Carlisle Citadel in Late Victorian Times

[Citadel]

Have been grappling with the perspective tools in Adobe Illustrator - still have a huge amount to learn as the software appears incredibly powerful (for that read excessively complicated...).  Here's the current status on the North Screen 

It's putting up a bit of a fight as want to reduce the width as well as the height of the windows as they 'recede' towards the right hand side of the image.  This is easy as Illustrator has a tool for this but unfortunately this also adjusts the spacing of the pillars (and this needs to correspond with the platforms / track layout I have in place.  Compromise is that the gothic arches / windows either side of the clock are a bit narrower than the ones either side (but hopefully you didn't notice before reading this).

 

Here it is temporarily screwed in place on the layout:

 

 

And here is how I would intend it to be viewed through the 'letterbox' at the front of the layout when it is finished.  Ultimate objective is to get it etched via PPD and then light from behind:

 

 

Not sure if I'm going to get away with a non-round clock* but will leave it for now and see whether I get used to it - need to get stuck into the wiring and control panel.

 

*Indeed if the ever was there a clock.  It's on the architects drawings but haven't seen it on a photo yet - better get looking... 

Edited March 18 by Citadel

[SteamAle]

Well, having worked my way through over 400 of the 800+ images listed as Carlisle Station I was certain that there was no clock on the South end. Lots of internal clocks but could not find a definitive image to confirm.  Then up popped one showing the clock on the North end.

 

And another.

Followed by details of the clock.

Eventually a very early image of the South end that to me confirms there never was one there.

Hope these help.

Edited March 18 by SteamAle
File format changed for drawing

[magmouse]

The false perspective works well in these photos, I think. The real test though is how it looks from the other end of the letter-box viewing aperture - so when looking at the left hand screen from the right hand end. From that view, you will be looking close to square on, so if the false perspective is going to look strange, it will be from there.

 

Not sure what to say about the clock - again it’s fine in the photos you’ve posted. But might be a giveaway when seen from the other end.

 

Nick.

[lanchester]

21 hours ago, SteamAle said:

Well, having worked my way through over 400 of the 800+ images listed as Carlisle Station I was certain that there was no clock on the South end. Lots of internal clocks but could not find a definitive image to confirm.  Then up popped one showing the clock on the North end.

 

And another.

Followed by details of the clock.

Eventually a very early image of the South end that to me confirms there never was one there.

Hope these help.

Which if you think about it is what you'ld expect: North End, folks hurrying down the approach ramp need to know the time; but there isn't really anyone at the south end with that need (platform end trainspotters not having yet evolved).

[Citadel]

On 18/03/2024 at 18:53, SteamAle said:

Well, having worked my way through over 400 of the 800+ images listed as Carlisle Station I was certain that there was no clock on the South end. Lots of internal clocks but could not find a definitive image to confirm.  Then up popped one showing the clock on the North end.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for spending the time looking - it's really appreciated.  And what an excellent photograph!  Like the comment about the passenger rushing down the roadway hoping that he hasn't missed his train as well.  Here's the rub though, I'll actually be modelling the inside of the screen - am assuming that if you've installed the mechanism having two faces wouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

In other news I've just bought Caledonian Miscellany by Michael Dunn.  It really is a most interesting read and has some superb photographs including this one of a near deserted Carlisle Citadel in around 1900.

 

 

This is the clearest image I have seen of the adverts and buildings on the back wall - plenty of inspiration and food for thought

 

 

[magmouse]

A superb photo indeed. I am struck by how the light varies in different parts of the station - the brighter areas at the far side, including the wall with all the advertisements, help to draw the eye into the scene. It will be worth paying attention to this as part of your very theatrical presentation.

 

Nick.

[SteamAle]

And how many clock faces in one image? I like it, as you say very clear with so much detail to look at.

Philip

[Citadel]

Was always a bit intrigued when I saw the three clocks stacked one on top of the other in the centre of the photo.  Have seen them in old photographs of other major stations as well.  Again found an interesting photo in Caledonian Miscellany which gives a closer look.  If only the photographer had stepped a couple of yards to the right (tying to avoid falling off the platform obviously) I might have also seen whether there was a clock face on the inside of the North Screen.

 

 

So, a Victorian version of the train departure board.  Must have been a full time job keeping these up to date.  Definitely will be trying to capture all this detail in the model.

[Annie]

What really comes across in these old photos is the sheer amount of written material, both railway company and advertising, that was plastered over every available surface.

[DenysW]

On 23/03/2024 at 12:02, Citadel said:

So, a Victorian version of the train departure board.

