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Copenhagen Fields


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My copy of MRJ arrived yesterday and I have had several enjoyable hours poring over the pictures and article.  This is a fantastic layout and I have watched its development with great interest over the past 12 years (only the time I’ve been into railway modeling myself).  No small wonder it has taken since 1983 to get it to where it is now.  I love to see a book commissioned on CF, one that details its construction from start to current state.  Try as I might, I can’t see the baseboard joints and I love to know how it all goes together.  It must have taken a lot of precise planning from the start and has taken an enormous amount of resolve on behalf of the builders to see it to the end; did you all swear some sort of oath of loyalty at the beginning?!  It should end up in a museum one day as a type of Pendon exhibit as the quality of the historical modeling is outstanding.  The aerial views are brilliant and I can’t believe that you have gone as far as to model the Metropolitan Market so accurately. It all captures the time and place so perfectly.   I’m also totally impressed by the running qualities in 2FS - in all the videos I’ve seen there isn’t one stagger or stall, it’s just totally smooth.  A lovely layout that I’d love to come and see one day.  Hat is off to you guys, what a truly breathtaking piece of railway art.  Mike.

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Thank you very much for those extremely kind comments, Mike. It makes it all worthwhile.  
 

Who knows when the first exhibition will kick off in the New Year.  I expect, however, that the layout will go up

in Keen House somewhat sooner. Guests are always welcome to come and see it at those times: just make contact.  I will probably indicate when on this forum. 
 

Tim

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D2AA464A_D01B_421B_8701_F76BAF9EB600.jpe

When a photo such as this is available, (courtesy LTMuseum archives) it would be churlish not to model it. 
AF7BB683_C748_415C_9272_5E0D23D1CB67.jpe

There are a few more detail signs, lamps and posters to be fitted as well as the newsagents / tobacconist on the retail unit on the left. You may notice that there is an open window for selling from within the station entrance, complete with a rack of newspapers -  Faulkner’s Mountaineer appear to be the favoured tobacco brand.  The Nestle vending machine was scaled easily from the 6 x 9” Wooliscroft tiles. 
 

Tim

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It’s interesting how a straightforward job can sometimes develop into something rather bigger. When I started to look at the position of the tube station building on the Randells Road board it became obvious that the curved cut away at the back of the structure would produce an ugly blank effect when looking over the layout and would certainly make photography difficult.  

BDD4122A_B717_457D_83B4_7532170ADD8C.jpe

After further analysis of the plans and aerial images from Google it became obvious that the building could be modelled more or less in full, albeit, over-sailing the curved baseboard edge.  (The paved area at the bottom of the Google maps image overlays the escape stair shaft for the station.)

2CA1FAC2_61EC_4A5F_A570_CA74F3C0EBE4.jpe

In the Halcrow plan (at 90 degrees to the photo), the double dotted outline within the structure, above the lift shafts, is the outline at first floor level at the rear.

3F98E26F_909C_48E1_A929_95CAEDDA83EA.jpe

Indeed the rear of the station has been heavily mutilated over the decades, as shown by this image, taken prior to a more recent ‘tidy up’. The ladies toilets seem to have been chopped off by this time.

 

Returning to the model, this photo shows a near aerial view of the model building in place, the white styrene roof following the curve of the baseboard.  The red lines show the potential outline of the first and ground floors, but the rearward extension for the gents toilet is not shown.

57DBA782_9E75_4F13_A593_A13462336A7B.jpe

The outer red line virtually follows the line of the main baseboard through Belle Isle, which is also, of course, on the alignment of the Piccadilly line to Caledonian Road station.  In fact, when one looks at the alignment of the station building over the running lines one sees that the southbound line to KX curves outward on a 600m radius curvature to avoid the centre lift shafts and cross passages. 

4A5A6FAE_155C_4AB0_BD7C_1A100889EE0A.jpe

The platform faces are only 350’ long and so the underground section of the station could be modelled in its entirety in the space before the south end Toblerone and also extending northwards towards Caledonian Road station.  The track curvature, especially if it were slightly tighter in radius, is very favourable to the shape of the south end of the layout. 

 

Perhaps the clincher for making a model of the underground section, with its decorative platform wall faces, is the availability of full coloured drawings of the unique Wooliscroft tiles for York Road.  These were published in the seminal 2007 work by Doug Rose in “Tiles of the Unexpected Underground”.

ACDE4C67_1F94_416B_8EED_9F8B4563E58A.jpe

All it needs is a group of skilled modellers to get together to make it work...

 

Tim

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Tim,

The stairway down to the platform would only have been referred to as an escape stairway once the station closed and the lifts were removed. While the station was open the stairway would have been usable by passengers and would have been signed as such. During the early years of my MRC membership I often used Angel station on the way home and, unless a lift was clearly about to descend (there were indicators showing the position of the lifts), regularly ran down the stairs to the platform even though Angel was considerably deeper than York Road. I don't think that I ever climbed them though, although I did climb the ones at London Bridge sometimes.

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I think that at most Underground stations with lifts, the adjoining staircases are signed as being for emergency use only, the sign usually saying how many steps there are (usually miscounted!) and that it is equivalent to the height of a fifteen storey building (irrespective of how many steps there are!)

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When I saw the less than perfect lettering on the model I was going to post something about how difficult it must be doing lettering that size.

