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Midland Railway diagonal platform fencing.


Robert Stokes
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I have some Peco 00 gauge diagonal platform fencing which I am about to fit but I am having difficulty deciding which way round it should go. I have done an online search, but can't find a picture which shows clearly whether the posts go on the passenger side or at the back. Pictures do show that the diagonals slopes upwards to the right as viewed from the tracks, so if Peco  have got it correct, then the posts go on the passenger side of the diagonals. Can someone please confirm or contradict this doe mw?

 

Robert

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I am fairly certain that Slaters' fencing (4A10) goes the other way, but the real answer is that the actual MR fencing sometimes sloped one way and sometimes the other as a search of relevant photos will show. I don't know whether there was any significance in the direction of slope but it may well have been erected on site and thus the direction of slope merely reflected the foreman-of-the-day's instructions.

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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’d always assumed the slope pointed to either Mecca or Derby.

 

The bigger question: why did they choose a fencing style that must have created extra work for carpenters?

 

I've yet to meet an architect who is capable of making a specification that based on what's easiest for the tradesman at the other end.

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16 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’d always assumed the slope pointed to either Mecca or Derby.

 

The bigger question: why did they choose a fencing style that must have created extra work for carpenters?

Actually, there would have been marginally less carpentry involved in the MR-style fencing with diagonal palings. Upright palings, as favoured by most railway companies, have to be finished with a ^ top in order to minimise the entry of rain along the grain and, in order to do so, two or three saw cuts are required, whereas diagonal palings are cut orthogonally, requiring only a single saw cut. Furthermore, except at either end of a run of fencing, diagonal palings are longer (by a √2:1 ratio) than upright ones and thus less palings (and their saw cuts) in total are required except in very short fencing runs.

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8 hours ago, bécasse said:

Actually, there would have been marginally less carpentry involved in the MR-style fencing with diagonal palings. Upright palings, as favoured by most railway companies, have to be finished with a ^ top in order to minimise the entry of rain along the grain and, in order to do so, two or three saw cuts are required, whereas diagonal palings are cut orthogonally, requiring only a single saw cut. Furthermore, except at either end of a run of fencing, diagonal palings are longer (by a √2:1 ratio) than upright ones and thus less palings (and their saw cuts) in total are required except in very short fencing runs.

True, but the amount of timber required, and therefore the material costs, remains the same.

 

On 26/11/2021 at 17:28, Nearholmer said:

I’d always assumed the slope pointed to either Mecca or Derby.

If you’re on the Midland, aren’t Derby and Mecca the same thing?

 

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38 minutes ago, meil said:

The ones missing from that drawing are the Wrought Paled fence and the Unclimbable iron fence.

 

There's no pleasing some people! Go to the Midland Railway Study Centre online catalogue, put "fencing" in the search box and select the category "Drawing". The drawing I linked to is the only one posted hi-res there but you can see what else there is in the collection. The three items that are illustrated with thumbnails are, I think, types of fencing not illustrated in Midland Style.

 

Anyway, the OP was asking about the diagonal fencing in particular.

Edited by Compound2632
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At Heath Park Halt around 1920 for the opening there was fencing with vertical slats. Later this was changed to the standard diagonal type with the diagonals facing in the accepted direction. However the ramp at the far end of the platform had slats that slopped in the opposite direction.

Bernard

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Looking through V.R. Anderson and G.K. Fox, A Pictorial Record of Midland Railway Architecture (OPC, 1985), I come to the no doubt heterodox view that the sawn diagonal fence was very far from ubiquitous in Midland days. I suspect the fact that the design was perpetuated by the LMS may give a false impression - possibly older types of fence were renewed by the diagonal fence in later years.

 

A fairly common type of platform fence not illustrated in the drawings is similar to the "wrought paled fence" in Midland Style, with vertical paling but just two longitudinals, of triangular section, to the rear but with matching flat longitudinals attached to the front - possibly intended for supporting advertisements. Seen here at Edale, date not known but not before 1894:

 

60576.jpg

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre Item 60576.]

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12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

To illustrate my point, approximately the same view of Edale in later LMS or, more likely, BR days:

 

s-l400.jpg

 

[Embedded link.]

Definitely BR days, the erstwhile LMS "reflective" running-in board would have been yellow with black lettering prior to nationalisation but has clearly been repainted LMR red with white lettering.

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