Brighton Trafalgar - An Edwardian LB&SCR Terminus

[t-b-g]

5 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

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.

 

 

 

That looks rather nice. I dd some LBSCR 4 wheelers from Roxey kits a while ago for somebody. I am no LBSCR expert so I don't know if they were altered later but I built them based on a photo supplied by the chap I was building them for.

 

There are a couple of things that could be altered fairly easily to remove the GWR look and make it more LBSCR. The grab handles are one obvious thing. Both the GWR and the LBSCR had their own very characteristic style.

 

I the period I was modelling them, they didn't have a lower footstep.

 

Thirdly, for an all third, you could remove the upright between two compartments and make the windows larger.

 

Lastly, again they will have changed and I don't know when but the lamp tops might benefit from being changed.

 

So relatively simple work which would improve and disguise the origin quite well.

 

I attach a snap or two of the ones I did.

 

 

[t-b-g]

I will just add a snap of this, which I built to haul them. Scratchbuilt body on a Branchlines etched frame. I didn't paint it! That is the superb work of Ian Rathbone.

 

[Lacathedrale]

Really lovely, Tony - I've got a fair few 4w coaches from Hattons and Hornby, but it's good to know I can make something of those Ratio ones. Maybe I can paint those umber/white also - which would further blur the lines between the liveries and the coach types? May I please ask where you got the transfers, and if the grab handles are home made or etched? And did you rebuild the ends flat? My colour is way more chocolate than you've used, and the one from Hornby is quite red - I should work probably work on trying to get them consistent!

Edited July 21, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[t-b-g]

3 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Really lovely, Tony - I've got a fair few 4w coaches from Hattons and Hornby, but it's good to know I can make something of those Ratio ones. Maybe I can paint those umber/white also - which would further blur the lines between the liveries and the coach types? May I please ask where you got the transfers, and if the grab handles are home made or etched? And did you rebuild the ends flat? My colour is way more chocolate than you've got - I should work on that! 

 

Thanks.

 

These were from the Roxey kits, which came with flat ends already. It was just that when I saw your photo, I thought "That is not too far off!".

 

I don't know whose colour is better. I based mine on a preserved carriage.

 

https://sremg.org.uk/coach/pics/tp_661.jpg

 

but there is no guarantee that they have it right. Mine is a straight artist acrylic "Burnt Sienna" then varnished with Johnson's "Klear".

 

I can't remember where I got the transfers from but I had to really search them out. The name Eric Gates comes to mind but it is 9 years since I built them and such details don't stay in the brain as well as they used to! I do recall somebody asking me if they could have my "left overs" so I don't think I have any now.  

 

There were etched grab handles in the kits but I didn't use them. I made a jig from two small bits of wire soldered into holes in a strip of brass and bent them from (I think) 0.3mm brass wire.

[Oldddudders]

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

I'm not sure if an opaque overall roof makes sense.

I suspect in the steam era, transparent rooves rapidly became translucent at best, and opaque was probably a more accurate description.

 

[ISTR in the late 1980s I had £12m in my (ok, so Network South Central's) budget for renewal of Brighton station roof. I think it was quite some years before the work was actually done, by which time I had moved on...]

[Oldddudders]

2 hours ago, t-b-g said:

The name Eric Gates comes to mind 

A fine chap, he posts her as 'Burgundy' and leads the LBSCR contribution on RMweb. 

[Lacathedrale]

3 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I suspect in the steam era, transparent rooves rapidly became translucent at best, and opaque was probably a more accurate description.

 

[ISTR in the late 1980s I had £12m in my (ok, so Network South Central's) budget for renewal of Brighton station roof. I think it was quite some years before the work was actually done, by which time I had moved on...]

 

No argument with that - I think I'll probably use individual canopies - a slate overall roof for 4' of the 4'6"  would make a very limited viewing angle ;) 

[burgundy]

14 hours ago, t-b-g said:

I can't remember where I got the transfers from but I had to really search them out. The name Eric Gates comes to mind but it is 9 years since I built them and such details don't stay in the brain as well as they used to! I do recall somebody asking me if they could have my "left overs" so I don't think I have any now.  

Guilty as charged.

However, I am afraid that the stock of transfers that I commissioned many years ago is now exhausted. Changes in technology have offered better ways of producing shorter runs and EBM models has been exploring that option. 

Best wishes 

Eric

[Lacathedrale]

Burnt Sienna is looking more promising - I'll put an oil wash on one side of the carriage to see how that looks too:

 

[t-b-g]

35 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Burnt Sienna is looking more promising - I'll put an oil wash on one side of the carriage to see how that looks too:

 

 

I like that finish a lot.

