Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[Compound2632]

Tar in casks, 1905:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of Midland Railway Study Centre Item 26283. Full description: Engineer's Department Document

Form No: E.B.1. Print Ref: D23-50 B; 200L.-2/04. PP date: Nil. Declaration of Materials. To be forwarded by Midland Railway, on account of the engineer's Department. Used at Settle to Clapham for Empty Tar Cask. (Greenhow Collection).]

[Martin S-C]

Nothing about 55 gall steel drums though. I shall probably ignore them for my modelling.

[Regularity]

IIRC, “Petrol” was a brand name, just like “Hoover”.

[Nearholmer]

"Petrol" was used as a product name in about 1870, as the name of a refined mineral oil product sold by British wholesaler Carless, Capel & Leonard, which marketed it as a solvent 

 

Wikipedia entry, which cites vintagegarage.co.uk , which is a website run by people whoknow these things.

 

PS: The adverts lower down on this page are wonderful https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Carless,_Capel_and_Leonard I particularly like the trade name 'Movril', which suggests to me a tarry petroleum byproduct, leftover after distillation, which is spread on toast and eaten at breakfast.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

I particularly like the trade name 'Movril', which suggests to me a tarry petroleum byproduct, leftover after distillation, which is spread on toast and eaten at breakfast.

Yum!  

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

"Petrol" was used as a product name in about 1870, as the name of a refined mineral oil product sold by British wholesaler Carless, Capel & Leonard, which marketed it as a solvent 

 

Wikipedia entry, which cites vintagegarage.co.uk , which is a website run by people whoknow these things.

 

PS: The adverts lower down on this page are wonderful https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Carless,_Capel_and_Leonard I particularly like the trade name 'Movril', which suggests to me a tarry petroleum byproduct, leftover after distillation, which is spread on toast and eaten at breakfast.

Presumably with laxative effects?

3 minutes ago, Annie said:

Yum!  

In which case, probably not…

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

On the linguistic point, this locomotive did not run on what we would call petrol:

 

 

No definitely not what we would call 'petrol'; - 'Petrolea' ran on an oil waste product left over from the production of gas for lighting passenger coaches.  Faced with the difficulties of disposing of this waste product James Holden developed oil burning conversion gear which was at first tested on stationary boilers at Stratford works and then a T18 0-6-0T shunting engine No. 281 before being fitted to the T19 class 2-4-0's.  The P43 4-2-2's were also fitted with this oil burning conversion gear as well.

[Martin S-C]

I've been fiddling about with this and that recently. Mostly adding a few details to RTR wagons and weathering them as I find it so therapeutic. I've been working through boxes of the things, many I've not opened and looked at in almost 3 years. So without boring you with details here's a few pictures.

 

First off a trio of Tirdonkins. These are a limited edition run by Dapol commissioned by the Swansea MRC. They sit on Dapol's standard steel channel 10 ft wheelbase so are almost certainly wrong but I liked them and haven't seen this colliery or coal factor represented anywhere before in model form.

 

As usual they came with Dapol's normal thin and lacklustre printing which showed the wagon base colour through it (especially so on 324 above) so I used a few dabs of white paint on a small brush to strengthen the signwriting and numbers. I also carved off the moulded end door hinges and replaced these with my usual method of brass wire and some 5 thou plastic card scraps.

Then weathering. I am trying now to weather as lightly as I can. I have plenty of filthy and grotty looking wagons and my views are coming round more and more to pre-WWII PO wagons (and company wagons) being presented in fairly good clean condition.






Next some vanilla Dapol brick wagons. I had to give these a fair dirtying down as they were the factory pre-weathered ones so I had to hide all that.


Then a few general merchant wagons. I know one is Irish and another Scottish but ... I liked them and I bought these years ago before I'd really begun to focus on where and when my layout would be set. Again, trying for a very light weathering.




Next, made a start on my humongous pile of POWSides Slaters wagons which I really enjoy building. Once you've cleaned up the parts so they fit true these little beauties just fall together. Very satisfying. I have fitted brakes on only one side of these three just for a bit of a change.




And how small they are against the standard Dapol model. Their small size is another reason I like them. I like all things cute.


Last of all for now, who remembers these?




It was 26th October 2018 when I started work on these. Then they got put away. Almost three years to the day I found them in a box yesterday and thought I'd have a go. The dimensions are all wrong for the GWR O.1 siphon of the 1880s but I am having fun and like Peter Jackson's films, these are based on and inspired by the GWR 4-wheel milk van and not faithful copies of it. Despite the fact I am horribly hacking things about and throwing them together with oodles of glue, they run well. It also means I need to decide on an NPCCS livery for the NMGS. Suggestions welcome.

[Annie]

Those 'inspired by' Siphons are very much like the condensed milk vans that Linny made as a laser cut kit.

[Martin S-C]

After a long time of me sitting on my rear end and prevaricating we made some actual progress today. First few baseboards erected and some imaginary train movements taking place.

[Nick C]

Definitely a worthwhile step - you can now spend a few days playing to make sure you're happy with the layout and how it flows, checking clearances, loop lengths, bottlenecks etc before committing.

[Regularity]

It’s amazing how something which seemed a touch compact and bijou in 2D is now so spacious in 3D!

[Martin S-C]

Its bigger than I thought. Things are deceptive though; while planning it is hard to visualise distances. It now seems like my platforms are narrow and the coaling stage by the turntable is far too thin and small but I can shift that to the rear of those three loco roads and enlarge it. I will certainly ease the long coal road about 1" further from the baseboard edge but the idea there is to make the fascia out of 3mm ply and raise its upper edge about 1" above the goods yard ground level then use either carved modelling clay or random stone sheets to make it look like the goods yard boundary wall in local limestone. This should help stop coal wagons plunging off the edge of the world.

