Train spotting at Finsbury Square

[Clive Mortimore]

Maybe off topic and not to detract from the fantastic model!

 

Thanks to Pete for his memory of the famous "Jubbly", I particularly liked the frozen version.

 

I recall well enjoying the drink and a Lyons apple pie on Waterloo station. The best bit was after finishing the drink we would make our best attempt to seal the carton, then to "stamp" on the carton to get the loudest bang! Echoed around the station as you can imagine.

 

Happy days.

 

Eddie

 

 

 

 

frozen version.

Hi Eddie

 

Got to have a Lyons apple pie in the packed lunch to go with the Tizer (3d back on the bottle).

[asa]

Just caught up with this one and I have to say it looks fantastic,and the buildings are stunning.Look forward to more of it.

[CUTLER2579]

What no mention of Lyons Individual Fruit Pies, not only my favourites but also Great Northern of this parish.

 

Up North we had Vimto instead of Tizer as I recall.

 

Steve go for it with a magazine or I will name drop with a Sheffield Wednesday supporter in Peterborough and a resident of a village on the ECML who worked in Bourne.

 

Afraid I don't know Mike Wild or Steve Flint on a personal basis,  but two from four is not bad.

[the penguin of doom]

What a grand layout, some really nice modelling.

 

Cheers.

 

Sean.

[jonny777]

What no mention of Lyons Individual Fruit Pies, not only my favourites but also Great Northern of this parish.

 

Up North we had Vimto instead of Tizer as I recall.

 

Steve go for it with a magazine or I will name drop with a Sheffield Wednesday supporter in Peterborough and a resident of a village on the ECML who worked in Bourne.

 

Afraid I don't know Mike Wild or Steve Flint on a personal basis,  but two from four is not bad.

 

Tizer?  Vimto?

 

Blimey, we could never afford those expensive luxuries on our spotting trips. One shilling a week pocket money was all I had in the early 60s.

 

I remember my mother filling an old glass bottle with orange squash if I was lucky, otherwise it was water. 

Unfortunately, I was not informed that the glass bottle had previously contained vinegar and my first mouthful of "orange" was something of a shock to the system.

[trisonic]

Good old Coop Orange Squash (yuck)..............

Best, Pete.

[PhilJ W]

We had Corona delivered by a roundsman (just like the Co-op delivered milk). It only lasted for a few months, not enough customers.

[jonny777]

Yes, we also had a Corona man come round on Saturday morning but my Dad wouldn't buy that as he said it was too expensive.

 

So, we had to make do with the occasional bottle of a cheap brand (that I can't remember) that he bought from the corner shop.

[Bulleidboy100]

Fabulous layout - so life like. I used to spot at New Southgate - A4's, Blue Deltic and Falcon when it was still experimental.

 

As for the Corona man, he used to come round mid-week, the milk float was horse drawn - the horse was named Danny, but I can't remember whether is was Express Dairies or United?

The only problem with spotting at New Southgate station, was that it was right next to the asylum, then commonly known as Colney Hatch, later became Friern Hospital - there used to be some very strange people walking about!

[leopardml2341]

............. - there used to be some very strange people walking about!

 

.......... and they were just the spotters.

 

[Clive Mortimore]

.......... and they were just the spotters.

 

......no they were the nursing staff

[Baby Deltic]

A cracking layout. I like the BR accounting building and the 'Connor & Butler' building. Your converted MK1 SLO (or is it a CL?) looks very nice. It shows up the vast difference between true crimson and Bachmann crimson.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

 

Oh so, North London, and GN to boot, and with your time scale (1958 ?) you can still run the 2 Ex GN loco's, J52 and C12 that were exhibited at Noel Park Goods yard, in spotless condition, and be prototypical. Great layout, keep the pics coming. 10 out of 10.

 

manna

[31A]

G'Day Gents

 

Oh so, North London, and GN to boot, and with your time scale (1958 ?) you can still run the 2 Ex GN loco's, J52 and C12 that were exhibited at Noel Park Goods yard, in spotless condition, and be prototypical. Great layout, keep the pics coming. 10 out of 10.

 

manna

 

Hi all,

 

Thanks for the many supportive and constructive suggestions; I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the response, but will try and answer some of the questions (probably avoiding the subject of soft drinks!), and post a few more pictures.

 

The period the layout is set in is somewhat fluid and somewhere between 1959 and 1962; in reality B17s should't be rubbing shoulders with bat's wing-fitted A3s or production Deltics but I have models of all of these - I do try and avoid them all appearing at once!

 

As it happens, I've got one of the versions of 68846 that Hornby have produced stashed away, in lined BR livery as exhibited at Noel Park.  As with most Hornby 0-6-0s of that ilk, the mechanism is pretty useless and a replacement is on the 'to do' list, together with some of the modifications to the body suggested by Alan Sibley in an early 'MRJ'; I think it should be possible to do these and retain the printed livery details.

 

In reality, after the exhibition, 68846 went to Top Shed where it was used as shed pilot for a short while before being sold to Capt. Smith, but if Liverpool St., York and Newcastle could all have 'celebrity' station pilots, I don't see why Finsbury Square shouldn't as well!  For the moment, the 'passenger shunt' is a Bachmann 08.

 

I do have a C12 (made from a Craftsman kit, in LNER livery), but apart from 67352 which was scrapped after the exhibition, they weren't really seen in London by the end of the '50s (probably the last use in the area might have been the Ally Pally push pull in the early '50s?).  Some other GN locos apart from N2s would be good though, and J50s and J6s would be potential subjects.... 

