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Katharine St. - A BR(s) suburban terminus in fiNescale


Lacathedrale
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I would appreciate some thoughts on the following.

 

I do really like XtrkCAD for laying out simple problems such as siding lengths and testing train routes/etc. - but templot it ain't. I've sketched up the precise buildings/platforms and roadway details - as you can see, it's much skinnier than the plan above:

 

image.png.aeb12ac79522d3f589b803bddf80bfad.png

Katharine St. v3.2 - CAD render

 

While the width of the platforms is at the station building end is as per the prototype, the original of course didn't have a parcels bay. Due to the zig-zag alignment of Katherine St - if straightened out It's just about possible to a minimum width single-sided platform infront of the bay, and then quite a narrow GPO platform behind it.  I'm finding it hard to figure out how the GPO platform would fit - being in a cutting it would make sense for there to be an overhead conveyor to an adjacent building, but Katharine St. is directly behind the station on both a hill and a bus route, so a conveyor would need to be 25' above that too and suddenly with the limited available width too - it all seems a bit contrived.

 

The alternative is to omit the GPO platform, and as per most suggestions of the prototype's expected behaviour, effectively dedicate P1 for parcels and mail traffic for portions of the operating session. This is what the original platform and road alignment looked like:

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Katharine St. v4.0 - CAD render without GPO

 

I like that we've broken up the schematic-like parallelism.

 

In both diagrams the dotted lines show the original platform extents - beyond this I'll be modelling SR concrete platform extensions. We could further break up the linearity by extending P2 (bottom) in a curve around the neck of the throat as shown in the 1896 drawings.

 

 

This is what the retaining wall looks like now:

image.png.8ea7de93252ab23deb2ebb880203575c.png

 

This is the original section by the tunnel, you can see the lighter coloured brick where the road was straightened as part of the town hall / garden construction some time around 1890. In my v4.0 plan above, the retaining wall would kink angle out towards the office buildings in the background. Of note, the SEGAS building is pictured right - looking fairly boring here - the good stuff is on the rounded corners and arched ground floor. Also noting the interesting railings.

 

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Is there room for the postal trolleys to go under the road? Maybe even a slope down to an underpass? Or, an interruption of that nice retaining wall with some horrible 1960/70s steel and concrete underpass having low construction depth - just the sort of self-harm that Croydon specialised in at the time.

 

I wasn’t too enamoured with an earlier computer-sketch that you showed, with a high-level conveyor, because it seemed to muck-up the visual balance.

 

Personally, I think it’s worth finding a way to keep the dock, because it makes good excuse for more shunting!

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Interesting thought - having it cut into the wedge at the throat end would give a tunnel with about 9' head height - enough for a postie? Or maybe just have the conveyor  + maintenance access door going this way?

 

image.png.145ec8d38af99c9642439f17ce110f85.png

 

This picture shows a 'minimum island platform' width for the passenger platform, and the imagined depth of the GPO platform. The dashed corner shows the theoretical path of the connection. 

 

Presumably if this were a conveyor, then anything on trolleys would have to go the long way around down Katharine Street, through the side entrance and clutter up P1...

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I wasn’t thinking of a conveyor in this context, more lots of trolleys behind tow-tractors rattling to and fro through a low underpass - 9ft clear would be more than ample, even 7ft.

 

Mind you, a ‘baggage conveyor’ type set-up would also work, and be more efficient. 
 

You clearly need to study sorting-office design c1970: there’s probably a Ladybird book about it if you can’t find something deeper!

 

Yep; I knew it! http://beingmrsc.com/being_mrs_c/2018/01/ladybird-tuesday-postal-service.html

 

Rather randomly, the image search also threw-up this, which seems to be The Ladybird Book of Molotov Cocktails.

 

 

13AAE38C-2B5B-4380-8160-BD3FE6BA41FE.jpeg

Edited by Nearholmer
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My method to draw up the station building is inspired by @Nick Holliday - using GIMP's perspective tool to get one of the building faces looking broadly orthogonal in one axis, then measuring the pixel length to known real measurements to calculate a given px/ft ratio on that axis, then simply measuring from edges and corners. Here's what the distorted picture looks like:

 

image.png.24700108f8deef795395ce6c3cb2d5bf.png

Clearly, it's foreshortened - but I don't care what the actual widths are, just their relative proportions to each other. For reference, this is the original unmodified photograph:

 

This is what I've come up with, it feels about right to me:

 

image.png.3623c7169b3b27a9d248473cfdde4253.png

Central Croydon Station Building Frontage v1.0

 

I now need to figure out the chimneys!

