Brighton Trafalgar - An Edwardian LB&SCR Terminus

[Nick Holliday]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

54' Billinton Carriages

My re-read of RM is finally bearing fruit - a series of articles detailing the cut and shut of the Triang Clerestory coaches into the Billinton LBSCR 54' bogie coaches. As per my 'train requirements' I could do with a few of these so have put a sneaky bid on eBay for a few to chop up. It requires a new roof and ends, partitions, and ventilators. In theory the bogies should be 2mm shorter but I think I can live with that, but I'll need to put proper wheels in them.

 

48' Stroudley Carriages

Similarly, the Ratio MR coaches are pretty much 'close enough' for LBSCR coaches. The All 3rd is a dead ringer (albeit needing a smaller 8' bogie to replace the 10' one) and the rest are more approximate, but no less than the Hornby and Hattons generic coaches. If it's good enough for Mr. Denny, it's good enough for me.

Just for the record, the 48' carriages are the Billinton ones.  The 54' ones are the later, post-1906 stock, and the first appeared, in December 1906 when Marsh was in charge, and consisted of pairs of six-wheeled coaches mounted on new underframes.  Subsequent 54' carriages were a mixture of similar conversions and new builds to the same basic design.

[Nick Holliday]

Your track plan looks very similar to this one, Mike Ball's Ferring - an LBSCR seaside terminus. The only difference is that he has only two platform roads.

Mike is an expert on Brighton signalling, so I would think his installation would be a good guide as to what you might require, although Ferring is set at the later end of your proposed dates.

[Compound2632]

45 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

Your track plan looks very similar to this one, Mike Ball's Ferring - an LBSCR seaside terminus.

 

Well that encouraging - independent convergence from analysis of much the same prototype information.

 

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Similarly, the Ratio MR coaches are pretty much 'close enough' for LBSCR coaches. The All 3rd is a dead ringer (albeit needing a smaller 8' bogie to replace the 10' one) and the rest are more approximate, but no less than the Hornby and Hattons generic coaches. If it's good enough for Mr. Denny, it's good enough for me.

 

I caused considerable offence when I was young and green on here by pointing out rather too stridently that the waist panelling of the Bain MR suburban carriages is unusually deep and so not a good match to the LBSCR style of panelling. However, on @t-b-g's stand at ExpoEM a few months back I saw an MR 6-wheel 5-compartment third made from the Ratio sides by Sid Stubbs, one of the pioneers of EM at the Manchester Model Railway Club. The same criticism applies to the waist panelling for those carriages, so one has to accept the "if it's good enough for..." argument! Did Peter Denny make any use of the Ratio kits to represent GCR carriages? I know he used the Triang GWR clerestories - where the panelling is a good match. I've certainly seen LSWR carriages made from those - are they any good for LBSCR stock? (The lack of molded bolections might actually make them rather good for Stroudley carriages.) 

[t-b-g]

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well that encouraging - independent convergence from analysis of much the same prototype information.

 

 

I caused considerable offence when I was young and green on here by pointing out rather too stridently that the waist panelling of the Bain MR suburban carriages is unusually deep and so not a good match to the LBSCR style of panelling. However, on @t-b-g's stand at ExpoEM a few months back I saw an MR 6-wheel 5-compartment third made from the Ratio sides by Sid Stubbs, one of the pioneers of EM at the Manchester Model Railway Club. The same criticism applies to the waist panelling for those carriages, so one has to accept the "if it's good enough for..." argument! Did Peter Denny make any use of the Ratio kits to represent GCR carriages? I know he used the Triang GWR clerestories - where the panelling is a good match. I've certainly seen LSWR carriages made from those - are they any good for LBSCR stock? (The lack of molded bolections might actually make them rather good for Stroudley carriages.) 

 

 

Peter Denny converted the three Triang Clerestories and although they looked half decent, he was never entirely happy with them. He once told me that for all the work involved to end up with something that was nearly right, with hindsight he would have preferred to scratchbuild ones that were right.

 

So those three remained the only non scratchbuilt carriages on the layout.

