Two possibilties - Rhymney or Highgate

[dna]

Hi all,

 

I'm currently toying with two quite different ideas for the 2011 challenge and thought I'd put them both up here to see what people think. Both would be 4mm and 00 and non working.

 

The first idea I had is a model of Rhymney engine shed circa 1937. My main railway interest lies with the GWR but in particular the ex Rhymney Railway and other absorbed valleys lines. Rhymney shed has been a favourite of mine ever since I saw the photo of it in Mountford's Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947, with three 0-6-2Ts lined up bunker first across the entrance with the roads curving off to the right. I also like the way that the shed nestles between the platform, signal box and coaling shed. I have considered a model of this for a long time but could never quite figure out how to define a sensible slice of the site, but being limited to a specific size set me thinking again. Having had a brief play with the 20" x 11" I think I can fit in the front of the shed, signal box and the three shed roads coming together, with the front face of the model being at an oblique angle, about 20 degrees to the angle of the shed and most of the track. The signal box was only opened in November 1936 so the model would have to be after this to incorporate it, but could be modelled as a new structure ie clean(ish) compared to the the dirt and muck of a heavily used shed. Then I could recreate my initial photographic inspiration with some 0-6-2Ts lined up in model form - just about perfection to me.

 

The second idea came to me after thinking about using the available space in the vertical sense, ie 11" x 11" footprint but 20" tall as I guessed not many people will go for this option. I also have an interest in the London Underground and vaguely planned one day to build model of some sort so I wondered if I could get a model of an underground station with an above ground scenic section in the height of 20". As luck would have it, my girlfriend lives near Highgate tube station and as such I've been in and out if the station quite a few times and ended up reading up quite a lot about the Northern Heights scheme that was never completed. So now Highgate is on my radar, so to speak, and I find the layout of it quite pleasing, with the mainline tracks above the underground tracks but still in a deep cutting and with their own tunnels at each end. I haven't worked out the depth of the underground platforms yet and whether or not it would all fit in the 20" limit. I expect that even if the depth of the escalators had to be reduced to fit it wouldn't lose too much realism but I think there wouldn't be much height left for the sides of the cutting. I haven't worked out the logistics of it all but had a vague idea that I could model all of the underground spaces (ie booking hall, escalators and platforms) with cutaways that all linked up so that you could peer through from 3 sides and then black out the rest of the space that is solid earth. I think the only limiting thing would be the 11" square footprint, that wouldn't leave much space on each level, but I expect there is masses of detail that could be crammed in. If I based the model around 1940/1 then I could have a 1938 stock train underground and an N2 emerging from the tunnel above ground with half a coach in tow or something similar.

 

So there are the two schemes. Here's my own list of pros and cons for each:

 

Rhymney:

Pros:

1. I know plenty about the RR already.

2. I have plenty of 0-6-2Ts to populate my shed (although non finished..)

3. It would make me finish some of them.

4. I've always wanted to do it.

5. Models of the Rhymney and other valleys lines are not very common.

6. Simple to build.

 

Cons:

1. Tricky to find a good alignment of the 'slice'. I think however I arrange it, it will have some tracks cut off at strange angles at the edge of the scene and maybe awkward viewing angles

2. Possibly less interesting to look at than Highgate.

3. Simple to build - ie is it a cop out?

4. Rhymney shed and signal box no longer exist, plus it's miles away from me.

 

Highgate:

Pros:

1. Good visual appeal with its different levels.

2. Not too much stock required. I have a 1938 stock DM kit already (unbuilt).

3. It all still exists even if some of it is private and blocked off, so there is an outside chance of some measuring up.

4. The girlfriend lives close by!

 

Cons:

1. Will almost certainly require some compression to get it in.

2. Platform areas will be very short.

3. I have no idea how the hell I'll build it.

4. I've seen way more underground layouts than Welsh valleys (though non actually underground!) but I suppose they atill aren't that common.

5. I already have too many modelling interests and half baked projects and I don't need another one to distract me further.

 

That's it off the top of my head, other than the reason why they both aren't a good idea, in so far as my 'current' layout has been on the go since 1996 (really) and it is only 8" x 58". So far all I've done is to build a base board and lay and wire the track. The track plan is in it's second incarnation and I realised the other day that I need to do it again because after having got it all running smoothly, I discovered that the curves are too sharp for 3 link couplings. Well done me. And this is supposed to be my practice layout to test my skills before I build my proper valleys layout.

 

I think I've probably rambled on enough now, if anyone has any thoughts about either scheme or a preference for which one they'd like to see, then do post away and tell me what you think. I'll try to knock up a few sketches tomorrow and put them up on here to give some idea of what I'm banging on about.

