Nick Holliday

I would agree that, originally, most platforms were 2' 6" or less above rail level, and, although recommendations for higher levels such as 3' 0" were made subsequently, there doesn't seem to have been any legislation in place to require changes to be made retrospectively.  It would seem that 3' 6" would have been a typical height for a loading platform, as that would give sufficient room for a drop-flap to be opened and usable as a ramp into the wagon, whilst end loading docks were more likely to be around 4' 0" so that there was just clearance over the buffers.  This fllickr photo of Gargrave on the Settle and Carlisle line shows a rather extreme survivor, which, if modelled, would engender plenty of comments.

As for the actual platform edging, I can't vouch for the main platforms at Brighton itself, but a very common sight on the LBSCR was the use of Staffordshire Blue Bull-nose edgings like this, 18" long, and 6" wide and deep:

At least one platform at Brighton had such edging, with a fair amount of the single's skirt showing:

Just to add to the mix, this map shows the approximate locations for various loco names in the immediate vicinity of Three Bridges

Thought you might be interested to see the various locations assigned to the E5 Class.  Certainly Copthorne is by far the nearest to Three Bridges.

17 hours ago, J-Mo Arts said:

 

 

I also have an E5, Inspector, Grosvenor and a standard G class which will eventually make this layout their home- does anyone know of any E5s based nearby which I could plausibly use the name of? The G class will be Imberhorne. 

 

For what it's worth the following E5 Class were on shed in nearby locations.

Horsham had 410 Woldingham and 403 Fordcombe; and Brighton 406 Colworth and 567 Freshwater

However, I wonder if locally based locos would actually enter the shed area at Three Bridges - water would be available elsewhere, and there shouldn't be a need to take on coal mid-duty.  You would be more likely to see a New Cross or Battersea loco being topped up, although that would assume the service stopped at Three Bridges.

Getting back to the original question, there were several more along the lines of Derwent on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. I made it around thirty five, and many survived into the 1870’s. The S&DR later also built a few more to a more orthodox design, although featuring an unusual connecting rod arrangement. One or two lasted until 1882.

In the January 1990 edition of Model Railways there is a superb article by John Cockcroft, detailing in full the passenger workings for the L&YR side of Bradford Exchange for Summer 1954. He discusses the various movements, and there is sufficient information to reproduce the operations in full, and I have always thought it would be fun to try it out myself. 
The L&YR Society has recently published a book detailing the goods workings from the adjacent Bridge Street Goods station, although is rather earlier, being pre-grouping, but I suspect that little changed until the sixties.

Unfortunately there is no similar information covering the GNR side of the station.

22 hours ago, Schooner said:

7mm WIP - 'Victoria Quay'

 

FWIW, the shed at the front is currently likely to be 

with the platform facing the operator at the front, for loading horse vehicles. Railway wagons to be unloaded through the rear door across a couple of planks on trestles...?

 

Critique, please.

Unfortunately, it should be the other way round.  The platform should face the track, allowing easy unloading of wagon(s) and providing clearance for doors to open, and the non-platform side faces the yard, and horse-drawn wagons would be backed up to the shed, making loading very simple, straight from the shed.

As this view of Fittleworth shows:

I think the staging at the yard side is a later addition, perhaps to help loading motor vehicles.

48 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

Seen on the Bognor Regis museum Facebook page:

 

 

Presumably that would have been via the GWR Cardiff to Brighton service and change at Barnham.

 

The museum were surprised the GWR were advertising Bognor, but of course the company didn't want to miss an opportunity of getting people on the rails.

 

Looking at the style, I would say it was pre-WW1, I wonder if there were later versions.

A little bit suspicious. Bognor was only given the “Regis” appellation in 1929, rather later than the bathing machine era!

Looking at the video I think the problem is caused by the connecting rods making contact with the inner flange of the slide bars, causing it to lift and push the crosshead against the opposite bar. 
 

I’ve had a quick look at my original Kernow model, and on mine it seemed to just clear the flange, passing behind it.  Either your example has a slightly bent rod, or the slide bars need a gentle file, I don’t know.

On 16/05/2023 at 07:34, Tony Wright said:

Still, I suppose that's the way things are going; the over-£200.00 steam-outline RTR OO tender loco is now quite common it would seem, so the £250.00 'ceiling' might soon be breached (or has it already?), and Hornby's latest Hornby Dublo die-cast offerings are the 'wrong side' of £300.00 now (out of interest, and I'm sure I've asked this before, I recall my oldest friend buying a BARNSTAPLE in 1961 for £5:19:6, smashing all his piggy banks to achieve this! Does anyone know what the equivalent of that is today, over 60 years later? The only things in common between the two were that both were made of Mazak and both had plastic tenders!). 