 

I think we can determine that the leftmost chimney sits in the middle of the two storey station master's house - three flutes in the chimney imply four pots on top, one for each of the four rooms sited centrally.

 

image.png.951b44e96da2dda56a3c1732e9d6d62d.png

Photograph of Central Croydon station likely >1886. In 1851 Hammond was an ironmonger situated in Croydon  specialising in Ploughs, Stoves, etc. - and Hussey was a gentlemen. Presumably they went into business together for the depot shown!

 

The other well known picture shows the platform side, and the silhouette of the middle chimney - emphasis mine because it's horridly over exposed:

image.png.86a99f72841286ed658396db8824fbeb.png

 

It looks like the north waiting room chimney has two pots, and is not hard up against the butt gable. Without a floor plan it's impossible to know what the purpose of these two pots are, any ideas? Both for a fireplace at one end of the waiting room?

 

Lastly, the south chimney appears to be positioned against the theoretical line of the booking office wall underneath the cross gable and has three pots - one for the booking office and two for the south fireplace? One must remember the double windows of the booking office are offset towards the waiting room and I believe the cross gable would be roughly where the sawtooth canopy sits - and is just blown out by the exposure.

 

It is after looking at this platform view I wonder if the main doors were double - likely - rather than the single I have drawn. I will also assume the brick stripes on the front of the building carry on around to the rear, giving a good datum. This view also highlights how the booking office is flush with the waiting room on platform side.

 

Edited by Lacathedrale
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It might be worth looking at a few LBSCR stations from the late C19th to get general style, typical dimensions etc. There are a fair few still about.
 

This one is dressed with lightly classical styling, but my gut feeling is that dimensionally it probably isn’t far different from, say, Hever, Cowden, and Ashurst.

 

My memory is that main doors are typically double, but with the leaves fairly narrow in proportion to height.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 07/09/2021 at 17:27, woodenhead said:

When do we get to see the actual mock up :lol:

 

First I need to get the ground levels set up properly, which after some musing I think I can achieve - the distance from the top of retaining wall to the backscene is 80mm at its narrowest, and I have some 80mm strip left over from the original ply sheet. This will mean I can kick the can of the GPO platform question down the road a little further.

 

I feel that this GPO platform is rapidly becoming a textbook case of "killing [my] darling" - though it is an interesting modelling opportunity, I can't really get over the demands it will require scenically to the rest of the layout. Operationally, I think it might be MORE interesting to use P1 for off-peak parcels/newspaper usage, as it will require shuffling carriages around from inbound trains, those on the platform and any of those in the runaround - while dodging outbound services from P2. Additionally, I was really hoping to avoid the high degree of parallelism which is anathema to a natural-looking diorama, and the inclusion of the GPO platform forces even more straight lines into what is already quite a linear layout.

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Don't overthink it - I just spent a week and a half preparing to alter my own layout because I thought it would be more aesthetically appealing to make the change, only to realise it might make operations a little difficult.  The current layout of track that I want to change does everything it needs, but I felt I'd done it wrong.  Last night I realised it was best to leave as is and move on because I'd only regret the change later - but in the meantime I've lost a week and a bit conjugating a change that hasn't happened. 

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image.png.aecf2b34fc187dca99e516d0ba3f336a.png

Katherine Street cut out and about to be glued up - due to the gradient it's a little more tough to see the zig-zag of the road but I'm sure it'll become more evident as the retaining walls/etc. come up.

 

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This must have been some time later due to the trees in Queen's Gardens, which wouldn't have been permitted while the railway operated - I would imagine no earlier than the WW1-period?

 

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An opposite view in the 1950's - a view seen by the chimney sweep upon scaling the booking office roof?

 

Retaining wall

My next task, after I all this setup is dried is to create the jigs for the angled retaining wall - thanks to borrowing a compound mitre saw I shoud be able to get them all the same 6 degree angle to form a carcass for applying plasticard sheet. In the above picture it looks to me like there are railing supports that bow out over the retaining wall capstones and are fixed into the brickwork underneath - very ornate! I'm assuming stone capstones about 18" wide?  A picture from Wikimedia Commons handily shows the bond and bricks of the retaining wall still in situ:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Croydon_Central_Station_5.jpg  - it looks like English Bond to me, and very sooty red bricks?

 

 

Katherine St. in the 1980's

 

11498

Not many shots of Katharine Street online, but here's one from 1982 showing  a similar angle as the first. Just about the only thing the same are the two buildings on the High Street at the far end. Croydon Coke& Gas Company Showrooms was rebuilt in 1939 as SEGAS House, and the the rest obliterated (including the Kings Arms Hotel and Pub, and a series of buildings similar to those seen on the High Street) in the 1970's.

