Reculver, Kent - a "What If?" Layout Discussion.

[Ray Von]

2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

My gut feel is the BR was not into owning any freight facilities itself at this date (someone correct me if that's wrong), and that at most it provided space for customers, so I'm imagining that the warehouse belongs to the customer, whose factory is either directly adjacent, or on the other side of town with a lorry shuttling pallets across.

Thanks, I can work round that scenario if it proves to be the case (won't take long to whip down the Railfreight signage!)

[Ray Von]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of some sort of domestic appliance factory - it fits the sort of things the area did, needs raw materials in, and produces van-loads outwards, to go ‘all over’, including export. LEC at Bognor famously supplied co-op branded ‘fridges; maybe yours makes toasters and fan heaters for them.

Well it is right next door! Perhaps the scrap dealer could also come to some arrangement too... 

Seriously though, I think I like the white goods manufacturer idea the most out of all the suggestions so far.

On a completely irrelevant note - I noticed today that the layout name "Dent-de-Lion" is almost, but not quite, an anagram of "End of the Line!"

[Nearholmer]

You want to be careful picking names like that; they can make you wet the bed.

[Ray Von]

2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

You want to be careful picking names like that; they can make you wet the bed.

That settles it then - the warehouse makes "Dent-de-Lion Brand" mattresses! 

[Nearholmer]

Very good!

 

Maybe mattress-protectors might be safer though.

[C126]

By the time I post this, I will have forgotten what I meant to comment on on p.3 of this thread, but may I just alert all to imports needing ferry-vans, I assume (those IIB Cargowaggons are available), especially if like Paddock Wood, whereas the fleet here is VAAs, VBAs, and VEAs.  This suggests a domestic source and destination.

 

I would agree with Nearholmer that Railfreight, to my limited knowledge from too many years trawling any book of photographs (and some not), had no buildings of their own by the late 1970's.  It was private enterprises that used existing old buildings (e.g., Fogarty's of Blackburn?) I think.  However, could it not be advertising their service?!

[Ray Von]

A quick Google of "Zanussi" garners plenty of images of the logo so that's good news - ready made signage! 

 

[Nearholmer]

the mattress idea may be more than humorous too - mattress factories don’t seem tied to any particular location by raw material needs. There was a large and long-established one at Princes Risborough until recently, for no obvious reason!

[Metropolitan H]

1 hour ago, Ray Von said:

Well it is right next door! Perhaps the scrap dealer could also come to some arrangement too... 

Seriously though, I think I like the white goods manufacturer idea the most out of all the suggestions so far.

On a completely irrelevant note - I noticed today that the layout name "Dent-de-Lion" is almost, but not quite, an anagram of "End of the Line!"

At the mention of "End of the Line", I thought you were going to decide to move the location and set wandering around the early 1950s railway "byways" of Western Europe following Bryan Morgan's text. But then you all diverted again!

 

However, if you have never read it I recommend Bryan Morgan's "End of the Line" as a thoroughly good read, which can lead to lot of map reading and interesting "What if"? ideas.

 

Regards

Chris H

 

 

[PatB]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Could we have a washing-machine or ‘fridge factory? 
 

By the 70s imported (Zanussi etc) ones were taking over (and they came by rail), but there were quite big factories still in seemingly unlikely places in the south of England - there was a big ‘fridge factory next to the Bognor branch, although I’m pretty sure they no longer used rail by 1980.

 

Or maybe this is an importer’s depot receiving ferry vanloads of ‘washing machines, or .......

 

Huge amounts of vegetables came from Italy and Spain (still do), and there was a big Transfesa depot at Paddock Wood. A smaller version serving just NE Kent? Odd places did have regular flows of this kind - there was one at Hove IIRC.

 

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of some sort of domestic appliance factory - it fits the sort of things the area did, needs raw materials in, and produces van-loads outwards, to go ‘all over’, including export. LEC at Bognor famously supplied co-op branded ‘fridges; maybe yours makes toasters and fan heaters for them.

 

 

It's not Kent, but Creda/Hotpoint had a factory in Yate, at least until the mid-90s, so UK based appliance manufacturing is plausible at surprisingly late dates.

 

I know, because a mate worked there. I spite of his being colour blind, they put him on quality inspection on wiring. Didn't have a clue what he was looking at, so just sent random machines back as faulty for the look of the thing. Funnily enough I've not been a big fan of Creda/Hotpoint gear since.

[C126]

As we are now on p.4 of the thread, I wonder if we could compose a summary of what we have decided, and Ray Von agrees, please.  Sorry to be a 'bear of very little brain', but it is easier gathering one's thoughts and filling in the last gaps (if any).

