Dundee East - formerly 'Scottish terminus diorama'

[Orion]

That's starting to look pretty good. Just a few comments to polish things off...?

 

I would lower the platforms. They would be quite low in early days. If you look closely at the  interior shots, there appears to be a step down at all the doorways from the then current platform height - typical of early stations that have have their platforms raised. When the station was first built there would likely have been level access.

 

Also, looking at the interior view after the track was lifted,  the girders appear to protrude from the station walls a bit lower than you have drawn and still be visible right down to platform level, as if the stone side walls were built between the girders, not covering them entirely,

 

All doors and windows along the side should have flat tops not rounded.

 

Sorry for being picky!

[Dunalastair]

13 hours ago, Orion said:

I would lower the platforms. They would be quite low in early days. If you look closely at the  interior shots, there appears to be a step down at all the doorways from the then current platform height - typical of early stations that have have their platforms raised. When the station was first built there would likely have been level access.

 

Also, looking at the interior view after the track was lifted,  the girders appear to protrude from the station walls a bit lower than you have drawn and still be visible right down to platform level, as if the stone side walls were built between the girders, not covering them entirely,

 

All doors and windows along the side should have flat tops not rounded.

 

Thankyou for the useful feedback. 

 

I have indeed now lowered the platforms. I'm not sure when the current higher platform standard came in, but if I am representing the earliest period, then a lower  platform seems appropriate - it might have been raised when the concourse was created.

 

I have now printed the walls with the doors and windows, so i will probably stick with the round topped doors and windows - I think I recognised this earlier in my posts. As to the 'girders to the platform surface', I'm not sure that the difference would be very apparent at 1:200, and again I would rather not have to reprint the walls. An initial semicircular girder printed this morning - the rest will hopefully follow after the platform which is currently on the printer.

 

My quick-build dioramas tend to be a little approximate, due to a combination of scale, printer limitations and learning through the design, but if I can achieve an impression of the original then I like to think that the project was worthwhile. 'Picky' comments are useful, if only to point up the compromises (and errors) which I have made.

 

This will be a static 1:200 representation of the original, but even at 1:76, Dundee East was a compact prototype and would seem likely to make an interesting model, always allowing for the constraints of operating under an overall roof. It would be especially good to see an operating model in the original condition. Has it not been done?

[Orion]

I did think about a model once in 2mm scale, hence my interest in your great project. The main problem for me was the overall site, which lacks visual appeal - and the problem of dealing with trains under that roof.

[Dunalastair]

In 2mm, the yards might also have fitted, but then, yes, it might be difficult to draw a clear boundary, what with the mineral depot, Camperdown junction, the line to Tay Bridge and the Docks. Operating might work with a pilot, if uncoupling could be reliably arranged, but running around might be awkward under a roof.

 

I have now printed most of the pieces, including the five girders. My slightly upscaled 2-2-2 is not quite right for Dundee (it was designed for an Edinburgh project but should do, if only viewed under the girders. Being a pioneer in the design of locomotives, Dundee had some interesting machines. the Earl of Airlie was a different gauge (though still not SG when built) so would not have appeared on the Arbroath company's rails.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Airlie_(locomotive)

 

Now there is a locomotive for the Dapol / Hornby wishlist ...

 

Edited May 2 by Dunalastair

[Orion]

The Dundee & Newtyle would make an interesting project for you after this one - either the south entrance to Law Tunnel with its winding house and incline, or the Dundee terminus. You would have the excuse to model 'Earl of Airlie' then.

[Dunalastair]

9 minutes ago, Orion said:

The Dundee & Newtyle would make an interesting project for you after this one - either the south entrance to Law Tunnel with its winding house and incline, or the Dundee terminus. You would have the excuse to model 'Earl of Airlie' then.

 

I have thought about it previously, and it would better suit my original interest of narrow gauge - albeit only narrow by a smidgeon. I didn't think that locos generally worked down the incline to the original terminus?

 

 

There is a nice 3D animation of the D&N and the Earl with its vertical drive at

 https://digitaldirtvirtualpasts.wordpress.com/2018/02/27/dundee-to-newtyle-railway-making-of/

 

[JohnR]

4 minutes ago, Dunalastair said:

 

I have thought about it previously, and it would better suit my original interest of narrow gauge - albeit only narrow by a smidgeon. I didn't think that locos generally worked down the incline to the original terminus?

