jamespetts

I wonder whether anyone has any views on the following question relating to windows: the full size windows would start 1m up from the floor. This would be lower than the OO gauge layout that I plan to have running along three walls, one of which would be the wall with the windows on it. I have asked the people who are to build the shed whether they can supply half height windows, but I am told that they can only provide either full height windows or relatively narrow high windows as shown in the attachment. Next to my workbench, I should still want a full height window for light maximisation purposes. These windows would all face north. Thus, I can either have a shed with three identical windows along one side, but two of them would overlap with the fiddle yards, or a shed with two narrow, high windows and one large full sized window down the same side. I should be grateful for any views on what might be preferable.

That there is a market for something does not mean that there is a sufficiently large market to sustain profitable production.

Excellent - thank you both very much. Extremely useful.

Interesting - thank you all, that is most helpful, especially the picture of the stabling point from 1988. Can anyone shed any more light on the mail/GUV situation?

Interesting - thank you. That implies that there was a stabling point at Oxford; is that correct? If so, may I ask for what it was used?

Interesting indeed - I see that the locomotive hauled trains were stabled with the locomotives attached at the front. Do I infer from this that there was at the time no separate locomotive stabling facility? Also, I had not heard of this Bicester MOD train before - can anyone elaborate on what that involved? This seems interesting.

Interesting - Brian, if you are reading this, your memories and information would be most welcome.

This is interesting. From what I understand, Hornby, which has been in some financial difficulties for a few years, had something of an internal battle for control between rival factions of directors a few years ago: one faction wanted to position Hornby more towards its traditional market of children's toys, and the other wanted to focus more on serious models for the adult market. In the end, the dispute was, from what I read, resolved by the directors favouring the serious models approach buying out those favouring the children's toys approach. This was circa late 2016. Hornby's financial position has remained, from the reports that I have read, in a poor state since then, and this news seems to be consistent with the approach of the faction of directors who retained control. I suspect that train sets in general as children's toys are losing market share to other sorts of children's toys - which in many ways is rather a shame, as I recall that my own interest in railways was sparked when my father bought me a Hornby train set at age 3. Nevertheless, those (I suspect all in this forum) who fall into the serious models for the adult market category might take some comfort from the fact that this decision is consistent with a strategy of focussing on that segment of the market.

Interesting history - thank you! Does anyone know how the parcels dock was actually used in the 1980s, in that case? Was it just used for stabling spare carriages/locomotives? The BRUTEs seem to suggest otherwise. And, if it was used for stabling spare carriages/locomotives, what was the purpose of stabling them there?

Interesting pictures - I see that the carriage sidings have now partly been built on. It makes sense, of course, for the sidings now to be single ended as they serve only DMUs and HSTs, which can easily reverse in the sidings and do not need to have a locomotive running around the carriages as was necessary in the 1980s. I had not realised that they had re-aligned the main lines to the north of Oxford - is this related to the new through services to the Great Central mainline? As to the last picture, that is probably closer to what I had in mind, although its hard to see the layout of the sidings from that view: the picture above from circa 1993 with the class 150 seems to be the best that I have found so far. Can I ask what operational reason that there was for carriage sidings being 1.5-2x longer than platforms such that having them shorter would not be workable?

Thank you all for your thoughts: that is most helpful. Mightbe - can you elaborate on why and in what way that you do not think that the loops will work at this length? On the far side of the main line, the longest loop is a scale length of 274m and the shortest 146m. The two longer loops can accommodate 9 car passenger trains without difficulty. As to fitting in back scenes, how would one go about working out the necessary separation between track and back scene board (which I anticipate being possibly curved in the case of this layout) at any given point?

Thank you both - that is most helpful, especially as to the use of the the westerly carriage sidings for locomotive hauled trains and the easterly carriage sidings for DMUs - a practice that I had forgotten as, of course, only DMUs use either now. As to the parcels dock, can anyone shed any more light on this? Presumably, the parcels vans there would have been used for something (unlike the two condemned vans that were left to rot there for about 15 years until recently when they were cut up for the expansion of the northern part of the station). Can anyone give any idea what they were used for and how they were used? Photographs of the area at the time, such as this one: suggest an abundance of mail/parcels paraphanalia remaining in that area at the time (that photograph is dated 1989), and there was a Red Star parcels office at the end of the dock. Are people sure that there were no Red Star activities using the dock given the proximity of the office? How did Red Star services actually work in any event?

