Tavistock (GWR)

[John Brenchley]

Where to put the trees?

I've started placing trees on the embankment - 12 that are pretty much finished plus one that needs foliage (and maybe its height reduced a bit)  and I'd welcome some thoughts from the more artistic among you as to where they would look best.

 

I must admit that seeing them in place was quite a shock as I have been so used to the embankment with nothing on it.  They certainly cut down the view  but that was to be expected  and as I mentioned in an earlier post, I need some compromise compared with the totally covered embankment that existed in real life.  What I've tried to do is create "viewing windows" through to the buildings behind.

 

Some pictures are below in not particularly good light - front on and 45% angles at just above track height and one from as high as I could get just to try to show where the trees have been placed.

 

The advantage of the embankment being made of polystyrene with a thin plaster coating is that the trees are reasonably easy to stab into place and are easy to move around.

 

I might leave then in place for a few weeks to see if I get used to them.  Once happy, there'll be a lot more ground cover and undergrowth to be added between the trees similar to the embankment above the corner curve.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Best wishes

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by John Brenchley

[Mikkel]

Hi John, I have just had a similar experience on my own little layout. I put trees at the front to create viewing windows, and was a bit taken aback with the dramatic change in appearance.

 

As in your direct side-on shot, the trees at the center in my own experiments seemed to distract and block the view a bit too much when seen at eye-level.

 

After experiments I concluded that in my case trees at the front worked best at the sides in order to focus the view, and the rest then went at the back.

 

But it depends a lot on the size and design of the layout, I think.  And whether you prioritise eye-level views or not.

 

In any case, the layout looks excellent. 

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by Mikkel

[Siberian Snooper]

It's a long time since I have walked the path behind the Bedford Hotel, but I think a few more trees along the river bank may be in order.

 

 

[Coal Tank]

Hi John 

      Have you any photos of the Prototype that we can see

John 

[brianusa]

You can never have too many trees especially in this part of Devon.  Alex of Yelverton fame, has the right idea on the very convincing "Yelverton" station area and trees will grow in the most unusual spaces.  If you think you have too many they can always be chopped down!   Just compare the pictures of Tavistock or Yelverton in their heyday versus todays overgrowth; ignore all the houses!

    Brian. 

[John Brenchley]

17 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

It's a long time since I have walked the path behind the Bedford Hotel, but I think a few more trees along the river bank may be in order.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, brianusa said:

You can never have too many trees especially in this part of Devon.  Alex of Yelverton fame, has the right idea on the very convincing "Yelverton" station area and trees will grow in the most unusual spaces.  If you think you have too many they can always be chopped down!   Just compare the pictures of Tavistock or Yelverton in their heyday versus todays overgrowth; ignore all the houses!

    Brian. 

 

Hi Gentlemen

You are certainly correct that a lot more trees would be more in line with real life.  If I only considered the appearance from my operating side which is behind the station building, then a backdrop of trees would work really well.  However, when visitors come or if I ever exhibited the layout, the view would be across the river so too many trees will obscure most of the train movements. Hence my compromise of fewer and lower trees but with a lot of undergrowth instead.

Best wishes

 

John

[John Brenchley]

On 21/08/2021 at 20:39, Coal Tank said:

Hi John 

      Have you any photos of the Prototype that we can see

John 

 

Hi John

The images below indicate the density of the trees behind the goods shed.

In the aerial view, they are so close together on both banks that it is hard to see the river at all.

The trees do thin out nearer the entrance to goods yard, closer to Abbey Bridge as can be seen below.

 

 

Best wishes

John

Edited April 6, 2022 by John Brenchley

[John Brenchley]

On 21/08/2021 at 14:42, Mikkel said:

Hi John, I have just had a similar experience on my own little layout. I put trees at the front to create viewing windows, and was a bit taken aback with the dramatic change in appearance.

 

As in your direct side-on shot, the trees at the center in my own experiments seemed to distract and block the view a bit too much when seen at eye-level.

 

After experiments I concluded that in my case trees at the front worked best at the sides in order to focus the view, and the rest then went at the back.

 

But it depends a lot on the size and design of the layout, I think.  And whether you prioritise eye-level views or not.

 

In any case, the layout looks excellent. 

 

 

Hi Mikkel

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

I too was beginning to feel that the block of 3 trees immediately in front of the goods shed was perhaps a bit too high.  I've replaced the larger olive leafed one with something a bit smaller and bunched them up a bit more to the left which I think helps a bit.  I also swapped the offending larger tree that I had removed into the place of the unfinished one just to see how a single one might look there.  A new view at rail height is below.