 

 

There is a nice 3D animation of the D&N and the Earl with its vertical drive at

 https://digitaldirtvirtualpasts.wordpress.com/2018/02/27/dundee-to-newtyle-railway-making-of/

 

 

Must have been some form of locomotive to move wagons through the streets to the harbour (as you can seen in the photograph, the line in the foreground)

 

[Orion]

I think I read somewhere that horses were used along the streets to the harbour rather than locos.

[Dunalastair]

51 minutes ago, Orion said:

I think I read somewhere that horses were used along the streets to the harbour rather than locos.

 

That was my understanding of what happened in the earliest days. Wiki describes how the harbour line only opened in 1837, with horse traction. In 1861, the Law incline was bypassed and the original terminus was one of Scotland's earlier closures, along with Edinburgh's Canal Street, which I modelled previously.

 

Moving from the barely narrow gauge to the slightly broad gauge line (albeit changed to SG by the time of the opening of the East station), here is the kit of parts for the 1:200 diorama, a little over 100mm long. Note the glazing in the end screen and the lowered platforms.

 

 

One issue with such early prototypes relates to colours. In the case of some of the the better known lines there were at least paintings / coloured lithographs, but the D&AR seems to have lived its early years in monochrome. I am tempted to paint the girders in 'hull red', as Dundee was a ship building city, but I suspect that they would have been black.

 

[25kV]

That looks amazing! 

[Orion]

I suspect the whole interior was very dirty, what with all the smoke.

 

Have you ever seen the Burntisland 1883 P4 layout? That is based in 1883 and may give an idea of the colour palate available in early Scottish railway days. There are lots of photos of it online and I would imagine it was thoroughly researched.

 

Lots of information about Victorian era paint colours generally are online too. 

 

Various shades of brown might be a reasonable bet for the overall colour scheme, in the absence of definitive proof.

[Dunalastair]

Yes, brown! I took a 'streetview' tour on Bing maps of what remains of that part of the city of jute, jam and journalism, and the stonework (much now cleaned up after two centuries of smoke) was indeed generally brown - noticeably more so than the grey of Edinburgh or Aberdeen - more indeed like parts of Glasgow. Though I am using quick-drying Tamiya acrylics, the painting needs a fair number of stages, including tidying after brushes go where not intended. The 1:200 loco is especially fiddly, though not as bad as the previous 1:300 version.  I am probably about halfway through now, but I am away for the bank holiday weekend so there will be a pause for a few days. 

 

I have not seen the marvellous Burntisland layout layout in the flesh, but I have enjoyed various photographs and videos of it. It provides inspiration for models of the 19th century railways which we now seldom see represented, sadly. But even 1883 and Bouch's train ferries could be seen as 'modern image' compared to 1858, never mind the days when Dundee had railways with three different gauges. 

[john new]

On 29/04/2024 at 11:13, Dunalastair said:

 

Thankyou - yes, I looked at that, but the pricetag put me off. That, and the fact that I am trying to dispose of books, not buy more. The shelves and the floor joists are already groaning ... Still, good to know that is a good resource.   

Just a thought - is there a copy as e-book/PDF or similar?

[Dunalastair]

So after some painting and assembly, this was the result :

 

 

I may yet experiment with some (probably very cruel at 1:200 scale) closeups, but these hopefully show what I was aiming at.

[DarthHelix]

Looks great

What are the dimensions of it?

Regards

[Dunalastair]

6 hours ago, DarthHelix said:

Looks great

What are the dimensions of it?

Regards

 

Thankyou for the kind words.

 

Putting a ruler on it to check this morning is came out at 104x85mm

 

The perennial issue with a larger version is lack of space. 

[DarthHelix]

That's tiny!

Very impressed with detail, especially the screen

[Dunalastair]

On 09/05/2024 at 17:52, Dunalastair said:

 

... I may yet experiment with some (probably very cruel at 1:200 scale) closeups ...

 

 

So here are four of those cruel closeups : early days at Dundee East station.

 

 

 

 

 

Not many customers today - the last service trains must have departed and the loco will head for the sheds when the crew have finished talking to the stationmaster. Note the low platforms as per the useful suggestion earlier in the thread.

 

I will also now post some of the photographs in the 'dioramas' thread.