“WASHBOURNE”

[Northroader]

8 hours ago, ianathompson said:

 I might have thought that a bit large for the "Minories" concept/franchise.

If you want a GNoSR example how about Keith?

Through platforms to different routes on either side and bays in the centre.

Just a thought.

 

Ian T

 

You're right, Ian, not the best example to pick, Keith would be a better bet.

 

in other news, I was inveigled by my better half into cleaning out the garage today (Nooooo) But in the process, I discovered some lead flashing I had forgotten all about (Yeeahhh)

Edited March 29, 2021 by Northroader

[Nearholmer]

That fillum is very good - the guy's an excellent raconteur.

 

The Dungarven line looks as if it was very typical of many in Ireland, in following the lie if the land, rather than the contours. There's an abandoned track-bed from Limerick, through Abeyfeale where MiL hails from, and on toward  Listowel and Tralee, a lot of it paralleling the road, and I'm amazed by the gradients every time I see it.

 

The section that is still open from Tralee to Killarney gets pretty impressive as it descends almost to lake level, looping round the town - we stayed at a cottage not far from it, up on the high section, and there was a viewing point just up the road, giving a fantastic panorama over the town and lakes, which emphasised to me how far the railway drops in a fairly short distance.

 

Anyway, I'm keen to hear more of the Boy Scouts' Holiday, so I'll be quiet and listen.

[Edwardian]

22 hours ago, ianathompson said:

 I might have thought that a bit large for the "Minories" concept/franchise.

If you want a GNoSR example how about Keith?

Through platforms to different routes on either side and bays in the centre.

Just a thought.

 

Ian T

 

This one, presumably?

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

It’s all getting very CJF, he was mad keen on the “through terminus”, as he called this topology. One of his really practical compact plans in the PSL book is one called “Zeals”, which is very well worth a look.

[St Enodoc]

16 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It’s all getting very CJF, he was mad keen on the “through terminus”, as he called this topology. One of his really practical compact plans in the PSL book is one called “Zeals”, which is very well worth a look.

His initial inspiration came from Bristol Temple Meads, as mentioned in the description of Chapel Meadow in the same book. Overton is another.

 

Of all the CJF plan books, this is the one that I seem to re-read most often - to the extent that the binding has just about disintegrated after 30 years!

Edited March 30, 2021 by St Enodoc

[Nearholmer]

Yep, mine is now in loose-leaf format.

[Edwardian]

Was there through running at Keith, the HR over GN0SR metals or vice versa?

 

If you want a single company 'through terminus', then Darlington Bank Top suggests itself. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Northroader]

Much as I love Bank Top, it’s too BIG!, No, I was pushing small and simple, with the idea of a terminating bay/bays and a single through platform for passenger traffic. Keith HR is the place as an example:

 

the through line on the left kept on to link with Keith GNoS station. Now, while I was digging, I came across a travel poster which I’d like to share. Nothing at all to do the present goings on, but I as do like old posters and this is new to me, so isn’t it great for a model of scenic painting?

 

Now I must try and find my scouts uniform for the next bash (it isn’t Bob a Job week but she’s got me on painting the garden fence today)

 

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Northroader

[ianathompson]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Was there through running at Keith, the HR over GN0SR metals or vice versa?

 

The answer to that is yes and no!

There is no simple answer becasue this was the front line of a savage Victorian railway war!

I will spare you too many of the details.

 

In the very early days. before the Highland was the Highland there were tenuous connections between the GNoSR and the Inverness & Aberdeen Junction railway,  providing a through service between Aberdeen and Inverness.

The I&AJR became a constituent of the Highland Railway.

Once the Highland had its through route to Perth it operated the Forres-Keith service as a branch line.

The trains did not particularly connect with those of their neighbour.

The bay platforms were provided because this was as far as the GNoSR went. 

 

The GNoSR then built its own line to Elgin, via a circuitous route.

GNoSR trains took the southern through platform to Elgin whereas the northern through platform provided a service to Elgin (and Inverness) over the Highland.

Elgin and Keith then became the focal points of a bitter dispute, concerning the RCH, as to the exchange point for traffic.

 

In later years relations thawed and the northern through platform was used for through trains.

There was also a bay platform on the west end for teminating Highland trains, which also ran to Portessie via Buckie for a time.