 

 

The layout is currently supported on a line of cupboards and this gives a rail height of 130cm.  A more realistic view would be that of an average height person so the picture below is as close as I can get to the view I see when I stand a couple of feet in front of the layout - more of the buildings then become visible.

 

 

Even after only a few days, I'm getting more used to the changed appearance so I'll give it a bit longer before making any final decisions and gluing anything in place.

 

Further comments from anyone would still be welcome.

 

Best wishes

 

John

Edited April 6, 2022 by John Brenchley

[bécasse]

At the moment, the clumps of trees look as if they are almost equally spaced out whereas the reality of nature would favour a more random distribution with more trees clumped together. Can I suggest something like that shown in the attached illustration with clump 2 moved towards single tree 3, and clump 6 moved towards single tree 5, in both cases forming a fairly open clump not dissimilar to clump 4. This would actually give better viewing spaces.

 

Given that there is in reality a near-continuous line of trees, I would add a similar near-continuous line of low-level bushes, some over-hanging the river, to fill the gaps between the trees while retaining good viewing of the layout.

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by bécasse
Photo reinstated

[gwr517]

John,

I would try the planting suggestion by becasse ,sorry for the lack of accent, if only to get the feel. Overall it looks terrific though.

Doug.

Edited August 23, 2021 by gwr517
spelling

[John Brenchley]

22 hours ago, bécasse said:

At the moment, the clumps of trees look as if they are almost equally spaced out whereas the reality of nature would favour a more random distribution with more trees clumped together. Can I suggest something like that shown in the attached illustration with clump 2 moved towards single tree 3, and clump 6 moved towards single tree 5, in both cases forming a fairly open clump not dissimilar to clump 4. This would actually give better viewing spaces.

 

Given that there is in reality a near-continuous line of trees, I would add a similar near-continuous line of low-level bushes, some over-hanging the river, to fill the gaps between the trees while retaining good viewing of the layout.

 

Thanks bécasse for taking that time to put together that response  - your diagram makes the suggestions very clear thanks.

 

I'll try moving the trees around a bit as you suggest and see how they look.

 

As far as low level bushes are concerned, I definitely intend that most of the brown part of the bank plus quite a bit of the river bank will be covered as this will add to the illusion of heavier afforestation.

 

Bets wishes

 

John

[John Brenchley]

The Water Tank - request for help please

 

In between thinking about tree locations, I've made a start on the column water tank that existed next to the goods shed using the Ratio kit as a starting point.

 

However I wonder if anyone has more detailed knowledge of this type of tank - cylindrical, flat topped (as opposed to the conical style).  Similar tanks seemed to have existed at some of the preserved stations and there's also one at Didcot but I can't find any on line pictures taken from above and that's the area I'm unsure about.

 

The kit comes with a lid to the tank but looking at the aerial photograph (see earlier in this thread), I think this may not have existed in the case of the tank at Tavistock and perhaps the water should be visible.  In either case, I hope someone can provide some information about two features - the operating chain / cranks and the depth gauge.

 

From the pictures I have seen, I think the chain will be attached to a lever of some sort on the top of the tank and maybe this is attached to something the operates like a ball cock in a domestic cistern. Presumably, pulling the chain causes the water to flow through the pipe that is attached to the bottom of the tank.

 

The other feature that I think exists is a water gauge.  The Ratio kit comes with a small wheel to be fitted on top of the tank but has very limited instructions.  One picture of Tavistock appears to show such a wheel at the top of the tank near the ladder but how would this work and what other aspects of it might need to be included on the model?

 

Thanks very much for any help you can give.

 

I'll try to post some pictures of progress later today.

 

Best wishes

 

John

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by John Brenchley

[Siberian Snooper]

The water level is indicated by the amount of chain showing, there's a float on the inside, the nearer the top the water is the more chain is hanging down outside. As for getting water out, I can only assume that pulling the chain lifts a flap over the end pipe.

 

 

[John Brenchley]

36 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

The water level is indicated by the amount of chain showing, there's a float on the inside, the nearer the top the water is the more chain is hanging down outside. As for getting water out, I can only assume that pulling the chain lifts a flap over the end pipe.

 

 

 

Thanks for the explanation about the float.  That explains why there seems to be some chain hanging down the outside of the tank.  Must be quite a heavy float else what's to stop the weight of the chain outside the tank pulling it out when the tank is nearly full?