 

Cheers,

Nick

[unravelled]

I had thought of a tall format underground theme, but wasn't sure what and where to cut away to show the modelling. My idea was to model the staircases and ThamesTunnel mouths at Wapping Station. I didn't get as far as working out accurate heights or what compression would be necessary. I'm sure the idea would work, though, and I'll be interested in following it if you go ahead. But the shed scene also has real possibilities, and sounds more straightforward.

I'd be tempted to keep working on both of them on paper, (and on here), and see whether one becomes too compromised to proceed.

 

Good luck

 

Dave

 

.

[dna]

Cheers Dave, thanks for the encouragement.

 

I knocked around a few ideas yesterday and made a quick mock up of the Rhymney shed plan. I made a very quick card model of the shed, roughly scaled from pictures and used an old card signal box model that I've had for years. I think this is slightly too small but it gives a good idea of the overall scene. I tried it all in two orientations; firstly as I said above at an oblique angle (which turned out to be ~15 degrees to the shed) and secondly with the shed aligned to the edge of the baseboard. See following photos (if I upload them properly...). The green tape marks the edge of the 20" x 11" area. Anything on top of the green tape is not inside the space allowed. I also parked some engines in the shed as per my inspiration so you can see what all of the fuss is about.

 

 

Oblique angle, plan view. The space bottom left would have a part of the road to the coaling plant. Top right would have part of the brake van siding. The signal box width looks about right, but I think would be longer in reality.

 

 

Atmospheric shot 1!

 

 

Atmospheric shot 2!

 

 

Square on, plan view. I added in the coaling plant road and brake van siding here. There would also be a very small part of the end of the up platform in the top LH corner butted up against the engine shed wall.

 

 

Atmospheric shot 3. The track in the foreground is the brake van siding. I quite like this low level shot looking across the lines with the engines in the distance, though it would be very similar with either orientation of track plan.

 

So that is roughly what it will look like. I think I prefer the oblique angle as I find it more visually appealing and somehow more natural than the square on. It will reduce the amount of brake van siding available (to put a brake van in) and has a more aimless looking section of the coaling plant road. Overall I think both ways create the kind of picture I am looking for and to me at least, it instantly looks like Rhymney shed. Any thoughts anyone?

 

 

I also did a few sketches of the Highgate plan. This is a very rough and not to scale sketch of the basic layout of the station (not my model), side on:

 

 

The main problem I think is that the NW tunnel portal (EDIT - the RH side of my sketch) above ground is the best one to model as the platform runs right up to it so in the avaliable 11" I could fit the portal, platform and part of the station building, but to get in the underground ticket hall and stairs/escalator (ie the interesting underground bits) then I have to be modelling at the other end. That said, I can find very few photos of the SE (ie towards London) end of the above ground station and certainly none in 1941 after the rebuilding so I don't really know the layout here. I think with some artistic licence though I could squeeze a bit of each of the interesting parts in. Perhaps I need to pay a visit to the station to have a look a bit more at dimensions and where things are in relation to each other. I'll try to do some sort of mock up of what I plan to do here too, but didn't have time yesterday. I do have quite a few toilet rolls kicking around though which should help!

 

In the mean time does anyone know of any photos of the south end of the above ground station fom 1941 or later please? Any other suggestions welcome too.

 

Cheers,

Nick

[unravelled]

Just looking at a pic of Rhymney, that looks good. I'd agree that the oblique layout is better for the shed. I think it has the makings of a neat scene. It looks as if there should be room for a brakevan in the siding, but whether you can fit, or need anything in the coaling road is another thing. You'll even be able to use the offcut of the turnout as a catch point!

 

I think a mockup, or 2, of Highgate will sort out whether it's doable. I guess there are a lot more variables and unknowns with that, but it's interesting.

 

Dave

[L49]

I have always wanted to have a crack at Highgate. What a fantastic situation, with built in fiddle yard entrances all round! I'll see what photos I can find of the South end of the LNER platform. Have you had a look at either the Subterranea Briitannica or Disused Stations UK websites. I'm sure Nick Catford has loads of photos of Highgate High Level on one or both of them.

 

Are you thinking of doing it with LT running on both levels, or LT below and BR above? (or even better, do it like it was in the 70s, with 1938 stock down below, and the high level station completely ababndoned with posters peeling and window frames creaking in the wind. I went on there in the 80s, and it was a wierd eerie place.

 

Another possibly useless piece of information which might help with the layout... I was going up the escalator at Highgate a few years ago, while they were doing some re-roofing work in the sub surface booking hall, and they had taken the floor out of one of the buildings of the high level station so it almost appeared as a clerestory roof over the escalator shaft. It felt really odd to be looking up through the floor into a long disused station waiting room! I can only guess that they were using the hole to bring materials in at night for the work, but I'm sure they could have found an easier way.

