Jump to content
RMweb
 

James Harrison

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,116

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by James Harrison

  1. James Harrison

    Works update

    By James Harrison,

    Not really much to show, but a lot has been going on this week. Trouble is, it's mostly been things I've talked about before...
     
    First up, I've completed my rake of GCR stock. These were four hackbashes of Mainline LMS stock into GCR 'lookalikes'. I'm now the proud owner of a pair of brake thirds, a composite and an all-first. Of course, this was before I found that GC expresses generally ran to five carriages of the order brake third, restaurant first, composite, open third and brake third. I've bought another Mainline carriage to convert to a 1909-built open third, which should complement my existing rake which are based upon 1911 stock. As to the restaurant first, I don't think there's an appropriate drawing in George Dow's three-volume history, but I think there is a drawing of a restaurant composite. That, or I could drop lucky on a photograph.
     
    Work has progressed on 'Centenary'. The painting of the tender is now finished and the tender itself now awaits coal rails (which I can't find available anywhere...) and a coal load. The locomotive has been given a few coats of the same apple green to achieve a decent match in colour and tone between loco and tender and is now awaiting it's boiler bands to be properly lined out. Then it will need the window openings painted, windows glazed, loco number applied to the bufferbeam, varnishing and weathering.
  2. James Harrison
    A few weeks since the last update and I'm pleased to say the model is, for all intents and purposes, finished!
     

     

     
     
    The model was painted using Humbrol acrylics and Revell enamels. The apple green was made up using a single coat of Revell 'leaf green' which was then given three coats of Humrol 'apple green', because the Humbrol colour is so thin as to need a bit of help to get a decent deep colour.
     
    I found some Hornby handrail on that well-known internet auction site and used a wire bending jog to get it to bend to shape. It is not quite right but a lot closer than previous attempts....
     
    I always have problems when it comes to lining. Boiler bands and long straights are no problem, but when it comes to cab cut-outs.... This time I experimented a little. The boiler bands were made up by myself, a biro line on a length of white paper cut to size, rolled and glued into position. HMRS pressfix was used on the tender. When it came to the cab I used a paint-pen. After a few attempts I eschewed the black edging and just put in the white inside line (if good enough for Hornby....)
     
    As I couldn't find nameplates for 'Immingham' anywhere I opted for one of her un-named sisters, so this is no. 6103.
     
    Overall I'm very pleased with how it's turned out- and even contemplating replacing both my 'Jersey Lily' and 'Fish' engines with locos built using the same method of hack-bashing.
  3. James Harrison
    I've made a fair bit of progress since last time:
     

     

     
    Let's start with the tender.
     
    Believe it or not, I've managed to re-use the B12 tender... I had to saw the chassis into three, and then use 2mm square plastic strip to lengthen it and also give the appearance of the tank being lower than it actually is. The tank itself was sawn in half and the fake coal sawn away (along with all of the top of the tank). I was then able to insert a 7mm length of plastic sheet between the two halves and then overlay 0.5mm sheet over the tank sides to commence th transformation. I've taken this a stage or two further and added more 2mm square strip, around the top of the tank sides, so that eventually I can run some milliput along the tank top to get the curved outer edge to the tender.
     
    Moving forward onto the lcoomotive proper, One thing I have done is use 0.5mm sheet to give a homogenous edge to the running plate. Plainly it still needs work but already it looks better for losing the 'three-penny bit' effect along the edge of the running plate. I've used 0.64mm plastic rod for the steampipe along the boiler, but personally I think this looks too small- short of replacing it (a real chore now that the only model shop in Birmingham that I knew to stock 1mm rod has closed down), I'm not sure what I can do about this. Boiler bands have been added from paper strips.
     
    It looks much better just for being painted up in primer- even if this does bring out all of the gaps and rough edges- but then again that's why I've painted it!
     