 

Best wishes

 

John

[John Brenchley]

Now that I've got home from work, I've taken one more picture of progress so will add a few notes about the water tank.

 

The Ratio model has its uses but is not quite right for the Tavistock tank so needed a bit of adapting as illustrated in the pictures below.

 

1  The plastic part of the kit as it is supplied - there is also an etched ladder and a piece of rubber hose.

 

2  The top and bottoms of the tank need to overhang the sides and are far too thick - on the left can be seen the base of the tank with its edge thinned down with files.  The top on the right is still to be done.

 

3  The kit represents the style of tank with a pillar formed of angled iron whereas the Tavistock one has a round tapered column.  I found a piece of spare sprue to use as the base of this then thickened it by wrapping with 5 thou plastic sheet and then sanded it down to what I though was about the right size.

 

4  From photographs it appeared that the base of the tank sat on a cross of T shaped metal pieces on top of a cement base.  I made these from thin bits of plastic. The bottom of the column has a thicker ring with which to hold it down to these base pieces.  I filed up a "washer" of plastic to thread onto the column to represent this.  From pictures, I thought that there might be some angle supports underneath the tank so added 6 of these from plastic pieces.

The tank as supplied with the kit was too high and a bit wide in diameter so I trimmed it's height and sanded the sides till the base and lid pieces overhung about the same as in pictures.  I then scored it to represent 6 vertical panels and added rivets from a sheet of rivet transfers.  This is the first time I have tried them so hopefully they will show up OK after painting.

 

Below is a picture of the tank temporarily in place on the layout.  As mentioned in the post above, maybe the roof in not appropriate - its just sitting in place at the moment so can easily be discarded.  On other improvement I need to make is to thin down the plastic of the support bracket for the swinging arm - I completely forgot to do this before gluing it in place so we have to see if I can attack it gently with files or a scalpel.

 

 

Best wishes

 

John

Edited April 6, 2022 by John Brenchley

[Caley Jim]

3 hours ago, John Brenchley said:

Must be quite a heavy float else what's to stop the weight of the........ 

I suspect there would be some sort of stop to prevent that, either something fitted on the chain or the chain padded through a ring which stops the float being pulled up. 

Nice work on the tank, John. 

 

Jim

[brianusa]

While there are many books on this line, I don't recall so many great pictures of Tavistock station.  A lovely selection!

   Brian.

[Blandford1969]

Basically the chain goes over the wheel (hopefully) and means the fireman can operate it by himself without having to ask someone else to turn it off. Its much better, especially if filling a tank engine. There is a really heavy weight as if you let go of the chain it really moves up very quickly. Would you like some photos of the ones at Bewdley as I will have some time to kill waiting for the 28 to take it back to Bridgnorth?

[John Brenchley]

4 hours ago, Blandford1969 said:

Basically the chain goes over the wheel (hopefully) and means the fireman can operate it by himself without having to ask someone else to turn it off. Its much better, especially if filling a tank engine. There is a really heavy weight as if you let go of the chain it really moves up very quickly. Would you like some photos of the ones at Bewdley as I will have some time to kill waiting for the 28 to take it back to Bridgnorth?

 

Any pictures would be gratefully received thanks

[JohnBS]

On 15/08/2021 at 08:11, John Brenchley said:

A few final photographs to show the completed office added to the goods shed at Tavistock.

 

Firstly a composition of construction shots showing

 

   The strips of roof slates being added to a sub surface of thin card.

 

   The roof trimmed and weathered with dilute India ink and grey / brown weathering powders.  Gutters and downpipes from plastic,

 

   The barge boards added slightly proud of the roof surface so that the roof subsurface below the slates fits into the recess.

 

   The roof glued in place just needing some lead capping.

 

The colour balance in the first two images is totally wrong - the problems of indoor lighting.  The first one is far too brown - the slates are actually light grey before any weathering.  The second one is not brown enough - the roof is actually sitting on a piece of buff coloured card.  

 

And lastly a couple of pictures of the goods shed back in place on the layout with a few goods vehicles artistically placed.

 

My next job should be getting some forestation on that bank.

 

 

 

Best wishes

 

John

 

John,

Lovely work. Tavistock Goods Shed looks very similar (but not identical) to that at Totnes - so much for GWR standardisation.

(Horizontal boarding, different fenestration, office with double-pitch roof.)

