Nick Holliday

It may be worth investing in an axle spacing jig such as Brassmasters can supply http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/axle_gauges.htm This should ensure that your axles are parallel at least. It might help identify or resolve any of the problems that @Michael Hodgson identified with white metal kits. My nightmare is the older type of WM kit, which had separate castings for each axle guard, which need about six hands to fix in place if everything is going to be correct for location, height etc., although the jig should make this easier now. Much easier to substitute etched w-irons, which can then provide compensation for rough track laying.

Found this website that has scans of some twenty horse drawn vehicles in the Staffordshire Carriage Collection. You can rotate the views and there is some interesting content in other sections of the site. http://www.staffordshirecarriages.org.uk/single-private-omnibus/

This website might be of interest http://www.staffordshirecarriages.org.uk/britzchka-chariot/

The North British Railway Study Group have made available a number of reprints of original NBR documentation including WTT’s. Although a non-member I have purchased a number of the rolling stock studies, and they are excellently produced and good value. https://www.nbrstudygroup.co.uk/sales/pdfs/price_list_jan_2022.pdf

The LSWR used a similar convention of italics for non-daily services, but the LBSCR, by 1912, used italics to denote that the service was operated using railmotors! Certainly, a fuller copy of the Midland timetable under discussion would be very useful.

According to C E J Fryer the Midland certainly slipped coaches on the move, at one time at 17 locations. Luton had one slip in 1903, two in 1910 and three in 1914. One of the last three was interesting, as the slip portion had earlier been slipped at Wellingborough and then added to a train to be then slipped at Luton 35 miles further on.

I think your Derby train stops at all stations to Leicester. The St. Pancras train appears to stop at Kettering at 7:50, Wellingborough at 8:00 and Bedford at 8.22, before slipping coaches for Luton and arriving at St. Pancras at 9:20.

The 1839 that @Jeremy C pointed at contains these sections of parallel rail on the London and Birmingham 64 lb on the left, 75 lb on the right.

I don't know if Nigel Digby edited the MS&LR entry, but my copy has reads slightly differently: "Coaches up to 1857 were claret or crimson, but thereafter and for the remainder of the MS&LR period were varnished teak." "There is reason to believe that, in common with other railways with teak coaches, after a period of time they were painted teak colour. The company minutes of 3rd July 1896 reveal that the MS&LR preferred the name 'Old Oak Brown'." "In Moore's Monthly Magazine it was stated that solebars were painted and grained to a lighter shade of brown than the body and ironwork was 'bronzed green'. "In this (the CLC specification) solebars were entirely painted green, then 'bronze painted', followed by finishing varnish."

The LP indicates that the train stops to pick up only London passengers. This appears to be at Kegworth, but I would have thought a passenger might be rather brave to take this option, given that they can change fairly comfortably at Leicester.

Although this may be true elsewhere, on the Great North of Scotland they had no 0-6-0 types to develop. All their tender locos were 4-4-0's, and the first designs had outside cylinders, so these Moguls might be considered enlargements of these, and nothing to do with higher speeds, as they all had relatively large wheels, but really for more power/adhesion. The GNoSR multi-purpose 4-4-0's had quite a long service career.

This might be the book you are after https://wildswanbooks.co.uk/Books/GWR-Goods-Services-Introduction.htm and there are two more in the series.

An unlikely source of information regarding L&M permanent way is the RCTS book, Locomotives of the LNWR Southern Division. It notes: "The original London & Birmingham track was specified by Robert Stephenson and was the same as that which the L&M had been persuaded to adopt in 1833 after the failure of its original rails. It consisted of 50lb per yard malleable-iron fishbelly rails in 15 ft lengths, the half-lapped ends of which rested in a joint chair; the joint and intermediate chairs, 3 ft centre to centre, were Stephenson's patent type with iron keys. They were mounted on square stone blocks except on embankments liable to settlement, where wooden cross sleepers were used. "By February 1835 the L&M found that this track was still too weak and ordered 60 lb rails of parallel form; ten months later 75 lb parallel rails were adopted as standard." By the time the L&B actually opened it had 10 miles of fishbelly, 25 miles of 65 lb parallel (in 16 ft lengths) and 77½ miles of 75 lb parallel (in 15 ft lengths). The top of the rails was 2½ inches wide, and they were 4½ and 5 inches deep, respectively. Stone sleepers were 2 ft square and 1 ft deep, or 1 ft 3 ins for some joint chairs. On the L&B the stone sleepers took a long time to disappear. A survey in February 1847 revealed that of 194½ route miles, there was still 40½ miles of 75 lb rail on stone sleepers! The last stone blocks during the 1850's.

