Alternative main line terminus in OO

[jamespetts]

Interesting - the CCT appears only to be available in kit form, whereas the PLV has the word "luggage" printed on the outside; would this be correct for a fish carrying vehicle?

Edited March 29, 2018 by jamespetts

[Fat Controller]

Interesting - the CCT appears only to be available in kit form, whereas the PLV has the word "luggage" printed on the outside; would this be correct for a fish carrying vehicle?

There was a CCT available from Dapol. PLVs were used for all sorts of passenger-rated traffic apart from luggage; a number were dedicated to cycle traffic, either for passengers wishing to travel abroad with their bikes, or to deliver new bikes to London. Other traffic carried included cream and milk in churns.

[jamespetts]

Interesting - thank you. That is helpful.

 

Edit: I can only find the Dapol CCTs in N-gauge so far.

 

---

 

Incidentally, I am putting together an idea of what sort of service pattern that this station might have based on some of the information that I have found here (albeit that information is correct for circa 1929, so the train formations will be a little different by 1935 - but this will be very useful when I get to the first backdating point of 1928/9).

 

So far, I have the following provisional diagrams (for 1935):

 

London line

Express passenger

London express - N15/LN - 5-set + diner + loose depending on demand (~3-4) + PLV

London Pullman - LN - complete Pullman set + 2x PLV

London via Alton - N - 4-set + loose + 4-set

West of England (terminating) - T9 - 3-set + 3-set

Cardiff (from the GWR) - V/N15 - GWR K-set (5) + Maunsell loose depending on demand (~2-3) + PLV

Excursion (Saturdays only) - S15/700 - 4-set + 5x loose non-cor + PLV

 

Local passenger

Basingstoke - M7 - non-cor 4 1/2 set

Salisbury - M7 - non-cor 4 1/2 set

Branch - O2 - P&P gate stock 2-set

 

Non-passenger

London fish (weekdays only (?)) - N/S15 - vans (TBC)

Locomotive coal (weekdays only (?)) - 700 - 4-5x coal trucks + brake van

Parcels (weekdays only (?)) - N/M7 - 3-6x PLV (?)

 

Brighton line

Express passenger

London via Croydon - V/H1/H2 - 3-set + 2-set + Pullman + 3-set

West of England (through/reversing) - N/T9 - 4-set + loose + PLV

Excursion (Saturdays only) - 700/S15/N - 4-set + 5x loose non-cor

Brighton - N/T9 - 5-set + 2 loose non-cor

York (from the LNER) - V/N15 (Maunsell only) - LNER carriages x 8

 

Local passenger

Littlehampton - E4 - birdcage 3-set

Bognor Regis - E4 - birdcage 3-set + birdcage 2-set

 

Non-passenger

Parcels (weekdays only (?)) - E4 - 3x PLV (?)

Through/reversing local freight (weekdays only) - N/700 - mixed freight + local fish vans for south coast destinations (?)

 

---

 

This would mean that not all of the trains from the London lines may be able to fit into the fiddle yard at the same time, but there should be room for 2-3 trains to queue on the reversing loop and approaches (depending on the length), and it may be that more than one shorter train can fit into some of the longer sidings.

 

Does the above seem to make sense? Can anyone think of any possible additional semi-fast or express services for the Brighton line?

 

Edit: Amended to add York train

Edited March 29, 2018 by jamespetts

[Mike Storey]

The luggage van, (latter known as a PMV), along with the similar CCT, are what you're looking for, at least during SR days.

 

Are you sure about that Brian? I am no expert on how the Southern Railway did things, but I do know a fair amount about how BR (SR) did them. CCTs/PMVs would have been at peak demand (newspapers and early post/parcels traffic) when fish moves were most needed. I suspect significant fish movements on the SR would have used the VEA type of van,or its earlier equivalents or refrigerated versions, where available. On the south coast, herring/mackerel would have been/still is a far greater catch than any large white fish such as cod. Herring barrels stink the moment the fish go in them, and for many days afterwards.