 

I think we have agreed to Nearholmer's splendid map, and that the run-down diesel service will run from pl. 2 to Canterbury.  Or is it electrified?  Is the line still open down to Shepherds Well?  This line will handle freight: white goods and sundries to the warehouse, fish and shell-fish in N.P.C.C.S. (how about it going back to Town on the Newspaper empties?), M.o.D. traffic, and perhaps imports/exports to the Wharf when some ferry vans are procured.  Also agricultural supplies in sacks, like Bartholomew's of Chichester.

 

Pls. 3 & 4 is the whizzy, go-ahead, frequent, electric service to Town.  Scrap goods would amble along once a day, occasionally with a waste-oil tank, perhaps returning to the electric arc furnace at Sheerness?

 

Errrrr... have I missed anything?  Is Ray Von happy with all this that we have decided for him? 

 

[Ray Von]

11 minutes ago, C126 said:

As we are now on p.4 of the thread, I wonder if we could compose a summary of what we have decided, and Ray Von agrees, please.  Sorry to be a 'bear of very little brain', but it is easier gathering one's thoughts and filling in the last gaps (if any).

 

I think we have agreed to Nearholmer's splendid map, and that the run-down diesel service will run from pl. 2 to Canterbury.  Or is it electrified?  Is the line still open down to Shepherds Well?  This line will handle freight: white goods and sundries to the warehouse, fish and shell-fish in N.P.C.C.S. (how about it going back to Town on the Newspaper empties?), M.o.D. traffic, and perhaps imports/exports to the Wharf when some ferry vans are procured.  Also agricultural supplies in sacks, like Bartholomew's of Chichester.

 

Pls. 3 & 4 is the whizzy, go-ahead, frequent, electric service to Town.  Scrap goods would amble along once a day, occasionally with a waste-oil tank, perhaps returning to the electric arc furnace at Sheerness?

 

Errrrr... have I missed anything?  Is Ray Von happy with all this that we have decided for him? 

 

More than happy, thank you! And I agree with you about Nearholmer's map.

 

1. Platform2 is (for the time being at least) electrified!

2.  I'm still uncertain what runs out of "Suder's"' yard.

3.  Scrap yard service, spot-on.

4. Ditto, busy line (Ramsgate - London.)

5. The North - South line, hmmm - Canterbury, Ashford, Hastings and beyond (via the sticks?)

 

If anyone cares to second the motion?

 

 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Ray Von

[Ray Von]

Here is the list of rolling stock again, if that helps-

 

Rolling Stock:

 

Mk1 corridor brake comp x 3

 

Mk1 corridor second x 2

 

Mk1 corridor first x 1

 

Mk1 second open x 2

 

Mk1 mini buffet 

 

Mk1 pullman bar

 

Mk1 first sleeping car

 

Mk1 brake gangway coach

 

57ft newspaper packing van blue

 

57ft express parcels blue grey x 2

 

Single vent van brown

 

Railfreight van x 8

 

BP oil tanker wagon

 

 

 

Loco's:

 

Class 20

 

Class 40

 

Class 47

 

Class 25

 

Class 411 four car emu x 2

 

(I have a class 08, but it's due to be retired.)

[C126]

Well, I am glad my summary is largely all right.  May I still argue for the de-electrification of pl. 2 to allow use of peak-time supplementary commuter loco-hauled stock (as I am not sure for what else it would be used), please, perhaps on a rambling semi-fast route via Canterbury, Ashford, and Maidstone West to Town, or to Hastings (I think this would be far enough for it to terminate, and there were(?) run-round facilities there).  Or both (one with the mini-Buffet)!  However, it is your railway, I must remind myself...

Edited February 13, 2021 by C126
Typo.

[whart57]

Right, I'm getting competitive with Nearholmer here  

 

I offer this map of an alternative East Kent, this is the result of a medieval storm which changed the course of the Stour to flow north instead of east and the result that the Wantsum became a large bay rather than a marsh.

 

 

So, a potted railway history:

 

1830    Canterbury and Whitstable Railway opens

1845    South Eastern Railway arrives in Canterbury from Ashford and pushes on towards Ramsgate

1847    SER branch from Grove Ferry to Reculver opens (Reculver at that time more important than Herne Bay which was then just a few houses)

1859    East Kent Railway (later LCDR) opens line from London to Dover via Canterbury

1861    East Kent Railway (later LCDR) line from Faversham to Reculver via Whitstable and Herne Bay opens

1898    Isle of Thanet Light Railway opens line to run from Ramsgate round the coast of Thanet to Westgate on Sea

1899    SER and LCDR merge to form SE&CR

1923    Grouping. Southern Railway also takes over the Thanet Light Railway

1926    Southern Railway upgrades Thanet Light Railway to be an extension of the Ramsgate line and closes the Margate Sands branch

1948    Nationalisation

1952    Canterbury and Whitstable line closed

1959    First stage of Kent Coast Electrification sees Faversham to Reculver electrified

1961    Second stage of Kent Coast Electrification sees Ashford to Ramsgate electrified. Grove Ferry to Reculver considered for closure but dieselised for now

1969    Roll-on-roll-off dock built at Reculver, but as roads not upgraded it proves a white elephant as far as car ferry companies are concerned

1976    Desperate to do something with the ro-ro facilities at Reculver government instigates a car export service ferrying cars from Midlands factories to Reculver for export by ferry to Europe.

