Camden Lock (An Illuminated Diorama)

[iL Dottore]

Following on to my recent threads in the LU section of the forum, I have decided to go ahead with building the CAMDEN LOCK diorama (which may even get turned into a layout, who knows?).

 

First the "History" of the station (and thanks to bécasse for so much useful information)

 

The C&SLR had been extended from Angel to Euston in 1907 on an alignment parallel to the Pentonville and Euston Roads and so its terminal at Euston was aligned east-west. In 1912, the C&SLR submitted another bill for Parliamentary consideration seeking to increase its capacity by enlarging its tunnels to the larger diameter used for the tunnels of the more recently built railways to allow larger, more modern rolling stock to be used. A separate bill was published at the same time by the London Electric Railway (LER, a company formed by the UERL in 1910 through a merger of the BS&WR, GNP&BR and CCE&HR), which included a plan to construct tunnels to connect the C&SLR at Euston to the CCE&HR's station at Camden Town, this was rejected and through a separate bill, the C&SLR extended the line from Euston to CAMDEN LOCK, where the line terminated. This was always considered a stop-gap measure, and the construction was as follows (heading north, away from Euston):

1. Two long single bore tunnels leading to a large bore station tunnel

2. The staircase down to the island platform (rebuilt 1920 to 370 feet to take 7 car trains at peak times)

3. A constructed wall with two single bore openings and a doorway under the staircase to the signal box

4. The signal box between the running lines

5. A scissors crossover

6. An offset large bore tunnel which contained the point for the sidings

7. Two long single bore siding tunnels (which in due course became the running lines to/from to Golders Green/Edgware and Highgate/)

This is seen in my sketch.

 

Once the links to the Hampstead tube branches (to Golders Green/Edgware and Highgate/etc) were built beyond Camden Lock station in 1920, the former C&SLR station was connected to the (former) Hampstead tube's Camden Town station by one of those long pedestrian tunnels that feature at various LU tube interchange stations (and indeed provided the link between the two tube lines at Euston). However with the rebuilding of Camden Town in 1924, together with the rebuilding of the Camden Town junction and the closure of the South Kentish Town station, meant that the Crouch End Crossover Junction (with its’ poor track geometry) became rarely used. Trains either going straight through CAMDEN LOCK to Kentish Town and beyond or routing through Camden Town. CAMDEN LOCK was closed in 1939 and the tunnels between Euston, CAMDEN LOCK and the Crouch End Crossover used for wartime storage of records and artwork. The station was not re-opened in 1945 and remains mothballed.

(Any errors in plausability are all my own)

 

Thanks to a number of generous PMs from a RMWebber (who wishes to remain anonymous, but you know who you are and thank you VERY much), I was able to acquire engineering drawings and plans of Angel, Islington which became the basis of my sketches (see below):

This allowed me to prepare cutting plans for the tunnels

Which also allowed me to create a cutting template for the tunnel wall supports (the station tunnel will cover half of the station - all will be made clear later)

Finally, a rough 3D Sketch will illustrate how the diorama/layout will be set up:

 

bécasse posted a very nice poster of Euston station as seen at the 1924 reopening and I think this will be how I will finish CAMDEN LOCK and L49 has posted some useful material as well (thanks and L49, you have a PM). This is the sort of detail I am aiming at:

 

Any comments and feedback will be warmly welcomed. I will be posting further progress shots soon(-ish)

 

iD

[Jon Gwinnett]

Looks absolutely fascinating, love the proposed timeframe and subject.

[trisonic]

Checking in, in order that I can follow, Flavio....

 

Best, Pete.

[iL Dottore]

Sod's Law Strikes Again!

 

I had printed out my cutting plans, after see all was WYSIWYG, unearthed the compass cutter from the toolbox.... no blades and no replacement blades. The compass cutter I have takes rather bizarre shaped and sized blades. So until I get a re-supply, I'm stuffed.

 

Bu99er!

 

I'll have to see what I else I can do on the project in the meantime (sourcing 1930s posters and ads???)

 

iD

[iL Dottore]

Work has been progressing with CAMDEN LOCK. Having been unable to find any replacement blades for my compass cutter, I was forced to purchase a new bit of kit - a Japanese made circular cutter that would allow me to cut out circles without perforating the material.

