Nick Holliday

9 hours ago, SHerr said:

Thanks that’s useful. I could do with a junction/bracket signal and the only Dapol ones are lower Quadrant to keep those pesky GWR modellers happy. I’d never realised the HR had them. 

Virtually all pre-grouping railway companies only used lower quadrant signals. Upper quadrant signals only came into vogue in the 1920s. The GWR stubbornly refused to change, but the other three would use UQ signals for all new work, converting LQ to UQ as necessary, but in many locations across the UK, lower quadrant signals survived until closure or the arrival of colour lights.

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.

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

1 hour ago, bécasse said:

The use of an italic font for connecting times is a (comparatively) recent innovation, I suspect coincident with the introduction of timings in 24-hour clock format in the mid-1960s. Although prior to that the various regional books all contained their own idiosyncrasies that were inherited from the big-four companies (and sometimes even the pre-grouping companies) and which tended to be prolonged by the fact that the several printing companies involved held the winter and summer editions of the passenger (and often the working) timetables as standing print which were merely updated and not reset each time. (There was an obvious cost to this but that cost was not only lower than the cost of full print-setting but was less susceptible to the propagation of errors.)

 

Without a copy of the full timetable in front of me it is difficult to speculate accurately but I suspect that the Midland were using an italic font to indicate that the train concerned either didn't run every day or was subject to some other sort of restriction.

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.

1 hour ago, john new said:

Where did that one start from though? I see Nottingham 06:35 may well be a connecting train time (italicised), the London express misses out a Trent stop so does Kegworth instead for London p/up only. Logically it came down the Erewash valley route.  Kegworth is north of Leicester, change there more chance of a seat onwards for London. In the footnote it only mentions the 7:18 from Leicester, implication the Luton coach(es) were only added at Leicester, but with LP boarding at Kegworth the train, or at least some portion of it, originated north thereof.
 

Did the Midland actually slip the coaches on the move or would the Luton portion have been detached and hauled forward? Just curious, I knew the GW slipped on the move but not others.

 

An interesting puzzle.

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.

5 hours ago, JohnClarkson said:

Thank you everyone. To sum up then, let's imagine I went back in time to July 5th 1915. (I have found out this timetable applies to that date). I board the train at Derby at 5.50am. This stops at Trent. Then it carries on to Leicester without stopping  Here I change for St Pancras and there are no stops on this second connecting train. (A SC occurs at Luton). As long as I sit far enough away from that I can be in London by 9.20am baring no delays.

 

Would the above adequately describe the journey or have I missed any other stops out please?

 

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.

9 hours ago, Edwardian said:

So I think the main remaining question was the very one you identified, what did this "parallel rail" look like?

 

I wish I could tell you.  The only picture I have seen of L&M is said to show the original 1829 fishbelly rail, which does not assist.

 

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.

5 hours ago, Northroader said:

The book you refer to is the warmed up version of the BRM series of pullouts, and if you splash out, you’ll get a nicely printed copy of what I scanned and posted in here recently, not that I should ever admit to doing such a thing, and the series is very useful for all the old lines.

Having dabbled in LBSC affairs, their coach mahogany seems to be a fairly even colour, without the obvious graining you get with the oak or teak jobs, and I do it using the Phoenix paint 988 mahogany.

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."

4 hours ago, Jeremy C said:

As others have said, the 05:50 from Derby to Leicester is a stopping service via Trent. Comparing how the Nottingham times are printed with, for example, Cambridge (which definitely refers to connecting services), I think that both Nottingham times are connections rather than portions of the same train, but the Nottingham to Trent timetable should give more information.

 

The service to St Pancras in the next column begins from Nottingham at 06:35, except on Saturdays when it begins at Leicester (the 3 minutes at Leicester is impossibly tight for a connecting service), and calls at Loughborough (SX), Leicester, Kettering, Wellingborough and Bedford. You will need to check the notes to see what LP and SC refer to, but SC could be a slip coach, and appears to be described in the following column, being slipped at Luton and then hauled onwards to Harpenden and St Albans.

 

Always ignore anything in the same column beyond a double line. Double lines were used to put several trains in the same column.

 

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.

On 04/02/2022 at 09:34, Johnson044 said:

The Great North of Scotland flirted with the idea of a mogul for a while. More than a hint of Derby there, too, I think.

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

The "mogul" is the obvious development of 0-6-0 types to cope with higher overall running speeds, and the trend to outside cylinders. just as the 0-8-0 developed into the 2-8-0. It's just that traffic patterns didn't develop to require faster traffic in train sizes suited to 6-coupled locos; so the 0-8-0 was entirely superseded over time  while the 0-6-0 soldiered on in its inside-cylinder form until replaced in the last days of steam by the 4MT rated 4-6-0  and 2-6-0 type with 2-6-0 types in 3MT and 2MT types for some applications, for reasons of standardisation of design. 