 

I'm not sure exactly where the stairway from the high level station comes out down below. I have a feeling it is (or was) somewhere near the ticket office or one of the staff rooms. I remember going a little way down the stairs when I was a kid, and seeing computer screens in an office through the door at the bottom, so I legged it back up, and back through South tunnel before I got caught!

 

Happy days of juvenile tresspassing

[L49]

Oh, I forgot to say. I know a nice card kit manufacturer who does a lovely kit for Highgate HL platform building

[dna]

Don't get me started about a full model of Highgate, I've had that going round my head for a couple of years now. Or what about a model with Highgate and East Finchley, then you can have two trains departing together from different levels and arriving at the same time in East Finchley on the same level - brilliant! I think the approach from Highgate to E. Finchley, coming out of the tunnels on different levels and then crossing the road bridge has huge modelling potential. I also thought about a model of the entire Ally Pally branch. It seems to tick all the boxes of things that us modellers try to squeeze into our models, four stations within a very short distance, the two intermediate stations with very convenient road bridges right at one end of the platforms, a nicely compact goods yard at Muswell Hill and then what a station backdrop at the Palace?? You could even build it as stand alone sections and bring them together for exhibitions - and what better model to exhibit at Ally Pally exhibition? One day...

 

Anyway, back to the task in hand. Firstly thanks for the info about Highgate, it's certainly not useless, though I do think I need to go to the station with a measuring stick and a camera to work out a lot of the alignment. I did once end up chatting to a very friendly tfl employee whilst ascending the escalator up to The Woodman, who I think was called Brian. That might be a good starting point when I go back.

 

Having said that, given I'm going to be in an 11" x 11" footprint, there will be severe limitations on how things can fit in, eg, are the tube tunnels directly beneath the LNER lines? They are roughly, but I think would have to be exactly on the model to fit in. Using that sort of logic I think I've come up with a basic scheme. No pic yet or a mock up, but I do currenlty have to hand; a large cup of tea, some card, a knife and a convenient 10" x 11" x 15" box I found yesterday, which end on, I think is close enough to get an idea of how it will fit.

 

Who makes the kit of the platform building please? Is it the 1941 building or the earlier one? I'm currently planning to have LT below and LNER/BR above, but I need to decide the exact period. It seems that my chronology of it all isn't as good as I first thought.

 

Cheers,

Nick

[dna]

Cup of tea consumed.

 

Here is a pic of what I'm currently thinking:

 

 

Sorry for the dodgy sketch. I plan to fit in the two sections in dotted boxes, but would slide the tube platforms underneath the ticket hall with some sort of obvious scenic break (an underground scenic break!) to seperate the two levels. No pretence of this being the real layout, but just to fit in the most interesting bits into the space available. I also realised that I had the stairs up to the LNER platforms the wrong way in my original sketch on here, at least according to the publicity poster reproduced in "The Northern Line" by M. Horne & B. Bayman on P48 (and also here: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/highgate/index.shtml) though it's very hard to see on the image on that link. If that is the case then it helps me get more in. If I want to get the southern tunnel portal in I'd have to move it along a lot and probably likewise with the station building. I'm not too fussed about the locations of all these yet until I've made the mock up to see if it will all fit in.

 

More tea, mock up coming...

[dna]

Right, it's definitely past my bed time, but I got into one of those moods where you just can't stop. I've made a (very) rough card mock up of the Highgate plan. They aren't the best picture you'll ever see, photography is not my strong point and the light is rubbish at the moment. Oh, and I don't have an N2 so I used a GWR 56xx which I had to hand, at least it's an 0-6-2. Here they are:

 

 

Overall view of the diorama (can I call it that yet?).

 

 

View of LNER station.

 

 

View of LT ticket hall. Forgive me the manky cardboard box, it was the right size. White paper tube is the escalator. Flimsy brown card is the stairs to LNER.

 

 

View of underground tunnels. Diagonal tube is bottom of escalator, horizontal is platform tunnel.

 

 

 

So this is what I've had in my head. Tomorrow, I'll add some more things that occured to me whilst making this, but for the meantime a couple of things to note:

 

1. It would be a lot more 'viewable' in final form. I think I'd have the left and right sides open like the front currently is.

2. Tube tunnels would be cut away, otherwise it's a bit pointless.

 

As always, comments welcome. I'm really keen to see what people think of this.

 

Bed time now I think.

 

Cheers,

Nick

[chrisf]

The maker of the Highgate building is Street Level Models - the alter ego of L49. Too modest for his own good, that boy ...

 

I'm liking the look of this a lot. Very few models exploit the potential for height and by definition a two-level station has to do just that.