This was  well known, if my memory serves me right, (as it does less and less nowadays!) for a bizarre signal box which spanned the bay and was almost on the goods shed roof!

 

I am familiar with the area from watching Highland League football.

I have two GNoSR layouts on the go in N gauge but they are very much second string interests which make glacial progress if any at all.

Rather appropriate for a  Victorian GNoSR train!

They can be found here.

There is some GNoSR stock available so I will take the liberty of showing one photo of the half completed "wee trainie".

 

 

 

It is still possible to travel part of the GNoSR route to Elgin by taking the preserved railway's train from the rebuilt KeithTown station to Dufftown.

Keith Town, as its name suggests, was just outside the town centre whereas the station shown on the maps is technically Keith Junction.

The modern railway uses the through platform where the Aberdeen to Inverness trains today cross from GNoSR to Highland metals.

All trace of the bays has gone and a modern building stands on their site.

 

Hope that some of these ramblings are of interest and apologies for thread drift.

 

Ian T

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

Nothing at all to do the present goings on, but I as do like old posters and this is new to me, so isn’t it great for a model of scenic painting?

 

They'll catch it if they're caught standing on that hay-rick. Or is it in fact a dormant haggis?

 

As to the HR / GNoSR dispute, I suspect the underlying thinking of both parties was that any Aberdonian fool enough to want to go to Inverness (or vice-versa) deserved what he got.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Compound2632

[Northroader]

Ah, a Forres Mechanics supporter.

[ianathompson]

10 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Ah, a Forres Mechanics supporter.

 Mechanics aren't playing this season due to Covid restrictions.

I have always followed Deveronvale since seeing them play when I was in the sixth form.

Last time I was up there I went to see them play.

 

Ian T

[Nearholmer]

It does all pose a question of definition, or perhaps a challenge of differentiation: which stations are "through termini", and which are "through stations with bay platforms"?

 

To my mind, its about history, and a good "through terminus" usually began life as a pure terminus.

 

Then there was Tunbridge Wells (later 'West'), which functioned very largely a terminus for much of its life, but was laid-out like a through station - that was all about history, and deadly-rivalry between Victorian railway companies too.

[Caley Jim]

I always understood that the rivalry between the GNoS and the HR was down to both having their origins in trying to link Inverness and Aberdeen, the I&AJ from the Inverness end and the GNoS from Aberdeen, with neither succeeding!

 

As to large 'Through Termini', Edinburgh Waverley must rank fairly highly.

 

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

As to large 'Through Termini', Edinburgh Waverley must rank fairly highly.

 

 

Even more so before its 1890s rebuilding.

 

But perhaps the ultimate terminal-station-with-a-through-line was the old Waterloo?

 

[Regularity]

Aberdeen station, too.

[Donw]

In pre-group days Dolgelley was an unusual station It was two termini joined together all GWR trains terminated there as did all Cambrian trains. However through coaches and freight were allowed through. Naturally I intend to model it. Two terminii for the price of one!

 

Don

[Northroader]

Ok, then, here’s our train coming along the through platform, I think there were carriage sidings at the east end. I have to say I find the engine very attractive. A chunky 4-4-0, class D4, and this class had the distinguishing feature of an outside framed bogie, which to me is the icing on the cake.

its one of a class of eight, built at Inchicore 1907-8. Most of the GSWR 4-4-0s had 6’7” drivers, but these had 5’8.5” wheels, as they were intended for the heavy grades of the WD&L section, which fits in nicely with what we’ve been discussing. By the way GSWR classified their locos by the first number of the series, like the old GWR, but the GSR adopted the same way as the LNER, so D4 was a ‘333’, and a J15 was a ‘101’.

The coaches are wooden bodied bogie corridor ones, elliptical roofs, getting in I was thinking the wide gauge might show in a wider body, but looking up figures now I find they were 9’0” width, same as a lot of British stock, and they were 57footers built by the GSWR 1900s-1920s era.

The train was the 10:50 departure, and I could add something about the circumstances back then. Eire had stayed neutral in WW2, but the railways relied on coal imported from Britain. Coal was going towards the war effort, and the republic was right at the back of the priorities. There were a few minimal deposits of low grade coal in Ireland, and the only resource was peat, usually referred to as “turf”. Putting this in a locomotive firebox gave slow burning release of heat with the grate clogging up, so the trains were slow, halting to “brew up” or “bale out”, but it was all they had, and this ran on after the war with the bad winter of 1947. As a result the timetables were very restricted, with mixed trains on the branches, and still was still the case when I went. I would regard Waterford to Limerick, the line we were using, as an important cross country line, but there were just three trains a day each way, 7:35, 10:50, and 19:35 from Waterford, 12:15, 17:15, 22:00 from Limerick.