    Next step(s) clearly will be to get the rougher bits sanded out and smoothed down.
  4. James Harrison
    No paint on yet but we're nearing the point where we'll need o break out the brushes!
     
    Frustratingly I cam to fit a few parts tonight and couldn't find the materials... the steampipe down the drivers' side of the boiler needs 1mm plastic rod (I had a few odds and ends of this stuff left after my first GC clerestory carriage, but between putting it away a few weeks ago and coming to use it tonight it has done a disappearing act) and I need to buy ome new handrail (on order from an Eba supplier).
     
    Boiler fittings are from the Craftsman range of whitemetal castings and I'm very happy with them. I think actually this is the third or fourth model these particular parts or at least the chimney and dome, have been fitted to- a pair of scratchbuilt Directors (since scrapped) and my first iteration of a Jersey Lily, I think.
     
    The front bufferbeam was a little involved- it comes off of a Hornby Patriot, if you can believe it! It had to be cut free from the Patriot moulding, then filed and cut down further to suit the B4, and then needed drilling out to accept the buffers- Robinson round pattern whitemetal castings, again from Craftsman.
     
    Anyway; photos!
     

     

     

  5. James Harrison
    Suddenly the model starts to look like a locomotive again, rather than a pile of scrap....
     

     
    What I have added here, if you can't see from the photo (damn plastic sheet being white and the photo being backlit!), are the splashers. Interesting fact is that the radius of a £2 coin is pretty much bang-on for a 4mm scale version of the splashers- so just draw around one and then measure 6.5mm down from the edge and cut a straight line, bingo!
     
    I cut the splasher faces from 0.5mm plastic sheet, and backed these onto a laminate of 2.5mm plastic bars, to bulk them out enough not to look wrong when matched up with the cab. They were then simply glued straight to the splashers on the donor model, and given a coat of model putty to blend them in.
     
    The splashers over the rear drivers of course are more involved as they fair into the cabsides. Here I again lucked out, because I found an old Edwardian propelling pencil with a radius that matches that of the curve from the splasher to the cabsides, and also the radius of the curve of the cabside down to the running plate. Again these were cut out from 0.5 sheet and glued to the donor model.
     
    It's certainly gaining that graceful Robinson appearance now.
  6. James Harrison
    Last time I showed how I'd hacked up a B12 and a Patriot to form the basis of a B4 'Immingham'.
     
    I think we've turned the corner in that we've started to fit the bits back together, though there is still an awful lot to do...
     

     
    The firebox clearly needs bulking out, and then the retained running plate needs cutting down and reattaching, and the cab needs reprofiling....
  7. James Harrison
    The newest project is my last planned locomotive for this year, and is a B4 or 'Immingham' class 4-6-0.
     
    This will use bodies from a Hornby B12 and Patriot, and a chassis from the Hornby B12.
     
    The chassis is actually the easiest part to do; in hindsight I should perhaps have done this model first, rather than leaving it this late- both my Jersey Lily and B5 use the same chassis but with major modification that were great headaches at the time. With the B4 all that is necessary is to cut down the gap between the bogie and the driving wheels a little, and add a set of Bachmann 'O4' motion.
     
     

     
    This done I moved onto the bodies. Breaking out my Charles Reddy drawing of the Imminghams and matching it up to the loco bodies, and remembering how I did my Jersey Lily, the B12 body was swiftly reduced to the parts I can use. Basically I cut away the frames below the running plate, including the bufferbeam, and then made a vertical in the boiler just behind the second to last boiler band. When I reached the splashers I stopped, put a vertical cut through the running plate just behind the middle splasher, and then made a small diagonal cut to bring the two together. At a later date I need to cut away the lowered front end of the running plate and bring it up level with the splashers.
     

     
    The Patriot body is similarly cut, though in this instance straight through immediately in front of the firebox. The firebox is noticeably too long but luckily there is a boiler band on it at just the right point. So we use this as a guide and cut the front of the firebox away (it is the front end of it that we shall be using). After this operation you should have the cab end of the Patriot with about 4mm of firebox still moulded on to it; cut this away and you end up with the basis of the cab.
     

