GWR Corrugated Iron Lamp Huts

[The Stationmaster]

I don't think the prototype of the Wills lamp huts are GWR in origin at all, even if they do have a prototype. I don't think I have seen any photos of GWR huts with ventilators on the roof or with the same proportions or with buckets on the side! That said, I have adapted them for use on Woodstowe .... It would have been easier to scratchbuild them, frankly!

 

 

David C

 

I'm very much inclined to agree with that, I can't recall ever seeing a Western lamp hut with that peculiar thing (ventilator???) on the roof and we definitely didn't have any like that at any place where I ever worked on the Region.

[Mikkel]

Now that you mention it, I haven't seen a GWR lamp hut with that kind of ventilator either in any photos. Perhaps the Wills version is actually meant to represent the Midland design seen in the photos one third down this page: http://inlanding.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/wrinkled-tin-series-lamp-huts-lock-ups/

[Mikkel]

PS: More on those round vents.

 

On the blog I linked to above, the author goes on to show two supposedly "GWR" lamp huts rescued by the Gloucester & Warwickshire railway and installed at Broadway station. These do in fact have round vents on the roof. However, I wonder if they actually are GWR, or if the blogger is mistaken. Someone from the Broadway preservation group might know. Anyone happen to be on here?

 

BTW, the Bachmann GCR lamp hut has a similar type of vent: http://www.bourtonmodelrailway.co.uk/Bachmann-44114-great-central-lamp-hut-22mm-x-27mm-x-32mm.ir?cName=railways-Bachmann-buildings-accessories

 

One possibility would be that these vents were added at a later date to all lamp huts (eg in BR times), but the Stationmaster's testimony doesn't seem to suggest that.

[RSLR]

I wouldn't loose too much sleep on the subject. The GWR had many of their own 'standard' designs as well as designs that were not standard, for example they had many buildings built by contractors and the GWR also taken over a few different small railway companies. For example when the GWR took over the CMR in Cornwall and allot of the buildings remained under GWR rule.

It's as bad as the argument over what the prototype for the Peco tunnel mouth is, I've heard oh I can't find a tunnel mouth like it and I've looked every where (obviously this individual did not look everywhere) there for it's incorrect and I don't like it.
I know of a number of tunnel mouths that look very similar on the lines down here! from which the makers probably got their ideas from.

The Wills lamp hut could be a similar example, the designer could have looked at, photographs, measured, drawn and studied various engineering drawings to base their model on this. To establish a 'representation' of that typical type of building.
They probably looked at a few different lamp huts, thought well I like that I'll model that and then seen another with a vent on top and thought well I like that too. Probably the same for the fire buckets on the side. Of course they then thought well this could make a very nice kit, put it passed the higher authorities for approval and so pretty much now allot of modellers can also have one for their railways.

Unless your building an actual location, I'm not sure it's relevant as you would build everything yourself to drawings and photographs etc and not using kits unless they're precise to the prototype being modelled

^ Those are my views

But back to the subject, I noticed this corrugated hut at St Blazey which looks similar.


Copyright Cornwall Railway Society

Cheers, Reece

[buffalo]

PS: More on those round vents.

 

On the blog I linked to above, the author goes on to show two supposedly "GWR" lamp huts rescued by the Gloucester & Warwickshire railway and installed at Broadway station. These do in fact have round vents on the roof. However, I wonder if they actually are GWR, or if the blogger is mistaken. Someone from the Broadway preservation group might know. Anyone happen to be on here?

 

BTW, the Bachmann GCR lamp hut has a similar type of vent: http://www.bourtonmodelrailway.co.uk/Bachmann-44114-great-central-lamp-hut-22mm-x-27mm-x-32mm.ir?cName=railways-Bachmann-buildings-accessories

 

One possibility would be that these vents were added at a later date to all lamp huts (eg in BR times), but the Stationmaster's testimony doesn't seem to suggest that.

Hi Mikkel,

 

You might notice that the huts on that blog with round ventilators on the roof also have quite long windows in the end. These are quite similar to the Bachmann model, which also looks to have the scale of the ventilator about right. Whether this is a GC type and whether that had any influence on the origin of the Wills kit, I've no idea, but the latter certainly bears no resemblance to any form of GWR standard hut. As I mentioned earlier, the GWR design has a square window and this is well-illustrated in many of the above photos. Of course, some may have been altered in later life¹, but most probably retained this form.

 

Nick

(who hasn't lost a moment's sleep since this topic started)

 

1. Edit to add example: the end window in the hut beyond the signals at the end of the down platform at Gara Bridge appears to have been altered to something closer to the Bachmann GC style at some point in its life.

Edited December 24, 2013 by buffalo

[Mark]

I wondered if anyone knew when the GWR introduced their standard corrugated iron lamp huts?  There was one on the station I am modelling but as I am building 1912 I doubt that it was in existence then.

There are several at Brent and the drawing for the one under the bridge at the East end is dated September 1892 and is fabricated from Galvanised Corrugated  Iron No20BWG The building has a roof radius of 5'3"  and is 8'3" from ground level to the base of the roof. The opening for the doors is 5'0 wide for double doors and there is a 4' wide 5' deep window at the rear of the building. The building is 14' long by 9' wide. with the left door hinge on the centre-line of the building.

 

Regards

 

Mark Humphrys

[RSLR]

Did anyone think of looking in the Ericplans book? (the later book, although they're in the earlier separate editions) There's 2 different corrugated huts designs, 3 if you count the LMS one.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Looking at these huts makes me think that their parentage is down to the corrugated iron version of the Shepherd's Hut. These were made by a number of companies from Victorian times to the 1950s. one such company was Boulton & Paul of Norwich. 

