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It Looks Better on the Big Screen


Ravenser

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You may have noticed in these postings occasional mutters that "I must build the screen walls for the station" . In most postings in this blog , in fact.

 

Well, with the electrics more or less done (only the Kadee electromagnets and a couple of signals remain to nag at my conscience) I've finally attacked what is the last big scenic job on the layout. Quite a bit of tidying up, fettling and detail work remains but this is the last big block of new construction

 

Here we have the back screen wall - the remains of a former trainshed - under construction. Main materials are mounting board and Howard Scenics brickpaper, treated with pastel crayon (Terracotta) to redden it

 

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And here is the vaguely ecclesiatic end elevation of the old trainshed, facing out towards Artamon Square, under construction

 

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The lancet windows (echoes of Liverpool St) were worrying me a little , but a peek in Observer Book of cathedrals revealed that the real things are based on an equallateral triangle. Place your compass point at the top of the vertical on one side of the window, and strike an arc upwards from the top of the vertical on the other side of the window. Turn the compasses round, repeat the process from the top of the other side. Where the two arcs intersect is the top of your arch. Cut carefully along the drawn arcs - bingo, a lancet . Phew

 

The door is a spare from the Scalescenes Retaining wall/archway kit

 

Only two sides are finished , but the improvement is dramatic:

 

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In the second view you can see the unfinished section of the wall - this still needs external brick pilasters adding , plus the brickpaper to represent the bricked up former windows . For this I have used Superquick red brick , toned down with pastels (Burnt Sienna, Terracotta) and the arches are from the Prototype models brickpaper sheets (red again, with pastel weathering). It is assumed the LMR Architects Dept vandalised the original station in the late 50s/early 60s. The gap will be taken up by the surviving station building, which is supposed to act as a "viewblocker" at this edge of the layout (I'm not entirely certain about the concept , now I come to execute it, but I hope it adds rather than detracts from the visual impression.)

 

Just how all this has transformed the station and made it gel can be seen by comparison with an earlier show of the same area:

 

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Although width is desperately restricted , I have managed to space the rear wall off the backscene slightly - very slightly where it passes in front of the brown brick office - but enough for there to be a small gap between the wall and the backscene , meaning that the backscene is visibly somewhere behind it

 

Giving a station this small a trainshed is not in fact implausible . Lincoln St Marks (ex Midland) - which could only take 3 Mk3s on the platform - clearly originally had one , and in its later days had it removed:

 

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and this seems to have been a pretty standard scenario for medium sized stations built in Lincolnshire during the late 1840s:

 

New Holland Town (MSLR - opened 1848)

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Market Rasen (MSLR opened 1848):

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(Gainsborough Central follows the same pattern)

 

Louth (GNR opened 1848 - here , as typically on the GNR , the roof was a two pitched affair , supported by cast iron pillars between the tracks )

blogentry-80-0-79608600-1312126467_thumb.jpg

 

with Boston being similar

 

Firsby retained its overall roof until closure in 1970 , and possibly Alford Town may have done the same (all GNR 1848)

 

In fact the only surviving overall roof is Grimsby Town (again MSLR 1848) which was renewed in 1976

 

I've leant more to MSLR practice as those are the examples I'm most familiar with, although lacklade is supposed to be an ex MR station

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