 

If you are within reach of the bus rally at North Weald on Sunday 3rd July it would be worth your while having a word with Jim Blake at the PA caravan. He used to lead a study walk of the so-called Northern Waste lines. I don't know if the book which he wrote jointly with Jonathan James and published by Ravensbrook Press is still in print but it is worth tracking down.

 

Chris

[kiwinewt]

Good luck! Looks like a good one

[Stubby47]

Highgate looks a cracking idea !!

[unravelled]

That's looking interesting. I know this is for sorting the vertical arrangements, but have you looked at running the tracks at an angle, as with Rhymney, to give a bit more platform/escalator length.

 

Dave

[Karhedron]

Or what about a model with Highgate and East Finchley, then you can have two trains departing together from different levels and arriving at the same time in East Finchley on the same level - brilliant! I think the approach from Highgate to E. Finchley, coming out of the tunnels on different levels and then crossing the road bridge has huge modelling potential.

I agree, my Grandparents used to live in East Finchley and I have many happy memories of travelling to and from the station. I loved the mystery of the old Northern Heights line running off to the depot while the New Works lines plunged into the tunnels. Plus the smart art-deco station building complete with "Archie".

 

I often thought that a really good "what if" scenario would be that the Northern Line was extended from Archway to East Finchley exactly as happened but that the Northern Heights line remained on the mainline network. It could have become a branch of the surburban services out of Moorgate. You could then have 313s working alongside the underground trains at east Finchley, a bit like at Queens Park. Even more use for the turnback siding north of the station.

 

Sorry, starting to go OT there.

[dna]

Thanks for the kind comments and suggestions everyone. I think I'm gradually becoming more sold on the Highgate scheme so I think that is probably what I'll go for. I think it'll be more challenging than Rhymney; there is definitely plenty more to do, but I think that the relevant info will be easier to come by and it will be a lot easier for me to visit the site. Even just trawling the web today has produced a weath of photos from different eras which are already helping me figure out how things lined up between levels.

 

 

My latest thoughts are as follows:

 

The structure of the whole thing will be crucial. I'd like to make it in sections so that I can slide them in and out of the box to work on. The box will have to be strong enough to withstand this but I don't want too much structure in the way of viewing what's inside. Doable, I just need to work out the best way.

 

The high level station and LT ticket office should be together as one scenic section, ie what is above the ticket hall in real life, will be above it on the model, no sideways shifting like for the low level. Then the stairs can actually appear on the HL platform. Looking at photo's today I've worked out where the stairs emerge and it's much closer to the north end than I'd realised. So, modelling the south end is out. On the HL, what I'd like to do is get the top of the stairs and north end of the station building in and possibly the north tunnel portal. Getting the tunnel in will require some compression but I think it can be done without losing the feel of it all. There is a nice retaining wall that could form a good corner backdrop with the tunnel entrance. Need to wait til I get some proper measurments here first though. I think this will push the ticket hall to the left, but I hope that's ok, it will mean that I can have the southern wall of it missing and you will then be able to peer in from the LH side of the layout.

 

The station tunnels come out bigger in 4mm than I'd expected. It might be tough to fit in both platforms underground, so I might have to settle for only part of the diameters of each platform tunnel. My initial thought when I came up with the idea was that I'd quite like to be able to peer through from the front platfom (southbound) through to the northbound to see a train pulling into the station, so I'll have to do some measuring here as well to see what will fit in.

 

I have concluded that the LNER lines are offset to the side of the tube lines, the LNER lines being closer to the front of my layout. My logic is that the stairs to the HL are closer to the front than the escalators down, but each of these is in the centre of the lines to which they lead. I think I may have to cheat here and move the tube lines, not only to the left, but also to the front in order to fit them in. Not the end of the world but the escalator will look even more detached between it's top and bottom.

 

Dave - thanks for the suggestion of going at an angle, I hadn't thought of it. I'd just assumed square on would fit best . You are right about platforms being longer (above ground anyway) but I think the tube tunnels would be an awkward shape and size. Plus there'd be no way at all to fit in the tunnel or retaining wall as they would lie across the corners of the layout. I also have been considering how to make tube/escalator tunnels. Drainpipe or guttering or similar will be very useful I think, but the thought of cutting the ends to three different angles to fit in corners does my head in. So on balance, I think I'll stick to square on.

 

On the whole I'm quite pleased with how the mock up turned out. Next step is definitely to get to Highgate and do some measuring and talk nicely to some people there. Work is going to prevent this for the next 5 or 6 weeks though so it will have to be quite rapid progress after that I think! I don't want to build too much of the structure before hand if it turns out it's wrong. Maybe I'll have to turn my attention to the 1938 DM kit I've got sitting in a box.

 

Cheers,

Nick

 

EDIT - thanks Chris for the heads up about Street Level Models. I will get in touch.