 

It is certainly a good match for the preserved one and it looks a very attractive colour.

 

You have to really look hard to see it but mine were lined in "gold" using a mix of white and yellow drawing ink in a mapping pen, just running it along the edges of the panels. It does just add a little something!

 

I don't know enough to say that they all ran as close coupled sets but there were certainly lots that appeared in photos, so you could lose the buffers on the ends (apart from the brake carriages at the ends of the rake).

 

Another tip is that the carriages had wooden disc wheels apart from the brake carriages, which had what we call split spoke wheels but which the railways usually called "welded spoke". In the period I did them, the intermediate carriages had no brakes at all and only the two brake carriages had any. I would think that might have changed later.

[Lacathedrale]

Thank you Tony - I'm going to strip back both this and the other carriage in due course and do the relevant conversions of the ends, handles, windows, etc. but they're proving good practise in the meantime. I'm still not sure about the mapping pen after my failure with the (presumably more straightforward) easi-liner - can you please link me an example so I can try it? 

 

You seemed to manage to get it only on the angled part of the panel recess, rather than the panel itself - more practise? I think if I give it an oil wash (I'll test with half the carriage just to see) it might compromise the ability to see them, though I guess the lack of lining never really hurt @Mikkel , did it?

 

What period did you model them in? Presumably with the IEG Terrier, pre-1903? I've got the LBSCR Carriage books but since these are only test colours I've not made any effort at all to convert them yet.

[Mikkel]

11 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Burnt Sienna is looking more promising - I'll put an oil wash on one side of the carriage to see how that looks too:

 

 

That really is very attractive and neat!

 

I'm deliberating myself whether to start lining my stock - I've lived happily without it for years, and the problem is that once you do one you have to do them all! Or alternatively keep lined and unlined one in different rakes, I suppose.

 

Will, I'd be interested to hear more about your issues with the Easi-Liner (apologies if you've already mentioned it, I did search the topic). I'm trying it out myself at the moment but am not 100% convinced it works for me yet.

 

[Dana Ashdown]

On 21/07/2022 at 04:46, Lacathedrale said:

I spent some time yesterday painting up an example Ratio coach body

Excuse my ignorance on the LB&SCR generally, but the Ratio coach has vacuum brakes (hence the vacuum cylinder underneath). I could be wrong, but wouldn't a Brighton carriage still be Westinghouse air braked in your period, and therefore no vacuum cylinder?

[Dana Ashdown]

4 hours ago, Mikkel said:

I'm deliberating myself whether to start lining my stock - I've lived happily without it for years, and the problem is that once you do one you have to do them all! Or alternatively keep lined and unlined one in different rakes, I suppose.

My Great Western carriages are unlined. Im afraid that if I tried lining them, they'd be ruined.

 

However, the lining is often invisible in photographs so I don't think I'm missing too much in some cases. Its mainly the single colour coaches that the absence of lining is more noticeable. For example, all brown or all crimson lake.

[t-b-g]

10 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Thank you Tony - I'm going to strip back both this and the other carriage in due course and do the relevant conversions of the ends, handles, windows, etc. but they're proving good practise in the meantime. I'm still not sure about the mapping pen after my failure with the (presumably more straightforward) easi-liner - can you please link me an example so I can try it? 

 

You seemed to manage to get it only on the angled part of the panel recess, rather than the panel itself - more practise? I think if I give it an oil wash (I'll test with half the carriage just to see) it might compromise the ability to see them, though I guess the lack of lining never really hurt @Mikkel , did it?

 

What period did you model them in? Presumably with the IEG Terrier, pre-1903? I've got the LBSCR Carriage books but since these are only test colours I've not made any effort at all to convert them yet.

 

As I have some more 4 wheelers on the bench at the moment, for the same layout (the period is C1890), I thought I would illustrate the set up for the lining. The carriage is propped up at an angle and the mapping pen is run sideways along the edge. This puts the ink just where you want it, on the edge of the beading rather than on the flat panel or on the front face of the beading.

 

 

[Nick Holliday]

14 hours ago, Dana Ashdown said:

Excuse my ignorance on the LB&SCR generally, but the Ratio coach has vacuum brakes (hence the vacuum cylinder underneath). I could be wrong, but wouldn't a Brighton carriage still be Westinghouse air braked in your period, and therefore no vacuum cylinder?

Although you’re quite right about the GWR being a vacuum braked company, and the LBSC Westinghouse, I think the highly visible cylinder is a gas tank, and thus acceptable on a Brighton vehicle, although perhaps not exactly correct for size.