Unfortunately, the comprehensive instructions are in Japanese, which meant I was using the pad and centre locator (I think that the cutter is designed for paper, thin card or thin cloth...)

Unfortunately, even with relatively thin plastic (30 thou), the cutter would start to wander and I ended up wasting a lot of raw material...

. But then, fiddling with the cutter, I found that I could remove the foot to reveal an extendable spike.

So after a very steep learning curve, I managed to cut out the components for the tunnel ends:

Which I assembled into a reasonable structure:

Putting off cutting out the tunnel supports for the moment, I spent a pleasant morning on t'interweb searching for 1930s posters and the London Underground standard dimensions for roundels, posters, etc. (readily available from the corporate section of TfL).. I then created a sample station tunnel wall covering to see check the dimensions. The first version was using a plain black lower tunnel wall section:

After studying the CSLR Poster and recalling comments made on the thread, I tried to create a black tiled version:

But I'm not too convinced about the effect. Perhaps I could get away with plain black?

 

Thoughts? Comments?

 

iD

[bécasse]

Try various shades of grey rather than (what I assume is) white as a background to the black tiles - you will still get a "tile" effect but it will be much more subtle.

[iL Dottore]

UPDATE:

 

I am slowly cutting out and building the station tunnel wall supports (pics to follow), which is a tedious business. Regarding the tunnel wall supports, I have a question that an interested reader may be able to answer: the station tunnel part of the diorama will be a scale 370 ft long (i.e. 1480mm/148cm/ 4ft 10in). I've planned to build 10 tunnels supports and place them one every 14.8cm (5.8 inches) to support a 30 thou plastic wall. Would this be sufficient bracing?

 

Another question, I currently plan on using plastic for the station tunnel wall, but what sort of card is there available that I could feed through my HP printer?

 

Progress, though slow, IS measurable....

[iL Dottore]

Well, here we are. Some snaps of the tunnel supports and the completed stairway end tunnel portal.

 

Comments. etc. welcomed.

 

iD

 

[TravisM]

I am following the progress of this with keen interest as I want to build a tube station based on the Bakerloo Line.  I am using a Kingsway card kit as a working template but I would love to know where I can get that cutter as that would help so much in getting tunnel mouths and station supports spot on.

 

Julian Sprott

[iL Dottore]

I am following the progress of this with keen interest as I want to build a tube station based on the Bakerloo Line. I am using a Kingsway card kit as a working template but I would love to know where I can get that cutter as that would help so much in getting tunnel mouths and station supports spot on.

 

Julian Sprott

Hi Julian,

I bought the cutter at a general "serious" hobby/DIY shop here in Basel. The shop has no model railway material, so it's not that good for the finer tools we need for model railways, but occasionally I find some useful bits and pieces.

 

NTCutter is the brand name and I would think their products (all material cutters of one type or another) would be available in the UK. Try hobby shops or "craft" shops. It's not a cheap bit of gear, north of £20 for the cutter and about £10 for 40 replacement blades.

 

BTW getting consistently sized material requires a lot of practice and given that working in 4mm means you need greater precision than the cutter is really designed for, you have to plan your cutting sequence carefully (my sequence was tube tunnel portals then resize cutter spacing and then cut all station tunnel wall parts - incl station tunnel wall ends).

 

F

[The Bigbee Line]

 

Putting off cutting out the tunnel supports for the moment, I spent a pleasant morning on t'interweb searching for 1930s posters and the London Underground standard dimensions for roundels, posters, etc. (readily available from the corporate section of TfL).. I then created a sample station tunnel wall covering to see check the dimensions. The first version was using a plain black lower tunnel wall section:

Station Tunnel Wall Untiled.jpg

After studying the CSLR Poster and recalling comments made on the thread, I tried to create a black tiled version:

Station Tunnel Wall Tiled.jpg

But I'm not too convinced about the effect. Perhaps I could get away with plain black?

 

Thoughts? Comments?

 

iD

I like the tiled version.  Having regularly commuted from Charing Cross to Paddington in 1996/97 I think these stations are fascinating.

[Horsetan]

The new signalling system now being introduced on the Northern Line seems to give this extra impetus.