Anyway, we were off, and running past the engine shed, with me busy with pencil and pad. The engines on shed were no different from the rest of the  British Isles, a kind of charcoal grey patina through which you could barely make out the lettering. CIE painted them a dark grey, with the top passenger engines green, but I didn’t see any of those. On to the single main line, a steady gallop between calls at the intermediate stations. Our station was Cahir, around thirty miles out from Waterford. As you run in, there’s a small goods yard, sidings and a shed, so I should mention the goods stock. It was in “fifty shades of grey” with the Flying Snail and wagon number and tare stencilled on in pale green. The Irish Railway Clearing House had agreed common designs for wagons and vans (Railway Engineer April 1924) and the GSR and GNRI had built rolling stock to this specification, so you’d see boxy vans and wagons, rather like LMS stock. The wagons were five and six plankers, with drop side doors, used indiscriminately for general goods or coal.

Heres two models of older stock, 0 gauge ALPHAGRAPHIX card printed kits with hard underframes, such as stock from the GSR constituents, the nineteenth century survivors being the distinctive Irish “combined “ wagon, outside framed with a well curved roof with the centre section missing. This was covered by a small sheet with battens either side which could be tied down by cordage. With the sheet removed they could be used for cattle traffic, and with the sheet on for general goods. There were usually openings in the lower body side to help cleaning out. As we've seen the cattle traffic had changed to purpose built wagons with roofs running in sets from cattle “fairs” to export ports. GSWR vans had another feature, as following the invention of corrugated iron, the company really took to it, van roofs, but also I’m afraid to say, stations. The typical Irish station would be an attractive design, usually in grey limestone, but I’m afraid on the GSWR western extensions, they were just tin sheds. Fortunately at Cahir where we’re alighting, was a really nice example, an “upstairs-downstairs”, as the railway crossed the high street on an overbridge right after the station.

There was either a small lorry or tractor and trailer waiting outside for us, taking our kit to the campsite, about a mile outside of town, in parkland by the river bank. There was a small country house in the park, looking through the windows, I could see it was full of Chinoiserie. (Country houses in Ireland didn’t fare very well in the war of independence, by and large) The tents were ready, hired out with the site, old army surplus bell tents, so a 24 panel left a patrol of six scouts with acres of space. It was a good camp, only raining one night. One day we had an excursion, round trip by train to Tipperary. (Having read Ahrons it would have been really nice to go on another three miles to Limerick Junction and watch the antics there, but I didn’t make it till several years later) I hope the Tourist Board don’t mind if I say after a turn along the High Street and a look in the shop windows, there ain’t much to do. Needless to say I got off a postcard to my father, telling him it was indeed a long way to Tipperary, although he knew that already, as he was garrisoned at Fermoy after being called up in 1917, and after the Western Front in 1918, he convalesced at Blackrock Hospital in Cork Harbour, managing trips on the CB&P.

Well, all good things come to an end, so we packed up a few days on, back  on the train to Waterford, (another D4), the long traipse along the Quay to the “Great Western” and spread out on the main deck. There were no cattle for company, just four or five sad old horses, and  wagon load of hides which stunk the place out. We sailed earlier, at 18:30, so it was a pleasant summer daylight evening heading down the Harbour. There are some small settlements along the shore and the locals came out to watch the ship go by. Some of our travelling companions, who I would venture had partaken before embarkation, livened things up, whooping and hallooing and twirling their jackets round their heads. It was a touching enactment of the downtrodden emigrants leaving the auld country to chance their lives in foreign lands, but you knew after a few weeks and paypackets on a building site in Britain, they’d be back on another bender. Sleep on the boat, interrupted in the small hours by Fishguard, and I suppose sleep on the train most of the way across Wales. I do remember on the West to North train stopping at Abergavenny Monmouth Road, where a 42xx 2-8-0T sneaked on the back, and an exchange of whistle crows with the train engine to set off up Llanvihangel bank, the first time I’d heard that. Eventually we got back home, welcomed by our families, full of travellers tales and dirty washing.

