Greenwich Bridge (Micro Layout done on a budget)

[klambert]

This is my first model railway so will see how things go. At 2ft by 4ft, (including fiddle yard) not sure if it entirely counts as a microlayout, apoligies in advance if it's in the wrong place. Greenwich Bridge, is firmly in the small but growing niche of London based Network Southeast branch terminals. It's worth noting this is being done on a budget, due to being a young(ish) couple, attempting to save for a mortgage, (despite the best efforts of the electricity company). Most of the board is made from reclaimed scraps of wood, the points are currently wire in tube controlled, (although I would like to install point motors at a later date), DC (naturally) and I'll be making extensive use of scale scenes kits, as well as brick paper made myself in Photoshop. Watching the Chandwell series on Youtube is evidence some good things can still be done with brick paper. Also I do like to invent a good back story so here we go ... 

By 1898 The London Chatham and Dover railway was disatisfied with the lack of passengers and freight receipts on its Greenwich Park branch. With the proposal of the Greenwich foot tunnel, the LCDR planned to extend the branch to the proposed Greenwich end of the foot tunnel, at a station known as 'Greenwich Bridge' due to its proximity to Bridge Street, an intermediate station near the SERs Greenwich station, known as Greenwich Low Level, as well some freight spurs serving the industry alongside the Deptford Creek and various byproducts from Deptford power station.

 

After amalgamation as the South Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1899, with construction well underway, the planned extension continued, with the opening occurring in 1901. Following this the line had an unremarkable existance. Unlike the real branch which closed in 1917, traffic was enough to see 3rd rail electrification in the 1930s and ensured it's survival into the 1980s and beyond where my model railway is set, this sees an hourly shuttle to Peckham Rye as well as a peak hour service to Victoria. Freight traffic declined alongside the general decline in industry and river traffic, with remaining freight traffic being scrap. 

 

I suspect in the present day it'll either have survived as part of the London Overground network, or closed around the late 90s when the DLR extension to Lewisham was opened.

Ah the difference a few months makes, the sidings in the foreground are the scrap sidings and the big gap in the middle being room for an island platform. My idea was that the station platform used to continue on a distance to a rather grandiose main building. However this suffered bomb damage in the war, and remained in an increasingly decrepid state until the council/property developers, in the 80s turned it into a heritage centre/demolished it for luxury flats, so the station exists Broad Street in its last days style,  in a much shortened state, being accessed by dingy alley and a bridge from the retaining wall onto the platform. 

 

I'll try to update semi periodically when I can although I've been meaning to post this for some time, the final image dating from the 1st of May, so I wouldn't get your hopes up!

Edited June 22, 2023 by klambert

[simon b]

Bookmarked, I'll be following this with intrest.

[HonestTom]

South London is a great setting for quirky branch lines. I’m looking forward to seeing this progress.

[klambert]

Quick question, regarding the scrap sidings by my time period (late 80s - early 90s).

 

By my time period would smaller scrapyards that mostly bought straight from the consumer, things like cars and old washing machines have rail served sidings? or would it only be the larger type that breaks metals into much smaller chunks and sells onto steelworks?

 

From what I understand you get two types of scrap merchant, your smaller type, where the average person will send their car or washing machine and then the larger type which buys from the first type of scrapyard (possibly known as a metals reprocesser?), further breaks the scrap down and sells onto steel works, this type is most likely to have rail sidings from what I understand. Although I don't know a huge amount about the scrap trade so happy to be enlightened. 

 

I would much prefer to recreate the smaller type of scrapyard, having been inspired by Everard Junctions videos, there being something very attractive about the organised chaos and dereliction of it also the compact size of the layout meaning a smaller scrapyard being the most feasible, although for the sake of accuracy happy to make the 2nd type as well.

 

 

[simon b]

The scrapyard at Silvertown was still rail served into the 90's, that may be an ideal prototype to work from. Do a google search for "T W Ward Silvertown", trains were only around 5 wagons so perfect for a micro layout.

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by simon b

[sb67]

@klambert I'd recommend looking at the Silvertown tramway too, mainline locos and only a few wagons would make a great micro layout. Wagons were propelled along some of it too, I loosely based mine on it. 