The carriage sidings are very long! I think there will be more than enough spare stock space, maybe the one nearest the goods yard can be a spare goods stock road.

Having been watching Barry O's layout build I think I'll try trimming the PECO pointwork so the geometry is more accurate for British double track, that should give me a little more width to play with and I can deepen the half-relief town scene at the back of the station and/or the hard standing beside the parcels bay.

[Nick C]

Platforms are narrow - a minimum of 6 feet (24mm in 4mm) from the edge to any obstruction, but a cash-strapped company wouldn't make them much wider...

[Compound2632]

What are your double line track centres? If you make these closer to the prototype's 11'2" minimum (at least on the straight) you gain in width of platforms etc. Whilst 6'0" may be the minimum platform with, they were generally wider - 12'0" would be typical; as to island platforms, I think 12'0" was the minimum - or 6'0" minimum either side of a building on the platform.

[Nearholmer]

Indeed.
 

BoT requirements with mark-ups in preparation for the 1902 edition.

 

 

Islands were counted as ‘two platforms back-to-back”.

 

You need to decide whether you wish to attempt to convince The Inspector that your station is not “important” if you wish to have narrow platforms.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Regularity]

Don’t forget, though, that the very permanent nature of buildings meant that this would apply to new builds, and at platform ends, things could get quite narrow.

[Nearholmer]

If you go back to 1858, all the BoT said about platforms was this:

 

 

Things got stricter over time, and there were certainly stations with sub-6ft clearance to columns supporting canopies until quite recently, and there are still stations with low platforms, and platforms without overhanging nosing-stones even now, and there are plenty of places where platforms narrow down over the end few yards, getting to next-to-nothing at the foot of the ramps, although in recent years barriers have been installed where they get to 6ft/2m wide.

 

So, yes, if you want a model station to look antiquated, working to an old edition of the regulations would be a good thing …….. best of luck finding a copy that dates between the two I’ve cited, because having searched diligently, I’ve never found one!

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

What are your double line track centres? If you make these closer to the prototype's 11'2" minimum (at least on the straight) you gain in width of platforms etc. Whilst 6'0" may be the minimum platform with, they were generally wider - 12'0" would be typical; as to island platforms, I think 12'0" was the minimum - or 6'0" minimum either side of a building on the platform.

Over the years I've found that for island platforms a minimum track centre spacing of 5"/125mm in 00 gauge works well.

[Regularity]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

So, yes, if you want a model station to look antiquated, working to an old edition of the regulations would be a good thing

Also, have the platforms a bit lower: Frank Dwyer used 10mm (model) above rail height on Borchester. You could even have different heights where the platforms are newer additions.

[Martin S-C]

17 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

What are your double line track centres? If you make these closer to the prototype's 11'2" minimum (at least on the straight) you gain in width of platforms etc. Whilst 6'0" may be the minimum platform with, they were generally wider - 12'0" would be typical; as to island platforms, I think 12'0" was the minimum - or 6'0" minimum either side of a building on the platform.

The PECO geometry sets them at 51mm  so 12ft 9ins and I'm aware I can/should reduce those.

My platforms are 60mm wide so within legal minimum parameters. If I am going to gain any width I'd rather use it up at the back of the station where a Buckingham style town road scene is at the moment very compressed. Just sneaking in another inch here will make a difference to that range of low relief buildings and its roadway.

At the very east end of platforms 3/4 the width tapers to only 26mm so too narrow there but that is only for a short distance. However where it begins to taper I could change the construction materials from stone to timber to represent an expedient additional section to cater for increased train length.
 

11 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Over the years I've found that for island platforms a minimum track centre spacing of 5"/125mm in 00 gauge works well.

My track centres alongside the island platforms are only 4 1/4" so a bit narrow.

Looking at some other issues it struck me that a more efficient set of roads to the turntable is possible by adding another turnout. However I am concerned this is probably unprototypical.

Now:


Possible change:


Right from the early days I considered a passing station on the colliery side of the layout. It would add operating potential and my second track plan is stolen from Broome Junc. That junction cannot be made with PECO turnouts so that would have to be one large hand-made junction. I think it would look stunning but I also think I'm almost certainly crowding too much onto the baseboard here. Thoughts?

Existing plan:


Simple passing station:


Broome Junc. inspired junction station:

[Nick C]

Could you make the tunnel over the branch extend a bit further towards the miner's houses on the left, and then push the whole colliery a couple of inches further back? That'd give a bit more space between the colliery and the station and so might feel a bit less cramped?

[Martin S-C]

That's possible yes though I'm also conscious of not having much plain open rural track visible along the branch. I will be closing all the sidings up together as much as I can (improving the scale of the Peco track geometry as discussed above) so that will give a small amount more grass between tracks.

I have to be honest and say I have fallen in love with that diverging lines crossover. I always wanted a more substantial junction here.

[Martin S-C]

Today I laid out the full size drawing for the colliery side of the layout and I've been checking the available frames from the old layout to see which best fits where. Being able to view it for the first time from this angle I think the various sinuous curves will work well. I'm still mulling over the subject of a passing station as I fear this will only crowd the model too much.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Today I laid out the full size drawing for the colliery side of the layout and I've been checking the available frames from the old layout to see which best fits where. Being able to view it for the first time from this angle I think the various sinuous curves will work well. I'm still mulling over the subject of a passing station as I fear this will only crowd the model too much.

The tracks nearest the wall don't look as though they have enough clearance. I recommend a minimum of 30mm from the track centre to the wall.