Dundee East - formerly 'Scottish terminus diorama'

[Dunalastair]

Having completed my Liverpool Overhead PIer Head station model, I have now been playing with a 3D design for another possible diorama, putatively at a scale of 1:200. This is based on a distinctive Scottish terminus which is sadly no longer with us. That end screen is distinctive - any suggestions of where the original might have been? 

 

 

I'm not sure if this will be printable, especially as my printer is currently having problems with larger components, but it might just work.

[turbos]

23 minutes ago, Dunalastair said:

Having completed my Liverpool Overhead PIer Head station model, I have now been playing with a 3D design for another possible diorama, putatively at a scale of 1:200. This is based on a distinctive Scottish terminus which is sadly no longer with us. That end screen is distinctive - any suggestions of where the original might have been? 

 

 

I'm not sure if this will be printable, especially as my printer is currently having problems with larger components, but it might just work.

That looks like Dundee East station with its original end screen.

 

Brian.

[Dunalastair]

40 minutes ago, turbos said:

That looks like Dundee East station with its original end screen.

 

Brian.

 

 

That did not take long. Right in one.

 

 

The postwar changes were not an improvement.

 

https://www.dundeemaritime.co.uk/DockSt

 

I have only found a couple of images so far showing the interior - possibly because it would have been dark for photography before faster films were available.

Edited April 28 by Dunalastair

[Dunalastair]

Do we know whether there was a matching screen at the other (East)  end? All the images I have found taken from the East seem to be from the postwar period after the screens had been replaced. It would not affect the diorama, as I am only modelling the last few bays of the overall roof, and with a foreshortened concourse at that, but it would be good to be able to picture it in its original condition. I have currently modelled the track with the sleepers buried, as it might have been when opened in 1858. The Dundee & Arbroath was of course originally a broad gauge (5' 6") line but had been re-gauged when Dundee East was built.

[Dunalastair]

A little more detail has been added to the 3D model, and I have added a blocky representation of an early locomotive borrowed from an earlier still smaller scale 3D model (Scotland Street if I remember correctly). 

 

 

The next stage if this is going anywhere beyond the computer is probably a test print on the end screen, which is near the resolution limit. I will also try renaming the thread and seeing if that flushes out any more information on the prototype in its earlier days.

[JohnR]

For further information, you cant do better than Naill Fergusson's recent book on the Dundee & Arbroath railway. 

[Dunalastair]

39 minutes ago, JohnR said:

For further information, you cant do better than Naill Fergusson's recent book on the Dundee & Arbroath railway. 

 

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.   

[Dunalastair]

I do have an interior image in The Last Trains (4) East Central Scotland (Moorfoot 1982). That looks from the West. There is another looking from the East, with the original screen so pre-war :

 

https://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/threads/dundee-old-railway-line.6791/

 

The SCRAN (https://www.scran.ac.uk/) original is behind a paywall, and while there is a thumbnail of another image it did not look very different. A little more detail can be made out using a photo editor. I now notice that the doors and windows are square topped, not round.

[Orion]

Have you looked at maps on the National Library of Scotland site. I think the have high resolution plans with interior detail in the town maps series.

[Dunalastair]

3 hours ago, Orion said:

Have you looked at maps on the National Library of Scotland site. I think the have high resolution plans with interior detail in the town maps series.

 

Yes, I have, thankyou. There is a beautifully drawn 1:500 sheet dated 1858, which would be just after the station was opened.

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/74415343

 

[25kV]

5 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

I do have an interior image in The Last Trains (4) East Central Scotland (Moorfoot 1982). That looks from the West. There is another looking from the East, with the original screen so pre-war :

 

https://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/threads/dundee-old-railway-line.6791/

 

The SCRAN (https://www.scran.ac.uk/) original is behind a paywall, and while there is a thumbnail of another image it did not look very different. A little more detail can be made out using a photo editor. I now notice that the doors and windows are square topped, not round.

Looking at this image, it would also appear that the screen wall follows a different curve to the roof trusses, and probably stands slightly proud of it at the end.  This may also explain why the rebuilt station has a lower profile to the wall - only being built as high as the overall roof.

[Dunalastair]

22 minutes ago, 25kV said:

Looking at this image, it would also appear that the screen wall follows a different curve to the roof trusses, and probably stands slightly proud of it at the end.  This may also explain why the rebuilt station has a lower profile to the wall - only being built as high as the overall roof.