 

On 16/05/2023 at 11:24, Compound2632 said:

In the Airfix Railway System Feb 1979 price list, coaches were £3.25 each with the exception of the GWR autocoach at £3.75. At the time these were introduced, they represented a great step forward in detail and accuracy of RTR coaches. Using the BoE inflation calculator, that corresponds to about £15 today. For my part, I'm inclined to think that the best current RTR coaches are at least four times better than those Airfix offerings of 44 years ago. Also, I suspect that any manufacturer would struggle to produce carriages equivalent to those Airfix ones for £15 today.*

 

*I know Dapol until recently offered those for which they had the moulds at quite low prices, including self-assembly versions, but they didn't have tooling costs to consider.

I, too, have never been convinced by the BofE figures, as they seldom seem to reflect prices as we see them - cars, houses and model railways.  I used to trust the Mars Bar inflation index, but that, over the last decade or two, has become devalued by shrinkflation and other matters.  I now use the railway magazine cost index, as that reflects what individuals are prepared to pay for non-essential items.  Using the Railway Modeller digital archive I have prepared the attached graph.

I apologise for the scales, but Excel is not as friendly as it used to be, or I've got too old to master it.  The line in yellow represents the ratio of the old price with the current one, and thus a multiplying factor to get a current cost. The line in blue is the cover price (multiplied by 10 to keep the numbers the same).

In 1961 the factor is 54.5, so in Tony's case, the current equivalent for that Hornby Dublo West Country is £327, and Stephen's example comes to £45.30 for the GWR autocoach, an inflation factor of 12.2 for 1979. 

24 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

I like the look of that, Chris. Probably a silly question: So these are tiles not slates? In scale terms, I think a slate roof should be almost flat - a tile roof perhaps less so. But I may be missing up things, in Danish the terms are different.

 

Given the location, and that @ChrisN quotes a Duchess size, we are talking slates, and I have to agree that the result should be virtually flat, so I would say the result is perfect, especially as Chris has noted the need for larger slates at the end of alternate rows, to avoid the use of half sized slates, which tend to be unstable as they may only have one fixing.

The problem is that the approximate heights for various unloadings varied.  Passengers were expected to be able to use steps, and so early platforms were low, as noted, say 2' 6", later raised to around 3' 0" with, I believe, modern platforms are nearer 3' 6" to ease access for wheelchairs and pushchairs.  Many old stations showed various levels as they were progressively raised to meet the latest regulations, which didn't, then, demand that older levels had to be raised.

Livestock generally required a fairly level transition from floor to wagon, but needed enough to be able to lower the door flap/ramp, so were around 3' 6", and end unloading of wheeled vehicles required something higher still, around 4' 0" or more, to allow the loading flaps to be just above the height of buffer heads.

This can be seen in this view of Fittleworth on the LBSCR, although the "bay" was not used for passenger services.  The difference between the passenger platform level and the height of the unloading ramp is clear, although perhaps exacerbated by the gradient of the running line relative to the siding. (The cattle dock is just off picture to the right.

9 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

Now I understand what this rather attractive building on Burgess Hill up platform might have been.

This quirky building is indeed of interest, although nothing really to do with the goods shed train of thought.

As Wikipedia notes:

The first station at Burgess Hill was opened on 21 September 1841 by the London and Brighton Railway (L&BR), at the time of the completion of the route to Brighton. The original facilities were all in the small wooden hut (which still stands as a refurbished waiting room on platform 1) and wooden platforms set beside the main line. The L&BR became the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) in 1846 and a track plan of the station dating from 1874 shows that by then several sidings and a signal box had been constructed at the station.

The present station building dates from 1877 and is typical of LB&SCR stations of the period.

The earliest OS map shows the original layout with the building in the photo being the main station offices, with a road access from the east.

Later maps show the 1877 building on the road overbridge, and the substantial brick built goods shed on the west side of the tracks.

As there is still road access down to the building and the minimalist goods yard, it is likely that the building was retained to handle parcels and perhaps milk traffic, but, essentially, it is a converted waiting room.  The "standard" timber goods sheds only dated from 1888, so this one pre-dates them byfour decades!

On 28/04/2023 at 18:49, Nearholmer said:

Now, l’m sure that Litlington could drum up a bit more trade, but there were plenty of places that managed without a goods shed, having simply a goods lock-up, for which there was a standard LBSCR design, and plenty where everything was dealt with on one siding.