     
    Next time I'll be carefully sanding and filing these three components to get a nice joint between them all, and taking a chunk out of the boiler barrel so that I can move the smokebox back by 3mm or so...
  9. James Harrison
    I reckon this looks quite good.
     
    I built a very rudimentary interior from scraps of plastic sheet and balsa wood, repainted the body in a solid light brown then brush painted a very thin coat of dark brown over the top- this I think works much better than my previous method of teaking as used on the Robinson mainline stock.
     
    Still to do obviously is the roof and the detailing there, the ventilators above the doors and lavatories and the numbers and insignia, but it is practically there...
  10. James Harrison
    After posting my last instalment, and feeling fairly pleased with myself, I then found I had in fact been more than a little foolish and had to pay for it by going back and starting over.
     
    Basically, using white putty was a good idea- for a brake van. For forming new window pillars however it is about as useful as dust.... it crumbled. Badly.
     
    There was nothing for it but to remove the putty, cut out the remnants of the middle three compartments, and then rebuild in plastic sheet. Luckily this was a simple procedure and things quickly progressed- by fitting laminates of plastic sheet I quickly rebuilt the window pillars and reached the stage of fitting beading, for which I'm using 1mm plastic rod which, once fitted, is given a going-over with solvent to soften and reform the plastic, to try to get away from the circular cross section.
     

     

  11. James Harrison

    Carriage 6672

    By James Harrison,

    I've always wondered just how much work is involved in converting old Hornby short clerestories into Edwardian GCR suburban carriages. I've read it can be done, and I've seen one or two projects achieving just such a feat. I've also read in Peter Denny's 'Buckingham Great Central' that the amount of work involved meant his rake of three took as long as a scratchbuild would have done whilst giving him much less pleasure.
     
    You can perhaps get a better understanding of my curiosity when I tell you I've no fewer than seven of these carriages in my projects box, and have been saying to myself since January that this year I will crack on with them.
     
    Now my main problem is a lack of drawings, especially of the brake carriages. There are two drawn in George Dow's 'Great Central Railway', volume 3, of which one is an 8-compartment all-third and the other a 6-compartment composite lavatory. Now I'd be perfectly happy to let a Hornby 7-compartment clerestory do duty repainted, detailed and numbered to masquerade as the all-third but the composite intrigues me. It strikes me that the conversions descrived to date follow the lines of a repaint, changing some details and then renumbering, but what I haven't seen yet (and admittedly I've not done all that much digging) is a conversion where somebody takes the donor carriage and really 'goes to town', as it were, to produce one of the more, ahem, unusual designs.
     
    Which is exactly why I've chosen this 6-compartment composite for the first of my rake to undergo conversion....
     
    The first step is to take the carriage apart (the roof unscrews and the bogies unclip) and then work at it with some T-cut to get the transfers off. Considering how difficult this was on Centenary I was quite surprised how easily they dissolved and came away this time around.
     
    Now then; from each end of the carriage we work in two compartments. These we leave well alone- they become the four third class compartments of the finished model. The next compartment along we leave the left-hand window of one and the right-hand window of the other alone. These become the lavatory windows. Now what we do is to take some milliput or white filler, and fill in the remaining windows in the middle of the carriage body. There will be two windows each in the third and fifth compartments to fill and the entirety of the fourth.
     
    Once this has set we can set-to with a dremel and sandpaper, and start sanding the middle of the carriage smooth. Because the beading has to alter it is probably best to remove it from the middle of the carriage and replace it with microstrip later. Once this is done we should end up with something like this...
     

     
    We can then turn our attentions upon the roof. There aren't really any roof details shown on the Dow drawing, so I decided to remove just the details that are obviously GWR and then have a look through my books of GCR photographs to see if I can find a decent photo of the roof details. So I removed the ventilators and the rainstrip to the clerestory. It still needs the gaps in the sides filling in.
     

