Aston On Clun. A forgotten Great Western outpost.

[Northroader]

Around ten miles from AoC, you’ve got Rushbury: (rough sketch lifted from the signalling record socy. site)

[Captain Kernow]

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

I can get rid of some levers if you want.  (If this is just repeating what was said on your other thread, do say, I don’t want to make your head hurt again!)  As the Loop is only for goods trains, if it is not frequently used for passing you can save a few signals and some complexity on brackets.

2 isn’t absolutely necessary.

4, 6 and 18 can be disc signals.

9, 15 and 16 can be replaced with a single signal at the toe of 7, coloured yellow, so it only reads up to 13.  It can be passed when shunting into the spur/neck, although you couldn’t then use the spur/neck as a siding to leave vehicles (I think).

10 could be hand points, although that makes it more difficult for a goods going R->L to pass a passenger on the main.

As ever, the more flexibility you want, the more levers you need.  On the other hand, if you can restrict operations a bit, you can save levers.

It can be made to look good whatever you choose.

Paul.

 

I did make the assumption that maximum operational flexibility would be desirable, so the Outer Home No. 2 allows for the occupation of the Single Line by shunting moves.

 

I'd keep 15 as a full signal, as it controls the departure of a R > L goods train, that has been held in the loop. I didn't envisage 15 as controlling movements into the spur, but you would need some way of doing that. There are options, however!

 

If the loop was just part of the yard, for example, things could indeed be a lot simpler, but you wouldn't strictly speaking, be able to pass trains.

 

 

 

[MrWolf]

Thanks again for breaking this subject down, I would say that despite the complications in signalling, flexibility is important, if only for operational interest. I could have gone with a one engine in steam system, but would prefer to be able to pass trains rather than using the loop purely for shunting off the main line. 

Besides, you seem to have gone to some length to figure all that out and produce a diagram, it would be a shame NOT to use it!

 

The footprint of the old Ratio kit for Highley signal box is approximately 46 x 56mm (10'9"X 14'0") and I happen to have one kicking around. I'm thinking perhaps using the top half and steps as a basis and making a slightly lower brick base with a single window or a timber base to match the top.

Then again, that kit from Dexters looks rather crisply moulded...

[Captain Kernow]

The thing with all this is that signals 1, 2, 13, 17, 18 and 19 need not even be modelled, as they could be said to be 'off scene'.

 

The whole purpose of the exercise was to try to demonstrate the size of signalbox that you could have, based on the necessary size of the lever frame.

 

With Dexter's Cove, although it's not listed yet (as far as I can see, anyway), they have announced in the model press recently, that they are planning a kit of Bourne End signal box, if I recall correctly. If so, this seems to have been a standard GWR Type 5 box, with gable ends. They also say in their adverts, that they can custom modify any of their existing kits to customers' requirements.

 

[Nick C]

On 30/11/2020 at 20:20, Captain Kernow said:

This is an approximate example of what I had in mind (others more qualified in semaphore layout design than me will no doubt wish to amend!):

 

 

Not being an expert on GW matters - would a station like this have had worked distants, or would they have been fixed?

 

 Also, as the loop is goods only, you could have 10 hand-worked, and no need for 16 - then as @5BarVT says, use a yellow shunt signal at the toe of 7.

[Captain Kernow]

4 hours ago, Nick C said:

 

Not being an expert on GW matters - would a station like this have had worked distants, or would they have been fixed?

 

 Also, as the loop is goods only, you could have 10 hand-worked, and no need for 16 - then as @5BarVT says, use a yellow shunt signal at the toe of 7.

Given that you could run through with a non-stopping train via the Up and Down main (platform) line, I'd say that you could work the distants. I know that the distants at Blue Anchor used to be worked, to give an example of a realy GW location.

 

I appreciate the comments about No.10 points, but I felt that the Up/Down Goods Loop could be considered a running line, which ought to have points controlled by the signalman, rather than handpoints. If it wasn't really a running line, but rather part of the yard, then you would probably not have the main aspects 4 and 18 either, but subsidiary signals instead.

 

As I said before, there is more than one way to look at this!

 

[MrWolf]

Thanks for your advice, I am already thinking about siting of signals and importantly, the point rodding runs. Will I have room for those controlling the western end of the layout between the platform and the running line? How close to the eastern end of the loop can I site the signal box? 

 

Speaking of the platform, I can easily put in something to a scale 250 feet. 