[31A]

A cracking layout. I like the BR accounting building and the 'Connor & Butler' building. Your converted MK1 SLO (or is it a CL?) looks very nice. It shows up the vast difference between true crimson and Bachmann crimson.

 

Thank you!

 

The SLO is converted from a Bachmann SO, with lavatory compartment side sections from DC Kits kit for same inserted where the middle compartment originally was.  It's painted with Railmatch BR Maroon from an aerosol (and isn't as good as I'd like, with quite bad 'orange peel', perhaps not too evident in the picture), whereas the other non-gangwayed coaches are Bachmann crimson ones.  I've got another SLO to finish, and will probably brush paint that one - I seem to have more success with brushes, and then repaint a BS to go with it; this rake is completed by a couple of Hornby Thompson CLs.

 

The Revenue Accountant's Office is an American DPM kit (a hotel, I think?) converted into low relief and I've used similar kits for several of the other low relief buildings at the rear of the layout; the Connor & Butler building is the left over rear walls from a couple of the conversions.

[31A]

What no mention of Lyons Individual Fruit Pies, not only my favourites but also Great Northern of this parish.

 

Up North we had Vimto instead of Tizer as I recall.

 

Steve go for it with a magazine or I will name drop with a Sheffield Wednesday supporter in Peterborough and a resident of a village on the ECML who worked in Bourne.

 

Afraid I don't know Mike Wild or Steve Flint on a personal basis,  but two from four is not bad.

Thanks for the encouragement Cutler!  I would like to see the layout in a magazine one day, but for the moment there are too many unfinished bits - I've mostly avoided showing them in the pictures so far.  But I do have plans to fill most of the gaps!

[31A]

The more I look at it the more I appreciate your overall plan. Concise and compact without looking so - and it must be ER with all those "slips"....

Retaining walls are so cool and right too (that's why I alerted GordonS).

 

Best, Pete.

Thanks Pete!  I must admit I'm quite pleased with the layout plan; it gives scope for quite a few 'parallel moves' and the station more or less divides itself into 'main line' and 'suburban'.  Platform 1 can only be used for arrivals (or to stable a set), and platform 4 is not available for arrivals but functions mainly as a headshunt for the goods yard - although with the advent of DMUs it has seen more passenger use as they can easily be replatformed from 3 to 4.  One thing I'm not so pleased about (and only realised when I came to consider signalling) is that the middle road is directly accessible by facing moves from the up main, which seems a bit unlikely.  There is a solution but it would make the parcels dock and platform 1 shorter, and involve ripping up a lot of the pointwork and doing it again.... 

[31A]

Neither my "Rail Atlas of London" nor any of my Ordnance Survey or A-Z maps appear to show Finsbury Square Station. I'm going to write to the publisher's pointing out their omission. After all, we now have pictures to prove its existence.

 

Do you have, by any chance, a sketch map to show how this station connects up to the rest of the Eastern Region please?

 

I haven't managed to find one yet either, but the route follows the existing Canonbury line from Finsbury Park to Canonbury and crosses over the North London there and continues south east to end to up somewhere between Moorgate and the site of Broad Street.  There's a connection with the North London at Canonbury which allows running off the NL from the west to south towards 'the Square', which explains the appearance of LM freights and parcels from time to time.  I'd like to think there might have been a triangle similar to Dalston Jn. to allow trains from the GE access from the Stratford direction as well, but I imagine this would have been unlikely.

 

[trisonic]

I think the missing triangle junction is the hidden from view  one sited at Balls Pond Road........or was.........

 

Best, Pete.

(Who just likes the name: Balls Pond Road).

[Baby Deltic]

There was a tight curve eastwards from Dalston Junction to Eastern Junction many moons ago. I think the tunnel is still there.

Edited March 11, 2014 by Baby Deltic

[31A]

As well as the LM trip from Willesden, Finsbury Square goods depot is served by several Eastern Region freights of various kinds; these mostly run in the evenings, so we'll have to be patient to see many of them, but they tend to produce all sorts of motive power.  Here K3 61932 (53A Hull Dairycoates!) arrives tender first from Ferme Park:

 

 

The trip having arrived in platform 3, the 204hp diesel shunter ('goods pilot') sets about making up the outward train.

 

 

And shortly afterwards, 61932 sets off, taking the down fast for its return journey and passing the wagons it brought in standing on the down slow.

 

 

D2011 now shunts the arrivals to the yard, as another suburban train arrives behind an N2.

 

 

Later, the Finsbury Square-New England express goods departs behind 60821, returning to its home shed.

 

 

[landscapes]

Hi

 

Nice photos and great weathering on the V2.

 

Regards

 

David

[bobster]

Another great set of pics - Very nice.

 

Cheers.

Bob.

[pointstaken]

My wife is not a model railway enthusiast, but when I showed her the photos (without comment) her question was "Where is that ?". A tribute to the quality and realism of the modelling on here.

 

Dennis

[Peter Kazmierczak]

A couple of things have been puzzling me with your trackplan. Maybe I'm missing the obvious but:

i) How do wagons get into the goods yard? The only direct path for an arriving train appears to be into platform 3, but there doesn't seem to be a way to propel the wagons into the yard from there.

ii) Do all trains from platform 1 and the middle road have to work into the headshunt, then back into the station before they depart, or is there a trailing crossover at "X"?