  12. James Harrison

    A minuet

    By James Harrison,

    Now for one of my smaller projects....
     
    A few months ago I bought an F1/ F2 off of ebay. The body I thought was sublime but sadly the same couldn't be said of the chassis. In particular, the wheels were woefully under-sized.
     

     
    I began by taking the wheels off (and ripping my fingers and thumbs basically to shreds in the process- who knew that bunt brass flanges make excellent knife blades?)
     
    I then replaced them with spares from a Hornby M7, and fitted new connecting rods which are again Hornby spares, this time from their 08 shunter.
     
    I then gave the loco a new coat of black paint and restored its identity with HMRS pressfix transfers.
     

     

     

     
    For less than ten hours' work, spread over a week, this I feel is a very credible result.
  13. James Harrison

    Workshop Round-up

    By James Harrison,

    I've decided until I've gotten a few of my non-railway modelling projects out of the way that I'm not going to do any more locos or rolling stock.
     
    Which is of course why despite my working on an Elswick cruiser the last week has seen me replace the wheels on a B3, cut a part of the cab roof away on same, fit my new A1 and B5 with loco crews and, today, fitted new wheels to an F2 2-4-2 I bought a few months ago.
     
    In honesty I'm working on projects I know, or at least think, I can manage in one or two sessions, just to get my to-do list down to more manageable proportions. It also helps keep up the momentum on the afore-mentioned warship....
     
    So the F2 has, as I say, had its wheels replaced. I used Hornby M7 drivers and trailing wheels, which has given the loco an improved appearance, but as is always the case with my projects when I think it finish it turns out that the one job opens up another.... in this case fitting more appropriate wheels means that the loco frames need attention....
  14. James Harrison
    Just a few 'work in progress' shots of my GCR brakevan.
     

     

     
    So far I've managed to:
     
    -Cut down the Hornby body by 6mm (removing a strip from the guard's central compartment, slightly offset to bring the screw-fixing more or less to the middle of the chassis and remove the lion's share of the ducket).
     
    - Removed the 4-wheel chassis and substituted a 6-wheel one from a Hornby milk tanker.
     
    - Fitted a strip of 2 x 2.5mm plastic strip below the hacked-up body as a foundation for the running boards and to stiffen up the bodywork.
     
    - Cut away the low panels to both of the verandas.
     
    - Fitted new body panels from 0.5mm plastic sheet lightly scored to suggest the timber planking.
     
    This completes the initial bodywork; next I'll be smoothing it down to get a good finish, giving it a first coat of bauxite paint and then working up the underframes.
  15. James Harrison
    A few months ago I bought a Hornby Railroad 'Flying Scotsman' on Ebay. I already have a 'Flying Scotsman' and as it was my first engine (at the grand old age of 4!) and bought by my grandparents, I have something of a sentimental attachment to it.
     
    But I don't really want a pair of Flying Scotsman's, and of course the Hornby offering shows an A1 in about 1934/35 condition.
     
    The answer came when I found a photograph of #2555 'Centenary' in as-built condition in 1926.
     
    The first step was to look around for an appropriate tender. I found a Hornby GNR-pattern tender top on Ebay for the princely sum of £2.99, the only drawback being that it was moulded in a dark navy blue colour.
     
    I then used T-cut to remove the name and number from the loco, and replaced the former with etched 'plates from Modelmaster. I then used HMRS transfers to replicate the lining on the cabsides.
     
    I removed the tender body and test-fitted the GNR example. It fits pretty well but I think will need gluing into final position. I've begun to paint it, using Humbrol apple green acrylic. I've got the shades to more-or-less match but it still needs a couple of coats to get a decent finish so it may well lighten or darken before it is finished....
  16. James Harrison
    This last week I've been looking at my B5 and attempting to improve it.... I think I've managed to succeed.
     