 

Yes, that has been puzzling me, and I think that my 3D design is not altogether as it should be. Most photographs are 'head on' but this image (ironically from the marketing for Niall Ferguson's book, but credit to Dundee Library Local History Section) seems to confirm what you are pointing out. The right hand end (the East end) does not seem to have the same 'proud' profile as the left / West. I'm not altogether sure that the roof is all curved - in this view it could be angled (with the beams sitting on the curved roof truss) either in one plane or more, with a glass 'lantern' at the top, shown more clearly in the Moorfoot book interior view. That would suggest that the screen was for show, and the other end probably simpler.

 

https://lightmoor.co.uk/books/the-dundee-arbroath-railway/L9177

Edited April 29 by Dunalastair

[25kV]

39 minutes ago, Dunalastair said:

 

Yes, that has been puzzling me, and I think that my 3D design is not altogether as it should be. Most photographs are 'head on' but this image (ironically from the marketing for Niall Ferguson's book, but credit to Dundee Library Local History Section) seems to confirm what you are pointing out. The right hand end (the East end) does not seem to have the same 'proud' profile as the left / West. I'm not altogether sure that the roof is all curved - in this view it could be angled (with the beams sitting on the curved roof truss) either in one plane or more, with a glass 'lantern' at the top, shown more clearly in the Moorfoot book interior view. That would suggest that the screen was for show, and the other end probably simpler.

 

https://lightmoor.co.uk/books/the-dundee-arbroath-railway/L9177

Yes, that seems to be the case.

 

Looking at the interior view plus this one, the roof appears to be a series of perhaps 6 flat surfaces mounted on the semi-circular beams inside.  Something like this:

 

Obviously distorted due to perspective, but purple is the semi-circular girder shape, and yellow roughly the walls / roof angles, as suggested by the angle of the boards / other structural elements.  I'm not certain about the 2nd and 5th roof panels (between the glass areas and the lower angled boards) - the photo isn't really clear enough, but is suggestive.

[Dunalastair]

15 hours ago, 25kV said:

Yes, that seems to be the case.

 

Looking at the interior view plus this one, the roof appears to be a series of perhaps 6 flat surfaces mounted on the semi-circular beams inside.  Something like this:

 

Obviously distorted due to perspective, but purple is the semi-circular girder shape, and yellow roughly the walls / roof angles, as suggested by the angle of the boards / other structural elements.  I'm not certain about the 2nd and 5th roof panels (between the glass areas and the lower angled boards) - the photo isn't really clear enough, but is suggestive.

 

Useful diagram, thankyou. The photograph in 'Last Trains' bears out this suggestion. I have been playing with the design' lowering the girders. Comparing with the photograph suggests that they should be lower still, but the general appearance is now a little closer.

 

[Orion]

Just a thought, but does the post-ww2 front screen follow more closely the overall roof profile? Comparing old and new photos earlier in this topic suggest the new screen is lower than the old one.

[Dunalastair]

5 hours ago, Orion said:

Just a thought, but does the post-ww2 front screen follow more closely the overall roof profile? Comparing old and new photos earlier in this topic suggest the new screen is lower than the old one.

 

It certainly does appear lower, but just to add confusion, this less than clear image from Facebook seems to show the original screen between the wars (judging by the motor car) from an elevated perspective (probably the police / harbour office). Unlike most of the other images I have seen, to my eye the roof seems to be very little lower than the screen, and the roof appears curved rather than flat.

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=578252672198625&set=dundee-east-train-station

 

So could the roof have been rebuilt more than once? Angled in the early days, curved between the wars, and possibly angled again in later years? That theory seems to fail the Occam's Razor test ...

 

Edited April 30 by Dunalastair

[Dunalastair]

This was the render after further tweaks to the geometry (girders now much lower) and an indicative pair of angled roofs, but before the Facebook image put doubt in my mind ...

 

[Orion]

have you seen these?

 

 

[Orion]

and this

 

[Dunalastair]

The second one, yes, but not the first or third, thankyou. The third provides a clear and useful (if sad) view of what was evidently the final condition of the roof, judging by the lifted track. I wonder what happened to the clock when the building was demolished. 

 

The printer has just completed a trial for the screen, and resolved better than I was expecting. I will have to make up my mind about how to represent the rest of the building. I'm still not sure how a screen projecting above the roof would have worked - would there have been blanking behind the section above the roof? None of the front views seem to show the sky through the upper part of the screen. Such little mysteries add a touch of spice to an otherwise relatively straightforward project.