 

I always flinch a bit when people quote "A standard LBSCR design" as the company seemed to find it difficult to adhere to the concept with regard to architecture in particular. Certainly there were design themes, but the details seemed to vary, such as the station buildings for Slinfold and Rudgwick being to an identical design, but were the mirror images of each other! And anyone who has tried to come up with standard windows for a signal box to one of the "Standard" designs has found that the dimensions for each one were significantly different.

The Brighton Circle article @Nearholmer has cited, identifies over thirty such sheds, erected over a period of 12 years between 1888 and 1900, costing around £50-70 to provide.  Where details are known, it is apparent that most had subtle differences, such as elaborate corner brackets, fancy barge boards, windows or no windows, sliding or hinged doors and all manner of variations in planking and framing.  A subsequent piece by Gerry Bixley also showed that dimensions could be slightly different, most being 20' ± a few inches, and 8'± or 10'±. The photos of the one on the Bluebell suggest it has been "modernised" during its various reconstructions - unlikely to have originally a corrugated sheet roof, and the rear valance seems to have gone astray, and it is a unusual design, being 32' 4" long. There is a fine example of a more typical example at Isfield on the Lavender Line, and a trawl through the Middleton Press books could reveal a number of other examples.

Photo courtesy of Phil Clarke - Lavender Line website

It is surprising the variety of locations, varying from the tiny rural (FIttleworth and Selham) to suburban London (Gipsy Hill and Streatham Hill) with some large towns included (Haywards Heath and Three Bridges)

In 1849 an employee(?perhaps director) of the LNWR produced a book entitled “Stokers and Pokers” subtitled “or the London and North Western Railway - The Electric Telegraph - The Railway Clearing House”

However, a quick skim through its 170 pages failed to find the word actually in the text - all engine crews are described as driver and fireman.  But he does refer often to the various coking plants and similar establishments, which may have required stokers.

On 17/04/2023 at 10:48, phil gollin said:

.

 

(Hope this works)

 

This rather ornate one is near Sutton (South London) ;

 

https://goo.gl/maps/DtjEasAVVUnFgVR87

 

And, of course, most houses have one.

There are, at the last count, 29 of these ornate stench pipes in the borough of Sutton, locally listed, not that that guarantees their survival. Presumably other areas would have similar numbers - perhaps people just fail to notice them. All the Sutton ones were apparently supplied by one contractor.

The pipe that houses and all other buildings have is a soil vent pipe. This is mainly to prevent discharging waste creating a vacuum in the down pipe, which might siphon the water from the u-bends of other toilets on the way down, or cause other problems. If properly built and maintained there shouldn’t be a buildup of toxic gases in the down pipe.

16 hours ago, dseagull said:

Thanks Phil; Some really nice examples there of the sort of buildings I want.

 

Now to work out how to best represent flint... - there are commercial offerings for the knapped kind, but less so for the whole stone kind, e.g.

 

Does this work?

https://peco-uk.com/products/cobblestone-walling

On 27/04/2023 at 09:31, Nick C said:

You can't get more traditionally Sussex than those - especially the second, flint and tile-hanging on the same building...

I suspect that the second one is actually built using chalkstone, exploiting hard veins of chalk, and not uncommonly used in the south east.  Not hard enough to do the whole frontage, requiring brick quoins as per the picture. The blocks were generally larger than any flints, and could be dressed to give a relatively smooth surface.

Pardon me for suggesting a rather crude and non-engineering solution to your buffer problem, but does the squaring of them have to be in brass? Could you use your brass wrapper as a mould, insert the prepared brass bit and fill it with a suitable compound? At least no burnt fingers will be involved.

Albion produced a brass kit for the Gladstones. The range is now in the hands of Roxey Mouldings, and I believe is slowly being reintroduced. However I think this, or the EBM route, would be quite expensive, and I’m not sure if their chassis would actually fit beneath the Gem body castings.

Putting your location would seem to be a good place to start.

Presumably you’ve checked on Google to see if it comes up with anything local to you, but have you tried the Ukmodelshops website to see what they have listed in your area?

20 hours ago, jetmorgan said:

Screen grabs from the 1951 film Lady with a Lamp. Just a very short scene at a railway station, don't know the location, and Lion hauling some Liverpool Manchester style coaches.

According to IMDB website, the scene was filmed at Cole Green station on the GNR Welwyn to Hertford branch.

image from the Disused Stations website

Is this the right place? Unfortunately the 1934 edition is the latest on the NLS website.