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Don't know the prototype but looks interesting, I quite like what you've done - seems a very good use of a relatively small space. It's growing on me :)

 

Whose make are the trees please (behind the bus in the pictures) or are they home-made?

 

Also, is there anything of interest for you here? http://www.bigginhil...rhamstation.htm

Edited by cromptonnut
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Ooh, yes! Lovely modelling! The buildings look excellent. Hardly any sign of trains - very like the prototype! The Hornby Maunsell pull-push set would fit here, as one was seen on the branch before closure. Is that an H class tank? Very suitable!

 

Particularly like the fact that you have the baseboard wide enough to include the RF on GreenLine service on the A25. [i drove that road many times in more recent years, but can be certain that I must have been on a 403 bus to Sevenoaks on 4th February 1959, as the papers were full of the light plane crash that had claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper.]

 

This layout is very deserving of a transfer into the Southern Railway Group managed by Graham Muspratt.

 

Do tell us more about it, though!

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Welcome aboard Westerhamstation I agree with Ian lovely modelling and thanks to Ian for the heads up on this thread. I look forward to more views of the layout and its rolling stock as it develops.

 

I have arranged for the thread to be moved into the layouts section and linked to it from the index of SR / BR(s) thread here

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I have travelled on a bit of the line - the bit the M25 is builkt on between the M26 junction and the Clacket bLane services!

 

I do remember seeing the site of the station (and I think the goods shed) aswell as the pub which has now been demolished, back in the 1980's.

 

Nice model.

 

Ian

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Many thanks for encouragement, most of of my information on the line comes from two books. 1. Orpington to Tonbridge line by V Mitchell and Keith Smith

2. The Westerham Valley Railway by D Gould. I have always wanted to build a model of this station and now have the time,it was my intention to build it in N gauge but I soon realised the eyes would not be up to it. Yes like the real line trains are few and far between I think they may appear at the same time as my birthday. Who can forget the traffic jams in Westerham high street caused by a special constable directing traffic at the junction of london road on bank holidays. Long Live Rock and Roll.

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Well it might have taken 50 years....

but it was well worth it!

 

I don't know the prototype either,

but it appears you have researched the subject well,

and produced a very nice model :)

 

I'm sure it must bring back memories, in a way even photos can't....

Well done sir

 

.... and now for the next project?

 

Cheers

Marc

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You know, keep the photos coming and it might just inspire me to build a "what if" layout using my 4-CEP on the basis it remained open and was electrified...

While the subsequent use of the route for M25 makes the whole thing moot, I have always suspected that when the Kent Coast Phase 2 Electrification scheme was being developed, it was the layout at Dunton Green that killed the branch, just as much as the lack of traffic. Because DG was a proper junction station, with a separate platform for Westerham, just like Christ's Hospital for Guildford, this made it impossible to do what the Southern Railway electric services had specialised in - detaching a portion for a branch. As we so often say about such closed lines, looking at subsequent housing development in Westerham, Brastrap Brasted and Chevening there might well have been a very healthy commuter market today. Not much modeller's licence needed here, therefore!
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While the subsequent use of the route for M25 makes the whole thing moot, I have always suspected that when the Kent Coast Phase 2 Electrification scheme was being developed, it was the layout at Dunton Green that killed the branch, just as much as the lack of traffic. Because DG was a proper junction station, with a separate platform for Westerham, just like Christ's Hospital for Guildford, this made it impossible to do what the Southern Railway electric services had specialised in - detaching a portion for a branch. As we so often say about such closed lines, looking at subsequent housing development in Westerham, Brastrap Brasted and Chevening there might well have been a very healthy commuter market today. Not much modeller's licence needed here, therefore!

 

... and a slight realignment of the M25 we might have had 'Brasted Parkway for M25'!!

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Just excellent, again! In common with a number of layouts on RMweb you have procured an appropriate backscene image, which really does look like the North Downs, complete with a hint of the Pilgrim's Way along it - and a nasty scar courtesy of the Oxted Greystone Lime Co.'s efforts. The buildings stand close scrutiny, too. Super stuff!