@simon b Great photo! I looked at Silvertown a while back and didn't come across that one! That scene is Micro inspiration in itself! 

Edited July 13, 2023 by sb67

[klambert]

On 07/07/2023 at 18:26, simon b said:

The scrapyard at Silvertown was still rail served into the 90's, that may be an ideal prototype to work from. Do a google search for "T W Ward Silvertown", trains were only around 5 wagons so perfect for a micro layout.

 

Thank you for the recomends, looks like plenty of Flickr albums, I've also bought D Brennands Londons East End Railways Part 2, for more on the Silvertown Tramway, I also discovered some pictures of what was the 600 group, now EMR metal recycling facility at Willesden in one of Vic Mitchells Middleton Press books 'West London Line' when it still had a rail connection.

Edited July 31, 2023 by klambert

[simon b]

8 hours ago, klambert said:

Thank you for the recomends, looks like plenty of Flickr albums, I've also bought D Brennands Londons East End Railways Part 2, for more on the Silvertown Tramway, I also discovered some pictures of what was the 600 group, now EMR metal recycling facility at Willesden in one of Vic Mitchells Middleton Press books 'West London Line' when it still had a rail connection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rich_F]

A couple of my embedded searches from my Flickr. You'll get TONS of great pictures & inspiration...

 

 

 

The whole Silvertown/Victoria Dock area fascinates me so your location will be fun to model!

Edited July 31, 2023 by Weeny Works

[klambert]

 Taking a 'break' from the breakers yard at the moment, moving onto scratchbuilding the 60s brutalist monolith that makes up the backscene hiding the fiddle yard, I've been thinking about windows. This is to be my first completely scratchbuilt building and I haven't made things easy for myself 😁. 

 

I have about 90 windows to make, my first plan was to cut them out of 1mm greyboard, however since I found out how tedious cutting out the concrete frame was I've had 2nd thoughts. Instead I was thinking about making the windows in Photoshop, (using the image shown below) printing onto A4 sticky label sheets and sticking onto the transparent packaging from various Peco bits. However my reservations about this technique are that it may make the windows look very flat particuarly for 00. An idea I have though is maybe to stick the printed sticky label sheet onto 160 gsm card which I have in excess and then apply glazing.

 

I'm not going for Ancorton windows or anything like that as they're the wrong dimensions and also being mindful of cost, although I'm open to other suggestions and also keen to see how other people have scratchbuilt office buildings.

[Clive martin]

I love what you are creating fantastic work,i have had a long interest of the railway at silver town since the early 80s when railway modeller had silvertown as a layout idea track plan,their was something i liked about the photographs of rail blue class 105 dmus and the silvertown tramway with its gated entrance to the scrap yard,your windows for your building look great i am constructing a 7 floor office building for my layout it was not until i had cut all the windows out that i realised i had just cut out 164 windows,so i think your method ofmakeing your windows is a very good idea ,keep up the great work on this very nice looking layout!

[klambert]

A fair bit's happened with the layout recently, I keep forgetting to update here, I've finished construction of the backscene, the board immediately to the front will have a view of the Cutty Sark and Greenwich Foot Tunnel entrance applied to it but partially obscured by a low relief scratchbuilt block of flats on the slope similar to the type in the area. I've had a look round, due to South London being very hilly I wasn't short of examples. I wanted a slope rather than a straight retaining wall to show the land dropping off to the Thames. The board on the left will have a view of a construction site/remains of the old station as the station's been truncated Broad Street style as well as a view of the Thames and the boards on the right as mentioned previously is a an office Building. 

 

Other work, most noticeably the fence has gone in, I found this to be an extremely fiddly job, unfortunately the wires through the crank tops is far from straight and some of the posts are crooked, it doesn't look too bad in person but the camera really picks this up, although I'm tempted to break a few wires and weather the fence more, this is meant to be a scrapyard after all especially an area where scrap is loaded so I'd expect the fence to look battered. Other peoples thoughts on this would be much appreciated, either in terms of how to straighten the fence up more or how to make what I have look more natural.