 

I shall miss seeing the Westinghouse signal heads and platform repeaters, plus the hiss of the pneumatic valves as the signals reset to danger.

[TravisM]

After much thought, I've decided to use the Kingsway kit solely as a guide to help build my Underground station.  I have taken the station support pieces and cut them out of 2mm Plasticard and as I need about 10 for the length of each platform, I have given myself a target of building 3 or 4 a week.  

 

I know that doesn't sound very ambitious, but it takes about a hour to do each one properly and I don't want to rush.

 

I will post some pictures later as the station progresses.

 

Julian Sprott

[iL Dottore]

UPDATE

I have now completed cutting out the station tunnel supports. A number I have glued together with plastic rod spacers (see picture above) and 8 I have left as single sheet supports.

 

The next step will be to mount the spacers onto the baseboard. As this will be a diorama, I am thinking of using a correctly dimensioned plank upon which I glue (with Evostick or similar) plastic sheet, upon which I can then glue the plastic supports.

 

Any thoughts?

[bécasse]

Don't use the solvent based (original) version of Evostik, the non-solvent based version should work in theory but I have never been happy using it. What I do use is a professional quality pva, used without dilution but spread as thinly as possible on the wood base, the plastic then being clamped tightly to the wood base using another piece of wood as a splint and with any excess glue that gets squeezed out at the edges being cleaned up before it dries. The pva goes "off" surprisingly quickly so either be certain that the alignment is correct before finally tightening the clamps, or, preferably, cut the plastic marginally larger and sand it back to the wood base size once the glue is set.

[iL Dottore]

Progress continues.....

 

I have completed the "wallpapers" for the station tunnel lining (shown below) I followed bécasse's  suggestion of grey mortar and the wallpapers came up a treat.

 

I am thinking of using good quality photopaper for the printouts and which, being fairly stiff, I could directly use to line the station tunnel walls (so no faffing around pasting printouts onto thin plasticard ). However, the drawback to that would be to get a dirty cream colour (in images below as white) on the printouts that would match what I would have when the tunnel ends are painted dirty cream. [thoughts, anyone?]

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Unravelled's generosity with his time (again, many thanks Dave), I now have the stair dimensions from Clapham Common and Clapham North island platform stairs. Both have a tread of 11in and a riser of 6in. As plastic strip comes in 4mm widths (instead of the 3.67mm width that would be prototpically accurate), I sketched out the stairs using a 4mm tread and then - as a comparison - using a 3.67mm tread (same rise). The difference is notable and noticeable.

.

The question is: can I live with the 4mm "inaccurate" version? If not, what would be the solution? (perhaps cut out the accurate side walls, make frame and mount 4mm strips for treads and sand back? Other solution?)

 

Finally, I just came back from the Migros DIY with a 1200mm long x 20mm thick plank for the diorama base. It's 280mm too short to be entirely accurate (prototype platform length in 4mm is 1480mm) but this I can live with.

 

Thoughts?

 

Comments?

 

iD

[Southernboy]

" ... the drawback to that would be to get a dirty cream colour (in images below as white) on the printouts that would match what I would have when the tunnel ends are painted dirty cream."

 

Could you also print-out the tunnel ends? That way sides and ends would match.

I think matching paint to print-out (or vica versa) may be tricky, although you could get lucky of course!

 

Great thread btw. The tube and it's history is quite fascinating. Plus I travel through Clapham Common and North daily and recall the old Angel Station too, so much of this feels like home ground to me. Good luck with the build!

[Ian Smeeton]

Instead of looking for 3.67 mm plasticard strip, could the steps not be built using 2mm thick plasticard to give the 6 inch rise?

 

Then you would only have to worry about the length of each tread, rather than its depth.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Miss Prism]

Most steps usually have a lip, so your '4mm' strip will be nearer to your nominal tread than you think after you've dressed the edge.

 

 

 

[unravelled]

The steps have hefty combined treadplates and nosings, coming about 2 inches down the riser, with very little radius at the edge. At Clapham Common, these are proud of the riser,  giving a slightly deeper tread, while at Clapham North they are almost flush with the riser.