 

Croydon Segas 3606

 

Here's a wider shot of SEGAS House, showing the junction and railings between Park Lane (foreground) and Katharine Street.  I'd model the side profile of this building for the BR Blue era.

 

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I rather like the idea of platform 1 only being used for passenger services during the morning and evening peaks and being used for parcels the rest of the time. That way it might suggest the gradual running down of the terminus on it's way to possible closure or a rebirth in future years that could tie in with the tramlink and/or Thameslink.

 

Terry

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  • 3 weeks later...

Checking back on a discussion thread in the Brighton Circle, I was pleased to find that Mr. N. Holliday and Mr. A. Budgen have dredged up a little information around the Katharine St. bridge - courtesy of Mr P. Beeston who went scurrying down there during the construction of Fairfield halls, while it was excavated:

 

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The original 1875 OS Map shows the details in situ:

image.png.19951ef0f697ff483d799f694f9ab28c.png

 

The latter image also validates my idea of the throat for the original 1868 track plan (i.e. the layout which I'm modelling).

 

Included in the discussion are some more drawings of the station building which are mostly similar to the ones I made myself, but more refined - I'll save those for another post when I'm a bit further along on the construction - so far, nothing has stirred and my time has been taken up with a Gauge 3 LBSCR H2!

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  • 3 weeks later...

One of the requirements for me for this layout was operational signalling and interlocking and I think that will be particularly relevant to retain operational intensity on what is a relatively simple track plan.

 

Though for now my main focus is '77-'87, I've realised that KS can represent many periods from 1885 onward with very few changes other than a few of the buildings and signs. If we firstly discount the interesting but overly ambitious pre-group and LBSCR overhead electric periods, we actually only have one choice - whether that signalling should be LBSCR semaphore (1930-1985ish), or BR colour light (1955+). There are arguments for semaphore usage post-1955, but given the generally prototypical approach we're taking elsewhere it might be a stretch.

 

Thankfully, whatever I choose I've not got much to manage initially - just two platform starters with position lights and a few ground signals. If I ever build the Fair field extension, it will require a couple more ground signals. and a three aspect signal with a theatre indicator (or maybe a feather) - and happily, Absolute Aspects can supply all of these bar ground signals, which I think simple 3D prints with bi-colour LEDs should suffice for:

 

image.png.9cb7cc3d7a79d6d6e5114f8526c3ff0a.png

Absolute Aspects Colour Light Signal (Facebook.com)

 

As a side note, the signal cabin would have been either a Saxby Farmer 1b in 1868-71 on the station side of Park Lane, or 2a from 1885 until at least 1895 (where it was used as a ground frame) on the other side of Park Lane in Fair field. The last 1b box in the country is actually sited at a museum not too far from me, so I think i'll model that - albeit probably boarded up or burnt out!

 

image.png.5cb6bcaa70314037b50c012179c4df13.png

S&F Type 1 Signal Box at Billingshurst, now at Amberley Museum

 

A Type 2 signal box was essentially the same, but would more likely be built with a brick base at a standard 8' above rail level (instead of 'for best visibility') and have one more pane vertically in the windows and much more like a 'normal' signal box.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Doing a bit more musing on this while convalescing, and a few things have really struck with me:

 

Given my interest in signalling, interlocking, etc. - including the approach board with the outer home, home, signal box, shunt signals and branch is more important to me than I had previously thought. As a corrolary of this, I think I am going to Rule #1 the use of semaphore signals if I can build a working gantry semaphore.

 

Secondly, modelling the 1885 layout makes more sense- not only do I have a full signalling diagram, but the track plan is more unique and should be more interesting operationally. The following images were provided by @Natalie for which I am ever grateful and show the signalling and track arrangement - please note they are flipped north-south, the signalbox is north of the running lines and the curved platform is south.

 

image.png.3c0c90b2fa708945ec76653fa6530a1c.png

image.png.b102b72f40b90aa2109531ea3f249bb7.png

 

The only nod towards practicality I'm willing to take at this point is to stagger the double scissors into a normal crossover, unless FiNetrax comes out with one before I get to that point (ha!).

 

The white signal arm on the home gantry in the above diagram denotes that it applies to the up line, rather than the down line which would be implied by the location of the post. The fact it is diagonal shows it is slotted with the New Croydon box. The outer home at the start of the branch is also slotted, but I think in reverse - controlled by New Croydon and slotted with the Central Croydon box.