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.

1 hour ago, Nick C said:

That seems to be missing quite a bit on information though, compared with the SREmG list:

37 - No mention of it post 1918

38 - Same, and no mention of it's time as S&MR 8

40 - No mention post grouping (W11, then 2640, 32640)

50 - No mention of it's time as W9

53 - No mention of it's time as WCPR 4, or GWR 6

54 - Became 680S / DS680, never 1751 or 31751

68 - Was withdrawn in 1937, never carried a BR number

77 - Became W13, then 32677, never carried 2677

78 - No mention of it's time as W4/W14

83 - No mention of it's time as S&MR 9

 

 

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.

4 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

Thanks again to everyone who is offering help and support with this project. I am making some progress, but this shuttering still confuses me.

 

First progress.

 

Every column now has four reinforcement bars with 11mm (1metre) sticking out.

 

 

I thought I would deal with the other stairwell first as it is pretty devoid of interest. I want to make this one different to the first one. I don't want shuttering at all on this one. So, am I correct in saying that before they start to add shuttering the walls will have some mesh sticking up?  I have temporarily posed the mesh behind the structure.  If I am right how tall should the mesh be?  Assuming that I am right I would trim off sections of mesh and glue them on top of the wall.

 

Just to clarify my assumptions.................

I am thinking/planning to have some mesh apparently sticking through all walls as below

Yet again I apologise for my lack of knowledge, please assume that I have just landed from another planet and so you will have to explain things to me in very basic language.

 

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

I would have thought the mesh was for the flooring? The load-bearing element of the walls would be the pillars, infilled with blockwork.

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!

20 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

My recollection of running in boards was that they didn't give you the name of the connecting company but rather a station on a branch line, though I suspect it was fairly unusual to have a branch line run by another company.

 

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.

9 hours ago, pH said:

There should also be bolts, with large square plate washers, through these beams and through the shuttering into threaded holes in the steelwork. These hold the shuttering  into place.

 

The plywood surfaces are (or at least were) coated with some hydrophobic substance - we used diesel - to allow easy release of the shuttering after the concrete pour has set. So after the first use, depending on what is used, the plywood surface can be quite dark.

 

Rust = iron oxide.

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.

4 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

Hello again Nick

 

Firstly, many thanks for taking an interest in my project.

 

Secondly, please remember that I know nothing (NOTHING) about how such buildings are built in real life and so sometimes I have difficulty understanding your references and terms.

 

Lastly, I am no great modeller, but I want to make the best possible model using the components at hand.

 

If I have understood you correctly, the mesh should fit as in this photo, I can trim it so that it extends the whole length at the back across to the left hand edge.

 

 

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.

4 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

I am a bit concerned that the flat back to the shuttering (correct term?) looks in complete contrast to the other side of the molding. So, should I put more shuttering (?) in the space inked in in this photo and that will then hide the flat plastic back. 

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.

4 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

I can repair these brackets

 

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.

4 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

Have you any other ideas of how I can use the components at my disposal i.e. without me buying/making anything else (except I have loads of plastic sheet).

 

In that context, I have always worried that the section at the back may not comply with 'real life'. There is the makings of window spaces, but no top section. I have no idea if that fits in to the scheme of things in real life i.e. did we simply lose the bit which should go there?

 

 

The building is two kits knitted together with a front and back showing - does that make sense?  so, in this photo you can see a front - on the right and a back on the left. And so the section I'm talking about is actually a 'front' even though it's at the back. You can see that then front on the right does have that missing top section. I can easily make a section out of plastic sheet if you think it appropriate.

I am genuinely sorry to ask so many questions, but I want to get this right before I glue it permanently on the layout.

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!

23 minutes ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

As I just said in my last post, I did not build the original, but I have gone back to look in the 'bits box' . I think there is the mesh you talked about and some other items. There are more than these, but this is the selection.

 

 

So, should I paint the mesh and have sections laying about and some sticking up through the wooden shutters - please note that the instructions were lost years ago and so I have/had no idea where these went

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.

1 minute ago, F-UnitMad said:

In other words, it's currently far too tidy for a building site!!

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).

17 minutes ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

Photo taken this morning - see left hand side for the first upgraded column.

 

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.

In the UK, in my days on site, columns were usually cast in single storey lifts, it may be different in China.  Here, the rebar would extend beyond the top of the cast concrete to allow for:-

Slab or beam thickness + Allowance for a kicker (roughly 4 inches) + Lap length  

Lap length is roughly 45 times the diameter of the reinforcement bar, say 45 x 25 mm = 1.1m.  Beam thickness could be anything from 300mm to 1m.  Theoretically, columns using larger bars would have them extending higher above the new slab level to achieve the necessary lap.

Don't forget that this only applies where the column or wall continues directly above.  Where you've come to the top of the column there will be L bars which only protrude into the slab zone.