 

But if you have knowledge of Southern fish traffic that shows otherwise, I will stand very much corrected!

[Fat Controller]

Are you sure about that Brian? I am no expert on how the Southern Railway did things, but I do know a fair amount about how BR (SR) did them. CCTs/PMVs would have been at peak demand (newspapers and early post/parcels traffic) when fish moves were most needed. I suspect significant fish movements on the SR would have used the VEA type of van,or its earlier equivalents or refrigerated versions, where available. On the south coast, herring/mackerel would have been/still is a far greater catch than any large white fish such as cod. Herring barrels stink the moment the fish go in them, and for many days afterwards.

 

But if you have knowledge of Southern fish traffic that shows otherwise, I will stand very much corrected!

I was working on the basis that the SR, unlike the other three of the Big 4, didn't seem to have any purpose-built Fish vans, and none of the ordinary vans had vents on the lower sides and ends, where they'd be needed to maintain an airflow. Mind you, apart from Whitstable and Hastings, there weren't that many places on the main bit of the SR where there were sizeable fishing ports. 

Gould (Southern Railways Passenger Vans) notes on Page 40 that a PMV was used on fish traffic to Folkestone from London Bridge as late as 1966. The van, loaded with fish from London merchants for the Continent, came down on the 04:50 from London Bridge, and was dropped off at Folkestone East. From here, it was tripped to Folkestone Harbour. The van would receive a cursory clean, before being loaded with sacks of mail and returned to Cannon Street on the 5:22pm Up vans.

This was the only specific reference I could find to fish traffic, though as long ago as 1930, there was a diagrammed working for a PLV, as it would then have been, from Heathfield (Sussex) to London with poultry traffic.

[Chimer]

Does the above seem to make sense? Can anyone think of any possible additional semi-fast or express services for the Brighton line?

 

 

Well....let's see.  It critically depends on where your town is .......

 

As I understand it, we're looking at a south coast town, west of Brighton, that has a significant fishing industry and is important enough to have a Pullman service to London.  Two lines leave the station, one turning east to Brighton, presumably making a junction somewhere with the real-world south coast line from Portsmouth, Southampton and beyond.  The other is a direct ex-LSWR line to London, which must cross the south coast line somewhere shortly after departure and later make a junction with either the Waterloo/Guildford/Portsmouth or Waterloo/Basingstoke/Southampton line, depending on whether the town is east or west of Portsmouth.  

 

Services to Cardiff and the West Country would need to be able to turn west along the south coast line at the crossing point.  If this was possible, there would be local services on this line to Portsmouth (unless the town is west of Portsmouth), Southampton (if you're thinking your town is west of Southampton, ignore this post completely) and maybe Salisbury.

 

London via Alton is a non-starter unless your town springs up somewhere on the Gosport peninsula.

 

York via the Brighton line would be an insanity (imho).  Any direct trains for the north from this area would go up the London line.  In fact it's difficult to conceive of any express passenger services on the Brighton line, the distances are too short.

 

Your suggestion of local services to Littlehampton and Bognor via the Brighton line implies you're west of Bognor, so maybe at Selsey?  Bognor trains would have to reverse at Barnham, so requiring passengers to change there would probably be a more likely scenario than a direct service.

 

Following on from these musings, I think there are just 3 possible locations, assuming you're not going to muck about too much with reality other than in your immediate area:

 

1.  Bighampton (Not Littlehampton as it's got to be more important).  The Brighton line turns sharply east and joins the south coast line line at Angmering.  As in the real world, the London line goes north through Arundel, with a cut-off to join the westbound south coast line at Ford.

 

2.  Selsey New Town.  The Brighton line goes through Bognor (no longer a terminus) to join the south coast line at Barnham.  The London line crosses the south coast line between Chichester and Fishbourne and goes north to Midhurst (all as did exist) then continues directly north to join the Portsmouth-Waterloo line at Haslemere.