 

So at the end of the 1970s you have a regular electrified service made up of 4-CEPs from Reculver to London Victoria. These join up with a Dover Priory to London service at Faversham.

 

The Grove Ferry to Reculver line remains in place for car carriers and as its there also sees an hourly service to Canterbury with a 2 car set. If that line is electrified you could also have peak hour services to Charing Cross/Cannon Street running via Canterbury and Ashford

 

[Dungrange]

I like the history, but wouldn't that make platforms 1 and 2 the electrified lines and platforms 3 and 4 the ones earmarked for closure unless the two lines cross to the southwest of Reculver?

[whart57]

I had to go back to the original drawing to check, but yes, you're right. The exit to the traverser should probably be double track too with a scissors crossing so that both platforms can be used for arrival and departure. However it would be better for platforms 3/4 to be the former SER lines as they are the ones that would serve the dock facilities. I would be inclined to model the dock sidings with car terminal (that being my idea) as a way of hiding the traverser.

 

There is another possibility, though it would require some rebuilding. The SER and LCDR were notorious for not cooperating on station sharing so you could have one line at high level and one at low level. The only problem is that with this scenario it would be the LCDR which would have approached Reculver over the ridge from Hillborough that would have been at high level whereas the SER would have come along the river bank at little above the tide line.

[Ray Von]

On 11/02/2021 at 12:08, Nearholmer said:

Ah, yes, instead of the rambling route just going as far as Canterbury, run the trains to Ashford and Hastings, ....... economical to run, because it would probably only need one more unit in traffic to provide a two-hourly service as an extension of alternate trains from Hastings, and makes it easier for the depot at St Leonards.

 

Or, run to Folkestone via the Elham Valley Line, which was long-closed by 1980, but we could reopen it!

For my money, this is my favourite scenario  (as hammered out by Nearholmer and C126 on  Pg 2.)

 

However, these are the other elements I think I'd like to adopt:

 

Location: semi-fictional, but pretty much at Reculver.  Local amenities - holiday camp and historical interest sites, shellfish industry and scrap metal merchant.

 

Platforms 1 and 2: platform 1 no third rail, freight from "Zanussi" depot (occupying one or both of the "modern" warehouses.)

Freight also from "Suder's Worldwide Dispatch" (smaller, former British Rail goods shed) probably has the concession on rail distribution of the local shellfish, plus "other" goods yet to be determined.

Platform 2, third rail (an unpopular choice, but for now the one I'm going with...)  Commuter line serving Canterbury, Ashford and Hastings.

 

Platforms 3 and 4: busy commuter line serving London, via coast to Ramsgate (Dover, Ashford and Canterbury.)

 

My main source of indecision at the moment regards freight.  I'm not sure whether to have Zanussi own the whole of the modern depot or just one side:

 

Also, being as my knowledge of the running of rail goods is pretty limited - I'm not certain how varied and how much "Suder's" warehouse would handle as a "general distributor"....?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Ray Von
Typo

[whart57]

I have a problem with this scenario, and it comes from the fact - as I've already mentioned - that I grew up in Herne Bay, just a few miles from Reculver. A terminus at Reculver is well within the normal parameters of model railway what-iffery but if you want two lines going out then one of them surely must be the KCR to Faversham and beyond. A branch line from Grove Ferry is acceptable what-iffery, I've had ideas along those lines myself, but a second line up from the south, particularly if it's an extension of the East Kent Railway, is going too far.

 

Now from that part of the NE Kent coast, the shortest route to London has always been the LCDR route via Faversham, Chatham and Bromley and that is the route the fast trains take. Somewhere around 1910 the SECR laid in a junction between Strood and Rochester linking that route with the Maidstone West - Charing Cross via Dartford over the North Kent line (this was using the white elephant Chatham Central branch) and after that NE Kent could have trains to Charing Cross and Cannon Street. In the 70s and 80s there was an hourly service but they were slow trains, stopping everywhere after Strood. There were, I think, peak hour trains to Cannon Street over the Kent Coast Railway for City workers and they were fast(-ish)

 

The Ramsgate-Canterbury West-Ashford line was a backwater. Only in the 1990s did this start to see significant numbers of trains going direct to London. The meandering coast line Ramsgate-Deal-Dover was also a backwater

 

Things today are a little different thanks to Eurostar and the greater importance of Ashford, but in your period that is how things were.