    I first stripped it back to the state it was in when it arrived from Strangeways. Then I refilled and sanded the boiler and cabsides, to improve the surface finish on the completed model. Once I had got this to a state I'd be happy with I resprayed it back in matt black, then I refitted the boiler fittings. At this point I replaced the original safety valves with a scratchbuilt set of Ramsbottoms, fabricated very easily from some plastic sheet and strip.
     
    I had enough handrail parts left over from my Met electric to be able to completely replace the handrails on the loco, resulting in a much better result.
     
    I then turned my attention to the lining again. This time I decided to paint a sheet of paper in bright red, then cut 1mm strips off of it and using brushes, tweezers and PVA glue I was able to coerce them into position on the model. Once the PVA had dried I was able to run the strips over with some black ink to thin the lines down from 1mm to about 0.5mmm still a little overscale but far more convincing. I think overall the model looks much better for the extra effort spent on it.
     

     
     

  17. James Harrison

    Back to the B5

    By James Harrison,

    Well, it had to happen eventually.
     
    After finishing my Met Bo-Bo and reworking my current rake of GC Robinson stock, I looked to my locomotives and specifically, the B5.
     
    On the whole when I finished it I was pleased, but over the last few weeks the lining irked me, and after I remedied that by painting it out the grainy nature of the basic material started to annoy me.
     
    There was only really one way out of this, save scrapping the whole thing and starting over. I removed the brass boiler fittings and the handrails (I've enough handrail knobs left over from the Met Bo-Bo to replace these with something better) and then set-to with the model filler. Once this had set I set-to with files and sandpaper to get a much smoother finish. I then painted it up in matt black (three thin coats so far) and added the ash ejector to the smokebox which I had forgotten before.... even in this now half-finished state it looks a lot better. It'll look even more so once I get the new handrails fitted... and I'm planning to have another go at the lining, though no idea how I'll do that yet.
  18. James Harrison
    I've been considering the last few days how I can improve my Robinson stock. The main problem with these carriages is that the removal of the panelling on the donor coaches was patchy at best, and it began to irk me.
     
    What I did was to see if it was possible to do on the upper body sides what I did with the lower, in the way of a paper overlay. I quickly decided that a one-piece overlay was going to be too tedious, so I chose to do it in slips instead. One long slip a cantrail level for the length of the carriage, and a seris of smaller slips of varying widths to suit the uprights between the doors and windows. These were glued in place by being saturated with PVA glue, much better than using UHU, which I find tends to leave trails everywhere.
     
    I then gave the upper works the same paint treatment as I did the original carriage- two coats of mid-brown with a coat of dark brown drybrushed over the top, and then worked over further with brown chalk pastel.
     
    The result? A much better, smoother, slab sided appearance I think.
     

  19. James Harrison
    Someone recently asked me how I built my N5 and it occurred to me that I hadn't actually discussed that particular project here.
     
    I built it somewhere around about a year ago, and I regard it as the first of my successful hackbash/ scratchbuilds.
     
    I started with a Hornby J83 body and a Triang 3F chassis, the reasoning being that the boiler is about the right diameter and length (not including the firebox) and that the overall proportions are more or less right for some stretching.
     
    The first step was to decide upon a datum point on the model from which to extend the loco body. In my case I chose the front of the side tanks.
     
    This done I stripped away the boiler bands, hand rails and steampipes with a stanley blade, and then cut away the splashers. I cut away not only the splashers but also the moulded underside of the boiler, which on the Honby body is modelled as a flat vertical slab.
     
    Things then got serious as I cut the body up entirely into four pieces for reuse:
     
    - The boiler, smokebox and frames ahead of the side tanks
    - The pair of tanks themselves
    - The lower half of the rear bunker
     
    I then glued these bits onto a frame of plastic strip, to get this:
     

     
    You will note that I had also removed the top 2mm or so of the side tanks.
     