 

3.  Gosport City (expanded to cover most of the peninsula).  The Brighton line hugs the north shore of Portsmouth harbour and joins the south coast line at Portchester.  The London line crosses the south coast line at Fareham (change for Southampton) and either follows the Meon Valley line to Alton, with the branch to Eastleigh providing the routes to the west via Salisbury, or just goes to join the Southampton-Waterloo line at Eastleigh, with the branch up the Meon Valley providing the alternative route via Alton.

 

The source for all this fantasising is the wonderful Adlestrop Railway Atlas, http://www.systemed.net/atlas/ and click "View the latest version".  Note I have no idea whether the new bits of railway I have suggested were geologically possible, but if they could build the Settle and Carlisle ........  If any of these do fit your bill, we will be better placed to suggest what services might and might not have existed.

 

As far as freight traffic goes, if you assume for the sake of argument the goods yard is somewhere up the London line, then your freight services would be trip freights from the Brighton line using the fish sidings to reverse and proceed up the London line to the yard, and the return workings.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[jamespetts]

Thank you for that - the link to that atlas is very useful: I have been looking for something like that. I was imagining this layout to be set in a sort of portmanteau of Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth - a fictional agglomeration of some of the features of (and services to) each of those places, with some unique features of its own (such as the much discussed fishing industry). The website that I linked showed trains to Portsmouth via Alton and also via Croydon, coming from the Brighton lines. However, I wonder whether the via Alton route would localise to Portsmouth too much, as, looking at that atlas, the junctions at Eastleigh and another place just west of there whose name is too small to read on the atlas, it might not have been possible for trains to head further west without reversing at Eastleigh.

 

The idea of the York via the Brighton lines train is that there is a great imbalance in fiddle yard use if the York train were to use the LSWR main line; would it not have been possible in principle for a train from the ECML to reach the Brighton lines via New Cross and the Wapping/Rotherhithe tunnel? I have not, in my brief searches so far, found much in the way of information on through passenger services on this line. However, if we delete the via Alton service, then there might well be room to incorporate this as having come through a Westerly route, although this might make things less varied. An alternative would be to retain the York (via New Cross) arrangement and substitute the via Alton semi-fast with another inter-regional train from the LMS via Coventry, Leamington, Newbury, etc., or alternatively just imagine a via Newbury semi-fast from London.

 

In relation to express services on the Brighton line, this is intended to include semi-fast as well as true express trains; but surely the London train with the Pullman car and the through (reversing) to the West of England trains count as true expresses?

Edited March 29, 2018 by jamespetts

[Zomboid]

Pullman trains weren't really intended to serve intermediate markets, they were for London to wherever on the Southern. So it doesn't seem all that likely that one station would have two of them via different routes, especially once grouping had occurred.

[Chimer]

Perfectly reasonable to agglomerate features of rail services from 3 cities 30/40 miles apart, but I would suggest that until you put a single pin into the map of the UK, you can't work out what makes sense as a consolidated set of services from that location.

 

Though the current TFL map shows the line under the Thames to New Cross as "London Overground", it was firmly on the Tube map as an odd offshoot of the Metropolitan (I think) underground line back in the day. Afaik, prior to Thameslink, the only route ever used to link from SR territory to LMS/LNER was via Kensington Olympia - and such services were vanishingly rare.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[mightbe]

The SR and its predecessors had relatively few joint operations with lines from 'the North'. The one that really stands out is the Sunny South Express; originally LBSCR/LNWR (and later SR/LMS) it connected Liverpool/Manchester and Brighton via Willesden Junction. It ran from the early 1900s until WWII.

 

EDIT: There was, before WWI at least, a Newcastle to Bournemouth service. 

Edited March 29, 2018 by mightbe

[Mike Storey]

Perfectly reasonable to agglomerate features of rail services from 3 cities 30/40 miles apart, but I would suggest that until you put a single pin into the map of the UK, you can't work out what makes sense as a consolidated set of services from that location.