 

Then I see the fairly grotty lettering on the real thing and think "Watson strikes again".

 

Super observation and work as always Tim. I should learn not to doubt you!

 

Tony G

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10 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

I think that at most Underground stations with lifts, the adjoining staircases are signed as being for emergency use only, the sign usually saying how many steps there are (usually miscounted!) and that it is equivalent to the height of a fifteen storey building (irrespective of how many steps there are!)

foolishly given the queue I walked up the stairs  at Covent Garden :wub:

 

lovely  model as befits the whole layout 

 

Nick B

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12 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

I think that at most Underground stations with lifts, the adjoining staircases are signed as being for emergency use only, the sign usually saying how many steps there are (usually miscounted!) and that it is equivalent to the height of a fifteen storey building (irrespective of how many steps there are!)

That, doubtless, is the case today and probably has been for several decades, but Copenhagen Fields is set in the early part of the 20th century and the stairs were still signed just as "STAIRS" (perhaps TO TRAINS and TO STREET) even as late as the 1960s. There was remarkably little change in the internal (or external, for that matter) appearance of tube stations in over half-a-century. I worked for LT's Operational Research section in the late 1960s, where much of the evaluation work on the new gate development was done, and we remarked at the time how much the general signage resembled that which appeared in illustrations in Thomas' "Handling London's Underground Traffic" published forty years earlier (in 1928).

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I don’t think we’ll need to worry too much about that particular signage as it would be buried deep within the station building, well out of sight.  The  underside of the baseboard is exactly scale for track depth below street level, so the actual model may end up a bit deeper than scale. 
 

I was quite pleased that I was able to use some of the GNPBR and UndergrounD railway signs that I made for the model of the Cally station on York Road.   It will need a sign hanging over the entrance way, but the image I have currently doesn’t have the resolution required to indicate, what, exactly was on it.  The exit will be closed off, even with the station modelled in full. 
 

Tim

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14 hours ago, nick_bastable said:

foolishly given the queue I walked up the stairs  at Covent Garden :wub:

 

lovely  model as befits the whole layout 

 

Nick B

 

I had no choice, but to use the stairs, back in the mid 80's, the lift(s) were out of action and everyone had to use the stairs or use a different station.

 

 

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On 25/08/2020 at 20:18, CF MRC said:

 

After further analysis of the plans and aerial images from Google it became obvious that the building could be modelled more or less in full, albeit, over-sailing the curved baseboard edge.  (The paved area at the bottom of the Google maps image overlays the escape stair shaft for the station.)

 

...

 

The platform faces are only 350’ long and so the underground section of the station could be modelled in its entirety in the space before the south end Toblerone and also extending northwards towards Caledonian Road station.  The track curvature, especially if it were slightly tighter in radius, is very favourable to the shape of the south end of the layout. 

 

 

This has got me worried Tim!

 

Storage / transport? Passage for less than acrobatic operators past the Toberlone when putting errant locos back on the track or to/from Mrs Wilberforce? 

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1 hour ago, justin1985 said:

 

This has got me worried Tim!

 

Storage / transport? Passage for less than acrobatic operators past the Toberlone when putting errant locos back on the track or to/from Mrs Wilberforce? 

 

If they eat less Toblerone they should be able to squeeze around the tight bend.

 

;-)

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7 hours ago, justin1985 said:

 

This has got me worried Tim!

 

Storage / transport? Passage for less than acrobatic operators past the Toberlone when putting errant locos back on the track or to/from Mrs Wilberforce? 

That’s a very good point Justin.
 

Richard & I were looking at the geometry of the area today (albeit with only the Randells Road board in thin air). The outward and southern curvature of the station baseboard and tracks would Nestle (ouch) into the triangular void next to the Toblerone that an operator doesn’t squeeze past anyway. Any extra width would be below waist level and we could always move the barrier out by the extra amount.  The station would probably add about 3” extra width, at worst, where the it curves outwards and 2” extra width down the main baseboards before being lost into the bulge of the big Belle Isle board. Only the up line would be visible. 


The track boards joining up with Caledonian Road would be made with a maximum length <8’ long and be locked into / travel in the underside of the big fiddle yard board (although they could be removed when that megalith is being shifted).  The station board could travel in any of the other suitable boxes. The Cally boards would have a major rebuild and bring the whole UndergrounD concept on CF up to very modern standards. 
 

Tim

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42 minutes ago, garethashenden said:

Instead of completing the building, would it be better/possible to remove the wall and model the interior? Since the layout slices through the building it could be a cool effect to see inside in that way. Then maybe a piece of plexiglas for safety.

"Slicing" a building in this way, and modelling the exposed interior, is commonplace on layouts in France, at least from HO upwards - and rarely any plexiglass for safety. (Barriers of any sort are rare at exhibitions in France, visitors, even young ones, keep back of their own accord. I did once have a lady just touch something by accident while explaining something to her kids, it was only the lightest touch and certainly did no damage, but she spent the next five minutes apologising.)

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28 minutes ago, bécasse said:

"Slicing" a building in this way, and modelling the exposed interior, is commonplace on layouts in France, at least from HO upwards - and rarely any plexiglass for safety. 

I recall a large Dutch layout at Model Rail a few years ago which not only had a set of dockside sidings sliced through, but a couple of wagons on them also 'sliced'!

 

Jim

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