 

I think we can all set our own bar for what we are willing to accept in terms of accuracy. Kits like the Ratio MR and LNWR carriages, either as supplied or as a "cut and shut" to produce other types are a great timesaver in producing good numbers of carriages quickly and fairly cheaply and as such, I and others have made good use of them, knowing that they are not 100% correct.  

[Nick C]

16 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I think we can all set our own bar for what we are willing to accept in terms of accuracy. Kits like the Ratio MR and LNWR carriages, either as supplied or as a "cut and shut" to produce other types are a great timesaver in producing good numbers of carriages quickly and fairly cheaply and as such, I and others have made good use of them, knowing that they are not 100% correct.  

Plus of course you can start with stock made quickly by kitbashing from Ratio/Triang to get up and running, and gradually replace them later with accurate stock. Certainly Isle of Wight modellers have made great use of Ratio kits to represent LBSCR stock for a long time, despite their being too short and the wrong style - it's better than than nothing, especially if you don't have the skill or finances for a large stock of brass kits.

[Lacathedrale]

@Nick C Yes, much like the water tower and signal box resin models, my goal is to get everything looking and operating impressionistically, and then it can be a case of working backwards with more particular models.

 

I don't suppose the Ratio 4w coaches could be used for anything useful for LBSCR? I have half a dozen that were going to form an SER rake for the LCDR EMSF layout, but are currently just in a box.

 

It helps that the Billinton 48' coaches and the Marsh 54' coaches (thank you for the clarification @Nick Holliday I was getting my CMEs mixed up!) can both be approximated reasonably with cut-and-shuts. At £10-20 per coach plus the work required, it's a good deal less than the etched equivalents (£60 plus wheels). It's not all about money - I'm much more comfortable with styrene than brass, and I want to get things going before I collect my pension.

 

@Compound2632 the Triang Clerestories are exactly what I'm talking about bashing into the 54' coaches mentioned. This is the author's shot of them in action on Charford:

I know that grainy B&W will hide a multitude of sins, but looks good to me. Each compartment is the correct length, the coach is the correct length and has the correct ends and roof profile.

 

re: Ferring, it's a beautiful layout - I believe I saw it at an exhibition a couple of years ago. It's definitely to a more reasonable scale length than this layout will be!  I keep toying with the idea of re-siting the layout as either another seaside terminus, or a market town - but I think I can kick the can down the road, nothing yet needs to be decided.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

I've certainly seen LSWR carriages made from those - are they any good for LBSCR stock?

There was a series by Terry Gough in the Modeller, in the mid-60s, on doing just that (and some LSWR stock too, IIRC).

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

I don't suppose the Ratio 4w coaches could be used for anything useful for LBSCR? I have half a dozen that were going to form an SER rake for the LCDR EMSF layout, but are currently just in a box.

 

The panelling style is much more "generic" than that of the MR carriages. The thing that sticks out proclaiming their GWR-ness is the three-arc roof, so if you can round off the ends and make single-arc roofs, you could be on to something:

 

 

(Needs a roof!)

[Lacathedrale]

3 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

There was a series by Terry Gough in the Modeller, in the mid-60s, on doing just that (and some LSWR stock too, IIRC).

 

That's literally what I'm talking about right now?

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The same criticism applies to the waist panelling for those carriages, so one has to accept the "if it's good enough for..." argument!

I know that was meant tongue in check, but…
Why?

Whoever it was (I say it this way as I am not casting aspersions on a genuinely inspirational modeller) who has/had accepted something incorrect may have done so out of a position of not knowing, necessity (needed something in a hurry, so created stand-ins) or they simply didn’t care (“passenger trains get in the way of the real money makers). 

It’s just a variant on GBS’s maxim that one shouldn’t do unto others as one wished to be done unto as their tastes may differ.

If something does bother you, then it bothers you, even if it didn’t or doesn’t bother someone - or indeed anyone - else.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Regularity said:

I know that was meant tongue in check, but…
Why?

Whoever it was (I say it this way as I am not casting aspersions on a genuinely inspirational modeller) who has/had accepted something incorrect may have done so out of a position of not knowing, necessity (needed something in a hurry, so created stand-ins) or they simply didn’t care (“passenger trains get in the way of the real money makers). 