For the purposes of planning this layout, it would help me to know if anyone has any idea of just how the carriage sidings and parcels dock at Oxford station were used in the late 1980s. I have memories as a child of locomotive hauled trains and DMUs being stored between turns in the carriage sidings on the down side of the station (and adjacent to the down lines) and then the trains being brought into the up platform in time for departure - indeed, I believe that the carriage sidings were still used thus (albeit without any locomotive hauled trains) when I was last at Oxford a few years ago. However, I have seen pictures of parcels/mail trains in the carriage sidings, and of DMUs in the down sidings but adjacent to the up lines (i.e., on the town side of the main line). I think that I have a fairly good idea of how these sidings must have worked for passenger trains (although anyone with more detailed knowledge giving more information would be most welcome), but I am quite unsure how it would have worked with mail trains. Indeed, I am not even entirely sure of precisely the distinction between "mail" and "parcels" trains in the period: was "parcels" just the red star service where people could drop off and pick up packages at stations, which was nothing to do with the Royal Mail at all, or was there some overlap? Would mail trains have had anything to do with the parcels dock, or would mail trains just have passed through, perhaps picking up/dropping off mail bags at the station? I am aware that some passenger trains carried mail at the time - would regular dedicated mail (if different from parcels) trains have called at the station (daily? twice daily? more often)? How frequent would parcels trains (in so far as they are different from mail trains) have been? I should be very grateful for any insight.

Thank you for your thoughts. I have now amended the design a little further thus: Changes include: slight curvature to the line on the down side; extra fiddle yard space for multiple units, allowing both the storage of more multiple units than before and allowing the two roads previously set aside for multiple units to be used for full-length trains; additional sidings (to replicate those found on the east side of the down lines at Oxford as shown in the two photographs above); more accurate measurement of the necessary widths of platforms and the fuelling point; the addition of fuel storage tanks and a siding for the wagons serving them; a slight alteration in the shape of the baseboard to take more account of the shape of the baseboard of the planned OO gauge layout above and allow a little more space on the down side; an alteration in the design of the road bridge on the up side to allow space for two extra tracks not present to signify that there would have been quadruple track on the up side at some point in the past; slight revisions to the position of signals; the alteration of the position of the planned multi-storey car park; re-orientation of the parcels building; and the addition of portable offices, as shown in one of the photographs above. I should prefer to keep the looped carriage sidings, as this seems more consistent both with how the photographs show that the sidings at Oxford actually were and with how I remember the locomotive hauled trains using Oxford and the carriage sidings (I do not remember the shunting and coupling/uncoupling taking place in the station at all: the trains were, from what I recall, always ready and brought into the station by the locomotive that was to haul them to their destination attached to the front and ready to go). I have deliberately kept the arrangement simple at the up side, as this is the part that will be a little buried underneath the main line curves of the planned OO gauge layout above (which will start at just about the point where the tracks diverge into platforms 4/5).

I think that the sidings north of Oxford were in loop form to a large extent, as in this picture: BR Class 150/1 DMU no. 150126, Oxford, early 1990s by Michael Day, on Flickr How would you imagine that single ended carriage sidings would have been used? I was imagining that a locomotive hauled train would arrive at platform 5, continue with its original locomotive into the carriage sidings, the locomotive would detach, reverse into the fuelling point, then wait in the stabling sidings. On departure, the locomotive would come forward of the stabling sidings into the headshunt, attach to the carriages in the carriage sidings, and then run into platform 4. This would not work for single-ended carriage sidings, and presumably would require the carriages to be propelled into the sidings from the rear, requiring all incoming terminating locomotive hauled trains either to be serviced by a class 08 or have the locomotive run around the train at the up end, requiring additional trackwork there. (Out of interest - does anyone know how the Oxford carriage sidings were actually used?) In relation to curvature, as indicated, the stations that inspire this layout are on largely straight track (and the platforms themselves are straight), but I am wondering whether a little curvature just at the down (right hand) side of the layout might be worthwhile (as well as altering the road bridge at the left hand/up side to make it look as though there used to be four tracks in that area, and one or two other amendments). I will post an amended plan when I get a moment.

I did see that - but looking at the article carefully, what it appears is being said is that the board, whilst appearing to be Supalux, is actually an imitation or similar which is contaminated with asbestos. Having researched the matter, Supalux appears to be well known and well regarded, and is recommended in many different places.

The shed people are proposing now to use 9mm Supalux cladding - does anyone have any experience of buildings constructed with this cladding? Big Jim - best wishes for your garage project!

Some further slight revisions: firstly, I have scaled the buildings correctly based on actual measurements of appropriate scale buildings (mainly Graham Farish and Scale Scene - what are people's views on the quality and ease of assembly of Scale Scene buildings?). Secondly, I have re-organised the parcels dock and car park area slightly and added some additional sidings on the near side of the tracks on the down side as similar (albeit larger) sidings seem to have existed at Oxford. These might well be useful for DMU stabling (and they were actually used thus at Oxford in the 1980s according to the photographic evidence that I have seen: 50023 by Redhill Bull, on Flickr Revised diagram follows:

Thank you for your thoughts. Looking at the Google Maps view of Oxford station, the area through the station itself seems quite striaight (aside from a slight kink near the Rewley Road bridge). There are gentle curves both north and south, but not through the station itself. Likewise, Didcot Parkway, if we ignore the junction, is on a very straight piece of main line. Since the station is intended to be inspired by a combination of Oxford and Didcot, it seems to make sense to depict the station as quite straight rather than on a curve. Also, I am a little concerned that adding a curve would add to the width of the layout, which might have implications for its interaction with the planned higher level OO gauge layout. I can see that a long gentle curve would in many ways be a good look, but I suspect that it is not right for this particular layout.