    At this point I put the body on the chassis to test for height. There is a goodly chunk of metal that can support the body, but it is blocked by the chassis weight. Off with the weight and we can carry on.... to add the radial axle. The chassis is also used under the Jinty tank so has a couple of lugs for a rear coupling which had to be removed with a hacksaw. I then used a couple of pieces of balsa wood and plastic sheet paired up with an axle and glued to the underside of the loco body.
     

     
    The boiler was then added using a length of 20mm ABS pipe and to disguise the joint I used a sheet of paper to create an overlay for the length of the boiler.
     

     
    I then used 0.5mm plastic sheet to create overlays for the remaining bits of the sidetanks and bunker for the tanks, bunker and cab.
     
    A second layer of plastic sheet on the cab sides created the characteristic step-out above the side tanks.
     
    To create the spectacle plate I re-used the Hornby cab. Cut in half 'amidships', I glued a sheet of plastic to both front and rear sheets and then drilled out new windows. This also provided a good foundation for the cab roof.
     
    The firebox I built using a layer of paper, gently curved on a length of pencil, then filled the curve with filler before gluing it to the boiler. I re-used the J83 chimney but I first very gently worked it over with a file to get a more Robinson-esque form.
     

     
    Compared with my older N5 (now scrapped)- my first ever scratchbuild. Much improved!
     
    I then added more paper to create the smokebox wrapper and the cover between the frames in front of the smokebox. The safety valves are a whitemetal casting from Craftsman Kits, whilst the dome was an old whitemetal part I found in my spares box. Boiler bands were added from paper slips and handrails added using piano wire and Hornby handrail knobs. A whistle came from an old Hornby 2P. Staples provided a set of cab handrails.
     

     
    I added some coal rails using paper and a set of cab doors in plastic sheet and strip and then painted it in matt black. Completed and weathered I think it a fine effort for my skills at the time.
     

  20. James Harrison
    Just a few photos to show work to date on the B5....
     

     
    The complete model at the moment. Lots to do- I'm sure you can see all the bits I've yet to get around to without my needing to point them out....
     

     
    The tender body- started as a Triang Fowler tender top to which I laminated new sides, added a flare in plastic section and then added plated coal rails. This is, if anything, rougher than the loco at the moment! But once rubbed down, filed and finished it should look the part.
     

     
    How I finally sorted out the 'it won't go around my curves' issue. I returned the bogie to a swing-link setup, and filed some more off the back of the cylinders. Now the bogie has a little more play in it and will negotiate a 2nd radius curve, if driven at dead slow.
  21. James Harrison
    As is my fashion things suddenly have gone rather quiet. You see, the B5 isn't the only project on my bench at the moment- the other is a 36'' live steam Edwardian launch (6'' Mamod boiler with a twin cylinder oscillating engine set up in a balsa wood hull). The weather being so nice last weekend and this, and coupled with my going out to Stratford yesterday with my madcap Vicwardian friends, I decided that it would make a nice change to do some work outdoors for once. Hence my weekend modelling sessions have been spent at the bottom of the garden cutting and shaping lengths of balsa wood to build a steam launch hull, rather than at the kitchen table adding bits to my B5.
     
    This doesn't mean work has completely ground to a halt though! I've fitted a set of Scale Link 3'6'' bogie wheels to the front bogie, which has improved the appearance markedly. I found a casting for a Robinson smokebox door in my spares box (it's a Craftsman Kits spare part I believe), which I have fitted in place. I've fitted the sloping plates below the smokebox itself (these were replicated using a slip of paper) and I've bulked up the smokebox itself a little with a double-thickness paper overlay. I've also started the cab interior.
     
    It's just my luck however that the camera decided to die on me when I came to taking photos of progress.... next time, next time....
  22. James Harrison
    There is always a point with a project, I find, where whatever I am working on goes from being 'a lump of stuff' to 'a recogniseable x/y/z'.
     