It’s just a variant on GBS’s maxim that one shouldn’t do unto others as one wished to be done unto as their tastes may differ.

If something does bother you, then it bothers you, even if it didn’t or doesn’t bother someone - or indeed anyone - else.

 

Well, let's put it this way: it bothered me that Sid Stubbs had settled for this compromise! But one has to allow that the model was, I should think, built well before alternatives were available such as the excellent Slater's kits for MR 6-wheelers (early 80s) or various etched kits.

[Regularity]

The other point is that, somewhat bizarre if you think about it for too long, as we get further and further away from the past, we seem to be able to find more recorded information about it!

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, Regularity said:

The other point is that, somewhat bizarre if you think about it for too long, as we get further and further away from the past, we seem to be able to find more recorded information about it!

 

Fifty years ago, there were modellers around who could just about remember the pre-grouping scene; they remembered what it looked like so didn't need to do the research, much the way as older modellers of today modelling the 1950s/60s BR think they do. But memory is fallible. Someone of my age is totally reliant on the fruits of proper research, so, I hope, arrives at a truer, if less emotive, knowledge of the period.

 

Much the same applies to history in general, which is how the popular perception of recent history becomes so disastrously distorted.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Much the same applies to history in general, which is how the popular perception of recent history becomes so disastrously distorted.

Quite.

When these pointless “Greatest Briton” type exercises are undertaken, I always think that anyone who was alive during living memory should be excluded. 

[Pacific231G]

21 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Quite.

When these pointless “Greatest Briton” type exercises are undertaken, I always think that anyone who was alive during living memory should be excluded. 

Indeed. It's a bit like IKB. We admire him now but I'm not so sure what the investors who lost their fortunes to cost overruns and excessive ambition thought of him.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Regularity]

IKB was an absolute swine to work for, I believe.

 

Mind you, having read various works about his miscellaneous collection of minor railways, I have never understood why anyone would say anything positive about Colonel Stephens, either.

[t-b-g]

I wonder how many modellers do rely on memory for their modelling.

 

If I look back 50 years to the BR blue period and wanted to model the railways I knew really well back then, I wouldn't just rely on memory to get the details correct. I might think of a particular class I liked, or a particular station or scene I might like to model but other then that, I would be gathering photos and any relevant publications that might help. Perhaps there might be a site visit to see what little remains now of my favourite places.

 

I think we are much luckier now in the sheer volume of books and information that has been released over the years compared to what was available decades ago but there were other avenues of research.

 

Peter Denny used to write to George Dow (when he worked for the LNER) asking for details or information on GCR matters and he had a good collection of really old magazines from the early 1900s, which had a lot of information that was helpful. Some of the documents I now have are noted with a little pencilled note of the original source material.

 

What is scary is that it crosses my mind that 50 years ago, I was building model railways with my dad!

[Tom Burnham]

15 hours ago, Regularity said:

Mind you, having read various works about his miscellaneous collection of minor railways, I have never understood why anyone would say anything positive about Colonel Stephens, either.

I think HFS was regarded as strict but fair by the longer serving staff.  And generally helped out where a loyal employee had problems. Admittedly very paternalistic by modern standards, but that would have been regarded as the mark of a good employer in the early c20.

[Lacathedrale]

 

"Finescale" 

With regard to the preceding conversation I think I am living proof about the push-pull of accuracy vs. pragmatism. 90% of the layout can be built with proprietary or converted items, and then scratch- and home- built buildings and stock can slowly be introduced once a critical mass has been gained. I've never actually reached this point before, so it seems a sensible choice! 

 

The choice in track gauge and standards is obviously a trade-off and if this ends up being a major issue, then v2 of this layout might be implemented in EMSF with that and other lessons learned - the stock, buildings, etc. could remain largely the same. 

 

I quote a 1950's RM:

 

 

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

I think HFS was regarded as strict but fair by the longer serving staff.  And generally helped out where a loyal employee had problems. Admittedly very paternalistic by modern standards, but that would have been regarded as the mark of a good employer in the early c20.