 

The writing 'Passenger Lines colored (!)  blue, all points and signals are concentrated and interlocked' seems to clash with the the 1880's platform view shown below - there are clearly a pair of two lever ground frames in line with the tie bar of the points. One can make out rodding perpendicular to the track and then running adjacent P1, but these may simply reach to the other end of the crossover. Additionally there are a pair of shunt signals depicted at the buffer end on the diagram, coloured white (or rather not red) which are not extant in this photo:

 

image.png.72adf3c471a15246e15df3ba919d4a3b.png

 

The station does look rather clean and the stacks of hoardings on the right might indicate this photograph was taken before the 1885 inspection by Gen. Hutchinson who notes:

 

image.png.c6360fa711ab13e34b9569054f9ee95a.png

 

So maybe they were added after the above inspection to bring the station in line with the requirements? Maybe the shunt signals were notional and deemed superfluous? Either way I would imagine that the passenger lines must have been interlocked with the signal box with a shunt release lever for each runaround. I find it hard to believe they'd go to all that trouble and then still require a poor sod to jump onto the track bed and crank the actual point over...

 

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Further scrutiny of Natalie's diagram shows the legend 'Bolt locks by rod' and the squiggly 's' over the tie bars of both crossovers - which presumably confirms that although the points were operated locally, they were unlocked from the box.

 

image.png.638a022677e8bb119f91a0e33a019d69.png

 

I'm an amateur when it comes to signalling, but this does seem a little strange. Maybe the shunt release for all four turnouts was provided by a single rod - which in the days of cheap labour may have been more cost effective to have one of the station staff handle the runarounds. I would guess that the release rod lever would interlock with the throat pointwork (and thus signals at that end) to preclude a train entering a platform while the runaround was in use, and to prevent the locomotive after having run around from being able to enter the running lines without the buffer end of the runaround being re-set.

 

Maybe this is why the shunt signals weren't added? It was all done with hand signals while the runarounds were locked off from the running lines during the process?

 

Fascinating to think about, but with 'the juice' being laid on the platform roads I find it hard to believe these would have persisted, so unless someone tells me I am fundamentally wrong, I will model them as interlocked and concentrated in the signal box. After all, if they had 40 levers they certainly had the capacity!

 

This is my rough sketch for the Signalbox with the turnouts and signals numbered in no realistic order, but for the purposes of illustration should suffice:

 

image.png.5990eeaae724bedf50c0ae90f7d99713.png

 

1. Outer Home, slotted with New Croydon

2 & 3. Platform Home

4. Starter, slotted with New Croydon - limit of shunt?

5 & 6.  Platform Starters

 

10 & 11. Red shunt signal from Down/Up main

12. Red shunt signal from Sandpit/Yard

 

13, 14, 15 & 16. Red shunt signal from Platform roads + runarounds

17 & 18. Yellow shunt signals from Platform roads into runaround

 

20-27. The points themselves

30, 31 and 32 - Facing point Locks

 

I'll work out the interlocking in due course. I wonder however, if this station would have been a recipient of the Sykes Lock & Block with treadles a la Caterham? All very rich food for thought - particularly 'model railway'-like occupancy detection circuits used prototypically to unlock signals.

 

In the Kew diagram from 1885, the turnout I have marked 22 was not part of the interlocking scheme, but 21 was. Given its clear use as a catch point I find that odd, and presumably would have been included in the signal box interlocking?

 

I wonder if the signals would have been updated to SR or BR types before conversion to colour light?

 

Regarding the modelling of these - I think I'd like to experiment with semaphore signalling only because I think it's a little more interesting - but both this layout and my other baby (Holborn Viaduct) were likely early recipients of colour lights.

 

For colour light the only real changes are the normal signals: 1 and 4 are simple three aspect lights, 2 and 3 converge into a single three aspect with a feather to indcate access over the crossover into P1, and 5 & 13, 6 &16 become three aspect lights with position light shunt signals underneath.

 

Absolute Aspects as noted previously can supply them, but at £230 it's not exactly affordable. Time will tell.

 

 

EDIT: another quesiton - would 4 in 20th century parlance been demoted from an Starter to Distant leading to the home for East Croydon at Fairfield Jct. ? I make it about 300 yards from where that would have been located to the junction, and the platforms already have starters themselves.

Edited by Lacathedrale
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On 13/11/2021 at 15:46, Lacathedrale said:

I'm an amateur when it comes to signalling, but this does seem a little strange. Maybe the shunt release for all four turnouts was provided by a single rod - which in the days of cheap labour may have been more cost effective to have one of the station staff handle the runarounds. I would guess that the release rod lever would interlock with the throat pointwork (and thus signals at that end) to preclude a train entering a platform while the runaround was in use, and to prevent the locomotive after having run around from being able to enter the running lines without the buffer end of the runaround being re-set.

