Train spotting at Finsbury Square

[31A]

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

I saw that in the cabinet in Monkbar the other day while I was buying my Pilchard, I wondered whether you'd have one by now!

 

Thanks Stuart, had to be done!!

[Chas Levin]

16 hours ago, 31A said:

 

 

I know it's not the point of your post Steve, but I do like the advertising hoarding visible above and behind the loco - very much captures the look of the poster arrays of those times.

[31A]

3 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

I know it's not the point of your post Steve, but I do like the advertising hoarding visible above and behind the loco - very much captures the look of the poster arrays of those times.

 

Thank you Chas, glad you like it!  In reality I wish it wasn't there!

 

I put it on the side of the bridge before I'd decided to make a loco yard there; with hindsight I don't think it's a very suitable place for a poster hoarding, but it's well stuck on and I can't get it off.  There's another one on the other side of the bridge which is a more suitable location, but it doesn't get photographed very often.

I 'collected' the posters; some are ones that are available from model railway suppliers, others were culled from the internet and re-sized so that they printed out to scale.

 

[Chas Levin]

Ah - I hadn't thought of that, of it not facing a public area. Any chance that area was actually formerly something else, something that did have public access but which was then turned into the yard?

I have the luxury on my layout of total fiction and I can pretend anything is - or was - whatever I like, but I realise you are dealing with something a little less malleable...!

[31A]

24 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Any chance that area was actually formerly something else, something that did have public access but which was then turned into the yard?

 

Well that'd would be one explanation Chas - thanks for the idea!  In my defence Your Honour, pre WW2 there were adverts on the retaining wall above the turntable at King's Cross, but they were the enamel tin sort that didn't need changing, or get damaged by loco smoke!  I'm still thinking about it....

 

[31A]

But it hasn't all been retail therapy - there has been some modelling as well!

 

After over 20 years I thought it was time Finsbury Square had a proper signalbox.  Up to now, the signalling has been controlled from a very old Heljan kit.  It's still available today and now part of the Gaugemaster range, but they persist in describing it as a Great Western signalbox, whereas in reality it's quite a decent model of a Great NORTHERN Railway 'box; in fact it's probably based on the drawing of Biggleswade (South) 'box that was printed in the Augsut 1975 MRC.  The 'box at Finsbury Square is at the front of the layout with its back to the viewer so the plastic kit wasn't too much of an issue, although the roof slates are a bit chunky.  It looks a bit worse for wear now though!

 

 

Anyway, in 1992 D&S Models brought out an etched kit for a very similar 'box (or at least the top part of one), and I bought two.  I used one to make a smaller 'box (two thirds of the length) and put the other one away.  I decided its time had come, and I still had the spare 'third' from the first kit, so I would be able to make a longer, and suitably imposing, box for this layout.  As Finsbury Square is not a real place, the signalbox has an element of 'freelance' about it, but the overall dimensions come out very similar to those of Leeds 'A' box at Leeds Central station.

 

Here are the main parts set out.  Obviously one end had to be separated from the front.

 

 

And spliced and basically assembled:

 

 

With this kit you're on your own for the brick base, and the roof.  Hoping to make a solid base, I decided to use 1.5mm ply with Slater's brick embossed Plasticard laminated to it.  So here's the kit of parts for the brick base.

 

 

And braced on the inside with square stripwood.

 

 

And here is the woodwork finished, and the soldering likewise.  All the windows, the door, barge boards and finials.  Also the handrail round the front and sides.  Unfortunately there is one sliding window frame missing!  I'd nicked this when I built the first kit to make an extra window in the back.  I'll come back to that later!  The brass bit isn't fixed to the wooden bit yet, and won't be for a long time.

 

 

[Chas Levin]

Nicely done Sir! Multimedia Modelling at its best - and I'm sure it will provide a superb upgrade for the layout.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

Nicely done Sir! Multimedia Modelling at its best - and I'm sure it will provide a superb upgrade for the layout.

Yes, another building block in the illusion of reality.

[31A]

Talking of multi media, the next stage involved plastic work.