Have you read the reports into the Selsey tram crash of 1923, which resulted in the death of the fireman? I admit I haven’t read the original, but it is covered in Laurie Cooksey’s superb two-volume work on the line. Let’s just say that the Colonel displays an indifference to the loss of a life. Also, HFS was very dismissive about the “shirkers in Boston Lodge” when writing to Austen.

I suggest we agree to differ, but to my reading he wasn’t a pleasant person.

[Lacathedrale]

Period

I had previously hand-waved the era from around 1903-1913,but happily I'm able to zero in quite nicely on a period for the layout - now more concretely at 1911.  My reasoning is that firstly, slotted signals were gone by 1910 which means any signalling I build will potentially suitable for early grouping, secondly that the Marsh H2 Atlantic only arrived around 1911. Thirdly that it is prior to the abolishment of 2nd Class on the LBSCR (1912) and lastly, that it permits the type of both wide and narrow duckets on brake vehicles.

 

Signals

With the date fairly firmly decided, signals are much more straight forward - posts (and gantries) are solid wood, boards are front-mounted red-orange with a white stripe. Calling-on signals and Shunt-ahead signals by this point are both the same style of subsidiary ringed arm, and I can place all shunting signals on the ground, even adjacent posts/gantries. 

 

54'  Carriages

@t-b-g if I remember correctly Mr Denny had an article on converting the Tri-ang Clerestories to GCR coaches in RM and I seem to remember one of the changes was the pivoting arrangement to the bogie to reduce the ride height, as well as scale wheels? I'm studying Terry Gough's articles and they've required a bit of re-reading but I think I've distilled it down to the following (the ones I actually need are highlighted in green):

• 2 Tri-ang Brake 3rds can make:
  • 6 Compt. Brake 3rd D139
  • 5 Compt. Brake 3rd with Luggage D74
  • 5 Compt Brake 2nd with Luggage D129
  • 8 Compt. 3rd D140
• 2 Tri-ang Composites can make:
  • 8 Compt. Tri-composite D151

The D74 is actually a much more common vehicle than the D129, but I already have an embarassment of brake thirds and frequently bogie trains ran with 6w brake carriages - maybe it can come later.

 

48 Carriages

While I'm at it, I may as well note the Ratio MR coaches are a bit less fertile ground:

• Ratio MR Suburban All First 7 Compt as D60 (converted Suburban to Mainline 7 compt. All First)
• Ratio MR Suburban All 3rd 8 Compt. as D67
• Ratio MR Suburban Brake 3rd 6 Compt. as D63 (add new end duckets)

I'll tackle the Tri-ang carriages first I think! 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[t-b-g]

4 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Period

I had previously hand-waved the era from around 1903-1913,but happily I'm able to zero in quite nicely on a period for the layout - now more concretely at 1911.  My reasoning is that firstly, slotted signals were gone by 1910 which means any signalling I build will potentially suitable for early grouping, secondly that the Marsh H2 Atlantic only arrived around 1911. Thirdly that it is prior to the abolishment of 2nd Class on the LBSCR (1912) and lastly, that it permits the type of both wide and narrow duckets on brake vehicles.

 

Signals

With the date fairly firmly decided, signals are much more straight forward - posts (and gantries) are solid wood, boards are front-mounted red-orange with a white stripe. Calling-on signals and Shunt-ahead signals by this point are both the same style of subsidiary ringed arm, and I can place all shunting signals on the ground, even adjacent posts/gantries. 

 

54'  Carriages

@t-b-g if I remember correctly Mr Denny had an article on converting the Tri-ang Clerestories to GCR coaches in RM and I seem to remember one of the changes was the pivoting arrangement to the bogie to reduce the ride height, as well as scale wheels? I'm studying Terry Gough's articles and they've required a bit of re-reading but I think I've distilled it down to the following (the ones I actually need are highlighted in green):

• 2 Tri-ang Brake 3rds can make:
  • 6 Compt. Brake 3rd D139
  • 5 Compt. Brake 3rd with Luggage D74
  • 5 Compt Brake 2nd with Luggage D129
  • 8 Compt. 3rd D140
• 2 Tri-ang Composites can make:
  • 8 Compt. Tri-composite D151

The D74 is actually a much more common vehicle than the D129, but I already have an embarassment of brake thirds and frequently bogie trains ran with 6w brake carriages - maybe it can come later.