 

Btw, do you know what the sides of the stairs look like? I think it would be a case of peering out from a passing train. Let me know if you need any observations made.

 

Dave

[iL Dottore]

Thanks for all your comments.

 

I've had a "think" about the step construction... I'll cut out the sides using the "scale" measurements, I'll then use formers (right name???) to create a crenelated box. I will then use 4mm strip to form the treads, with the overlap providing the nose. Of course, I may need to rejig the sides so that the rise is a fraction under 2mm to take into account the plastic strip thickness.

 

I'll see how a mock-up works.

 

Stay tuned.

[iL Dottore]

UPDATE

OK, boys and girls, teens and tots! After much faffing around, too many "do it tomorrow"s and excessive procrastination, I have finally moved forward with the diorama.

First off, after mounting the tunnel supports onto plasticard bases (ensuring all was square and properly vertical) and adding plastic rod reinforcements, I installed the tunnel supports using a strong PVA to attach the bases to the wood.

Unfortunately, the Plastic-PVA-Wood bond is not that strong, necessitating regluing and the addition of reinforcement glue filets

If the filets don't hold, then I'll probably use track pins to pin in place.

I had thought about just printing out the poster and tile portion of the station tunnel wall and mounting that to thin plastic. Instead I decided to print out the entire tunnel wall section onto heavy inkjet photo paper and then mount that to the plastic supports. This of course would require a match between the finish of the station tunnels ends (acrylic paint on plasticard) and the print out. After painting the tunnel ends in a yellowy cream (the colour of the untiled wall as seen in the LU poster show here (http://www.ltmcollection.org/museum/object/link.html?_IXMAXHITS_=1&IXinv=1981/538&IXexpand=journeysservicedesign), I then created a number of colour variation samples which I printed out on photo paper and compared to my plastic parts. The end result was more than adequate - although I may yet give the plastic another coat of paint.

Generally, I am fairly satisfied with the station tunnel wall "wallpapers" - here is one of the final versions (I moved the station roundel to ensure an even distribution of station names along the entire station).

The only thing I have to do, before I can start mounting the tunnel walls onto their supports, is source some heavy matte photo paper (I've used semi gloss, but it doesn't quite work)

 

Your thoughts?

[iL Dottore]

UPDATE

I finally managed to track down some matte photo paper for inkjet printers, but it comes in at a weedy 170gm. I'll have to laminate two sheets together in order to get a heavy enough tunnel lining.

 

I did my first test print using the "best quality" setting on the printer and got a brilliantly coloured, crisp print. But perhaps one that is too bright. Furthermore the grey grouting, which looked very good on semi-gloss paper, practically disappears on the matte paper print (any tips, anyone?).

 

I'll have to play with the print settings (easy enough), but if that doesn't work, I may have to go back to my original artwork and change all the grouting from grey to white - which will be tedious. On the positive side, the duff test prints can be used as backing for the good prints in a lamination and also reinforce the joints.

 

More To Come

 

iD

[iL Dottore]

Due to various (non-model-railway) commitments, progress has been glacial, however there IS an

 

UPDATE

 

But, no pretty pictures this time, I'm afraid.

 

I managed to sort out the grouting on the prints and now the background is pretty much spot-on, although I do need to slightly modify the two end walls for size and the nicely coloured printouts necessitate another coat or two of home made paint on the plastic tunnel ends. I will be glueing the printouts onto backing paper to get a thicker, but still curvable, "wall". Anyone have any ideas about how to make the card walls very solid and robust when in-situ? shellac? other?

 

I hope to have the walls in-situ within the next few weeks. I will then need to think about the platform (easy enough) and the track...

 

Any thoughts about building station track for LU (tunnel, not open air)? It seems that the chairs are on concrete plinths.

 

Any suggestions regarding what to start with, how to modify, etc. will be warmly welcomed.

 

Photos to follow soone

 

iD

[LU_fan]

If you want to build realistic LU tunnel station tracks without too much work i think i've found a way. Buy some inspection pits, as many as you need, and install the middle rail on styrene pieces.

 

 

Just remove the red/brown pieces between the running rails and glue square styrene strips in the correct locations and correct position.

 

I haven't tried it myeslf, but to me it seems like an easy way to do it.