But it looks too long. Perhaps it won't with a couple of coaches alongside. I think that I should incorporate a cattle dock on a raised section at the western end. There's also the matter of the width, I am using bits of old Wills platform kits for the front wall, but the top surfacing I am thinking diamond tread Staffordshire blue bricks around the station building and ash elsewhere. The top surfacing from the kits is rather heavy slabs that scale at 21 feet wide. I am thinking of a maximum width of 16 feet for the platform and 12 feet in front of the wooden station building. 

Other platform buildings will be the usual motley collection of sheds. 

Importantly, I don't want the station to look too grand, but it is good to have the space for some scale length infrastructure.

[MrWolf]

A bit of tinkering around and glueing parts together along a heavy straightedge has given me a platform with a working surface of 222ft 6ins. Including the ramps, 262ft 6ins. It seems big, but it's only three bogie coaches. 

The plan once the front face sections have set hard is to build up the rest of the platform and station forecourt using mounting board to a suitable level. 

The position of this chunk of landscape will help define the rest of the landscaping, the road, the level crossing and the signal box. 

I am going to set the platform so that the edging is a scale 9" from the coach floors. Which seems about prototypical. I have in the past tried to be clever and make the gap even tighter. Which is fine until you get something with footboards like a TOAD and the footboard rides up the platform ramp, launching the vehicle.

 

It's only funny the first time! 

[Nick C]

11 hours ago, MrWolf said:

A bit of tinkering around and glueing parts together along a heavy straightedge has given me a platform with a working surface of 222ft 6ins. Including the ramps, 262ft 6ins. It seems big, but it's only three bogie coaches. 

The plan once the front face sections have set hard is to build up the rest of the platform and station forecourt using mounting board to a suitable level. 

The position of this chunk of landscape will help define the rest of the landscaping, the road, the level crossing and the signal box. 

I am going to set the platform so that the edging is a scale 9" from the coach floors. Which seems about prototypical. I have in the past tried to be clever and make the gap even tighter. Which is fine until you get something with footboards like a TOAD and the footboard rides up the platform ramp, launching the vehicle.

 

It's only funny the first time! 

 

GWR standard was 2'3" from rail to platform, according to https://www.devboats.co.uk/gwdrawings/loadinggauges.php, which seems very tight with a 9' max width!

 

The thing many people get wrong is the height - they were a lot lower than many people think, about 3' from the top of the rail to the top of the platform.

 

Edit: more here: 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Nick C

[MrWolf]

Good point about the height. I noticed from old photos and some of the places I have been that you would have stepped up into the carriage. Some of the earliest / most rural UK platforms were very low indeed, hence the use of footboards at axlebox height.

[Nick C]

Some stations had noticable slopes in the platforms too, where they'd been extended at a different height to the original - Cowes was one. Many Network Rail stations have been raised to reduce the gap, Lymington has a ramp from the booking hall entrance to the platform where, presumably, it was too narrow to slope the whole surface enough.

 

Older rural stations on the continent can be very low, barely above rail height!

[MrWolf]

That's got me thinking of the extreme possibility such as Shrewsbury Abbey where the entire station yard was raised about three feet due to flooding and leaving the station building at ground level. I think that some of the former OW&WR where there ended up being a couple of steps up from the station buildings onto the platform once the GWR had raised them to a more or less standard level.

[Captain Kernow]

On 03/12/2020 at 21:38, MrWolf said:

How close to the eastern end of the loop can I site the signal box? 

The signalbox will control the level crossing, so it has to go right next to it.

 

[MrWolf]

Thanks, I was thinking about the space between the toe of the eastern loop point and the level crossing. It's a fairly small space and wherever foot of the signalbox steps end up will give me an idea of where I can site the foot of the eastern end of the platform ramp. 

Without of course, making the area look cramped.

I need to have a measure up of the level crossing bits, I have an MSE one around somewhere... 

I better organise a search party.

[Nick C]

You can have the box embedded in the ramp - have a look at photos of Blue Anchor box.

[MrWolf]

9 minutes ago, Nick C said:

You can have the box embedded in the ramp - have a look at photos of Blue Anchor box.

 

Good Idea. I also liked what @chuffinghell did by setting the starter signal into the ramp.

 

I am currently shuffling a few items around whilst I decide what works.

Photography is more David Blunkett than David Bailey...

 

 

[MrWolf]

At the other end of the layout I have started to shape the styrene into some far more gentle contours prior to the plaster treatment. A horrible messy job, made easier by having someone else there armed with the Hoover hose.