Did the L&Y also run a few passenger services into Carlisle Citadel at this time? Its 1913 map in the accounts shows the LNWR line from Preston as also used by the L&Y, but my 1910 Bradshaw is ambiguous about what is a service and what is a connection and/or a carriage added to another company's trains. Some trains from Preston are marked as Midland and only to have 1st & 3rd class, but some are marked as if L&Y services.

[wessy]

4 hours ago, DenysW said:

Did the L&Y also run a few passenger services into Carlisle Citadel at this time? Its 1913 map in the accounts shows the LNWR line from Preston as also used by the L&Y, but my 1910 Bradshaw is ambiguous about what is a service and what is a connection and/or a carriage added to another company's trains. Some trains from Preston are marked as Midland and only to have 1st & 3rd class, but some are marked as if L&Y services.

I have had a look at a LNWR marshalling circular and a Lancaster and Carlisle timetable for 1910, and the answer seems to be 'no'. It seems that the map could be a little relaxed about some of the details of services. For example, there were services from Liverpool Exchange (LYR) which went to Carlisle via the old East Lancashire Railway main line to Preston, but they were LNWR trains with LNWR stock.

The LNW and LYR had a very good working relationship and LYR carriages went from Colne to Euston and to Windermere, but none seem to have been scheduled for Carlisle. Of course, there is nothing to stop a nice family saloon or some horseboxes passing through.

[DenysW]

18 minutes ago, wessy said:

I have had a look at a LNWR marshalling circular and a Lancaster and Carlisle timetable for 1910

Presumably freight then. It would give the same "Foreign Lines Worked" for a map, but not show up in passenger timetables. I don't believe that family saloons, horseboxes. etc. would count as then all the 1913 maps (a new requirement in the accounts that year) would show virtually all of the Great Britain network.

 

I attach a poor photo of said map.

[Citadel]

On 25/03/2024 at 11:04, DenysW said:

Did the L&Y also run a few passenger services into Carlisle Citadel at this time? Its 1913 map in the accounts shows the LNWR line from Preston as also used by the L&Y, but my 1910 Bradshaw is ambiguous about what is a service and what is a connection and/or a carriage added to another company's trains. Some trains from Preston are marked as Midland and only to have 1st & 3rd class, but some are marked as if L&Y services.

 

Interesting discussion, do fancy a bit of L&YR coaching stock, was thinking maybe a family saloon 🙂

 

Has been a while since I posted, life just seems to keep getting in the way - who said retirement was going to be relaxing....  Have spent the last few days playing around with cardboard cutouts of footbridges, centre island buildings etc. to try and get my head round how the layout might be viewed and how I might deal with perspective.  

 

I'd started with an assumption that things would be viewed through a 'letterbox' type arrangement  with quite exaggerated perspective from front to back.  Two reasons for this, firstly to increase the height of the letterbox (Carlisle doesn't really have a cathedral like high roof), secondly to allow access for the 'hand of god' to prod badly behaved locos on the rear tracks.  As @magmouse has said though needs careful control of viewing angles to make this work. 

 

 

The more I looked at the photos that had given the initial inspiration the more I realised that looking along the layout is actually important and I needed to rethink things in this respect.  

 

 

In the end drastically reduced the slope of the roof - it's now c. 3.5 cm higher at the front than the back (platform slopes down c. 1.5 cm, roof slopes up c. 2 cm and things like footbridges etc. are pretty much horizontal.

 

 

The South screen at the top of the photo above still has the original forced perspective, will redo this accordingly.  Still getting my head around which sections of the centre island buildings I will include.  Anyway, here's where I've got to so far - had better sleep on it....

 

 

[WFPettigrew]

16 minutes ago, Citadel said:

Anyway, here's where I've got to so far - had better sleep on it.

Mike, I do think you have a good point about the views down the station being important.  The photos of your model that already really shout that this is Citadel and only Citadel are those final two that look along the tracks, featuring that iconic footbridge.  

 

And for what it's worth I think your decision to reduce the degree of forced perspsective looks better, even before you work out how to best achieve the views along the tracks. 

 

Your rolling stock is already superb, and the thought and skill you're deploying strongly suggests the layout will be just as good.

Edited April 14 by WFPettigrew
Mangled English. Who knew I had worked for 31 years as a journalist?!

[Mikkel]

I agree. In fact I am not sure that you need a forced perspective at all.

 

Will the sloping parts not give you trouble when viewing (and taking pictures) along the platforms?

 

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

For information,  the Spring 2024 edition of the Signalling Record (issued to SRS members) has a 12 page article by Mike Norris on Carlisle No 5 (Crown Street) Signal box at the southern end of the station, apparently the first part of a series of articles covering the period 1951 to 1973.

