually run over the coal calls, the others are on solid ground to the side. I thought four seemed a lot. 

 

Peter

Aren't there 4 tracks, separated by a roadway shown on the map?

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