[Orion]

Britain From Above has a few distant images of the station, but the resolution is very poor. One suggests a strong shadow behind the facade, but not much else

 

SPW019936 SCOTLAND (1927). Dundee, general view, showing King William IV Dock and Tidal Harbour. An oblique aerial photograph taken facing north. | Britain From Above

 

SPW019937 SCOTLAND (1927). Dundee, general view, showing Earl Grey Dock, King William IV Dock and Tidal Harbour. An oblique aerial photograph taken facing north. | Britain From Above

 

SPW019939 SCOTLAND (1927). Dundee, general view, showing Earl Grey Dock, King William IV Dock and Tidal Harbour. An oblique aerial photograph taken facing north. | Britain From Above

 

SPW042541 SCOTLAND (1933). Dundee, general view, showing Victoria and Camperdown Docks and Dundee Law. An oblique aerial photograph taken facing north-west. | Britain From Above

 

 

 

 

[25kV]

4 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

 

It certainly does appear lower, but just to add confusion, this less than clear image from Facebook seems to show the original screen between the wars (judging by the motor car) from an elevated perspective (probably the police / harbour office). Unlike most of the other images I have seen, to my eye the roof seems to be very little lower than the screen, and the roof appears curved rather than flat.

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=578252672198625&set=dundee-east-train-station

 

So could the roof have been rebuilt more than once? Angled in the early days, curved between the wars, and possibly angled again in later years? That theory seems to fail the Occam's Razor test ...

 

 

I think the curved roof appearance is an optical illusion caused by the front and rear screens being outside the line of the roof segments (with the front one being considerably higher, as already established).  Zooming in, it's possible to infer the same six-section outer roof segments against the back screen curve (yellow outline).

Extending the centre line of the roof through the front screen (red lines) shows that it passes the centre line of the front screen (green vertical) somewhere around the short yellow line, maybe giving a rough indication of the height of the peak relative to the screen.

 

[Orion]

It takes a lot of imagination, but I suspect from the aerial photos that the high glazed area at the apex of the roof didn't extend all the way from the end screens and the very ends of the roof, behind the end screens were a bit lower.

 

Also, the east end screen profile looks lower than the west end.

 

This image shows the way the west end sticks up above the roof best. Not sure what the dark patch in the middle of the roof is though - maybe a repair works of some kind. This is absent from the other aerial images. This photo also appears to show a distinct 'crease' where the roof changes angle.

 

 

Another thing to be aware of, this early photo shows taller ornaments - maybe lamps? on the end towers - and a flag pole - and the ground level part of the facade looks different to later photos too.  Notice the doorways are arched and there are 3 windows set in a solid (stone?) screen. This station is a real can of worms!

 

[Dunalastair]

Nicely observed, @Orion, thankyou. That blowup of the aerial image provides clear evidence of the facade arch projecting above the roof, and I can now visualise how it might have been arranged. As to the lower image, I had looked at that photograph before without spotting that the windows and doorways were so different. I wonder why the facade was changed? One clue might be the 1858 town plan at https://maps.nls.uk/view/74415320 which indeed seems to show the three window embrasures.

 

 

That also shows that there was almost no concourse, with the buffer stops very close to the screen. I did previously wonder if this might have been a draughting error related to the awkward sheet boundary location, but given the quality of OS work at that time that seems unlikely. I wonder now if the screen might have been rebuilt at the same time as a larger concourse was created? At this date, the link I posted earlier (https://maps.nls.uk/view/74415343) to the other side of the sheet boundary also shows shorter platforms, without the outer faces which made this a four platform station in later years. It may be that the platforms were extended (and multiplied) at the same time, as trains got longer and traffic increased when the Forfar direct line was built. Traffic was later transferred to the Tay Bridge station, through the tunnel when the bypass line was built, but being originally from Edinburgh rather than Dundee, I'm not sure what the sequence might have been. More worms! 

 

Identifying an earlier design for the screen is timely, as that may be the next component for a trial print. My current plan is for a much-simplified (as is my usual way) and small scale diorama framed and viewed from the inside of the station, which limits how much of the exterior I need to represent. I would, however, like to get the geometry something like correct.

 

 

[Dunalastair]

Following the earlier discussion, I have changed the screen to represent the three-window stone version, removed the internal wooden screen and pushed the buffers further back. All now much simpler. Some general simplification relates to how a model assembly might work. Hopefully those thicker side walls might now better resist the sideways forces of the arched girders.