Unravelling Thame in the 20th Century

[unravelled]

As I am slowly making progress with my model of not Thame, I thought I'd try to gather some information about how the real place was worked.  I have information from several books, studied lots of photos from the internet, and had a lot of help from David bigcheeseplant with plans and photos.

 

Among other things, I started with this nls 25 inch map of 1921.

 

This and other maps below are  from the NLS website, https://maps.nls.uk/index.html. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

 

There are two sidings trailing from the up line, one joining under the west end bridge in a half scissors configuration, and one joining opposite the signal box. What I am interested in is what these two up sidings were used for at that time. Either could probably be used as a refuge siding, for putting a slow up train out of the way of something following.

One later  change was the repurposing of the south siding with the addition of what I imagine are quite extensive cattle docks alongside.

 

In one other change between these maps the earlier one shows two sets of points toe to toe between the loading dock and the goods shed, while the later one shows a double slip.

 

Later still, the west end pointwork was simplified with the  connection to the siding relocated further west, as part of the oil depot.

 

One aspect of the goods yard layout, not shown in the maps above is present on the BR maps in both Richard Lingard's book, and the GWR stations survey series. In this arrangement, the top siding and goods shed line rejoin at the top left of the site.  These maps also show the toe to toe points rather than a double slip. I haven't found an earlier   25 inch map to illustrate this, but it is on the 6 inch ones. This is from 1900, but the yard layout seems not to have been resurveyed later

 

 

I am not trusting all track details from 6 inch maps, but this is to illustrate the arrangement in the BR plans. This arrangement has interested me and I wondered how it might be used and whether it is common?

 

Comparing boundaries between the 6 and 25 inch maps shows a little widening of the goods yard area, possibly connected with the change in track plan.

 

One idea has come to me while writing this. The loop within the goods yard might make more sense if it relates to an earlier layout before the double track section was extended. Although not trusting the track plan, this 1880s map suggests much more limited shunting opportunities, as well as a shorter  yard layout

 

 

But why BR plans are outdated intrigues me, perhaps the authors requested older plans for publication.

 

Thanks for reading, any comments would be welcome.

 

Dave

[KeithMacdonald]

I've used the 1921 version.

 

 

A friend of mine was a Field Surveyor for the OS. I once asked him about the accuracy of the published maps compared to the original surveying. The survey data is the original and most accurate data, and all published maps are derivatives of that. In our context, the 25 Inch map is the published map closest to the original survey data, and the best available for most rural locations.

 

We'd have to go into towns and cities to find a published map with more detail. e.g. Oxford Station at 1:500 scale.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18.8&lat=51.75346&lon=-1.26956&layers=117746211&b=1&marker=51.740424,-0.971414

 

My OS friend also explained that the Six Inch maps are deliberately simplified versions. The details remaining are decisions made by the cartographers at OS HQ. They have to be simplified, for clarity of the main features, a lot of detail gets discarded, and this the accuracy is reduced as well. That working habit continues to this day, except now the OS has realised it can also charge more (and make more money) by only putting all the available details on commercial versions of the maps, available at higher prices than the current "general public" series.

 

We can see this by comparing older maps from NLS with the current OS maps available. The older maps often have much more detail.

 

https://explore.osmaps.com/?lat=51.739698&lon=-0.962281&zoom=16.4442&style=Standard&type=2d

 

[David Bigcheeseplant]

On 11/06/2023 at 11:37, unravelled said:

I have not seen this plan before it does show there is no signal box provided in 1891. and just a short passing loop extending just a short way beyond the platforms.

 

 

But why BR plans are outdated intrigues me, perhaps the authors requested older plans for publication.

 

Thanks for reading, any comments would be welcome.

 

Dave

I have not

[unravelled]

On 11/06/2023 at 12:54, KeithMacdonald said:

I've used the 1921 version.

 

 

A friend of mine was a Field Surveyor for the OS. I once asked him about the accuracy of the published maps compared to the original surveying. The survey data is the original and most accurate data, and all published maps are derivatives of that. In our context, the 25 Inch map is the published map closest to the original survey data, and the best available for most rural locations.

 

We'd have to go into towns and cities to find a published map with more detail. e.g. Oxford Station at 1:500 scale.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18.8&lat=51.75346&lon=-1.26956&layers=117746211&b=1&marker=51.740424,-0.971414

 

My OS friend also explained that the Six Inch maps are deliberately simplified versions. The details remaining are decisions made by the cartographers at OS HQ. They have to be simplified, for clarity of the main features, a lot of detail gets discarded, and this the accuracy is reduced as well. That working habit continues to this day, except now the OS has realised it can also charge more (and make more money) by only putting all the available details on commercial versions of the maps, available at higher prices than the current "general public" series.

 

We can see this by comparing older maps from NLS with the current OS maps available. The older maps often have much more detail.

 

https://explore.osmaps.com/?lat=51.739698&lon=-0.962281&zoom=16.4442&style=Standard&type=2d

 

I've always liked the 25 inch maps. My father was an architect in Oxford, and he had amassed quite a collection in the course of his work. I have managed to collect a few ones local to me in London. Looking at the maps, it seems to me that the cartograpers weren't averse to making what could have been seen as unnecessary alterations. I'm thinking here of the slight changes to the trackwork in the second image,, and the rermoving of two cattle pens, though not the legend. Interestingly there is one bit of what might be sloppiness in the addition of the track to the new cattle pens where it cuts through the hatching for the road embankment, rather than have the hatching modified.

Again with the 6 inch maps there seems to have been an effort to be accurate. There are the correct numbers of tracks where it matters (for me), and between the last two examples the later one shows a clear change in style to inprove clarity. 

I think that I have been lucky with my location, in that the area isn't too cluttered, and most of the detail I want can be shown, even in the 6 inch maps.

Does scale still exist now, in the way it did before computers? I wouldn't be surprised if the computer model effectively exists at full size, (even possibly on the surface of a sphere), and algorithms exist to simplify away what wont show, (and flatten them for output). Legends can be generated at any appropriate size from a single source. It's all another rabbithole I could too esily be tempted to explore...

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

[unravelled]

2 hours ago, David Bigcheeseplant said:

I have not seen this plan before it does show there is no signal box provided in 1891. and just a short passing loop extending just a short way beyond the platforms.

 I'm glad I included it although it strictly falls outside the era I was asking about. It is tantalising that NLS reference two earlier 25 inch maps, but don't have copies.

 

 

Thanks

 

Dave