Nick Holliday

8 hours ago, AyJay said:

Well I have had some success in that after some rooting around, I unearthed some photocopies of pages from a book giving the stations I was looking for.  The good news is that they are scale drawings of each of the 4 views.  They are Much Wenlock in Shropshire, now a private residence, and Wateringbury in Kent, still an active station.  And both have views on Google Earth.  It was Much Wenlock that I originally made in Plaster of Paris and I think it would fit the required space.  

The bad news is that having seen it in it's current form, I don't think I want to model it now.  I have also taken a look at Wateringbury photographs and although it also looks suitably elegant for my tastes, I don't fancy the gothic style arched doorways and the window glazing. 

I did also try searching for 'Railway Stations', adding in 'disused' and 'heritage'.  The result was a bit too broad and I soon got bored with looking; a case of 'can't see the wood for the trees'.

As you seem to have found some drawings of buildings that might fit your layout, perhaps you could adapt the plans to suit the level of ornamentation you want.  You can decide whether you want bays and what sort of canopies, if any, tickle your fancy, and select sympathetic masonry.   I thought this rather random selection of LBSCR stations, built in the same sort of arrangement that you're after, might help give you some idea of the range of styles you could find on just one of the smaller pre-grouping lines. 

Rendered brickwork at Epsom Downs 1984

Baynards 1982 - plain brickwork with "stone" lintels, but interesting roof finishes

Falmer 1986 - some rather stark brickwork with rubbed brick window arches

These cottages are at Falmer, probably for the station master.  Presumably contemporary, the use of flint in one half is interesting.

Hackbridge 1984 - a fairly restrained use of polychromatic brickwork.

Rather more flamboyant polychromatic brickwork at Lingfield 1988 - similar to Groombridge et al. 

Rather more rococo - at Leatherhead 1984 - a listed building

And finally, the Myers buildings, which proliferated in the 1880's, that were originally stucco rendered but many receiving tiling. Sheffield Park 1980

PS Earlswood 1990 - a rather more modern, but still complex, design

2 hours ago, GMKAT7 said:

Hello Mol,

 

An interesting range of open wagons in the left hand background.

 

BR standard 16T minerals, both rivetted and welded types and grey painted 7 plank opens. 

Plus a 7 plank open with coke rails.

Edit: Both the coke wagon and another 7 plank open appear to be unpainted timber but with darker (painted?) ironwork. Unless the ironwork is just rusty?

 

Also interesting is the unloading of the wagons directly into coal sacks, none of the cliched 'coal bins' to be seen.

 

Cheers, Nigel.

Wallington had a vast range of coal bins, all of them beyond the furthest siding. Part of them can be seen in the left corner.

9 hours ago, Typeapproval said:

Hi, thanks for that, I guess like most of us north of the Thames, I originally thought all Southern  Railway locos were green. Glad I found this forum, very interesting. So from reading the last posting, black locos were a late arrival on Southern rails. 

 

 

I think @Wickham Green too was referring to the goods locos being painted black after grouping, but with green lining until 1935. There were black locos south of the Thames well before that. The LBSCR, starting from 1906, used a black livery for its goods locos, albeit with red lining, although many post-WW1 repaints were in umber, as the paint was cheaper! The original lined black livery could be seen for several years after grouping.

On 06/12/2023 at 15:33, drmditch said:

Suggestions (summarised from above):-

 

Choose the approximate region for your model.

Search for photographs online ('disused-stations.org.uk is a good starting point.)

Search for books. A visit to a 'preserved railway' might be a good starter.

Assess whether you want to scratchbuild or find a kit.

You could work out a modification to a 'new' Metcalfe kit. At least that would preserve your 'footprint'.

You might also need to modify/replace your footbridge as well.

Although, as a keen Brighton fan, I should be agreeing with the ideas of basing the project on LBSCR stations like Groombridge and the Myers buildings, they are so redolent of the line that, unless the OP wants to base his layout in Sussex, they would look out of place.  @drmditchhas tried to summarise the advice so far, but there is an implied assumption that the OP does want to base his layout on a particular line, which may not be the case.  I would suggest that there are at least three possible ways to go.

1)      OP selects a railway company and researches the potential resources, as @drmditchhas noted, and, hopefully can locate suitable drawings for his project

2)      OP finds a drawing of a suitable style of building, more generic than the rather exotic LBSCR examples, and either follows the design exactly, or uses it as the basis for a building more in keeping with his modelled surroundings – perhaps changing a stone built design into the local brick and/or using available windows rather than bespoke copies.

3)      OP takes his Metcalfe building, and replicates it, maybe altering brickwork and windows etc to suit his layout, and reconsider the platform canopy which is rather identifiable.

