Looking for suitable southern art deco station

[ikcdab]

6 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

You should see it now!!

Southern Nouveau has a fairly comprehensive rundown of Art Deco buildings although only plans for one of the Chessington line buildings. I’m surprised that the latter are considered too small and not grand enough, as some of them look quite impressive to me.

Yes, I have the book and have used it a lot. The Chessington stations are great, but only single storey. Thats why i said I needed something grander. I like Surbuton because of the height - it makes it very impressive. 

Ian C

[Nick Holliday]

1 hour ago, ikcdab said:

Yes, I have the book and have used it a lot. The Chessington stations are great, but only single storey. Thats why i said I needed something grander. I like Surbuton because of the height - it makes it very impressive. 

Ian C

I suppose I was thinking of the overall massing of the buildings. Yes, the station building at road level is only single storey, but the platform buildings on the viaduct give it length and the lift tower gives it height.

 

Presumably the geography of your layout doesn’t fit in with this arrangement.

As for the remains of St. Helier station!!!

[Nearholmer]

16 hours ago, ikcdab said:

Surbiton I like very much but the main buildings are too big.  But I see the're is a smaller version on the south side which might fit better. 

Does anyone know what's inside the south side building?

 

The down side at Surbiton was exactly what I was about to suggest. It is stylish, but not gigantic.

 

It contains (contained?) a smaller ticket hall, a sort of entrance hall to the footbridge, and IIRC a landing area for the parcels lift and some offices. I've got a lovely set of drawings for it that I bought from "The Storehouse" or whatever NR call their archive drawing sales place, and have unfulfilled ambitions to build it in 0 scale. If I get time later, I'll ferret the drawings out and take a photo - it wont give you the quality you need to work from, but might tell you whether or not you want to order a set,

 

This article contains a photo of the down side building (three "loudspeaker grilles"), although it is a bit difficult to pick out exactly what sits where in plan view from the photo because the up-side buildings are also partly visible. https://thebeautyoftransport.com/2014/08/06/great-white-stark-surbiton-station-london-uk/

 

Another one to look at is Seaton, Devon, which is more domestic, less obviously Bauhaus (which is what Surbiton is, rather than deco, and the Chessington Branch stations are Streamline Moderne). There were plans for it in Railway Modeller not long ago.

 

Or, look at the model stations designed by Reverend Beale in the 30s, 40s, and early 50s. He did a couple of good pastiches of Surbiton, reduced in size but keeping the character, and a very good "Holden Drum" station.

 

Or, cheat and use LMS stations, which stole a lot from LT design, of the same period. Hoylake is the uber-example http://www.hoylakejunction.com/friday-photo-130215 . Many people have used the old Hornby Dublo building as Southern quite succesfully, but the HD buildings are almost certainly inspired by LMS designs for the Wirral electrfication - I always imagine that one of the guys at Binns Road commuted in from the Wirral and used what he saw on a daily basis.

 

Or, buy an old valve radio, and stand that in the forecourt of your model terminus.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Nick Holliday said:

I suppose I was thinking of the overall massing of the buildings. Yes, the station building at road level is only single storey, but the platform buildings on the viaduct give it length and the lift tower gives it height.

When I first saw some of the Chessie branch stations in the early '60s, I was greatly impressed by the sheer mass of the bridge and its relationship with the station building below. They were then not much more than 20 years old, and only a decade older than me! But if the OP's building is to be at track level, then other prototypes may indeed be more imposing. 

[C126]

15 hours ago, melmoth said:

 

A committee?

 

 

Steady, lad, if you mean that as an insult.  😉  Lewes station has a large part of my heart from my primary school days...

[Nearholmer]

Probably off at a slight angle, but if you can find the bits at swapmeets, the Trix Manyways system was purpose-designed for creating the sort of model building you are after.

 

https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Category:Trix_Manyways_station_sets

 

It was largely designed by Ernest Twining, who at the time was also working with W J Bassett-Lowke to design a range of municipal buildings for The Mounts, near the centre of Northampton, including a swimming bath (WJBL was a councillor and chairman of "The Baths Committee"), so the station components owe a fair bit to that set of buildings, with the station overall roof being not far removed from the superb swimming pool roof, which I think is Grade 1 listed.

 

 

[Metropolitan H]

For Surbiton Downside see:

- https://www.mediastorehouse.co.uk/network-rail/sr-surbiton-station-reconstruction-1-8-10368251.html?mp=26  

- https://www.mediastorehouse.co.uk/network-rail/sr-surbiton-station-reconstruction-1-8-10368253.html

 

Have fun. I'm still waiting to see an actual model.

 

Regards

Chris H

[melmoth]

1 hour ago, C126 said:

 

Steady, lad, if you mean that as an insult.  😉  Lewes station has a large part of my heart from my primary school days...