 

Firstly by building the ground up with cork and then using DAS modelling clay and plaster I made an inlaid siding, very pleased with how this looks, I then added some puddles made out of Peco packaging with the underside painted dark grey, and embedded in using more clay, with hindsight I realise these probably should have gone in when I was initially embedding the track. The ground cover for this part of the layout is still not done though, I bought some Vallejo thick mud which I'll be using to add tire marks, hide imperfections as well as scrap metal scatter from Goodwood scenics. 

Some suggestions requested: admittedly the fence in this corner of the layout doesn't look great, I did try bending the wire on the crank tops around the corner but I had this 90 degree bend jutting out from the post so I decided to cut it off, looking at reference I probably should have positioned the post on the corner at 45 degrees. I think I'll try the tried and tested technique of hiding this with foliage, although I'm open to other suggestions.

 

The idea for this corner of the layout, inspired by Silvertown pictures is plonk down a class 03 Bodyshell (originally intended for airbrush practice) half buried in scrap and foliage. This being the previous shunter before being cast aside. I'm avoiding scrap cars purely because ruining some perfectly good Oxford Diecast or buying some Goodwood scenics scrap cars is pretty pricey. I want this area of the scrapyard to feel like a forgotten about corner with something quite interesting surviving the cutters torch, I'm open to other suggestions as well. 

 

Ballasting has commenced, I'm using a combination of fine grade woodland scenics grey and brown ballast as well as some dark ballast bought from Jimmys Hobby shop in Castleford market made by himself, it's quality stuff. This is all stuck down using the usual 50/50 PVA Water mix although I dumped in a load of acrylic paint to weather the ballast and track as recomended on the Chandwell Youtube series. I think he calls the mix 'glunge' which I rather like. 

 

I realise at this stage the layout's looking quite rough, although I accept this is my first layout beyond a trainset, I imagine most peoples layouts go through a rough stage. I've never been a fan of working in small sections, I'd much prefer to deal with things as a whole really. 

Edited October 6, 2023 by klambert

[bazzer42]

I think the fencing looks okay, the camera is always cruel but it looks good to me in these pictures.  Don't think I have ever found an easy fencing option.  I would use the foliage trick as any corner in a scrap yard is likely to be "forgotten".  There's always more green in the world than you expect.

[Rich_F]

Looking forwards to seeing whatever 3rd rail unit trundles along the line as well! Old Silvertown & the North London Link are sadly now mostly covered & erased under modern urban sprawl.

 

A little Ruston 48DS would look lovely as your scrap engine moving the odd wagon about!

Edited October 6, 2023 by Rich_F

[klambert]

19 hours ago, Rich_F said:

Looking forwards to seeing whatever 3rd rail unit trundles along the line as well! Old Silvertown & the North London Link are sadly now mostly covered & erased under modern urban sprawl.

 

A little Ruston 48DS would look lovely as your scrap engine moving the odd wagon about!

At the moment I have an NSE EPB, and the old Hornby NSE VEP although I need to make a cassette for that as the fiddleyard can only accommodate two car lengths. 

 

In the future I would like a 466 and the Bratchell models 456, maybe even the Hornby model of the National Collection BIL as I believe it ran on the mainline at the time. The passenger stock for a layout of this size is surprisingly flexible. 

 

There's many other 3rd rail units I'm considering as well, the selection is excellent these days. 

Edited October 7, 2023 by klambert

[Nconsistent]

Interesting project, which caught my eye as your map seems to have obliterated my mother's old house in Prior St, indeed the whole street is missing. Brand Street and Royal Hill are either side of where it still is, so it appears the map has managed what the Luftwaffe failed to do. How old is the map? The Greenwich Park line cutting went under Prior St and what I believe is a two-story railway building can be seen next to the allotment that has been established above the filled-in approach.

[klambert]

Had a rummage around in a bits box and managed to find this, the assembled  bodyshell of a Dapol class 04 kit. Perfect I thought, ideal for the scrapyard corner. Until I had second thoughts. 

 

I was thinking of fabricating a chassis out of plasticard, sans wheels and a load of rust and weathering. Until I realised I don't think you'd have dumped shunter minus its wheels, there removal just seems like a load of unnecessary hassle for the scrapman. Especially this being the previous shunter until it was dumped out of the way. 