There are plenty of drawings around, but until some of the OP’s thoughts are fully known, it is difficult to point him in the right direction.  One thought is that often lines were originally built by independent, local, companies which would not be tied down to any particular architectural trend, and so the station building might not have any resemblance to others on the rest of the company’s system.  Another is that sometimes the builders would go a bit off-piste, providing a totally out of place design, such as at Clapham in Yorkshire (see photo and RM January 1965) and some aristocratic structures on the North Staffordshire Railway, or use existing buildings, such as at Mitcham, and even an old tree!  So I would suggest, unless actually having pinned down an actual location, almost anything, apart from the more identifiable designs, would do.

Clapham (Yorkshire) Station (c) Ben Brooksbank/Geograph

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I'm not convinced. Pictures of that side of Paddington are rare, and the area was rebuilt a few times, but this is the closest I can find of that era, platform 6 (with the County 4-4-0 and train), as it was numbered then, being on the far side of the cab road. I can't detect any low canopy or the distinctive lamps in the LBSCR B4 pic. Incidentally, the caption for this picture, referring to the nearest train, is "Arrival of the Boston boat train".  Was Boston a pickup place from New York?

 

 

This photo appeared in Stephen Brindle's book on Paddington, and is dated 1911, with the caption noting the temporary roof over platform 6, presumably associated with the new roof bay designed by Armstrong which was completed in 1915. SO it is possible that the lower flat roof evident in the Brighton loco's portrait has been removed, and perhaps the distinctive steel columns, with their braced arms, were retained and repurposed.

This is another view of the same loco entering Paddington (from the John Minnis collection) on another occasion, and looking as it might be heading for the same arrival platform.

21 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I thought that too, and TBH I can’t place that station.

 

Was there (is there?) a bit outside the main train-sheds, beyond the cab-road? It would make sense for a train coming off the H&C to be over on that side.

 

It definitely is Paddington. It is the most northeasterly platform, as you say, outside the main train shed. 

Just received this magazine, and I'm slightly puzzled by the lack of captions to the excellent photographs accompanying the article on the superb Pencader EM gauge layout. (although MR have renamed it Pencander!)  For some reason I found the absence of information rather disturbing; obviously many are self-explanatory, with the help of the locations being shown on the layout plan, but a bit more about some of the more unusual aspects would have been welcome.  Fortunately I was able to find MRJ 296, where there is more extensive writing about the layout, which provided a reason for the length of modelled removed track in Photo 12, but in Photo 6 there are two lineside crosses, and it would be interesting to know the story behind them.

This might be of interest, http://www.swithland-signal-works.co.uk/plans/16_Carriage_Landing_No1.jpg A genuine Victorian example.

19 hours ago, sleeper said:

Hi,

I haven't been doing any modelling for some time but I'm just getting back in to it. My first project is going to be an O gauge SR 3rd open carriage, the parts of which I will cut out in cardboard using a Silhouette cutter. I have had considerable success with this method previously, so just need to brush up on my skills.

I am at present just researching the model and my question is;- what height is an O gauge carriage sides from base to the underside of the roof  'eaves' . The overall height from the top of the roof to rails was 12' 4" or 86.8 mm in 7mm scale.

O gauge carriage wheels are 19mm in diameter? is that correct? and 59 feet length is 413 mm in 7mm scale including the corridor connections is that that correct for an O gauge carriage?

I would be very grateful if someone could impart their knowledge on me please

Thanks in anticipation   

What you really need is Mike King's "An Illustrated History of Southern Coaches" OPC ISBN 0-86093-570-1, to avoid finding his other Southern books, which are all excellent, BTW.  Sadly, this one appears to be out of print and commanding serious prices on the second-hand market. (£75 anyone?) but Mike does sell his plans separately at more affordable rates, for a large sheet containing several diagrams.  For starters though, you could look at the useful Blood and Custard website, which has a relevant drawing that might be of use, although the subject is the Maunsell COR electric unit, so some of the dimensions may be slightly different from the steam hauled stock. This is an extract from the page, https://www.bloodandcustard.com/SR-4COR.html , elsewhere on the site can supply plenty of information about individual coaches if you go to the relevant sections.

I think the end views may solve your question regarding heights, although I suggest you check your calculation methods, as your 12' 4" converts to 86.33 mm, nearly ½mm smaller than your figure, and the 12' 4½" on the drawing becomes 86.63mm, a small but perhaps still noticeable difference.