 

Though the current TFL map shows the line under the Thames to New Cross as "London Overground", it was firmly on the Tube map as an odd offshoot of the Metropolitan (I think) underground line back in the day. Afaik, prior to Thameslink, the only route ever used to link from SR territory to LMS/LNER was via Kensington Olympia - and such services were vanishingly rare.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

Depends on how far back we go for passenger services. The Snow Hill route (predecessor to Thameslink) ran through passenger trains until 1916, as did the East London Line, between the LBSCR and SECR and the LMS/LNEr and GER. Through freight continued on both for many decades more.

 

So if the OP is inventing a location, combining the facets of real places many miles apart, he could just as easily combine and increase the demands of three different, but real, routes across London!

 

I think we are so far into Rule 1 on this plan now, that trying to "justify" its existence, services and methodology, within certain time and geographic constraints, with non-existent industry in that area, is going to be a stretch. Far better just to create a "might-have-been" scenario and plan the services around that? After all, this is being built to enjoy maximum operations, and sticking to historical and geographic rules may somewhat prevent that. Being vaguely prototypical, somewhere, at some point, is about as near as one will get.

[jamespetts]

Thank you all for your thoughts. This discussion raises some interesting philosophical/artistic questions about layouts not strictly modelling a real location, and what it means for such a layout to be realistic. Just like a painting of a fictional scene imagined from the artist's mind, the scene can, despite being fictional, be more or less plausible in various distinct ways, from the quality of the brushwork, the representation of light and shade, to the juxtaposition of objects and people in the scene. So, too with model railways: the individual items of track, signals, rolling stock and scenery can more or less realistically resemble the real thing; and also the relations between them can be more or less plausible.

 

When something is not a replica of a specific real life place and time, the important thing is plausibility, to my mind at least: if it had been real, would (or might) it have been done this way? How to deal with that is fairly straightforward in principle (subject to the vagaries of research in practice) when selecting which items of rolling stock existed in a given era, the type of signalling, operational practice, track layout, and the combining of items of rolling stock that would have operated in a general geographical location on services of the general type represented.

 

When dealing, however, with such things as what routes that inter-regional expresses might have taken to reach a wholly fictitious place, or whether, in light of the existence of this fictitious place, junctions at one or two non-fictitious stations would, had the fictitious place been real, have been configured differently to allow for through running to the said fictitious place (e.g., from London via Alton), the question is more difficult to answer. Probably the best way of trying to answer it is to ask: is it reasonably plausible that things might have been done this way? Was the fact that it was not done this way economic or practical inevitability, or was it a matter of happenstance? For example, the LNER expresses using the East London Line: the infrastructure was present to allow for this, and through passenger services had been run on this line, even though local services had been taken over by the London Underground in the 1930s. Would there have been any reason in principle that it could not have been done this way? Were the tunnels too small to take express carriages? (I do not know the answer to this). Were the local services too intensive to allow the slots for through trains? (I think that the answer to this is in the negative).

 

In relation to the Pullman car, although I can see on the one hand that having two separate Pullman services (and only one non-Pullman dining service) to a single destination might not have been how things were done, and an ordinary dining car might have been used instead (giving two dining car expresses and one Pullman service). However, thinking about it further, is this really the most plausible arrangement? The LSWR was the only company of the Soutern's constituents that had its own dining cars: the other two, including the LBSCR, used Pullman services. These usually involved fixed term contracts spanning a number of years. If we imagine that the LBSCR ran London expresses in competition to the LSWR to this destination, it seems reasonably likely that, if the LSWR had a Pullman or dining service to this destination, then the LBSCR would have had a Pullman service. When the Southern took over the LBSCR in 1923, it would have inherited the Pullman contracts and have been bound to continue them for a number of years. Such Pullman contracts as were inherited in 1923 would probably have expired by 1935, but the Southern does not seem to have had a policy of replacing Pullman services with its own catering services (unlike, for example, the LMS), so it is as likely as not that the Southern would have renewed the Pullman contract for the route providing that it were profitable (and if it were not, it would probably have withdrawn the service entirely). From what I understand, trains on the Southern were just as likely to have a Pullman car as a dining car, especially in the central and eastern sections. I note with interest that, according to the link given in my earlier post above, Bognor Regis appeared to get two Pullman trains per day.