A few random thoughts: Does the station have to run parallel to the front? Putting it on a slant might create more space for the goods yard, fiddle yard or engine shed. Gives you a variety of view points, as not everything is side on. Consider using cassettes for the fiddle yard. Takes up less space and gives you, potentially, lots of sidings, if you can arrange storage for the unused cassettes, perhaps on brackets behind the backscene. What about a three-way point at the station entrance.? Not unknown, and would increase the length of the run-round and maintain the bay platform length.

I think the key to this is in the website's name. One of the principles of the Brighton Circle is that it concentrates on the history of that company. Once these locos fled the nest they become someone else's responsibility. If you want a full story you need to consult Bradley RCTS Volume 1, or the various monographs that have been published on this class.

Ambis Engineering offer this: Not sure what sort of length each £3 pack gives you, though.

Just to confuse you there is no single way of doing things, as much will depend on the complexity of the structure and the equipment available for materials handing. The absence of a tower crane alters the way things might be done. I may have upset the apple cart by suggesting using what appears to be mesh as wall reinforcement, just for simplicity . As @Fat Controller says, mesh is usually used for floor slabs, but where the walls are fairly simple, and the size of the reinforcement bars relatively small, it is quite common to have wall panels welded up off site, and delivered as a mesh, to be simply lifted into place by the crane. In the absence of a tower crane, such mesh panels are a bit unwieldy for man-handling, although mesh could still be used for the floor, as a bundle would be lifted to the level using a mobile crane, and the mesh is light enough to be easily moved horizontally into place. Normally, the next lift (storey) of wall reinforcement would start only after at least one section of wall shuttering has been put in place, so that line and level can be established, and there is something solid to work from. As various sections of the reinforcement have been fixed and checked, the other side of the shuttering can then be lifted into position, and that section prepared for concreting. Whilst a single lift shaft might be simple to build - fit the four internal shutters, reinforce, outer shutters - more complex shafts, such as multiple shafts, requires a careful consideration of what goes next, otherwise things get missed out. Returning to your point, wherever a wall or column is continuing directly above that under construction, there will be some form of starter bars to provide continuation of the steel bars. Sometimes, for very specific reasons, very expensive couplers are used, but normally, as I have suggested before, the bars forming the vertical reinforcement will be extended beyond the height the concrete is poured to. This extension will be roughly 1m above the level of the floor slab to be cast over the top of the wall, so the visible extension might be much greater, from 1.3m to accommodate a simple floor slab, to over 2m where there might be a metre deep beam, which can occur around the perimeter of a building. So, to answer one of your earlier questions, the columns don't all have to be the same height, although the top of the starter bars probably should be. What you could do for this second area is to add starter bars to the top of the stair walls (both faces I'm afraid) and then infill part of the floor area with plastic sheeting, to represent the decking (the shuttering to support the the floor slab until the concrete has achieved its correct strength) and use the moulded mesh with workers spreading it out. Something like this, plus people! Note how the bars have been left down where the stair flight comes up to the slab, and there would only be short lengths, probably u-bars, to tie in with the slab reinforcement. The decking, shown stippled, should theoretically have panels to suit the normal 8' x 4' (metricated of course) ply sheets, but that might be going too far! As for @Fat Controller's comment regarding infills between columns, that would all depend on the architectural design and the need for structural stability. Buildings need to be braced in all directions, and this is often achieved using the core walls, and in a concrete framed building, this means an abundance of solid walls. Where there are infills, this would often be in curtain walling, with glazed panels, or using lightweight steel framing to support plasterboard forming the internal walls. Often the brickwork you see on the face of the buildings is completely non-structural, and is, in fact, supported at each floor level, on the outside face of the buildings, with steel bracketry, or concrete nibs formed on the outside face of the structure. Apologies for length - over 40 years in the building industry!