[WFPettigrew]

18 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

For information,  the Spring 2024 edition of the Signalling Record (issued to SRS members) has a 12 page article by Mike Norris on Carlisle No 5 (Crown Street) Signal box at the southern end of the station, apparently the first part of a series of articles covering the period 1951 to 1973.

I haven't seen the SRS article, but Mike has done a series on the changes to semaphore signals that were then lost when Carlisle power box opened in the journal of the Cumbrian Railways Association.  So this may well be a reprint. 

[Citadel]

On 14/04/2024 at 13:57, Mikkel said:

I agree. In fact I am not sure that you need a forced perspective at all.

 

Will the sloping parts not give you trouble when viewing (and taking pictures) along the platforms?

 

Aargh...  maybe you are right.  

 

I'd started from the position that although Citadel Station roof has very attractive ironwork and is extremely impressive in its scale it is more Tesco Extra supermarket than St. Pancras in terms of headroom.   I really really really want to include the roof and had initially assumed that it was going to be permanently in place.  The 'forced perspective' discussion really started from a desire to make the rear of the layout accessible and improve the viewing angles through the letterbox at the front).  

 

In reality though there is a full height building that runs almost the entire length of the island platform, if I built this in it's entirety all my hard work would be hidden.  In 'photoplank' mode this really does need to be there at least in part (it's the building to the left on the postcard above).  When I started plonking white cardboard cubes at the front of the layout I quickly realised the best views were along rather than across the layout so my initial concept above was a little flawed.

 

Having thought about it will make the roof in modular sections that are easily removable, ditto the island buildings.  Also have two baseboard joins within the station itself so for certain photoshoots can split them to give my camera access and capture different angles.  The more I think about it the more I realise that the photography side is my major interest here (so smoke, shafts of light through the roof ironwork etc.).  In 'operations' mode can just run without the roof.

 

Unfortunately I've already incorporated a c. 1.5 cm slope from the front of the baseboard to the rear of the layout and don't really have the appetite to redo this.  It's hardly noticeable really and with correct positioning of the camera and focal length of lens am sure will be OK.  

 

I thought I would step away from these big decisions and paint some Andrew Stadden station staff figures but this opened a whole new can of worms - blue or green?

 

The Perriam book states that the staff uniforms were the same as the LNWR but with CJS initials (Citadel Joint Station).  I was reaching for the blue paint but then saw the post from @Penlan below:

 

 

Then thought I'd do a quick Google Search and see whether any uniforms still exist in museums etc.  Quick scan didn't find anything but did come up with this poster:

 

 

A green sailor suit though?  Can see they might want to reduce the number of print colours and am sure they would have got the colour of the porter's uniform correct over the boy's attire.  Any comments before I start to paint my staff green with dark grey trousers?

Edited April 15 by Citadel

[Rosie Taylor]

16 hours ago, Citadel said:

 

Aargh...  maybe you are right.  

 

I'd started from the position that although Citadel Station roof has very attractive ironwork and is extremely impressive in its scale it is more Tesco Extra supermarket than St. Pancras in terms of headroom.   I really really really want to include the roof and had initially assumed that it was going to be permanently in place.  The 'forced perspective' discussion really started from a desire to make the rear of the layout accessible and improve the viewing angles through the letterbox at the front).  

 

In reality though there is a full height building that runs almost the entire length of the island platform, if I built this in it's entirety all my hard work would be hidden.  In 'photoplank' mode this really does need to be there at least in part (it's the building to the left on the postcard above).  When I started plonking white cardboard cubes at the front of the layout I quickly realised the best views were along rather than across the layout so my initial concept above was a little flawed.

 

Having thought about it will make the roof in modular sections that are easily removable, ditto the island buildings.  Also have two baseboard joins within the station itself so for certain photoshoots can split them to give my camera access and capture different angles.  The more I think about it the more I realise that the photography side is my major interest here (so smoke, shafts of light through the roof ironwork etc.).  In 'operations' mode can just run without the roof.

 

Unfortunately I've already incorporated a c. 1.5 cm slope from the front of the baseboard to the rear of the layout and don't really have the appetite to redo this.  It's hardly noticeable really and with correct positioning of the camera and focal length of lens am sure will be OK.  

 

I thought I would step away from these big decisions and paint some Andrew Stadden station staff figures but this opened a whole new can of worms - blue or green?

