Romaldkirk NER Goods Shed (scaling from a photograph)

[Rumblestripe]

I'm looking for some tips on scaling from photos. 

 

Romaldkirk was a small wayside station in Teesdale, this building is still extant but the field it is in is clearly marked "Private" so I honoured that, though hopping over/through the gate would have been very easy! There didn't seem to be anyone about to seek permission from.

 

 

I have drawn on in crude orange where the siding would have been. I have other photographs if anyone is interested and will share any drawing I prepare on here as it is a very attractive small Goods Shed for a rural NER/LNER/BRNE layout. The roof would have been slate and indeed the other side still is.

 

A view of the Good Station area, oddly the passenger facilities were on the other side of the cutting which can be seen at the left of this photograph behind the other building (which also appears on the OS maps from late C19th to early C20th

 

 

 

This "side by side" from the NLS website shows the OS six-inch 1888-1913 map alongside a modern satellite image with the building highlighted in yellow on both maps.

 

Obviously the platform height would have been standard but the bottom of the platform is obscured now by weeds/grass/rubble. Would the door have been a "standard" height? I guess the planks might be 6inch with an overlap? Perhaps I can scale from the course of bricks at the base at least to give me a scale for the wooden planking?

 

Any tips gratefully received.

[Blandford1969]

You have got a number of things to help you with regard to a drawing. 

 

1) As you say the planks - although they look more like 9" rather than 6" (maybe) 

2) The roof is a big help as the corrugated has standard sizes so you can work out the length from counting the ridges 

3) If you could measure the height of that fencing which runs down to the road, which should be possible without trespassing would help you greatly on confirming the building height. 

4) As you have an OS map it should be possible to scale it. 

5) Even better, you are really lucky that the building survives and the road allows a square on view of the goods shed. England - Looking straight at the goods shed Paste this into a word document. On my laptop an a4 sheet is at 110%

5) 

You can then use right click and size and position to change the zoom by either small or larger percentages till it matches. It looks like there were 14 planks above the door, two have fallen of between this and your photo. You can then scale it so the width matches either for 6" or 9" planks. for 4mm it looks like is right the shed would be 16 feet wide and 13 feet to the bottom of the bargeboard.  You can then take your snip from the map and paste into the same word document and stretch it till it matches the dimension from the first view. That would suggest the building is about 12 feet long. The issue with using such small maps is that the lines become overlarge and a bit blurred. 

 

I use the above method for scaling drawings such as GA or other drawings to then print to make patterns for cutting out. 

 

It looks like an interesting place. Look forward to seeing progress. 

 

best wishes

 

Duncan

 

Hope that helps

Edited April 15, 2021 by Blandford1969
spelling

[Rumblestripe]

Thanks, 9in does look more likely. I did take a square on shot

 

 

Good shout on the corrugated sheets on the roof. I thought I had taken loads of photographs but when you get back to base there is always "one missing" from what you would like in this case a good shot of the corrugated roof. Ah well it is a place I can visit easily so I might try to get a better shot next time I'm passing! Would a standard sheet of Corrugate Iron be 3ft wide by 6ft? I see that modern items are listed as 990mm so I guess that is 3ft.

 

This photograph shows the relationship of the Goods facilities to the passenger

How tall is a modern sheep? 

 

Actually, I think a modern sheep is roughly 1m at the shoulder which would tally with your observation that these are 9in planks not 6. Thanks Shaun. The two buildings both appear on the OS map and appear, with the exception of the roof to share construction methods.

 

The Station buildings are now a private home but much altered, only the nearest end gable looks to be original and the occupier is plainly something of a railway enthusiast as that is a reproduction of a slotted post signal (though plainly not original!). The additional building with the circular window is a modern addition as, as far as I can tell, is pretty much everything else. This shot does give you an idea of how beautiful this are is, probably the least "touristy" of the Northern Dales, just don't tell anyone please. I like it like that!

[Tim V]

You have got a lot of information there.

You can scale off the OS map.

You can count bricks to confirm the OS figures.

The height is determined by the canopy - which 'may' be to the load gauge. Don't forget to add the height of the track.

 

I would make a card mock-up with the dimensions, before committing to anything more permanent. If it passes the visual test, leave it for a few days and check it again.

[MikeTrice]

For this sort of work I usually turn to using Inkscape to try and scale things. Measurement on Google Earth suggest a width of 20'0" and I have used this as a basis.

 

Attached PDF is reproduced to 4mm scale so if you print it with no scaling you should be able to guess widths from it.

romaldkirk.pdf

[BrushType4]

The bricks will be 3inches high, so looking at those, the planks look like 6inch planks. The bricks will also be 9inches long, so by counting those. you can get the width more or less. Hope that helps.

[Rumblestripe]

With thanks to everyone who helped point me on the way, here is my drawing...

