Sweven Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Inspired by the many amazing scratch built buildings here on RMweb I will try and record some of the tribulations I have in modelling (4mm scale) an impression of the buildings of Studley and Astwood Bank station which was on the Midland loop line from Barnt Green to Ashchurch. Here is a preview of the shed interior which I am working on currently. Perhaps a little background is relevant. I grew up with model railways in various forms. From an early age I can remember huge tinplate track layouts that stretched from room to room on the carpet whenever my Mother was out of the house on a wet weekend. This graduated to a large Dublo 3-rail scenic layout in the garage built when I was a teenager, followed by what seems to be an inevitable lack of time to pursue the hobby for the next few decades. I still only find 3-4 hours a week, so I have built a few of the Studley buildings over the past year before starting this record - otherwise the updates would have been few and far between! When I decided it was time that I recorded some of this I remembered that I still had a couple of card buildings I made as a teenager somewhere in a box in the loft. They took a while to dig out and are faded, with a couple of missing windows, but for fun here they are. The second one was based (very loosely) on the Timeball Station at Lyttelton near Christchurch which sadly was almost destroyed by the two large Christchurch earthquakes, but thanks to a substantial donation is to be rebuilt. I have always strongly favoured the Midland/LMS and one of the first railway related books I purchased was "A Pictorial Record of L.M.S. Architecture by Anderson and Fox" when it was published in 1981. So when I decided that it was time to think about a future layout, starting with a few buildings, it wasn't too hard to narrow my area of interest down to somewhere between Birmingham and Bristol and then down to Studley and Astwood Bank. I particularly liked the buildings on this line, the fruit and other local traffic and the track layout at Studley may just be within size for part of a future layout. Bob Essery's great book "An Illustrated History of Ashchurch-Barnt Green Line: The Evesham Route" and Mike Musson's superb Warwickshire Railways website have helped a lot. Other than some Superquick buildings for my sons, the buildings above were the last models I had built - this time around I decided to try building in plastic card, starting with the weighbridge building and then the signal box, station and goods shed. So far I am moderately happy with the outcome but can see lots of room for improvement (sounds like a school report) - I have taken some construction and other photographs and as I have time I will sort them and post them here. To get started, this is the track plan and building layouts at the station with some paper mockups I made for the main buildings when trying to work out their dimensions. I created a drawing for each building based on measurements estimated from photographs and Google Earth. All the photographs of the station were oblique from either end of the platform - of course as soon as I had completed the station building the actual station house went onto the property market and an agent took a front elevation! It showed I had a couple of windows wrong, but that my guessed dimensions weren't too far out. More to come... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 20, 2014 Author Share Posted February 20, 2014 Thank you to everyone who has viewed and liked that starting post. I should also thank Steve K who took some more recent photos of the station site. I started with the smallest building which is the weighbridge office. Until recently I could find only one image of this building and when the photograph was taken the office was in a very derelict state - however an older photograph has turned up which may lead to a rebuild some time soon. It is a pretty typical Midland Railway weighbridge office built around 1868 and there was certainly a similar one at Redditch. I find it amazing to think of the number of staff that would have been employed at a station like this in the first few decades of the last century. Part of my idea behind these buildings was to try out some different products and I built the weighbridge office using South Eastern Finecast brick sheets (the buildings at the site are all English bond). I chose to try SEF for the weighbridge office and Slaters brick sheets for the station (Wills sheets are just too small - more of that later when I get to the roofing!). I chose to use them this way around as the station brickwork appeared to be much smoother in finish (shallower mortar courses making the bricks appear to have squarer corners), which was also my impression of Slaters versus South Eastern Finecast sheets. In hindsight the courses tend to fill with paint and better define the bricks and as gravy train has noted in previous posts the Slaters sheets don't always seem to be perfectly square which leads to annoying issues at corners. The roof is some Wills tile sheet. The small windows are from Brassmasters etches and the larger window frame was spliced together from 3 smaller windows. The weighbridge plate is a Smith's product based upon an ex Midland plate with measurements taken from Ripple on the Ashchurch-Malvern line. I do have a digital SLR camera but even on macro mode I find that the field of focus is very shallow (which can lead to some nice atmospheric photographs) and that taking photographs using a phone camera is more effective. Does anyone have any tips about taking these close-up photographs of buildings to avoid distortion? Having taken some photographs I see that I need to do some work on the down-pipes too. I'd welcome any comments and tips. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave47549 Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 20, 2014 Author Share Posted February 20, 2014 Awesome, thanks Dave - they certainly will help, especially the "north" bridge which I haven't even begun to think about yet! It is hard from here to just drive by and take some photographs and Google Street View is of limited assistance. The previous owners certainly did a great job in renovating the outside of the station building and in the recent "for sale" photographs it was wonderful to see the interior rooms too. Nice to think that it will live on for another century. I hope I can do it justice. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 23, 2014 Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 On to the station with a couple of images showing the drawings I produced to determine dimensions. I found that dimensions from different photographs did not always agree and even with photographs taken from the same location the aspect ratio of various faces of the station building could be quite different - presumably either lens distortion or perhaps when the photograph was reproduced? I did have to resort to counting bricks and to averaging out measurements in a few places. As I mentioned in the first post I could not find a front elevation of the station at the time I created the plans, although there are some of the similar building at Salford Priors. The windows are Brassmasters etches (and the images of the windows that I used in the plan are attributed to Brassmasters). I built the station in three parts: the station master's residence, the booking halls and waiting rooms and the small extension at the southern end. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coombe Barton Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Have you seen http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2848-forgotten-railways-of-the-midlands/?p=454667 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2848-forgotten-railways-of-the-midlands/?p=243125 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2848-forgotten-railways-of-the-midlands/?p=243901 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2848-forgotten-railways-of-the-midlands/?p=243947 ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 23, 2014 Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 Hi John, I had seen some of those, but somehow I missed mlgilbert30's photograph of the weighbridge office which would have been invaluable! Lends further weight to a rebuild (especially the roof) in the near future. The photograph I have is from the other side but not nearly as clear and at much lower resolution. Thanks very much for pointing those out. Cheers John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coombe Barton Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I used to work just across the road from November 1996 to January 1997, then just round the corner from 1999 to 2001. We were in the centre of Studley from 1997 to 1999 and again from 2001. I do remember the Midland style diagonal fencing all along Green Lane. Doubt it's still there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 23, 2014 Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 I know that from Google Street View (where the images are quite old as they still show the station being renovated) that you can still see a small part of the Midland diagonal fencing from the corner of The Slough and Green Lane, but that most of it that appears in old photographs has now disappeared. P.S. Just read your other threads - best wishes. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 24, 2014 Author Share Posted February 24, 2014 These are a selection of the bricks in the station building. As you may be able to see the finish is quite smooth and the mortar fairly light in colour (although that is not the case all over the building and I presume it has changed over time). This finish is what led me to choose Slaters brick over South Eastern Finecast. Having chosen Slaters I then cut the walls and their internal laminations from 20thou sheet. Here are a couple of construction pictures. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 25, 2014 Author Share Posted February 25, 2014 Thanks Blandford1969 and Allan for your endorsements - nothing like a bit of encouragement to keep the scalpel and ruler moving. On that note I have decided, having seen the photograph of the weighbridge office that Coombe Barton kindly pointed out above, that a rebuild of the weighbridge is required. Upon seeing that photograph I wasn't happy with the proportions I had used originally (slightly too long and low), the Wills round tiles I used are not close enough to the club tiles actually on the roof and the brickwork is in much better condition than I had supposed. So I have started on another version - last night I cut out the walls and I have also cut all the new club tiles from paper this time ready to stick on the roof... here are the walls still needing some filing and tidy-up... and a door lintel. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 26, 2014 Author Share Posted February 26, 2014 Some more progress on the weighbridge rebuild. The shell of the building is together and here I am sticking the paper club tiles onto the roof... much happier with the dimensions now. This time I have based the windows more closely on those in the weighbridge at Redditch. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 I didn't get any further with the weighbridge office, but here are a couple of photos of the station which is nearing completion. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 The clock in that second photograph is just a place-holder until I can think of a good way to model a tiny clock - perhaps Willard Wigan would have some tips. Has anyone got any tips for modelling a small clock-face other than just printing them out? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coombe Barton Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 http://www.scalelink.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2escalelink%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2fEtched_Brass_Frets___Photo_decoupe%2ehtml&WD=face%20clock&PN=General___Scale_1_76__OO__Varieuse%2ehtml%23aSLF009#aSLF009 any good? Scale LInk Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 Hi John, thanks for pointing those out - I think there would certainly be something in that fret to do the job - certainly better than printing one out. The printed one just looks two-dimensional even though it is so small. I thought I might be able to make an outer rim and hands but there is just no way I can ever create the numerals without an etching. I took that photograph on our card table - looking at it again I am not sure a green hairy platform looks too good! Cheers John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 Back to the weighbridge rebuild. I am happier with this effort - there are still a couple of niggles as usual. The roof is paper tiles cut in a more correct club shape rather than the round Wills tiles which I think are also too thick. I changed the brickwork to Slaters which seems a closer match to the photograph. I didn't have any suitable etched windows so these are just microstrip for the thicker bars and lines painted with the bow-pen for the smaller bars (I have also used this technique on the goods shed windows). Do you think this is an improvement? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted March 6, 2014 Author Share Posted March 6, 2014 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 I spent a little time in the weekend finishing off the lighting in the station buildings. It consists of DCC Concepts' soft white LEDs and a couple of wall mounted "gas" lamps. Here is a photograph from the first tests - I will try and photograph a couple of the interior rooms that are decorated when I get a moment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Ian Smeeton Posted March 10, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 10, 2014 Looks pretty damn good to me. Keep up the good work Regards Ian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted March 12, 2014 Author Share Posted March 12, 2014 Thanks Ian! I have been having a second go at the Midland name plate for the signal box - my premise is that the LMS have not yet got around to updating all the name signs at the station. The previous version was too chunky so here we go again - filing and painting 2mm high letters doesn't get any easier second time around... the camera is cruel too, I had a suspicion that the 'Y' was a fraction high. Cheers John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coombe Barton Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Take it you've seen http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/studleyastwoodbank.htm Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
allan downes Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 The clock in that second photograph is just a place-holder until I can think of a good way to model a tiny clock - perhaps Willard Wigan would have some tips. Has anyone got any tips for modelling a small clock-face other than just printing them out? Scalelink do a whole sheet of different brass etched clocks incuding a beatuiful beam clock - well worth checking it out. Cheers. Allan. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted March 12, 2014 Author Share Posted March 12, 2014 Take it you've seen http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/studleyastwoodbank.htm Thanks John, yes Mike's site has been very useful to me - it helped narrow down my original choice of stations to model and provided some images that I hadn't already discovered. It is a brilliant resource. Cheers John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweven Posted March 12, 2014 Author Share Posted March 12, 2014 Scalelink do a whole sheet of different brass etched clocks incuding a beatuiful beam clock - well worth checking it out. Cheers. Allan. Thanks Allan, I ordered that sheet just last week and (as usual for Scalelink) it turned up yesterday in less than a week having travelled 13,000 miles - absolutely fantastic (some great weather vanes on there too - so I will have to build a cottage next). I also found and ordered a tiny doll's house clock that I might be able to pull apart to use the face - so I will compare the two and see which one is going to look better. Cheers John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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