Midland Sand Drying Houses

[jamie92208]

On my model of Lancaster Green Ayre I am trying to get information about the building at the back of the hed that housed the and drying furnace.  These were built to a standardised design with a louvred vent on the roof.  They were usually built in the same material as the shed, eg stone or brick and had a tall chimney attached to them.   I've not got any clear photos of the Lancaster Sand House in the 1920's so have combed through every booj that I can find on the subject.  Here are two of the photos that I've scanned and cropped.  

On what appears to be the rear wall of both sheds there is a large opening that has some sort of framework in it.  This seems to be a common feature and I wondered if anyone can tell me what it was.   I suspect that this will be hidden on the model but it would be nice to know what it was.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Jamie

 

[Beatty 139]

One of the Midland Records has a drawing, but beyond that I can't help just recall seeing one.

[Holmesfeldian]

Steve Duckworth of the Midland Railway Society offers the following comments...

 

"I suspect that the framework will be the cast iron 'braces' and tie rods that held the brick sand-drying furnace together? I drew one of these (furnace only) as part of my drawing of the original Radstock SDJR single-road engine shed, as proposed to be enlarged in the 1890s under MR loco dept auspices (SDJR Loco superintendent Whitaker was an ex MR man, familiar with Leeds and Carlisle sheds.) The furnace was incorporated in the rear of the shed, wet sand being loaded externally from a wagon, onto the drying tray. This drawing was measured in 1989 from a framed original held by an SDRT Trust member, who did not wish it to be removed from the frame for copying. My drawing, including exterior and interior elevations, cross section, and plan, is reproduced on page 80 of Chris Handley's magnum opus; 'Radstock Coal and Steam', Vol. 2, Millstream Books, Bath, 1992. My original was drawn at 8mm to the foot, but reduced to 2mm at publication!"

 

Please email Steve on sjduckworth@talktalk.net for further info.

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Jamie, the thing you can see is the cast iron side of the furnace. Wet sand was shovelled into the top of the furnace out of a wagon on the road next to the sand dryer, that's the dark area in the first photo, Rowsley, if I am not mistaken?. There were outlet slots at the bottom of the furnace where the dry sand appeared and was collected in buckets to fill the sand boxes of locos by the cleaners. There's an excellent photo of the furnace side piled high with sand in the late Keith Miles' book Scenes from the Past:44 "Rowsley MPD" on page 16.

[jamie92208]

Thanks very much to both Jonathon and Steve for your very helpful replies.   The top photo is indeed Rowsley, much chopped from a larger photo.   Fortunately I don't need to model that area as it is where a lot of selective compression is taking place in my model.  I've got an area at the rear of the shed which needs some small buildings in it but I haven't got room for everything that was there and am trying to create an 'impression'.  The mock up for the building, minus it's louvered roof vent is here.

It sits next to it's chimney and a shed office and what I think was an outside privy.  All these but up against the rear wall of the shed.

This is the yard which has the water tank on it's east side (The shed is on the west).

 

At the rear of the 3rd photo will be  workshop building that was actually 50 plus feet further south bordering onto Cable Street which is the frontage of the layout.  That means that fortunately I don't need to model the exposed piece of the furnace.   On the north side there is a siding that will have a shear legs over it.  The whole area will be very 'busy' in modelling terms.

 

You will see from the first photo that I've sketched in a proposed layout for the north wall with a door with vented window over it  (This matches a door on the loco shed) and another window as well as the flue exit to the chimney.  I don't have nay photos of that part of the building and any comments would be much appreciated.  

 

Thanks again for all the help.

 

Jamie

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Jamie, I'd say the sand house proportions are not quite right. It is only a small building even in 7mm scale. Here is a photo of mine, 4mm scale, made from Scalescenes textures and based on the kit from Metcalf Models.

 

 

 

It is 83mm long, 65mm wide, 55mm to eves and 78 to roof apex. The chimney should be a scale 50 feet tall. I ended up using a different chimney in the second photo - a recovered Metcalf one.

[jamie92208]

Hi Jonathan.   Thanks for that.   I've had to guess at the height.  The ground plan is scaled from the 1:500 rating plan.  The only photo that I've got that shows the roof is the very left hand corner of this picture.

 

I've tried to scale it to match the shed, the walls of which were higher in this picture than when I'm modelling it as the shed was re roofed in the 30's.   There's also 13mm of base to take off as the ground cover is that high in that area.  However I'll see if I can reduce it a bit It woks out at 113 mm from ground level to the redge of the roof and then there's the louvered vent to go on top. 

 

As for the chimney that's scaled from another photo by sightlines if you have a look at my layout thread.

 

Thanks for the help.  The pictures are very useful.

 

Jamie

 

[barrowroad]

On my model of Lancaster Green Ayre I am trying to get information about the building at the back of the hed that housed the and drying furnace.  These were built to a standardised design with a louvred vent on the roof.  They were usually built in the same material as the shed, eg stone or brick and had a tall chimney attached to them.   I've not got any clear photos of the Lancaster Sand House in the 1920's so have combed through every booj that I can find on the subject.  Here are two of the photos that I've scanned and cropped.  

sand 3a.jpg

sand 6as.jpg

On what appears to be the rear wall of both sheds there is a large opening that has some sort of framework in it.  This seems to be a common feature and I wondered if anyone can tell me what it was.   I suspect that this will be hidden on the model but it would be nice to know what it was.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Jamie

Hi Jamie, Your second photo is of Bristol Barrow Road and shows the original Midland Sand dryer building which, by the time of this photo, had ceased to be used and had been converted into an extra storage facility. The adjacent brick building was the new dryer, probably a war time addition. Wet sand was loaded onto the dryer from wagons alongside the building.

Robin 

[jamie92208]

Thanks to everyone for the contributions.  I've realised that the building is a bit too high, probably 15 to 20mm and that can be changed easily at this stage. I'll also have to alter the chimney base and reposition the flue after further study of the photos.    I can't do much about the ground plan so will live with that.  

 

Thanks again to everyone.

 

Jamie

[Nick Holliday]

I seem to recall that back in the sixties or early seventies, the Model Railway News published a short series of articles by David Jenkinson on the MR shed at Coalville, which featured scale drawings of most of the buildings, including the sand drying shed. If that's to a standard design, it might be useful for this exercise.

Edit: Found the issue of MRN - January 1965