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I have been to Westerham on a number of occasions, albeit within the last 15 years so long after the railway had gone, but was aware that there was a line there once and have seen photos of it. Now I am very much a LMR fan, mostly in the North West, but I have to admit that Westerham appealed to me as a location to model. It is a charming little town in a beautiful setting, a small terminus with enough features to keep it interesting, it was never electrified (don't know why that appeals more to me but it does), etc., etc.

 

I am very impressed with your modelling; it all hangs together so well and is under-stated yet full of detail. A well deserved LIKE from me.

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Thanks, I did contemplate trying to photograph the downs but wasnt quite certain of the end result so took the easy option. I may try to flat the scene down with matt varnish. You know the area well Its a shame its all changed, but thank goodness for Photoshop.

I was born a few miles further west - Betchworth, similarly in the lea of the Downs, similarly with big scars where chalk pits had been dug and then abandoned. Given that all this is less than 30 miles from Charing Cross, we are lucky that it is still recognisable at all!
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Superb layout and sooo atmospheric.That "special constable" you mention was probably appointed by my Uncle Frank who was Westerham's "bobby"! I have happy memories of sitting in their front room watching the "Westerham Whizzer" chunter to and fro, just visible in the gap between the houses opposite.

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Thank you all for your kind response to my half finished model of westerham station. if it evokes happy memories of a past era when the sun shone and the world was changing from black and white to colour so much the better. there is a fiddle yard to build the other side of the bridge.a small row of terraced houses. the left hand end of the board to finish. a few people and a small warehouse . and point control by rod and tube. I wish i hadnt waited so long to get started happy days..

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Just to add to the many (and very deserved) compliments about your layout. I've often thought Westerham would make a good model (its local to me, living in Bromley) but have never ever seen one until yours. The lack of RTR stock is probably the main reason, although Bachmann's C may go some way to overcome that. Its also nice to see a well modelled BLT that isn't GWR (and that's from a builder of an ex GW BLT!)

 

Do please keep us all posted on developments.

 

Best wishes

 

David C

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While the subsequent use of the route for M25 makes the whole thing moot, I have always suspected that when the Kent Coast Phase 2 Electrification scheme was being developed, it was the layout at Dunton Green that killed the branch, just as much as the lack of traffic. Because DG was a proper junction station, with a separate platform for Westerham, just like Christ's Hospital for Guildford, this made it impossible to do what the Southern Railway electric services had specialised in - detaching a portion for a branch. As we so often say about such closed lines, looking at subsequent housing development in Westerham, Brastrap Brasted and Chevening there might well have been a very healthy commuter market today. Not much modeller's licence needed here, therefore!

 

To be honest I think the layout of Dunton Green was more of a factor as the Westerham branch joined the mainline facing southwards towards Sevenoaks rather than northwards to London. If this had been the case then not only would through services to London been possable but there is allways the possability that Dunton Green station could have been resited (like Swanley - origionally it had seperate platforms on the Chatham & Sevenoaks branches before being rebuilt in 1938/39) to allow the splitting of trains.

Edited by phil-b259
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To be honest I think the layout of Dunton Green was more of a factor as the Westerham branch joined the mainline facing southwards towards Sevenoaks rather than northwards to London. If this had been the case then not only would through services to London been possable but there is allways the possability that Dunton Green station could have been resited (like Swanley - origionally it had seperate platforms on the Chatham & Sevenoaks branches before being rebuilt in 1938/39) to allow the splitting of trains.

I had never been aware of the junction lying in that direction. I thought the branch platform faced London, and Google earth even now suggests this - the alignment does not appear to point south.
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As I thought - thanks. Having commuted through there 1983-2004, I was fairly sure! My trains weren't due to call, but a problem meant we did so on one occasion, to the delight of my travelling companion, who lived there - the Regional Civil Engineer!

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An excellent and atmospheric layout; well done.

 

Are you going to have a go at the push pull?

 

I have only recently acquired the Oakmore Press book on the line (I live quite locally) and was most intriged to hear of that the line was for a brief period a preserved railway. Shame so much of it is underneath the M25 now as it looked much more peaceful in those grand videos that Cromptonut linked too.

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