The rather OTT blade is just the job and It works well followed by sanding. It was that or raid the kitchen drawers and if I blunt the kitchen knives (which her mother gave us) the old butcher blade will probably no longer be making a truth of "swords into ploughshares" but reverting to its 1916 purpose... 

[MrWolf]

Been rather busy over the weekend so not much more groundwork done. As a diversion, I have been cutting out bits for the crossing keepers / stationmasters dwelling. 

I am creating my own kit as it were. The Wills sheets of Flemish bond brick lend themselves well to replicating a non revenue earning structure, built on the cheap.

 

 

[MrWolf]

A little bit of progress, this is a later extension that I am suggesting was added as part of improvements made by the Wolverhampton Estates Office when the Great Western took over the branch, making it a two up three down house. It's actually based upon the extension at Maesbrook to an identical house on the Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Railway. It was inspired by reading that a new stationmaster at New Radnor refused to move into the house there until it was made habitable. 

(Thanks again Rob @NHY 581)

 

Windows and doors are from the kit junk box, ex Peco I believe, deliberately different from the rest of the building which will use Smart Models laser cut plastic sashes (usual disclaimer)

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by MrWolf
SNAFU

[MrWolf]

I've taken a leaf out of the @chuffinghell book: "Pagoda Sheds and how to improve them in the home workshop." (First edition, Odham's Press July 1936)

I needed two small narrow sash windows to replicate the lookout windows on the rail side at either end of the building. 

They may also have been arrow slits for fending off marauding Welsh or Normans...

The only windows I had required cutting and shutting 2mm out of the width to be close enough.

Naturally, part of it shot across the room and I was convinced that would be the next thing to go clattering up the Hoover. Which will make a change from the backs off RRH's earrings.

But I found it and photographed it quickly before welding it into place so it can't escape again.

Hopefully I will be just as lucky with the second one.... 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by MrWolf
SNAFU

[MrWolf]

Last progress picture from yesterday. The windows in the front wall have been roughly cut (hacked?) out and a small window that was close enough size wise fitted to throw light into the top of the stairwell. 

Still to do on this wall and the end wall is to add cills and brick soldier arches before attaching the wall. 

 

 

Front door and lookout windows added and a slate roof for the extension. Lead flashing from writing paper will cover the joint.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by MrWolf
Replaced picture

[Captain Kernow]

On 05/12/2020 at 22:14, MrWolf said:

Thanks, I was thinking about the space between the toe of the eastern loop point and the level crossing. It's a fairly small space and wherever foot of the signalbox steps end up will give me an idea of where I can site the foot of the eastern end of the platform ramp. 

Without of course, making the area look cramped.

I need to have a measure up of the level crossing bits, I have an MSE one around somewhere... 

I better organise a search party.

The more I think about this, it seems to me that one prototypical solution would be to extend the double track of the main running line and loop over the level crossing.

 

A lot of locations had this configuration, including Blue Anchor, of course.

 

You could even have both lines disappearing into the fiddle yard, thus saving yourself a point!

 

[MrWolf]

THAT.... Is a very interesting thought.

 

Because the track plan was nicked from Shipston on Stour, where there was originally a crossover at that location, leading to a headshunt. 

 

I would have to disappear the line offstage due to space considerations, moving the building I am working on towards the front of the layout by one line of metals. 

 

Whether or not I do it doesn't really matter because I have to saw through the loop to fit a catch point anyway.

 

You mean something like this? I think Cricklade had something like that for the goods yard crossover.

 

 

[chuffinghell]

21 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I've taken a leaf out of the @chuffinghell book: "PagodaSheds and how to improve them in the home workshop." (First edition, Odham's Press July 1936)

I wouldn’t take a leaf out of his book, he hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing 

 

I did quite well to have a book published nearly 40 years before I was born 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by chuffinghell

[MrWolf]

7 hours ago, chuffinghell said:

I wouldn’t take a leaf out of his book, he hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing 

 

Oh I don't know, he seems to muddle through okay... 

 

Quote

 

I did quite well to have a book published nearly 40 years before I was born 

 

 

 

Maybe I was thinking of "Fly fishing" by J. R. Hartley...? 

 

It's an odd one, why are we interested in a railway company that was subsumed decades before we were born? 

 

My other half maintains that the world ended in nineteen sixty something, long before she was born.

 

I think that some of us were either born in the wrong era, or maybe we've been here before? 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by MrWolf
Stupid autocorrect