As regards length, the quoted figure for most Maunsell stock (I'm assuming Maunsell, as the Bulleid 59' coaches didn't feature a full third) at 59 feet is taken over the length of the whole body, which featured bow ends, but not including the buffers and/or corridor connections, both of which being variable factors.  The bow added 6" at each end to the body length, so the sides themselves were 58 feet long. Hence the sides you want to cut out, with windows and doors etc. should be 406mm long, with the missing foot supplied by the bow-ends. Apparently the headstocks of the underframe were slightly shorter, at 57' 11"!

9 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Vaguely based on the LBSCR ones, but should be six wheelers rather than four.

 

I think they were eventually altered to bogie stock by putting two together on a new chassis. But some of the shorties survived as luggage vans for a bit longer.

 

One here.

 

https://mikemorant.smugmug.com/Trains-Railways-British-Isles/SR-and-BRS/LBSCR-tender-locomotives/LBSCR-B2/i-CZGN3WN/A

 

 

Jason

If this is the one, then the LBSCR 6 wheel  Pullman style vans could hardly be the inspiration.  To put the record straight, there were only two of them, and they were built as mobile generators to provide the new fangled electricity to light the contemporary Pullman cars, and built in a similar style to match. The first was scrapped in 1912, and the second, larger one, was burnt out in 1915, and neither were rebuilt.  It was the more orthodox six-wheeled passenger brakes, both centre ducket and two ended type, that were the ones rebuilt into 54'  bogie stock, but not as full brakes, but with passenger accommodation added, either newly built or recovered from other six-wheeled stock.

I wonder if it might be more helpful to us on the other side of the pond if you could provide a better context for what you are after.  The references you give are not that helpful to us limeys, so perhaps some examples of the sort of thing you are proposing to manufacture would be useful. Sketches, 3D renderings of early thoughts or even current products you are hoping to emulate/better would all help steer people in the right direction.

You have rather a scattergun approach to your selection of prototypes, which seem to be on a personal fancy rather than part of a robust marketing strategy.  The GER A55 Decapod/0-8-0 is a very strange choice. One prototype example which had limited life and activity in either incarnation, and the Beattie Well tank hardly flew off the shelves when produced in 00.  There must have been hundreds of UK standard gauge locomotive designs, and thousands of wagon and coach designs, and plans of various levels of detail are available for a large number of them.  Perhaps you could cast your net wider, or outline your ideal selection criteria, which might assist contributors here to point you in a suitable direction. 

However, if you are aspiring to A C Gilbert levels of modelling (American Flyer) then prototypical accuracy seems a low priority, and the addition of faces is hardly finescale, and likely to get the owners of Thomas's copyright up in arms. Your proposed scale, at 1/18 or around 16mm to the foot, has great potential for detail, but your comment  "As my needs for them are for designing toys the frames are not fully needed" whatever 'frames' means, suggests this is not high on your agenda.

As 16mm is a relatively common scale for narrow gauge modelling, often 2' gauge on 0 gauge (32mm) track, it might be sensible to consider this as an alternative.  Smaller locos and coaches - after all a scale model of a BR bogie coach would be a hefty 42" long, whereas a typical NG coach would be a more handleable size and generally a greater potential play-factor.

8 hours ago, DavidB-AU said:

A town in Norway, just south of Trondheim. Which British village should be twinned with Hell?

 

According to the folk song, The Dalesman's Litany - Halifax or Hull

I wonder whether Susan Calman and Sandi Toksvig, both of whom having spoken about their interests in railways, would appeal to a younger demographic and a wider gender recognition?

53 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

 

Here are some drawings and a photo of som of the GNR railcars - the drawings are labelled, the photo is of No 6 and they're from that Oakwood paperback 'British Steam Railcars' by R. W. Rush I brought back from Norwich (with the usual disclaimers - please respect copyright, these cropped photos are only on here for study):

 

 

 

I'm not entirely sold on the 'truncated loco with pruned coach' look, but I can't deny that they'd would make interesting modelling projects. I think the semi-elliptical roof of No 2 improves the look somewhat but that's probably because I hve a great fondness for that shape; the more consistent lines of coach body and loco roof of the No 6 are perhaps more pleasing. The loco part of No 7 looks a little odd and I wonder how accurate that is.

No. 7  & 8 were something only their mother could love. The drawing does seem to capture its ugliness. 
https://twitter.com/SleeperAgent01/status/1280269864175894529/photo/1

10 hours ago, sncf231e said:

That is a story which is often told, but is doubtful.

Already in 1924 Greenly set this standard:

He choose for the smaller gauges (1, 0, 00) a larger scale. As I remarked in my e-book on Gauge and Scale (http://sncf231e.nl/gauge-and-scale/): "One could question whether the gauge and the length, width and height of a train should all be scaled with the same proportion. Since wheel width and flanges in model trains are in general oversized, it might be a choice to “undersize” the gauge." A choice Greenly made.