[Lacathedrale]

To reiterate these are 'just' painting tests for my 48' Billinton All Third - they will be stripped and repainted umber and cream as will the 54' Marsh coaches.

 

 

The ratio body has had an oil was on one half - the panel definitions look better but it has a bit of a ghosted effect that I'm not altogether pleased with. Maybe another coat of Klear afterwards?

 

Ah well if footboards are gone by 1890 they'd definitely be gone by 1911!  I also note with chagrin that the Hornby coaches appear to have both a) the giant looping handles of GWR coaches and b) oil lighting. I guess those are going to go under the knife too eventually, as well as some kind of treatment to tone down the rather bright lining! 

 

@Nick Holliday does the above sound right? I know also a fairly silly question but should the umber/off-white of the later era be  warm (burnt) or cool (raw) umber? 

 

@t-b-g thank you for the tip, I'll see what I can do. Where did you get your "mapping pen" from? I thought you meant a bow-pen!  Honestly, I'd like to give it a bash but I'm not holding out much hope!

 

@Mikkel the easi-liner seems well suited to 7mm+ modelling, the thinnest line of 0.25mm is way too wide for what we do. I used undiluted acrylics and was able to get ok paint performance particularly with the vallejo drying retarder. I found the nips to be quite sharp, so even 'tracing around the edges' of a panel was tough because it would dig in rather than glide over any irregularities. 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[phil_sutters]

On 21/07/2022 at 19:11, Oldddudders said:

I suspect in the steam era, transparent rooves rapidly became translucent at best, and opaque was probably a more accurate description.

 

[ISTR in the late 1980s I had £12m in my (ok, so Network South Central's) budget for renewal of Brighton station roof. I think it was quite some years before the work was actually done, by which time I had moved on...]

Not the best of photos, but it shows how bright the roof looked in 1963. The light level may well account for the fuzziness, as Dad never had anything but a fairly basic camera.

[Mikkel]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

@Mikkel the easi-liner seems well suited to 7mm+ modelling, the thinnest line of 0.25mm is way too wide for what we do.

 

Exactly my problem so far. Chris has given me some tips though, will give it a few more sessions and see if it helps.

[t-b-g]

2 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

To reiterate these are 'just' painting tests for my 48' Billinton All Third - they will be stripped and repainted umber and cream as will the 54' Marsh coaches.

 

 

The ratio body has had an oil was on one half - the panel definitions look better but it has a bit of a ghosted effect that I'm not altogether pleased with. Maybe another coat of Klear afterwards?

 

Ah well if footboards are gone by 1890 they'd definitely be gone by 1911!  I also note with chagrin that the Hornby coaches appear to have both a) the giant looping handles of GWR coaches and b) oil lighting. I guess those are going to go under the knife too eventually, as well as some kind of treatment to tone down the rather bright lining! 

 

@Nick Holliday does the above sound right? I know also a fairly silly question but should the umber/off-white of the later era be  warm (burnt) or cool (raw) umber? 

 

@t-b-g thank you for the tip, I'll see what I can do. Where did you get your "mapping pen" from? I thought you meant a bow-pen!  Honestly, I'd like to give it a bash but I'm not holding out much hope!

 

@Mikkel the easi-liner seems well suited to 7mm+ modelling, the thinnest line of 0.25mm is way too wide for what we do. I used undiluted acrylics and was able to get ok paint performance particularly with the vallejo drying retarder. I found the nips to be quite sharp, so even 'tracing around the edges' of a panel was tough because it would dig in rather than glide over any irregularities. 

 

The mapping pen in the photo was part of a drawing instrument set I picked up from a junk shop (It was called an antique shop but that was giving itself a bit of an unwarranted upgrade!) for a tenner many years ago. I bought it as it had a couple of nice looking bowpens and some compasses including one with a bowpen attachment.

 

It is pretty ancient and has a handle that may well be ivory.

 

I have also seen them in many art shops and if you type "mapping pen" into your favourite search engine, there are lots there for very sensible prices. You can buy just the nibs and use an old paintbrush as a handle, which is what I did before I bought the set. The nib on the old one is just slightly more rounded at the edges (worn!) than the art shop ones and less likely to scratch a paint finish.

 

The maker of the old one was John Heath of Birmingham and if you search under that name there are loads of old pin nibs for sale at cheap prices on your favourite auction sites. I think the old ones were made from brass, rather than the modern stamped variety which are either steel shim or suchlike. 

[Lacathedrale]

Excellent, thank you for the tips (pun!) I will try it.