 

The brickwork is Slater's English Bond plasticard.  I bond it to plywood by painting a coat of neat PVA onto the wood.  Then when this has dried, I flood the back of the plasticard panel with solvent and press it onto the wood.  In this case I used Mek Pal but most sorts seem to work.  If laminating sheets of plasticard in this way you might expect the outer surface to melt, but when doing this that doesn't seem to happen - I guess maybe it sinks into the wood.  Anyway, the bond seems to be unbreakable!

 

The arched courses above the ground floor doors and windows were cut out prior to cutting out the walls, using an Olfa cutter.  Then, the brickwork for these made by cutting strips the height of the bricks from Evergreen 1.5mm planked styrene.  Then, cut right through from the top, almost to the bottom - doing this causes the strip to form an arch by itself, but it can easily be curved anyway to fit exactly into the aperture.

 

 

The next picture shows the brickwork completed, and a start made on the roof.  This is from Wills slates which I like for Victorian slate roofs their uniformity but dislike for the difficulty of joining the sheets!  I think I've done my best with this one; you can see where the sheets are joined by the solvent marks on the end nearest the camera but it's difficult to know how well you've done until you actually paint it!  The roof is still separate, and has its own trusses to keep it to shape.  The Wills sheets have been thinned down from the back to disguise the thickness, where they sit on the barge boards.  They still need trimming for length in this picture.

 

 

The girder above the rods opening is a piece of Evergreen styrene channel section.  The gutters are U section milled brass from Eileen's Emporium; these are surprisingly fragile and were quite difficult to fit!  The chimney was built up round a piece of Evergreen square tube.

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by 31A
Typo spotted!

[St Enodoc]

How did we manage before Evergreen?

[Mallard60022]

Neat stuff Steve. I expect that has been a satisfying build. I think the etched parts look excellent.

P

[TrevorP1]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

How did we manage before Evergreen?

 

We made a lot of scrap plastic!

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, TrevorP1 said:

 

We made a lot of scrap plastic!

Still do...

[mullie]

7 hours ago, TrevorP1 said:

 

We made a lot of scrap plastic!

Stretching sprue over a candle anyone?

[31A]

6 minutes ago, mullie said:

Stretching sprue over a candle anyone?

 

I don't think I've ever tried that, although I remember reading about it, mainly in model aircraft magazines.

[31A]

Thoughts then turned to the signal box stairs.  I wanted to use the Ratio Wooden Staircase kit, but I realised it wouldn't be long enough and I would have to splice two together.  A characteristic of GNR signal boxes played in my favour here; although you'd probably recognise one if you were looking at it, they were remarkably unstandardised, and some of the staircase arrangements were decidedly quirky.  Looking through "An Illustrated History of Great Northern Railway Signalling", I found a similar arrangement to what I had in mind at Ranskill, on the ECML north of Retford.  As far as I know the box is still there today, functioning as a level crossing box, but with modern replacement stairs.

 

Anyway, this is what I came up with as a way of splicing one and a half Ratio kits together, with a reasonably strong joint provided by the intermediate landing.

 

 

 

 And now painted and ready to attach to the box; the Bobby's Facilities come as part of the etched kit, with the roof again from Wills slates, filed down on the underside to reduce the thickness.

 

 

 

 

[Chas Levin]

22 hours ago, 31A said:

 

I don't think I've ever tried that, although I remember reading about it, mainly in model aircraft magazines.

I remember learning to do that in the 70s after reading about it in Gerald Scarborough's Airfix Modelling guide books, to make radio aerials for military vehicle kits!

[31A]

With things progressing nicely with the outside of the signal box, it was time to give some thought to the inside.  Did I mention, the 'box is at the front of the baseboard, and has no upstairs windows in its back.  And, I get bored with doing buildings when it comes to fitting out the interiors, and don't usually do it!  But there are limited views of the inside through the end windows, so I thought there ought to be some representation of a lever frame, at least.

 

I had used the Wills signal box interior kit for the last one I did, but it's relatively expensive and wouldn't have given me nearly enough levers - to have bought two kits would have resulted in a lot of left over bits.  So, I came up with this idea for making a lever frame:

 

 

Cutting the Ratio station fencing up thus gives sections of 16 levers.  Admittedly they're pretty basic levers with no representation of catch handles etc., but the won't be closely scrutinised and at least they're all straight and in line.  Then I curved the top of a strip of 60 thou plasticard to represent the frame, and stuck the lever sections along its edge.  The slots are represented by pieces of microstrip glued between the levers.