Edited March 30, 2018 by jamespetts

[Chimer]

The point I personally would stick on is that if you want to identify specific services as being from your fictional place to real places, you need to know roughly where your fictional place sits geographically in relation to the real places.  

 

My way of thinking is that, unless you go strictly prototypical, your railway lives in a parallel universe.  Rule 1 governs how far this parallel universe can diverge from how the railways really were during your time period.  The main divergence I am thinking of using in my "last great project" involves Clitheroe becoming the major conurbation in north-east Lancashire, overshadowing Blackburn and Burnley.  This means the line from Blackburn to Hellifield through Clitheroe is of much greater significance, so my fictional station somewhere along that line (which can't be Clitheroe, which would now be far too big for the available space) can see a wider variety of services than was the case in reality.  Indeed the line was so much more important that it was driven north-east across the moors beyond Hellifield in the general direction of Newcastle (yes, I know that needs lots of Rule 1 to be plausible).  I also want my station to be a junction, and for the branch to go somewhere in the real world - so I need to decide which side of Clitheroe the junction lies.  And of course the continued existence of the stations serving the small towns and villages along the line is also governed by Rule 1 - my junction will probably have to replace one of them.  But outside the area bounded roughly by Blackburn - Preston - Hellifield - Burnley - Blackburn, nothing changes (except for the minor detail of the new Newcastle line).

 

In James' case, where his station sits along the south case impacts on your likely direct route to London, what alternative longer routes (e.g. via Alton) are plausible, whether Brighton trains are just locals or something grander etc.  He can obliterate any of the existing towns along the coast and put his station on top of them, or he could, say, throw all the railways on Portsea island up in the air and call his station Eastney maybe.  But I do think he needs to shove his pin in the map somewhere.

 

​Speaking of maps, the Adlestrop map can be zoomed and scrolled at will.   + and - buttons appear if you click anywhere on the map, and scroll bars appear if you take your mouse pointer to the right-hand or bottom edges.

 

​Cheers

 

​Chris

[jamespetts]

Thank you for your thoughts. As to the atlas, I can zoom it to 100% - while the size of the text on the screen is adequate at that zoom level, the resolution is not, and the text of the smaller stations is indistinct. The file size of the atlas at 1Mb suggests that there is insufficient resolution, too.

[Chimer]

That surprises me.  I have just zoomed the map to the point that Gosport is on the far left hand side of the screen and Hayling Island on the far right, with Portsmouth in the middle, so no more than 5 or 6 miles across.  At that, everything is (eventually - it takes a while to focus) pin sharp.  That's on a nearly new 23" screen, which may help.  I am amazed that the indicated file size is so small given the amount of detail.

[jamespetts]

That is very odd - in Firefox, zooming in to see the small town names gives me blurry and indistinct writing, and, in the Document Reader in Ubuntu, it will simply not let me zoom in very far.

[mightbe]

Just to clarify, you're zooming with the on-screen + and - buttons right, not zooming the browser? (circled below)

 

This is the max zoom I get on Chrome, there was no lag from refocusing:

 

 

*my screen resolution is higher than the jpg resolution, hence the slight bluriness

 

EDIT: In Chrome at least (just discovered this) using the browser zoom is identical to the on-screen controls, possibly because it's not a website but a pdf file.

Edited March 31, 2018 by mightbe

[jamespetts]

Yes, zooming using the +/- buttons does not give me clarity anywhere near that. That is very odd.