Regards

Fred

Interesting that he give five eights of an inch as 00 gauge. This works out at something like 15.8 mm, even narrower than 16.5, so when did the current gauge become standard?

19 minutes ago, iands said:

Sorry, I hadn't looked in detail at the NLS site, just thought it might be a good place to start, but apparently not - apologies. 

The NLS site does have some large scale maps from the fifties, but the coverage is poor. Parts of lowland Scotland, the London area and bits of Sussex.

9 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

Following up on this, how did you get those strips around curves? I've got a long curved platform end I'll need to manage!

Although Fittleworth had a curved platform, my version in 4mm is effectively to scale, so the radius of the curve is considerably larger than normal model railway curves. I was therefore able to get away with gently massaging the strip to follow the curve. I wonder if sharper curves could be dealt with by gluing a strip of plastic under the outer edge, to get the full depth of the edging, and then cutting along each groove, allowing the strip to be curved as required.

18 hours ago, geoffers said:

We have been battling a Box Tree Moth infestation on our box hedge. This is an imported species and is now prevalent around Norwich.  Three ways to cope with it:-

1)  Pick out all the caterpillars.

2) Chemical.

3) Remove and burn and replace with a similar shrub. 

 

We are getting on top of it and the infestation is much reduced this year. The box can recover if given the chance. There is a chemical solution now which only affects the Box Tree Moth. Sad really as they are an attractive insect.

 

The Box Tree Moth is fairly common in south London. My daughter and my neighbour had considerable success using biological treatment, involving nematodes I think, and most affected plants survived and are flourishing.

2 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

In reading the stories about the 100 seater SECR carriages at the Bluebell. One end its days on the Lymington branch, the other on the Steyning branch…. The latter of course since closed, but how ironic that a high capacity vehicle is used and wasn’t enough to save the line.

 

I suspect the downfall was due to it being single track from Christs Hospital through to the junction at Shoreham.

The Steyning line was hardly a branch line, and throughout its life it was double track. If the conspiracy theories about its closure are true, its demise was purely political, with much massaging of costs and statistics to justify an unpopular decision.

On 28/09/2023 at 09:31, BoD said:

The Ordnance Survey have updated their maps already

 

 

 

Having piqued my interest, can anyone explain how this area of Dumfriesshire acquired this name?  Or have I missed something?
 

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It’s not exactly simple to work out what they made/sold either, is it?

 

They seem to have remained in being until 2018 though, so someone clearly understood it all.

This brochure gives an indication of their products

https://www.bbprice.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/B.B._Price_Limited_-_Overhead_Line_-_Brochure.pdf

Although the company is B B Price, and long established, they acquired B Birks in 2018, and moved their headquarters to 

BB’s buildings in Crawley Heath.

On 18/09/2023 at 10:14, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

As a start, here's a run down on carriage stock descriptions of the LNER, and the subsequent closely related British Railways scheme, contemporary with the class 5 loco you have purchased. One immediate difference between these schemes, the LNER in common with the other companies generally operated 1st and 3rd class, the advent of BR saw these restyled 1st and 2nd class.

https://d240vprofozpi.cloudfront.net/stock/carriages/LNERS_Carriage_Codes.pdf

Just to be pedantic, BR didn’t abolish third class until 1956. Up until then second class only appeared theoretically, I believe, on the Southern Region in connection with continental services. As only first class was identified externally this shouldn’t affect models.

On 25/09/2023 at 20:02, D7063 said:

Cementation anyone? It was a new one on me!

The first site I worked on after university was a Cementation project, at the Wembley Conference Centre, although when I arrived it had been taken into the Trafalgar House group of companies, under the aegis of Trollope & Colls. The name continued to exist as various specialist sectors, notably Piling and Chemical, and might still, as part of the Kvaerner construction group.

The Scalelink website is a bit of a nightmare for finding things. Don’t forget there were some horseless carriages around before 1914 and they have some kits here https://www.scalelink.co.uk/acatalog/Vehicles___Scale_1_76__OO_.html

10 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

Thanks Stephen, very interesting stuff. The grey Paris Exhibition carriage photo is fascinating - I've certainly never seen a carriage in grey before.

The direct comparison of similar coaches where one's running gear's in grey and one's isn't is very revealing, isn't it?

 

I look forward to your cataloguing of official Clayton arc-roof carriage photos' background foliage in due course...

What about in white?

https://lightmoor.co.uk/books/great-north-of-scotland-railway-carriages/L9419