 

 

Drawings in "An Illustrated History of Great Northern Railway Signalling" show various items of signalbox furniture - battery cupboard, combined desk and notice board, and lockers so I got a bit carried away and made some of them too.

 

Then I got even more carried away (by men in white coats, ought to be!) and made some even more fiddly bits of furniture.

 

 

Belfast sink, cooker, stool and armchair.  The stool is made from a loco headcode disc and bits of wire, and the chair is made from a bit of brass with left over scraps of etched signal ladder for the legs and back.  In absence of 4mm scale Dexion, the legs for the sink and cooker are from left over bits of wire.

Did I mention, there are no windows in the back..... 

 

[great northern]

17 minutes ago, 31A said:

With things progressing nicely with the outside of the signal box, it was time to give some thought to the inside.  Did I mention, the 'box is at the front of the baseboard, and has no upstairs windows in its back.  And, I get bored with doing buildings when it comes to fitting out the interiors, and don't usually do it!  But there are limited views of the inside through the end windows, so I thought there ought to be some representation of a lever frame, at least.

 

I had used the Wills signal box interior kit for the last one I did, but it's relatively expensive and wouldn't have given me nearly enough levers - to have bought two kits would have resulted in a lot of left over bits.  So, I came up with this idea for making a lever frame:

 

 

Cutting the Ratio station fencing up thus gives sections of 16 levers.  Admittedly they're pretty basic levers with no representation of catch handles etc., but the won't be closely scrutinised and at least they're all straight and in line.  Then I curved the top of a strip of 60 thou plasticard to represent the frame, and stuck the lever sections along its edge.  The slots are represented by pieces of microstrip glued between the levers.

 

 

Drawings in "An Illustrated History of Great Northern Railway Signalling" show various items of signalbox furniture - battery cupboard, combined desk and notice board, and lockers so I got a bit carried away and made some of them too.

 

Then I got even more carried away (by men in white coats, ought to be!) and made some even more fiddly bits of furniture.

 

 

Belfast sink, cooker, stool and armchair.  The stool is made from a loco headcode disc and bits of wire, and the chair is made from a bit of brass with left over scraps of etched signal ladder for the legs and back.  In absence of 4mm scale Dexion, the legs for the sink and cooker are from left over bits of wire.

Did I mention, there are no windows in the back..... 

 

But there will be a bar of soap near the sink, so that the bobby can wash his hands properly, won't there?

[31A]

29 minutes ago, great northern said:

But there will be a bar of soap near the sink, so that the bobby can wash his hands properly, won't there?

 

Of course!!

[LNERGE]

On 04/02/2022 at 22:54, 31A said:

Thoughts then turned to the signal box stairs.  I wanted to use the Ratio Wooden Staircase kit, but I realised it wouldn't be long enough and I would have to splice two together.  A characteristic of GNR signal boxes played in my favour here; although you'd probably recognise one if you were looking at it, they were remarkably unstandardised, and some of the staircase arrangements were decidedly quirky.  Looking through "An Illustrated History of Great Northern Railway Signalling", I found a similar arrangement to what I had in mind at Ranskill, on the ECML north of Retford.  As far as I know the box is still there today, functioning as a level crossing box, but with modern replacement stairs.

 

Anyway, this is what I came up with as a way of splicing one and a half Ratio kits together, with a reasonably strong joint provided by the intermediate landing.

 

 

 

 And now painted and ready to attach to the box; the Bobby's Facilities come as part of the etched kit, with the roof again from Wills slates, filed down on the underside to reduce the thickness.

 

 

 

 

I saw your steps and thought of this…

 

 

[31A]

10 minutes ago, LNERGE said:

I saw your steps and thought of this…

 

 

 

Thank you; yes that's one of the ones I had in mind!  Although it's a bit taller than mine.  I think Hitchin Yard box also had a quirky arrangement, although that was another tall box.

[LNERGE]

I have part of the lever frame from Hitchin Yard box lol. A favourite location of mine. March East has an interesting staircase. 

[31A]

2 hours ago, LNERGE said:

I have part of the lever frame from Hitchin Yard box lol.

I'm sure it's got better levers in it than mine! 

[LNERGE]

I’m dead impressed with yours. I’m looking forward to seeing the box finished.