I think that would have been mainly down to the distances involved - in those days, the limit for mechanical point operation was much lower, and so the release crossovers were probably too far from the box to be operated directly. Therefore they'd be operated by local ground-frames, but would need to be interlocked with the signalling, and so the release from the 'box.

 

On 13/11/2021 at 15:46, Lacathedrale said:

In the Kew diagram from 1885, the turnout I have marked 22 was not part of the interlocking scheme, but 21 was. Given its clear use as a catch point I find that odd, and presumably would have been included in the signal box interlocking?

Both points would be operated by the same lever in the box, so perhaps that's why it's not shown seperately.

 

On 13/11/2021 at 15:46, Lacathedrale said:

EDIT: another quesiton - would 4 in 20th century parlance been demoted from an Starter to Distant leading to the home for East Croydon at Fairfield Jct. ? I make it about 300 yards from where that would have been located to the junction, and the platforms already have starters themselves.

If you've still got loco-hauled workings, I'd expect it to be kept, in order to allow run-rounds without occupying the block section.

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On 06/09/2021 at 09:25, Lacathedrale said:

 

 Of note, the SEGAS building is pictured right - looking fairly boring here - the good stuff is on the rounded corners and arched ground floor. Also noting the interesting railings.

 

 

All four buildings in that shot, from right to left; Segas House, Segas House East, Ellis House and Katharine House, were part of the Segas RHQ (along with No1 Katharine House at the bottom of the road and a host of other buildings in Croydon). Some of those in Katharine Street have recently been demolished.

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Thank you grahame - a nice, long repetitive office block will be far easier to build than dozens of townhouses and suitable for my core period of 1977-87 as well as the transition era. As a bus route Katharine St. features a good deal on Flickr so I think detail-wise I'll be OK apart from the sunken lower ground level - no space for modelling that!

 

NickC, your explanation does make sense - the release crossovers would have been the most distant points from the signal box by a long shot. I assume that in that case, releasing the bolts from the signalbox would be feasible over the distance, whereas throwing the turnouts wouldn't? Another fun snag in the operational complexity of the layout :)

 

Thank you for the tip on Signal 4.

 

Speaking of signals, the LBSCR group on groups.io has turned up a photograph of the later Signal box in situ. You can clearly see on the left side two tracks - one behind the cricket screen and one just infront of the pile of detritus.

 

XvdMA2A.png

 

The front line is heading to the LBSCR sand pit, the rear are the running lines towards Fairfield Jct.  I am supposing that the right hand side of the photograph shows the workshops south of the line being constructed.

 

A Town Planning map of 1895 shows the arrangement, including some steps down from Park Lane previously undiscovered: https://maps.nls.uk/view/229914255. The next OS map survey of 1914 shows this replaced by the LBSCR PW "Fairfield Yard".

 

The box has turned out to be (thanks to the help of many people in the group) an LBSCR Type 2a, identical to that at Bedhampton. Referring to Pryor's Southern Signals, there is a scale drawing of it there:

 

L35FU0V.png

 

Plumpton has an extant Type 2b box (same sans valance) so there may be opportunity for a day trip there.

 

One thing that is a little confusing is the location of the signals 1 and 2+3+4 shown in the 1885 "reopening" diagrams linked above. This photograph, presumably taken between 1885 and 1890 due to the presence of the passenger train, shows a gantry with three signals (well, three black dots on a gantry that I assume are semaphore arms) which seem to correlate:

 

AZrz8fp.png

 

However, if this is signal 2+3+4, where is Signal 1? Is that further towards New Croydon? The signals and track arrangement here match perfectly the 1895-surveyed OS map at the junction - including the signal post and the workshops behind the branch train: https://maps.nls.uk/view/229914246 - and there is just no space for it!

 

Intriguing!

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3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

NickC, your explanation does make sense - the release crossovers would have been the most distant points from the signal box by a long shot. I assume that in that case, releasing the bolts from the signalbox would be feasible over the distance, whereas throwing the turnouts wouldn't? Another fun snag in the operational complexity of the layout :)

 

 

 

 

Yeah - the maximum distance for mechanical points was either 150 or 180 yards at that time, later extended to 350. I'd imagine that a mechanical release on a ground frame would be allowed much further. In later years it'd either be connected to the box or replaced with an electrical lock. By the time of colour light signals they'd probably be motor worked if they were too far from the box.

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