[Ray Von]

30 minutes ago, whart57 said:

I have a problem with this scenario, and it comes from the fact - as I've already mentioned - that I grew up in Herne Bay, just a few miles from Reculver. A terminus at Reculver is well within the normal parameters of model railway what-iffery but if you want two lines going out then one of them surely must be the KCR to Faversham and beyond. A branch line from Grove Ferry is acceptable what-iffery, I've had ideas along those lines myself, but a second line up from the south, particularly if it's an extension of the East Kent Railway, is going too far.

 

Now from that part of the NE Kent coast, the shortest route to London has always been the LCDR route via Faversham, Chatham and Bromley and that is the route the fast trains take. Somewhere around 1910 the SECR laid in a junction between Strood and Rochester linking that route with the Maidstone West - Charing Cross via Dartford over the North Kent line (this was using the white elephant Chatham Central branch) and after that NE Kent could have trains to Charing Cross and Cannon Street. In the 70s and 80s there was an hourly service but they were slow trains, stopping everywhere after Strood. There were, I think, peak hour trains to Cannon Street over the Kent Coast Railway for City workers and they were fast(-ish)

 

The Ramsgate-Canterbury West-Ashford line was a backwater. Only in the 1990s did this start to see significant numbers of trains going direct to London. The meandering coast line Ramsgate-Deal-Dover was also a backwater

 

Things today are a little different thanks to Eurostar and the greater importance of Ashford, but in your period that is how things were

Could you (or somebody) sketch out what you mean?  I'm sure you're correct but I'm not sure I'm following your "train" of thought (oh dear!)

Do you mean - extending the "platform 1 and 2 line" down to Canterbury East territory is too much? 

[Nearholmer]

35 minutes ago, whart57 said:

but a second line up from the south, particularly if it's an extension of the East Kent Railway, is going too far.

 

If you are objecting to an extension of the EKLR from Wingham to the coast near Birchington, then you are objecting to a proposal made in reality, and for which powers were sought, as noted back up-thread.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Dave-5-5-7]

I have a lot of fun creating time tables. Currently working on the passenger and coal program, mine is set early 90s so Trainload freight. This is my attempt for an Oil Program timetable. 

[whart57]

22 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

If you are objecting to an extension of the EKLR from Wingham to the coast near Birchington, then you are objecting to a proposal made in reality, and for which powers were sought, as noted back up-thread.

 

 

 

It was a proposal, but then the EKLR threw proposals around like confetti. The line was probably never properly surveyed and the Wingham line petered out in a field just beyond a level crossing on the Canterbury to Sandwich road. The EKLR was planned on the basis of there being a much larger coalfield under East Kent than was the case. But when borings at Wingham, Hammill, Ash and other places failed to find economically extractable coal the case for the northern end of the EKLR fell away. The one successful colliery at Chislet was right by the mainline and didn't need the EKLR

 

There was an intriguing map I once saw in Herne Bay library. It was a 25" to the mile map of the Reculver area and on it someone had drawn - in pencil - a junction on the Kent Coast Line with a double track line heading south. I've never found out what this was about. Possibly the Southern was considering a link line between the Kent Coast line and the Ashford-Ramsgate line, possibly it was sketched out in 1953 when the line across the marshes was breached by the floods. Who knows.

[whart57]

36 minutes ago, Ray Von said:

Could you (or somebody) sketch out what you mean?  I'm sure you're correct but I'm not sure I'm following your "train" of thought (oh dear!)

Do you mean - extending the "platform 1 and 2 line" down to Canterbury East territory is too much? 

 

I will do so tomorrow

[Nearholmer]

41 minutes ago, whart57 said:

It was a proposal, but then the EKLR threw proposals around like confetti. The line was probably never properly surveyed

 

It must have been surveyed, because they made application for a Light Railway order to cover it, and an application for a LRO had to be accompanied by plans and sections derived from a survey. They actually fenced some of the route beyond where their line petered out at Canterbury Road, as far as where the junction between their Canterbury and Birchington Lines was to be, at the delightfully-named Snake Island (you can see it on the 1938 25" maps), and possibly started earthworks in a desultory way.

 

Basic details here file:///C:/Users/info/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Network%20Shortcuts/EKLR1914Extn.pdf

 

It included the provision to allow the SECR/SR to run-through from near Grove Ferry to near Birchington, by linking curves, so it may have been what you saw on the marked-up map.

 

All that you say about the Kent coal field is correct, of course, but as "what-iffery" goes, I personally don't think "completing" a projected LR is a great deal more imaginative than diverting The Stour (which is a scenario that I rather like BTW).

 

Anyway, its Ray-Von's railway - we can propose, it's for him to dispose.

Edited February 13, 2021 by Nearholmer