A few points of explanation

 

I have not shown the downcomer on both sides of the end views though obviously they should be there. The rear end with no door has the bargeboards left as lines to show the structure behind them. I drawing is not scaled but there is a small scale so that it can be printed in 7mm or whatever you need by tinkering with your printer settings. It's an attractive little building and usefully small as a prototype for a small layout. As you can see from the photos above the area under the two rows of bricks are fandom stonework. My hypothesis is that local contractors built a base but this had to be raised to meet the requirements of loading by railway construction when the building was to be erected so two rows of bricks were used to raise the structure to the required height (perhaps fanciful!)

 

I noticed that you can see the remains of the last coat (or perhaps the first, if the rest has weathered off) of paint, a buff upper and a reddish lower half. I guess the building would have been painted throughout its working life but not since. Does anyone know what colour this would have been painted by the NER? From a quick glance in my NER Record I think it would have been similar colours (BR would be similar but I think LNER would have been a pale green lower half?)

 

From drawing the building up in LibreCAD I found that the wooden planks are indeed 6in as this produced the correct roof pitch of about 35 degrees, with this established I calculated that the slates on the porch must have been 9in wide. This seems to be an unusual size known as "Viscountess" (18x9in). The top row have been turned on their sides just to confuse matters! Comparing it with the standard loading gauge and it looks about right.

 

If it is of use to anyone I can provide the .dwg file for CAD use.

[Rumblestripe]

Not sure why the software (or possibly me) has put the drawing in twice? Ho hum.

[Blandford1969]

Looks really good. Thanks for the suggestion on Librecad too. 

 

Duncan

[2mm Andy]

I think the North Eastern painted the lower part of their timber buildings in a red-brown colour, with a cream upper section. Levisham station on the NYMR is painted in this style.

 

There is a brief glimpse of Romaldkirk goods shed at 4m43s in the youtube video below, taken from a DMU trip to Middleton-in-Teesdale in 1963. There doesn't look to have been much paint on the building then either, but I think the lower portion does look a bit darker than the upper section.

 

 

Andy

[DougN]

This is interesting for me. Attempting to resolve some dimensions from photos is a challenge. A couple of things I have noticed. 

On the gable end there is battens on the weather boards which could have been for signage. 

The vent on the gable end is not centred. 

The brickwork appears to be a solution to level up the stone work for the bottom plate of wall on this elevation

Corrugated  sheet was available in sheet sizes in one foot increments. From 5ft to 10ft. But here in Australia I recall the sheets were 8ft 6. When they were imported. (There is a university  CSU booklet on the use of corrugated sheet here in Australia from lysaghts  which is interesting but not really relevant)

the plan size will probably match a standard dimensions building for the NER.

 

i hope this helps! 

[Rumblestripe]

Thanks to Andy

 

I have now seen a photograph of the other side of the shed when it was covered in slates rather than corrugated iron and it shows that there was a roof light which I guess is logical the Railway Company would rather that their employees could see while they work even in pre Health and Safety days!

 

The photograph (which is probably copyright given it is in the NERA book shows that the glazing is simply two sheets of glass with the upper overlaying the lower in the frame per wooden frame (6 pieces of glass total)

Edited July 5, 2021 by Rumblestripe
typo ahoy

[DGO]

At one time it looks like the shed had two large vents either side of the canopy, I say vents as I cannot think what else they might be, but 5 slots in the larger timbers one above the other in a uniform pattern, I wonder if they once were open with maybe a mesh over or behind them to allow ventilation or light in they must surely have been there when the building was put up then filled in later, how much later I wouldn't like to guess but obviously they have been in there long enough to weather to a near identical grey

 

[Rumblestripe]

Just resurrecting this thread with a photo of a mock up of the Goods Shed. It sits here beside a Slaters MR 8T open on Peco O Gauge track. So, mocking this up raised a couple of questions, first and foremost was how do my little humans get inside it?! Both doors are sliding doors and raised up to allow ease of loading/unloading of railway and road vehicles alike, they also seem to lack any obvious door furniture or trace thereof that might suggest that they could be secured from the outside. There doesn't appear to be any trace of steps up to the door on the gable end so I think there must have been an "office" door to the rear gable end which I have not been able to see? The "vents" mentioned by @DGO in the message above appear on closer examination of my photographs to be strips of wood that would allow signage to be mounted, it's a bit messy so I suspect an LNER or BR addition.

 

Also re-examining the photos I took it is obvious that the shed was not directly at the platform edge but set back slightly

 

See the large yellow circle, that large piece of dressed stone looks like it would form the corner of the platform. 

 

I'm going to mock up a coloured version showing the roof and roof lights that can be seen in a photograph in North Eastern Railway Architecture Vol 3. p107. Looking at that photograph the "rail-side" door (small yellow ring) is ajar and I can clearly see daylight through it. The photographer (author?) is standing to the left of my position. Is that the "office door"? However, the building in this photograph is in some ways in a worse state of repair than in my photos as there are several of the horizontal planks missing or dislodged allowing a view of the interior framing.

[Rumblestripe]

There we go...

The "red" has come out a bit pinky it needs to be darker and more earthy. But a bit of fun. A very quick bit of photoshopping, I reckon I could make a print your own card kit for it if anyone was interested.