    I think I reached this point with the B5 last night when I added the chimney and dome.
     
    I firstly went through another bout of 'fill, sand and smooth' on the boiler to eradicate the angular appearance, then I added a few layers of 0.5mm plastic sheet to the smokebox to bring it up to full length. I thought I had drawn it to size, then the print turned up and it was 1mm short.... I've also found that the cab roof is wrong, so will be replaced in due course.
     
    The chimney and dome are brass castings from the Alan Gibson range, intended for their J11 kit. But they also suit the B5- not surprising really, considering the two designs were by the same man at the same time and built in the same workshops.
     
    This morning I've ordered some 14mm wheelsets from Scale Link for the bogie, which have narrower treads and a generally finer appearance than their Hornby counterparts.
     
    Still much to do but we're getting there.
     

  23. James Harrison
    Well, another of my 2013 models is now finished.
     
    Last night it was a fairly simple job to paint out the '2' in '12 tons' and then replace it with a '5' off of the HMRS transfer sheet. It would have been easier to have noticed before that the thinner backing paper for the transfers comes away quite easily from the thicker card-like stock of the main sheet once scored through.
     
    Overall I'm quite happy with it- the van certainly looked the part idly partnered up with my L1 and a couple of Bachmann NE wagons. It's not perfect by any means of course but then I don't think any of my models are. Happily however I do think that it is my best example yet of taking RTR rolling stock and altering it, and I came out of the project with a better idea of how to go about my hack-ups.
     
    Onto the next project then!
  24. James Harrison
    I've been a little quiet of late, working away on my Hornby hack-bashed GCR brakevan.
     
    I'm pleased to say that it is probably within an ace of being finished....
     

     

     

     
    Having cut up the original body, and fitted overlays to the sides and ends, I then added overlays over those to create the panelled effect. I've lost count of how many coats of bauxite paint it's taken- it must be at least five.
     
    Works still to do pretty much run to completing the paint job, amending two of the decals to read '15 tons' rather than 12, varnishing and weathering.
  25. James Harrison
    I was reading the June issue of Model Rail last night and thought the feature on modelling the London Underground was superb. The first of the trackplans in particular I found interesting, as it basically shows a station throat and a bit of a station in a space 7'6'' by 2'. It planted the germ of an idea...
     
    My ideal model would be of Marylebone in a 'what-if' scenario of joint LNER/ Metropolitan operation. In the real world of course the ex-GC shares tracks with LU as far as Canfield Place, two miles from Marylebone. But what if the Met shared tracks with the GC all the way down to Marylebone's buffers?
     
    My idea is that Marylebone itself would be completely 'shared'- that is, Met trains would be allowed access to all platforms and all four running lines. Obviously, this couldn't be the case for the whole route- for one thing, only the Met could operate services to stations between Marylebone and Amersham under the terms of the joint agreement. The answer clearly is to split the four tracks into two for the GC and two for the Met at the first available opportunity.
     
    To my mind the point that this would happen would be at the end of the tunnels out of Marylebone- in real life where Finchley Road station and Canfield Place are.
     

    Canfield place by Duke of Chalfont, on Flickr
     
    Now my plan I've titled Canfield Place to differentiate it from the real-life Finchley Road. Left to right we have, at the rear, the four tracks from Marylebone split to two sets of two, with a Met station on the 'bottom' pair (GC expresses and goods trains would take the straight tracks behind the station, GC suburban trains might run through it but wouldn't stop). At the left hand end of the station, a pair of purely cosmetic lines split off from the joint- running down to Baker Street.
     
    Limited in operating potential? Yes- but as say a diorama for photography, or as an addition to a larger scheme- it has interest. And it would be a good testbed for scenery before launching in to Marylebone itself. Now if I can just find a 8' by 2' soace going spare....
×
×
  • Create New...