 

🙂Tongue in cheek. I know Lewes station fairly well - I have friends there and I used to work in Haywards Heath.

[whart57]

19 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Does Horsham Station look too much like a London tube station?

 

 

 

Probably not for a terminus given that all four platforms are accessed from a footbridge

[puck]

Havant?

[melmoth]

Wasn't the down side at Southampton Central rebuilt in the 30s? Might that be suitable?

[Nearholmer]

One thing this thread does reinforce is what a busy bunch of beavers the managers and staff of the SR were, given that it was 1925 before they could really get into their stride, and that their efforts were thwarted from 1939 onwards, and that we’re only talking about significant station buildings here; but a part of what they achieved.

[ikcdab]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

One thing this thread does reinforce is what a busy bunch of beavers the managers and staff of the SR were, given that it was 1925 before they could really get into their stride, and that their efforts were thwarted from 1939 onwards, and that we’re only talking about significant station buildings here; but a part of what they achieved.

Yes and strikingly innovative as well.   When they could have built traditionally, they went for ultra modern style. And at the same time they were busy adding third rails and recruiting Bulleid who had his head full of steam innovations.   A going forward company.

[ikcdab]

6 hours ago, Metropolitan H said:

For Surbiton Downside see:

- https://www.mediastorehouse.co.uk/network-rail/sr-surbiton-station-reconstruction-1-8-10368251.html?mp=26  

- https://www.mediastorehouse.co.uk/network-rail/sr-surbiton-station-reconstruction-1-8-10368253.html

 

Have fun. I'm still waiting to see an actual model.

 

Regards

Chris H

great drawings and a great price too! On the Kingston council planning website THIS LINK there are more recent architectural drawings of the south side, free to download. Beware that the quoted scale is wrong: they are at 1:100, not 1:200.

[Mallard60022]

If you have access to Google Earth/ Street View, you might be able to get some recent Views?

[ikcdab]

9 hours ago, Metropolitan H said:

Have fun. I'm still waiting to see an actual model.

this looks fun: https://shop.open-city.org.uk/products/copy-of-surbiton-station-model

Ian C

[petethemole]

6 hours ago, melmoth said:

Wasn't the down side at Southampton Central rebuilt in the 30s? Might that be suitable?

Some prewar views. The central section with the doors was lost in ww2.  It's been replaced three times, badly.  They could have just rebuilt to the original drawings.  The two storey section at the left hand (down) end was the parcels depot.

[ikcdab]

10 hours ago, petethemole said:

Some prewar views. The central section with the doors was lost in ww2.  It's been replaced three times, badly.  They could have just rebuilt to the original drawings.  The two storey section at the left hand (down) end was the parcels depot.

That is rather spectacular.  Many of these buildings had flag poles.  What flag did they fly?

[Nearholmer]

This is the SR marine flag (ensign?), as preserved at Sheffield Park, but whether that flew over buildings, even ones that looked like beached liners, I don’t know.

 

 

[petethemole]

They probably flew the Union Flag on occasions when public buildings usually did, like the King's birthday.

 

Some interior views and the aftermath of bombing, 2nd July 1941.:

[Sabato]

Surbiton Down Side Building

 

Here is a selection from a batch of pictures taken this afternoon. The first shows work going on to finish off a new footbridge which will allow better exit from the down island platform. Under the existing arrangements, during the peak there can be two trains unloading and the passengers cannot all be cleared away before the next lot arrive and it was getting dangerous. The new footsteps replace the original public bridge steps. Access to the public bridge is now via the station entry steps and turning thru' a new hole punched through the dividing wall.

 

 

 

 

The next shows the entry to the down side booking hall (closed) and to the current steps to the bridge and station.

 

 

The current entry. On the left can be seen the exit from the booking hall to the bridge, now blocked off. I would imagine that when the booking hall was in use, what is now the entry point was closed off with Bostwick gates, used only at peak times.

 

Here is an explanation of the current works. (Poster on platform 4}

 

 

I did take a bunch more photos; if anyone is interested, I'll PM them.

 

ATB

[ikcdab]

Excellent photos thank you.   Is the booking hall permanently closed or just for the current works?

[Nearholmer]

I think it’s been closed for years. IIRC it was being hired out as a set for film and TV for a period.

[Sabato]

Permanently, especially going by the wall erected in the former exit hole from the booking hall to the stair foot. There is a ticket window at the head of the stairs (see below) which is not shown on the 1936 plans, although the drawing does not necessarily show what was actually built. It may have been provided when the booking hall was closed, but it has a period look about it, "bronze" fittings and such. It is a listed building, so it probably had to "fit".

 

[Sabato]

I have a vague recollection it was seen in one of the Architecture of the Railways episodes, and most of the interior fittings are still extant, because of its listed status.