 

On the note of liveries though, I'm wondering (and maybe @Nick Holliday can confirm) whether I should really be considering the mahogany Hornby/Hattons coaches as 'interim' solutions and realistically ALL of the coaching stock should be umber/off-white by >1910. I think it's probably a compelling argument given the interval for varnishing was every few years AFAIK so they would have been in the carrige works at least twice between the cessation of mahogany and the date the layout is set? 

 

I won't set about repainting them immediately, but maybe it's not worth pursuing the mahogany livery for home-built stock much further?

 

Lovely pic @phil_sutters :) 

[Nick Holliday]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

On the note of liveries though, I'm wondering (and maybe @Nick Holliday can confirm) whether I should really be considering the mahogany Hornby/Hattons coaches as 'interim' solutions and realistically ALL of the coaching stock should be umber/off-white by >1910. I think it's probably a compelling argument given the interval for varnishing was every few years AFAIK so they would have been in the carriage works at least twice between the cessation of mahogany and the date the layout is set? 

 

I won't set about repainting them immediately, but maybe it's not worth pursuing the mahogany livery for home-built stock much further?

 

Lovely pic @phil_sutters :) 

Not sure why my name has been given as an "expert" on LBSC liveries, as I know no more than the books tell me, and I have a degree of scepticism regarding the proper experts' ideas of different shades. After all, we all perceive colour differently so we all may be right. But, any way, just to try to answer William's queries.

Very few of the four-wheeled stock received the umber and white livery, so I suspect that they probably continued in mahogany colour for quite some time.  Many were on the verge of being scrapped, so the repainting option may not have been worthwhile anyway, and, to be honest, to my eyes, the difference in colour between an aged mahogany style finish and umber is marginal. Survivors after 1910 or so might have received an all-over umber finish.  This would not apply to any six-wheel RTR stock, which mostly would have received the umber and white during its short reign, and so mahogany would be inappropriate for 1910 onwards.

As for the type of umber used, the livery books refer to the main colour as raw umber, with a darker umber edging on locos, if that helps. I am not really sure of the difference between raw and burnt umber - various websites and you-tube videos try to demonstrate it, but my suspicion is that there could be as much difference between two suppliers of the same shade as between the two shades themselves. Combine that with the visual effect of colours at 1:76 and the whole thing is debatable, and I don't think there would be a wrong colour.

[Lacathedrale]

Thanks Nick! I guess the aged mahogany might be darkened to a warm umber colour but would not have been dirty or grimy per se? I'm wondering if I can get away with oil washing the Hornby/Hattons 4w coaches to tone them down, and only repainting the six wheelers...

Anyway, in light of the varied advice for the Ratio coach kits I'm testing on, I've decided to hack away one of them into a 'proper' LBSCR coach.

 

I'll keep all informed. In the meantime, here's my first pass at the DC wiring diagram for BV:

 

 

Seems to make sense to me. Time to find a cheap H&M Duette (or if anyone has alternative suggestions I'd gladly hear them)

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[Nick C]

It looks like the Up main, Down main and throat are all connected together - is that intentional? 

[Lacathedrale]

@Nick C The throat turnouts are power routing like the old Peco insulfrog ones (albeit achieved with a switch rather than through the point blades) - so the throat as a whole is connected to both the up and down main, but inside the throat the connections to the up or down main are mutually exclusive.

 

One thing I am looking at is the use of a 5-way rotary switch in conjunction with the ground signal on the Up-Main for reversing movements. The idea is that rather than one signal lever for each destination, the rotary switch is dialled to what is required and then one ground signal is pulled off. Maybe with a "To the Platforms" pointing finger to represent signalman's hand signals:

 

 

Ultimately I am planning on using the S4S Lever Frame for the layout, and I will need a 30 lever frame: 21 levers for the signals and 7 point levers. The reason for the comparatively few point levers is that all but one of them throw both ends of a crossover. That's a fair investment of time and money upfront, so I'm wondering if I can figure out a tactical solution in the meantime and I think I've come up with a reasonable idea:

 

The signals can all be represented by SPST switches (except the advanced starter, which is a SPDT) since they effectively act as block section toggles without the signals.

 

The entire premise of the throat power routing is so that the FY controller can assume control of trains in the station while simultaneously the station controller can still handle an arrival. I currently only have one controller for testing/etc. and so in the interim the power routing isn't required: I can simply connect all +ve feeds in the throat together in a temporary terminal block. I will need to fit the relevant turnout DPDTs for the power routing and frog before the dual-controller setup will work, but there's no wasted effort other than some fixing wires into some screw terminals. 

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Lacathedrale