Best wishes

John

[John Brenchley]

Definitely similar John though quite a bit bigger as would be appropriate for a station the size of Totnes.

 

Great overall scenic treatment.

 

Best wishes

 

John

[Andy Keane]

On 06/08/2021 at 11:09, John Brenchley said:

The Goods Shed

The GWR Goods Shed at Tavistock was situated immediately behind the down platform at the Launceston end of the station.  It was a substantial building measuring approximately 75’ long by 65’ wide so a model makes an imposing building even in our small scale.

 

The shed was a timber framed structure covered with vertical planking, presumably  treated with pitch or some similar substance for weather protection.  In later years additional corrugated sheeting appears to have been added to the sides but I chose to ignore this as being a post WW2 addition.

 

Two sidings passed through the shed on one side and road vehicle access was also provided through second openings at each end.  Some images of the actual building are below.

 

 

 

The model is now about 20 years old and was built from 1mm thick 5 ply plywood which I scored vertically for 9“ planking.  The internal framework, made from thin pieces of square timber, was also included as this would be quite visible between the various openings.  I painted the plywood with thinned down washes of various grey and brown enamels which soaked into it quite well and hopefully looks like slightly faded pitch/creosote.

 

Originally, I made the roof from the Ratio plastic embossed slate sheets but as they do not come large enough to cover the whole roof, a join had to be made and however hard I tried to camouflage it, it was always visible.  After many years, this was annoying me too much and I replaced the roof with one covered with the ClearSolutions slate strips which were printed on sticky labels by Ian Barefoot – I discovered these at the time I was putting the roof on  the station building and have found them really useful ever since.

 

The shed appeared to have a stone base up to deck level and this was made from plastic embossed stone sheet.  A small crane was mounted on the deck inside the shed, and I used a Langley white metal crane to represent this – it a barely visible at most angles so whether or not it is the correct type is not too important.

 

Below is a picture of the model taken from the Plymouth (southern) end.

 

 

Office extensions existed at both ends, the southern one clearly being of timber, but most photographs show a brick-built office at the northern end.  In the article on Tavistock in the Great Western Railway Journal, issue 17, Chris Turner writes that “The brick-built office is believed to have been provided during the Second World War, to replace an earlier wooden structure”.

 

Originally, I did not have any images of this earlier office so left it off the model.  However, studying an enlargement of the aerial photograph last weekend, I decided that there was enough detail visible to make a reasonable attempt at including it.  A chimney is also clearly shown in the aerial picture, but I was uncertain what it was originally built from and whether it was replaced at the time the office was rebuilt.  The more recent pictures suggest brick but not necessarily the same as the new office brickwork as in some pictures, I think there is a slight join visible between the office and the chimney, suggesting a different colour or type of brick and leading me to conclude that the original chimney was never renewed.  The only colour picture that I have is very washed out but may have a hint of pink suggesting the office may have been red brick.  However, I decided to use dirty yellow brick for the chimney as I thought this would look more in keeping with the rest of the Tavistock where generally stone colours are more dominant.

 

 

In the above picture taken yesterday, the nearest corner of the roof ridging has already been cut away to allow the chimney to sit in place.

 

Progress on the office to date is as shown in the collage of images below.  The bottom right image shows the reverse side of the ply where four of the layers of the ply have been carved away to leave a single ply thickness for the corner joints and the window surrounds.

 

I have now started on the window on the end wall using microscope slide glass and sticky labels strips for the framework.  I’ll add some more pictures of progress over the weekend.

 

Best wishes

 

John

 

I love your goods shed - minor question - did you ever find a paint scheme for these GWR cranes in good sheds? I am just poutting one together for my helston shed and am not sure if bits are white, black or grey!

thanks

Andy

[John Brenchley]

19 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

I love your goods shed - minor question - did you ever find a paint scheme for these GWR cranes in good sheds? I am just poutting one together for my helston shed and am not sure if bits are white, black or grey!

thanks

Andy

Hi Andy

 

Thanks for your kind  comments on the Tavistock goods shed model.

 

The only information I can find about cranes in goods yards comes from the publication "Great Western Way" which states on page 169 of the 2009 edition that "Cranes, where installed, were medium grey".

 

Hopefully, this helps, though I'm not sure of the definition of "medium grey".

 

Best wishes

 

John

[CF MRC]

“Hopefully, this helps, though I'm not sure of the definition of "medium grey".”

 

Somewhere between light and dark?

 

Tim

[Mikkel]

More like the other way around