 

Impressions? Well, first off my “cops” :

J15 0-6-0 (from 1866) 101,111,123,134,157,160,162,163,183,188,191,240. (Five with small boiler)

D10 4-4-0 (1903) 314.

D11 4-4-0 (1900) 301.

K1  2-6-0 (1925)  389. (A Woolwich Arsenal engine, think SR “N” without smoke deflectors)

You’ll see the steam power was getting on in years, but the one railcar I saw was a herald of a big turnaround starting to begin in motive power.

The bit of Ireland I saw was just pleasant rolling agricultural country, small quiet towns, and the one large place on the coast handling coal imports. There was none of the heavy industry you’d encounter in Britain, so there wasn’t the bustle and traffic flows, and the passenger traffic was infrequent. Aside from the wider gauge, it could be another line just like Britain’s “Big Four”, a bit quieter, with its own idiosyncrasies, and very likeable.

 

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Northroader said:

K1  2-6-0 (1925)  389. (A Woolwich Arsenal engine, think SR “N” without smoke deflectors)

 

The first dozen of the class were bought as kits by the MGWR and were, I think, the last locomotives erected at its Broadstone works. Your No. 389 was of the later batch assembled at Inchicore in GSR days. It's nicely circular, since the Woolwich engines were essentially Richard Mansell's SECR design, and he had gone to Ashford from Inchicore, although in his two years there the only new engines built were more 0-6-0s to Coey's design.

[Mikkel]

I've been looking forward to the conclusion of your Irish adventure, and it didn't disappoint! 

 

The GS van with the corrugated roof and tarp is so very... charming! Despite your disappointment I like the sound of the tin shed stations. This one looks quite nice:

 

http://eiretrains.com/Photo_Gallery/Railway Stations G/Grangecon/IrishRailwayStations.html#Grangecon_20090601_006_CC_JA.jpg

[Nearholmer]

Yes, once tin-hut designers got into their stride, they came up with some rather pleasant creations. The L&B station at Listowel (maybe Ballybunion too) is a good example.

 

Interesting that your Boy Scout self was underwhelmed by Tipperary, because I was too the first time I went there, so never bothered going back - Cashel, just up the road, is a lot more interesting from a touristical viewpoint, and in ancient times it had a brilliant little BLT with scenic backdrop of The Rock.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashel_Extension_Railway#/media/File:No._74_(8449268749).jpg 

 

Now in colour:

 

https://www.emerald-isle-gifts.com/vintage-irish-town-prints/tipperary-vintage-photographs/tipperary---depiction-of-the-old-cashel-train-station.asp

 

(I think the artist here is attempting to depict the steam rail-motor that was designed for, and operated upon, the branch)

 

And, the station building was a two-storey structure, in classic station style, but was made entirely of tin!

 

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

Now what is going on there? It almost looks as if a 0-4-2 has been rebuilt as 0-4-4T on the spot, leaving its tender behind!

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I was a bit baffled too, and my best guess is that the place had no mains drinking water, so the tender is being used to bring some in for the stationmaster and his family (or being shunted as an empty to go and collect some more), but that is nothing but a guess. 

 

Given the religious significance of the place, and the thriving trade in holy water, it may, of course, be shipping-out that precious cargo, to be bottled elsewhere, but that seems far-fetched even by my standards.

 

Ah, no, more prosaic: water for the engines.

 

"A second problem was a troublesome water' supply. Although there was a permanent water tank at the station an old engine tender and a hand-operated pump were also provided to ease the situation."

 

I reckon that given where the station was, there was nothing like enough catchment area at higher elevation to give any streams or whatever to feed a tank.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

The large wheel by the tender looks like a hand pump, probably for the loco feed. Most domestic supplies were small enough that you could take them in old milk churns, with less chance of contamination. (Ahrons: Jubilee celebrations at Swindon)

The Valentia Harbour branch was good for “tin sheds”, and there’s a good model on the show circuit capturing the feel of the place, “Furthest West in Europe”, and after a long journey, there isn’t much there at all. Good demonstration of keep-it simple.

 http://www.cheltmodrail.org.uk/layout.php?LKey=400

Edited March 31, 2021 by Northroader

[Nearholmer]

44 minutes ago, Northroader said:

here’s a good model on the show circuit

 

An excellent little layout, very entertaining considering that it consists of next door to nothing modelled very well - subtlety rules!