simon b

Hi all, I've been playing about with a model of Holborn viaduct in the early 70's but I'm a little confused on how some of the platforms were signaled. When platforms 1,4 and 5 were extended for 8 car trains, a train in any one of these would block the exit from the shorter platforms 2 and 3. Now this meant that the shorter platforms were used for parcel traffic only. What I cant figure out is that there doesn't appear to be any signals on these short platforms in the pictures I've seen of them. Were these perhaps just provided with a calling on signal to pull up to the starter at the end of the long platforms? Or were they operated with no signals at all? I don't think there would have been a full size platform starter for these short platforms, as in theory the train would have to pass the following signal at danger? Anybody able to shed some light as to how it was done?

I drew up a plan inspired by Clive Mortimer's Sheffield exchange mk1. It puts the approach pointwork on a curve to fit in the space I had available, and by using the Tillig single slip avoids the sharp angle of the Peco item. The only thing I wasn't sure of is the loco siding being a facing point on the up line, but trying to put it anywhere else involves takes too much space. Platforms are 5ft long which will take 4 mk1 suburban coaches and a class 31 at either end. This is the tillig slip in question.

Outstanding work, so much atmosphere.

I like to use the old Hornby kits as low relief house backs, the numbers are R273 and R274. The other option is the Wills CK11 kit but those are very time consuming to build correctly. You can see 2 of the Hornby kits minus their chimneys at the back of this pic.

How many do you need?

Go back a couple more years and you could also run Chiltern's "Green Goddess" water cannon unit, certainly one the more unusual units to roam the Chiltern line. Of course if you want to be really silly, dont forget about "Scaz", Chilterns 01 shunter.

We used to get DC rail class 56's through here quite regularly, on the Willesden to Calvert spoil trains. EWS/DB class 59's can sometimes turn up on the Northolt to Calvert binliner instead of a 66. When the GW mainline is closed FGW HST set's are another regular.

I count 31 times he has now won an item and not payed, still ebay are not interested. What a shower they really are these days.

Just a quick update, he has now changed his user ID to: total_trains I presume this is due to the amount of people blocking him, but dont forget to update your block list!

I think a bit of both was used, these tunnels were altered over time.

Spot on, york road is the access to the Thameslink core section whilst maiden lane isnt used for anything at present. Hotel curve houses alot of bt cables in the 2 remaining sections, and the underground ticket hall cuts through the middle of it. The fleet river runs over the top of the york road tunnel, you can see the bottom of it's ribbed iron culvert when standing at the junction of the tunnels. The white ducting was indeed used for pumping fresh air down the tunnels whilst the cleanup was underway, a thorough inspection of the brickwork was carried out at the same time. It has scince been removed so it's not advisable to venture down maiden lane curve due to dangerous gases.

This is the inside of maiden lane curve after all the mess was cleared up the second time around, note the far end of the tunnel is blocked off.

Yes and no. The maiden lane curve was closed in 1865, but it was the tunnel to the midland railway that claimed the crossing trackbed in 1868.

It crossed hotel curve with a diamond crossing a short distance before connecting with the met/circle lines, all 4 tracks leading to the diamond were in separate tunnels. When the widened lines were built the tunnel was ran through the site of the diamond crossing, hotel curve was realigned to connect with the new tracks whilst maiden lane tunnel (which was out of use by this time) was closed off by the new tunnel wall. I've not been all the way down to the end of maiden lane tunnel as it is not safe to do so, but it should stop only a few meters from the newer tunnel.

The maiden lane curve was blocked off at it's western end when the widened lines were put in, the only thing down there now is water and rubble.

And a video, the part you want is around 3.30

That is the open air section of York road tunnel, hidden round the back of kings cross. Taken in the very late 70's after it was closed to traffic, the pic is looking southwards downgrade. It is still used as an access route for network rail and you can see their vans crawling through sometimes, it currently looks like this:

Not my picture, but the more I look at those pics the more it reminds me of this:

I like that a lot, very effective.

Those traveling cranes would be good fun to motorize.

I've got no experience of DCC, but I regularly run pairs of lima loco's together on DC. I use old H&M controllers and slow speed running isnt an issue.

Unlikely, he did the same thing a while ago.

Looks great, I'm surprised that it hasn't happened on the real thing yet.

Thanks, I need 12 if you have enough?

That's what I thought, I was surprised I got it at that price. I was looking to see if anyone made a 2ft x 8ft baseboard kit so I could join two together, but this will work just as well. Most importantly is that they are a good solid base for me to build the upper level onto, which makes my life a lot easier.