A brief search came up with Verney Junction Junction of Oxford & Banbury Lines and Metropolitan Railway and Haughley Junction for Bury, Newmarket and Cambridge Branch and for the Mid Suffolk Light Railway The latter board was photographed in 1949, some 25 years after the Middy had become part of the LNER!

I wouldn’t worry too much about colour. Timber and plywood come in “timber” colours, varying from almost white to almost black. System formwork as the photo I posted could come in various colour, depending on manufacturer, red, yellow, blue or green, or unpainted aluminium, but with use they might get covered in oil, concrete or rust, as did the adjustable props that were used. Try a Google search on “plywood formwork” or “shuttering systems” and view the images.

I was trying to keep thing simple! Such detail would be a bit OTT for this project, I feel, and given there are many fancy shuttering systems such as this anything is possible. Although I am sure our chippies occasionally resorted to using (red) diesel, I don't think it did the concrete any favours. There were proper sprays which did a much better job. There were some special ply sheets that had a dark red plasticised finish to give a better finish. Standard ply would only last a few uses, especially if there was heavy use of a vibrator.

You are right about the mesh, being extended to the end. There should also be a short length along the central return. Theoretically there would be two layers of mesh, front and back, but I think that would be over the top. The mesh shouldn’t really be rust red - it would be condemned if too rusty - but a steel grey. There should also be bars protruding from the cast walls below, if they are to be extended. Formwork or wall shuttering consists of a flat surface, usually plywood, against which the concrete is cast, backed with a grillage of timber or aluminium beams to give it rigidity. So the flat side of the moulding is quite correct. You could do that, as access will be required to build the next storey. There is rather a lack of scaffolding - even the Chinese use it these days, but adding it properly is rather complex, so perhaps omitting it makes its absence less obvious. Since your building is under construction it would be reasonable to have missing sections. For various reasons some parts of the structure lag behind the main build, so perfectly OK. Your addition of starter bars (the reinforcement sticking up from the tops of columns or walls) is indication enough that more work is due to be carried out. Hope some of this is of help!

That would be a good idea for using the mesh. The pink mouldings look as if they are cantilever brackets which would be under the edge beams to support some scaffold boards (perhaps the white mouldings top left, or use planked plastic sheeting) to provide external access for beam and column construction. The triangular pink items might be "Acrow" props - screw jacks to support slab and beam formwork, although you should need a lot more of them, but a few stacked around the place would do. The lattice beam on the left would be used to stiffen the wall formwork, normally being used vertically to resist the enormous hydraulic pressure wet concrete exerts.

Yes! Although in the UK the outside of the building would be sheeted in, so difficult to see what might be happening inside, but there should also be evidence of the formwork for the columns, waiting for the next lift, as well as materials for the next floor of decking. Sometimes this takes the form of flying tables, but they have to either stored somewhere on site, or repositioned immediately at the next level. Buildings tended to work from end to end, so one section might be at level 2, say, whilst part of the decking for level 4 will be in place, as can be seen in the prototype photo posted earlier. The only time you might see all the vertical work (columns and walls) in place and no slab might be if there were material shortages, or the type of construction at that level changed, such as going for a steel roof to complete the building (or Spanish Hotel Syndrome).

I like the formwork/shuttering for the walls. However, it should have the reinforcement fixed before the second side is shuttered up. Often the rebar in walls is now delivered as a prefabricated mesh, so if you can find a suitable square mesh etch or fabric, with spacing around 3-4mm, then that could be slipped in between the two shutters. You might also want a stack of such mesh for the floor slabs, and bundles of straight and bent wire to represent the unfixed rebar.

I haven't got a copy, so I am not sure if it fits your bill, but British Railways GWR/LNER Pre-Nationalisation Coaching Stock: Volume 1 GWR/LNER by Hugh Longworth covers pre-nationalisation stock which survived into BR days. There is a companion LMS/Southern book as well.