simon b

Looking good, can we have a pic showing the complete scene?

Admittedly a us prototype, but mainline gauntlet tracks installed in the 21st century.

The bridges that have been rebuilt or newly installed can take OHLE. Most have enough clearance so it shouldn't be a problem.

Not a great pic, but this is just after it went in. The bridge which carrys ewr over the new road is nearly finished to, they are building the embankments up to the new track level at the moment.

A pair of the Corgi cranes have turned up from ebay, very happy with how these look. I will try to find or make some sort of grab for these. As they come these are a very glossy paint finish so need turning down, I plan to fully repaint them and add weathering so wont be a problem. One thing to note is the thread that represents the cables has a mind of it's own, and also the grooves in the pulley wheels is not very deep so jumps off easily. The model is easily posed in position so will be glued solid once I'm happy with them.

That is absolutely stunning work, I take my hat off to you sir. Not that you need to, but just that scene would make a great micro layout on it's own.

Now that looks right at home in an urban setting. Not sure how I've missed this layout until now, just my sort of thing. Any chance of some more pics of the rest of the layout?

Wagons turned up today, will have to look into making up some tarpaulins for them. Thoughts for loading them are either going to be some sort of large shed where rubbish is pushed of a high platform into them, or corgi make a rather good looking crane that could have a clamshell bucket fitted to.

Thanks for tip about Sydenham hill, it's one of those things I know I've seen but cant think where. I guess like you say as long as there is a good reason it would be allowed. I'll have a play around and see what looks right, but it makes the difference of an extra coach fitting in the platform.

Happy new year to you all. On my layout I want to model a situation where the original brick station platforms have been extended in the 1950/60's with concrete prefab sections, but due to space reasons I dont want to have a normal ramp down to track level. I'm thinking a set of short steps down to track level would be a better fit, does anyone have pictures of such a thing? My reasoning is the station is a SR terminus on a viaduct, and had platform lengthening to take 10 car emu's. But the platform ramps could not be included within the existing track layout so were left out. I've found this pic which is the sort of thing I'm thinking of, I assume they didn't want to move the signal box so left the ramp off?

Outstanding work, cant wait to see the finished result.

I've found this pic which shows the yard after the trains stopped running, it looks like the depot has been rebuilt by this time. The dark green shed above the signal box in the above pic, is the rebuilt transfer station shown in this gallery: https://www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk/search-results?key=VXsiUCI6eyJ0YXgiOjUsInQiOlsiQXNoYnVydG9uIEdyb3ZlIFdhc3RlIFRyYW5zZmVyIFN0YXRpb24gKEwuQi4gb2YgSXNsaW5ndG9uKSJdfX0&WINID=1672178518833

Thanks for the pic, that's a few years earlier than the others I have. In your pic the building that I think it is, is the one obscured by the 08 above the grounded van body. Doing some research on old nls maps shows that building as "refuse destructor", but the interesting part is the 4 tracks appearing to go into it with one long siding on the right side going all the way through. It's this long siding which I think is the loading track. Here is a Link

It's amazing what you could get away with back then, quite how they were allowed to shift open train loads of it with only flysheets boggles my mind.

Hi all, I'm looking for info on how the rubbish trains out of Ashburton grove were loaded. I've got pics of them being unloaded by a crane mounted clamshell bucket at Blackridge tip, but this seems like a time consuming way to load them. I wondered if the dustcarts simply backed up to the edge of a loading platform and emptied into the wagons directly? A chance offer on ebay has landed me a rake of the lner bogie sulphate wagons used on this service, so my thoughts have turned to a rubbish themed micro layout. I found this video on Youtube showing loading of the Chelsea barges, replace barges with wagons and it has the basis for some interesting shunting.

That looks great, it will blend in fine once the rest of the scenery is around it. Just in case you decide to do something different at the other end, the Hornby tunnels R8511 or R8512 should be wide enough for what you need. There are matching wing walls available to.

You can shorten it by using a single slip, but even then you cant really fit it in 8ft. If it has to be a minories I would curve the fiddle yard over the radiator, use setrack and leave expansion gaps. Alot depends on the length of trains you want to run, but there are similar plans like victoria park if space is an issue.

I thought Minories to Seironim was pretty good.

The cost of the GW electrification skyrocketed so much that the plan to reach Oxford has been shelved for now. Even the upcoming rebuild of Oxford states that electrification wont be included at this time.

There seems to be an awful lot of criticism over EWR not being electrified from the outset, I think we should be thankful to see it being built at all no matter how the trains are powered. But just to play devils advocate for a moment regarding the electrification.... I would question if the benefits outweigh the costs? As things are we still do not know if the project will get any further than Bletchley for some time to come, so lets look at the trains using that section. Chiltern's fleet is all diesel, and will be for a long time to come so they wont be using OHLE. The only other user at present is the proposed class 196 fleet for EWR, this is only 6 units so can the cost be justified just for these 6? I don't think it can. You could say it forms part of a through route to Oxford, but Oxford isn't getting it's wires any time soon under the GWR scheme (and may never) so not really a through route. Bedford to Bletchley hardly has the traffic levels to justify it's own existence at present, while it will see more traffic under EWR I cant see it being more than 2 trains per hour each way which doesn't justify electrification. Electrification for freight use is a good idea, but until considerable investment is made where rail-freight runs to and from it will still be diesel hauled. No point putting up wires which wont be used. Just to be clear in the long term I think EWR should be electrified, but I can see why it isnt. I have a feeling the answer to what trains are used will be this: LINK My gut feeling is that EWR will get no further than Bedford due to costs, anything east of there will have to wait for the time being. I also suspect that Chiltern and EWR will merge into one company at some point.

Agreed, but loose one of the crossovers and you can fit a Victoria park lookalike in that space.

The more I look at that the more I like it, would stand out from the crowd. But to do it justice I would take it away from the minories concept and make it as a standalone design. Move the signal box to the rear of the layout and turn the kick back into a domestic coal yard, platform 3 wouldn't exist the track just being the headshunt for said coal yard. Perhaps it was a former through station with the tunnel now blocked off under the station buildings, like Liverpool street platforms 1 and 2 maybe.

More pictures please, you've captured the atmosphere perfectly.

I've learnt something there as I didn't think the 21's were fitted, but thinking about it they must have been to be used on passenger work. I'm sure there was a rule somewhere that non tripcock fitted locos could work over the LT network but had to be crewed by 2 people and not in passenger service. The 16's I thought some were fitted, I'm not 100% sure but thought I've seen a picture of at least D8400 and possibly also D8407 with gear in place. These would have been based at Devons road at that time so could have been used over the LTS sections. I might ask over on the LNER site as there are a few ex Finsbury park lads on there who might be able to help us with info, I'll post it up here if I find anything.

I've never seen a pic of tripcock gear on an 08, but it might have been only a few that were fitted. I would guess they would have been based at Finsbury park? Although not used on freight there are pics on the internet of class 21 at Moorgate on passenger work, and those definitely didn't have tripcock gear. We do know that some class 15, 16, 23, 24, 26, and 31 were fitted. Another I'm not sure about is class 20.