 

48 Carriages

While I'm at it, I may as well note the Ratio MR coaches are a bit less fertile ground:

• Ratio MR Suburban All First 7 Compt as D60 (converted Suburban to Mainline 7 compt. All First)
• Ratio MR Suburban All 3rd 8 Compt. as D67
• Ratio MR Suburban Brake 3rd 6 Compt. as D63 (add new end duckets)

I'll tackle the Tri-ang carriages first I think! 

 

The Denny article on the Triang conversions was in the August 1963 Railway Modeller. He did alter the bogies to incorporate his springing arrangements.

[Regularity]

4 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

I had previously hand-waved the era from around 1903-1913,but happily I'm able to zero in quite nicely on a period for the layout - now more concretely at 1911. 

That’s good: you can run whatever you like, whenever you like without needing to invoke “rule #1”, but having a specific time frame does help with focus.

 

Then there’s Tony Jokester’s comment some years ago: “When people say, ‘I am modelling the sixties,’ what they really mean is, ‘I am modelling 1964 but making a bad job of it.’ “!

 

[Lacathedrale]

I spent some time yesterday painting up an example Ratio coach body in various shades of Mahogany, but they all bloody turned out the same after  I then washed with Burnt Sienna and Black:

 

 

You can see on this side there is VMC Mahogany on the left, and  VAL Heavy Sienna on the right - probably only useful to give tonal variation, and it was only after being finished I realised that probably the only home-built coach I can apply this livery to is the 48' All Third. I think it would be a stretch to think it was still in Mahogany ~8 years after the livery change of 1903, but hopefully will create a link between the rigid and bogie stock and illustrate that the colour scheme changes are temporal rather than along structural lines.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[Lacathedrale]

I've just read the first major section of Vivien Thompson's Eastbourne saga in Railway Modeller. Gosh, what a layout! Having been there recently for a trip to Hampden Park I'm so very impressed with what was achieved there. That, plus Ferring has made me think long and hard about siting my railway away from Brighton town, but I think realistically a Mocatta-style facade and platform canopies like the pre-1880 Brighton station is probably going to be the most effective scenery for the buffer-stop ends of the layout.

 

Here's a shot of the construction of the new overall roof in 1882, showing the original canopies built around 1840:

 

They were 250' long with wrought and cast iron frames and slate roofs so I could model them to scale, but I'm not sure if an opaque overall roof makes sense. On the left is my little parcel of earth, Platforms 8, 9, 10 and the Dock for the East Coastway.

 

On the West Coastway Route is Portslade, another Mocatta-designed building just like Brighton - but more in-scale with my layout. Build dead-scale Portslade is 15" wide. The following shot illustrates the road-side, but it is still extant and measurements/drawings can easily be made:

 

 

The original Brighton building was split in half - two platforms for (what would become) the West Coastway and two for London with separate waiting rooms, offices, etc.  for each. In my case it would be split the other way! 

 

Baseboards

I've just gotten a message from Allen at G&H that the baseboards are ready to be cut, huzzah! 

 

Power & Control

I haven't helped myself, getting in quite a twist with reverse-block DC wiring, but I think with @Regularity's suggestions it may be less onerous than either traditional block DC or DCC:

 

The layout uses two controllers: one station, one fiddle-yard. A common -ve return is used, and +ve feeds are applied to the up main, down main, and 'old turntable' road through a rotary switch to the station controller. There are isolated sections for the platforms, loop, and loco pilot siding.

 

Turnouts are insulated electrofrog, but using an additional pole on the frog SPDT we route +ve connections from the toe to the chosen exit route, just like the old power-routing insulfrog points. This means the routes are self-powering and self-isolating. 

 

Signals are operated mechanically as normal, a microswitch in the lever frame makes or breaks the contact to the relevant station block. The exception is the Advanced Starter, which overrides the connection of the Up main from the rotary switch mentioned before, directly to the FY controller.

 

That's it! 

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Lacathedrale