[Dagworth]

That is very odd - in Firefox, zooming in to see the small town names gives me blurry and indistinct writing, and, in the Document Reader in Ubuntu, it will simply not let me zoom in very far.

 

Yes, zooming using the +/- buttons does not give me clarity anywhere near that. That is very odd.

Have you saved a local copy of the PDF or are you trying to view it online? Save it locally and open it with whatever PDF viewer you choose and you should be able to zoom right in with complete clarity

 

Andi

[jamespetts]

I have tried both: in Firefox, I can zoom in very far, but the text is indistinct. Saving locally and opening using the Ubuntu document viewer, I am not able to zoom in very far at all.

[Hesperus]

Have you considered that the two lines would have been built at different times?  This could have a lot of relevance to the architecture and signalling as the original line would have a much smaller station than what you are modelling.  It could be nice to try and show a few elements of this for example the main signalbox and station building would be in newer red brick but some smaller buildings such as signal box 2, the stable or buildings around the fish dock could be noticably older and a different style.

[jamespetts]

An interesting thought; I shall bear this in mind when I come to plan the scenery.

[DCB]

The layout looks like it was planned and (re) built in one operation.  Most big prototype stations pre about 1940 were a mish mash of odd trackwork and platforms too long or too short for traffic like Euston for instance and some like Weymouth were horrible right up to rationalisation in the 70s.

 

A pre WW2 joint station in the Bournemouth / Southampton are would be interesting, apart from LSWR traffic to London and coast services may be with LBSC locos the GW locos and stock worked to Southampton daily, from Cheltenham and Didcot Bulldog and Duke classes mainly with 2251 and Manors/43XX post war.  LMS Locos  worked to Bournemouth West over the S&D from Bath with trains from Manchester and the north, 2Ps 4Fs, Midland 3Fs and later 1930s Black 5s.  The big problem for the area is the lack of the small passenger locos RTR   No GW Buldogs or Dukes, Dukedogs didn't get theretil post war if at all, no 4-4-0 LSWR locos except T9s. There were lots of other 4-4-0s pre war, 5'8" wheeled Hoppers and nthe T9s bigger sisters L11 and especially the D15s

[jamespetts]

The layout looks like it was planned and (re) built in one operation.  Most big prototype stations pre about 1940 were a mish mash of odd trackwork and platforms too long or too short for traffic like Euston for instance and some like Weymouth were horrible right up to rationalisation in the 70s.

 

A pre WW2 joint station in the Bournemouth / Southampton are would be interesting, apart from LSWR traffic to London and coast services may be with LBSC locos the GW locos and stock worked to Southampton daily, from Cheltenham and Didcot Bulldog and Duke classes mainly with 2251 and Manors/43XX post war.  LMS Locos  worked to Bournemouth West over the S&D from Bath with trains from Manchester and the north, 2Ps 4Fs, Midland 3Fs and later 1930s Black 5s.  The big problem for the area is the lack of the small passenger locos RTR   No GW Buldogs or Dukes, Dukedogs didn't get theretil post war if at all, no 4-4-0 LSWR locos except T9s. There were lots of other 4-4-0s pre war, 5'8" wheeled Hoppers and nthe T9s bigger sisters L11 and especially the D15s

 

Thank you for your thoughts. May I ask how in practical terms one might represent the sort of unplanned combination that you describe within the confines of space and the operational requirements stated?

 

As to rolling stock, it is interesting that Great Wetern locomotives worked through; I had thought that they had mostly changed to Southern locomotives at places such as Oxford or Didcot:

 

Edited April 12, 2018 by jamespetts

[Zomboid]

The Didcot, Newbury & Southampton was GWR, and that joined the LSWR just south of Winchester, so GWR locos would have worked through from that.

 

I'd suggest looking at some real stations which were built in parts. London Victoria springs to mind, and London bridge. A lot of the time inter working between the two halves was only possible via one or two platforms if at all. Rather like Brighton, actually, where only one platform can be used for both the Worthing line and the London line.