 

The Perriam book states that the staff uniforms were the same as the LNWR but with CJS initials (Citadel Joint Station).  I was reaching for the blue paint but then saw the post from @Penlan below:

 

 

Then thought I'd do a quick Google Search and see whether any uniforms still exist in museums etc.  Quick scan didn't find anything but did come up with this poster:

 

 

A green sailor suit though?  Can see they might want to reduce the number of print colours and am sure they would have got the colour of the porter's uniform correct over the boy's attire.  Any comments before I start to paint my staff green with dark grey trousers?

 

I'm glad you're keeping a little bit of forced perspective; it's a great idea and I think the smaller slope is a good compromise. Think it will really pay off when finished and you can pose everything as you want

[Coal Tank]

Hi Mike, I have to say that the layout photos look great already. 

[CKPR]

Rw.LNWR trouser colours, if you look on Facebook at a site called "On Historical Lines", you'll find a lot of really useful  info about pre-grouping railway uniforms, much of it in this post:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/KNFMFyGn2vkGQjZk/

[drduncan]

On 15/04/2024 at 15:35, Citadel said:

 

Aargh...  maybe you are right.  

 

I'd started from the position that although Citadel Station roof has very attractive ironwork and is extremely impressive in its scale it is more Tesco Extra supermarket than St. Pancras in terms of headroom.   I really really really want to include the roof and had initially assumed that it was going to be permanently in place.  The 'forced perspective' discussion really started from a desire to make the rear of the layout accessible and improve the viewing angles through the letterbox at the front).  

 

In reality though there is a full height building that runs almost the entire length of the island platform, if I built this in it's entirety all my hard work would be hidden.  In 'photoplank' mode this really does need to be there at least in part (it's the building to the left on the postcard above).  When I started plonking white cardboard cubes at the front of the layout I quickly realised the best views were along rather than across the layout so my initial concept above was a little flawed.

 

Having thought about it will make the roof in modular sections that are easily removable, ditto the island buildings.  Also have two baseboard joins within the station itself so for certain photoshoots can split them to give my camera access and capture different angles.  The more I think about it the more I realise that the photography side is my major interest here (so smoke, shafts of light through the roof ironwork etc.).  In 'operations' mode can just run without the roof.

 

Unfortunately I've already incorporated a c. 1.5 cm slope from the front of the baseboard to the rear of the layout and don't really have the appetite to redo this.  It's hardly noticeable really and with correct positioning of the camera and focal length of lens am sure will be OK.  

 

I thought I would step away from these big decisions and paint some Andrew Stadden station staff figures but this opened a whole new can of worms - blue or green?

 

The Perriam book states that the staff uniforms were the same as the LNWR but with CJS initials (Citadel Joint Station).  I was reaching for the blue paint but then saw the post from @Penlan below:

 

 

Then thought I'd do a quick Google Search and see whether any uniforms still exist in museums etc.  Quick scan didn't find anything but did come up with this poster:

 

 

A green sailor suit though?  Can see they might want to reduce the number of print colours and am sure they would have got the colour of the porter's uniform correct over the boy's attire.  Any comments before I start to paint my staff green with dark grey trousers?

I must admit I read that as a good bit of parental indoctrination for the Senior Service... It never occurred to me as a GWR aficionado that people would want to travel on the LNWR!

Duncan

[CKPR]

Remember that the LNWR never identified their locomotives (OK, only the later big tank engines) as you already knew that you were travelling on The Premier Line so there was no need to tell you...only lesser lines had to advertise themselves !

Edited April 16 by CKPR

[Annie]

17 hours ago, CKPR said:

as you already knew that you were travelling on The Premier Line so there was no need to tell you...only lesser lines had to advertise themselves !

Similar to Brunel's attitude towards GWR engines carrying any identifying markings, - 'People know who we are'.

Edited April 17 by Annie

[Citadel]

On 16/04/2024 at 19:22, CKPR said:

Rw.LNWR trouser colours, if you look on Facebook at a site called "On Historical Lines", you'll find a lot of really useful  info about pre-grouping railway uniforms, much of it in this post:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/KNFMFyGn2vkGQjZk/

 

What a fascinating diversion....  It's really interesting reading the comments explaining why pre-grouping uniforms are so rare in terms of museums collections etc.  They were simply working garments that were worn to destruction or returned to the company for recycling.  Anyway, had fun painting the Stadden figures although 20 in the one sitting was a little bit repetitious.  Here they all are milling about waiting for the station to be built:

 

 

 

I do struggle a bit with facial features, generally wimp out and go for the amorphous pink blob.  Has just occurred to me though that this took at least 5 days of my leisure time (in between all the summer type activities such as sailing, cycling and tennis) - heaven help me in terms of actually finishing the layout!