 

I've been unable to find pictures of scrapped shunters sans wheels so I don't think they'd be scrapped like this, although if anyone knows otherwise, I'd appreciate it. 

 

My other option which I think's more realistic is to break the shunter up and have its remains scattered around in a pile, maybe keep the cab intact for use as a workman's bothy.

Edited November 17, 2023 by klambert

[simon b]

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/670519453712512/permalink/711897832908007/?sfnsn=scwspmo&ref=share

[Russ (mines a pint)]

Quote

Until I realised I don't think you'd have dumped shunter minus its wheels, there removal just seems like a load of unnecessary hassle for the scrapman. 

What about raising it to correct ride height then putting other stuff round it? either more scrap or weedy overgrowth, in a manner that would suggest the chassis is still there but you cant see it? 

 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Russ (mines a pint)
attach file

[simon b]

Can I suggest you take a look at the old matchbox diesel shunter, those would suit the scene perfectly. If your feeling brave the chassis from the underground Ernie inspection car can be used to motorise it....

[klambert]

Bought myself a Christmas present of some Bachmann POAs, nice to have the correct wagons at last. couldn't resist a running session. 

[klambert]

Office block that forms the fiddle yard backscene is taking shape. Still many loose ends to tie, still requires weathering, leak marks and the mandatory graffiti. 

A lot of the concrete panels and doorways came from textures.com although the grey brick is ScaleScenes, stuck onto grey board, windows are Peco packaging.

Better view of office block rear entrance, (aka the smokers haven) fire door and record shop. Setup by a now aging hippy with the idea of being Southeast Londons premier purveyor of psych records and ahem other associated 'wares' but has since expanded to cover all good riffy rock. 

How about a game of guess the album? (Just realised the camera's picked up things I didn't consider to be a big issue such as white paper edges etc, hope to tidy that up with weathering eventually).

So far it's made without a back so I can add lighting at a later date.

Getting there, but it gives an idea of what I'm after. 

Edited January 27 by klambert

[klambert]

On 19/11/2023 at 20:25, Russ (mines a pint) said:

What about raising it to correct ride height then putting other stuff round it? either more scrap or weedy overgrowth, in a manner that would suggest the chassis is still there but you cant see it? 

 

Interesting, any thing about the history of this I'm assuming unit? 

On 25/11/2023 at 22:46, simon b said:

Can I suggest you take a look at the old matchbox diesel shunter, those would suit the scene perfectly. If your feeling brave the chassis from the underground Ernie inspection car can be used to motorise it....

Good suggestion, will keep an eye especially if I see one in a parts bin, car boot etc.

 

Regarding the diesel shunter, I had a chat with the shunter contigent of the DEPG, of which I'm a member, they said it's not out of the bounds of reality as long as I fabricate the chassis, to quote 'all kinds of strange things happen in scrap yards, it could have required a wheelset change and then the owner gave up halfway through when he found something better'. 

Edited January 27 by klambert

[Dagworth]

38 minutes ago, klambert said:

How about a game of guess the album?

Nice!

 

Do I spy Half Man Half Biscuit there?

 

Andi

[simon b]

2 hours ago, klambert said:

Office block that forms the fiddle yard backscene is taking shape. Still many loose ends to tie, still requires weathering, leak marks and the mandatory graffiti. 

A lot of the concrete panels and doorways came from textures.com although the grey brick is ScaleScenes, stuck onto grey board, windows are Peco packaging.

Better view of office block rear entrance, (aka the smokers haven) fire door and record shop. Setup by a now aging hippy with the idea of being Southeast Londons premier purveyor of psych records and ahem other associated 'wares' but has since expanded to cover all good riffy rock. 

How about a game of guess the album? (Just realised the camera's picked up things I didn't consider to be a big issue such as white paper edges etc, hope to tidy that up with weathering eventually).

So far it's made without a back so I can add lighting at a later date.

Getting there, but it gives an idea of what I'm after. 

 

That looks great, what plans do you have for the end of the sidings next to it?