 

http://shepherdhuts.co.uk/page13.htm

 

I would expect that each railway, or possibly areas within them had a preferred supplier who made up customised sheds for all purposes.

[buffalo]

There are several at Brent and the drawing for the one under the bridge at the East end is dated September 1892 and is fabricated from Galvanised Corrugated  Iron No20BWG The building has a roof radius of 5'3"  and is 8'3" from ground level to the base of the roof. The opening for the doors is 5'0 wide for double doors and there is a 4' wide 5' deep window at the rear of the building. The building is 14' long by 9' wide. with the left door hinge on the centre-line of the building.

Interesting. The dimensions, double doors and windows put it in the category later referred to as lock-ups rather than the much smaller lamp huts (see earlier posts). Do you have any further information on that drawing such as its source or a drawing number?

 

Since my earlier comment (#5) that 1904 seemed a reasonable date for their introduction, photographic evidence of several earlier examples has come to light. In particular, two photos in Keith Steele's Great Western Broad Gauge Album, OPC 1972. One shows part of a hut of typical lamp hut dimensions close to Maidenhead Bridge signal box, "...probably photographed in 1892...". The other shows the mail being collected by automatic TPO equipment at Cullompton in May 1891. The postman watching the scene is standing by a small wooden shelter and a corrugated hut slightly larger than a typical lamp hut. The latter hut appears to have a stove pipe chimney.

 

Any advance on 1891?

 

Nick

[dibber25]

I wonder what makes people think there was a 'standard' lamp hut? While there were undoubtedly some standard designs used as lamp huts, in my studies of GWR stations I saw lamp huts - and sometimes lamp rooms - of many and varied shapes and sizes and building materials. Apart from the need for them (usually) to be separate and away from the other main buildings (due to fire risk), they could be as big or a small as was necessary, depending on how many lamps the local staff had to tend. 
At Staines West the lamp room was brick-built at the end of a small wing of rooms.

At Tetbury the lamp hut was a separate brick-built shed. At other stations both the 'pagoda' and non-pagoda styles of Joseph Ash corrugated iron shed could be found as lamp rooms, while there was also the square corrugated iron lamp hut which ( I think) is the one represented by the Wills kit. That was often used as a platelayers hut or as a lamp hut in 'non-station' locations. In my experience stations tended to have the larger huts as lamp rooms.

The Joseph Ash corrugated iron buildings were introduced in the early years of the 20th century and both designs seem to have been used indiscriminately. Where they were installed as halt shelters, for instance, halts built on the same line at the same time did not necessarily have the same type of shelter. 

Finally, Kelscott and Langford Platform was not 'several pagodas bolted together' but a building of much larger dimensions built in the pagoda style. It was much wider than a standard pagoda, as well as longer.

CHRIS LEIGH

Edited December 27, 2013 by dibber25

[46444]

This is an interesting thread and I've enjoyed having a read through it.

 

I'll contribute with this photo taken of a GWR corrugated hut at the sympathetically restored Trusham Station on the old Heathfield-Exeter 'Teign Valley Line' in Devon during 2010.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[Brassey]

 

Thanks all for bringing this thread to life again.  I have only just caught up after the Xmas break!

 

I have come to the conclusion that the original building in question is unlikely to have been used as a lamp hut and I inadvertently used that as a generic term for such a corrugated iron building of which, it now seems, there was considerable variety.

 

I followed the suggestion of looking in Ericplans which does also have an LMS version so in fact the building at Berrington & Eye might not even have been erected by the GWR (it was on a LNWR/GWR Joint line); so it could have been one supplied by one of the independent companies manufacturing these around the 1890's 1900's.

 

A number of other stations on the line had, what would appear to be, Good sheds/offices in this position.  And as there is no other such building on the site, I am assuming that is what this building was used for.  I will probably resort to scratch building using dimensions quoted on this thread.  So all this has been most helpful.  

 

I have attached a crop of the station building showing the hut from another angle which shows the doors.  This could well prompt more discussion as to the buildings origin.

 

Cheers

 

Peter

 

 

 

 

[Brassey]

Having reviewed the whole thread, I think the one at Didcot bears the closest resemblance.  Thanks for posting.  Cheers.  Peter

 

Edited December 31, 2013 by Brassey

[MrWolf]

I have been looking around for prototype information about GWR lamp huts, so ended up here, whilst I am sure that if you can find something close enough / adapt / scratchbuild to suit your location it's down to: How far do you want to go. Whilst I am in no way an expert on the subject, I tend to look at things with an eye to does it LOOK right? I had a look at the Wills lamp huts with the long rear window and the ventilator on top and it looks identical to the one standing just off the platform end at Loughborough Great Central station. It's been there since at least 1975, probably been there longer. If it isn't an original fitment, chances are that it was rescued locally so would be likely of LMS LNER ancestry.

[Brassey]

Thanks for the input.  Having since met with someone who worked at the station he has confirmed that the building in question was actually used as goods storage and not as a lamp hut as I originally thought.

 

As the building is not on some of the earlier photos I have since acquired and as I don't find it particularly attractive, I'm going to leave it off.  Rule one applies.

 

 

Lamps were stored in a lean-to outbuilding which was previously the gents (directly behind the station master in the photo) but was reassigned when a new gents was built away from the station building.  As the station initially had no running water, one of the first jobs of the day was to fill the cistern, the water having come up from Hereford.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Brassey
Added pic