Some further revisions to improve the fiddle yard's ability to handle multiple DMUs in any sequence (one road in each direction is now dedicated to DMUs of 425mm or less in length, with direct access for each unit stored to the main running lines), and also more capacity in the locomotive stabling yards: The redesign comes as a result of working out in more detail how the layout might be operated. I think that I posted earlier on the question of service patterns that might call at the station. Having researched western Thames valley services in a little more detail, the service pattern seems more varied and complex (and interesting) than I had initially envisaged, so I have altered the layout to take account of this (part of this was done in the previous revision: see above). I currently plan on having the following diagrams: Inter-City passenger 1. GWML express, non-stop, passing platform 3 (up) or 2 (down), HST formation 2. GWML express, stopping, booked platform 3 (up) or 2 (down), HST formation 3. London to inter-regional express, non-stop, passing platform 3 (up) or 2 (down), class 47/50*, air-conditioned Mark 2s 4. London to inter-regional express, stopping, booked platform 3 (up) or 2 (down), class 47/50*, air-conditioned Mark 2s 5. Cross-country express, stopping, booked platform 3 (up) or 2 (down), class 47, air-conditioned Mark 2s Network SouthEast passenger 6. Main through, stopping, booked platform 4 (up) or 5 (down), class 47/50* + Mark 1/2s 7. Main terminating, terminating**, booked platform 4 (departure) or 5 (arrival), class 47/50* + Mark 1/2s 8. Local terminating up, terminating**, booked platform 4 (departure) or 5 (arrival), NSE DMU 3 car 9. Local through up to branch, stopping, booked platform 4 (up) or 5 (down), NSE DMU 2 car 10. Local terminating down, terminating, booked platform 1, NSE DMU 2 car 11. Branch terminating, terminating, booked platform 1, NSE DMU 1 car Provincial passenger 12. Main through, stopping, booked platform 4 (up) or 5 (down), class 47/50* + Mark 1/2s 13. Local terminating down, booked platform 1, Provincial DMU or Sprinter 2 car Mail/parcels 14. Through mail, stopping, booked platform 4 (up) or 5 (down), class 47 + Mark 1 mail vehicles 15. Parcels, stopping, booked platform 4 (up - carriages attached from parcels dock) or parcels dock (down - carriages detached), class 47 + Mark 1 mail vehicles Freight 16. MGR coal***, stopping to allow fast trains to pass, booked platform 4 (up) or 5 (down), class 58/56 + HAAs 17. Petroleum, non-stop, booked to pass platform 2 (up) or 3 (down), class 37/47/31 + bogie tankers 18. Aggregates***, stopping to allow fast trains to pass, booked platform 4 (up) or 5 (down), class 59****/56 + PGAs * 47s only until Dapol release their Class 50 ** Uses the carriage sidings between arriving and departing *** Uses 2 identical rakes with one full, one empty **** 56s only until Dapol release their class 59 There is then the question of how the stock for this will fit into the fiddle yards. The main fiddle yards have 18 roads (9 on the up side and 9 on the down side), including the 2 dedicated DMU roads. There are also two short branch fiddle yard roads (we imagine that this single track branch line had a passing loop so that we can alternate between the shuttle terminators and the through trains). I have provisionally imagined the following main fiddle yard road assignments (with diagram numbers as above, except for the DMUs, dealt with in more detail below): 2x DMU (up to x4 DMUs in each) 2x spare (to allow for through movements) 3x HST (1, 2) 1x petroleum train (17) 2x MGR (16) 2x aggregates (18) 2x Inter-City locomotive hauled (3, 4, 5) 2x NSE locomotive hauled (6, 7, 12) 2x mail/parcels (14, 15) I do wonder whether to remove the aggregates diagram as this requires two identical long trains and replace it with a container diagram with a class 47 in RFD livery (which would then require only one train, as the empty shipping containers would presumably have to be returned at some point); the additional fiddle yard slot could then allow one extra Inter-City locomotive hauled passenger train to give some variety of 47/4s. However, there seem to have been a lot of aggregates trains in the Oxford area, but few container trains in the late 1980s, at least in so far as I can find pictures online (does anyone have any more information about this)? I can also envisage an alternative week-end diagram with the aggregates and petroleum traffic not running, but additional engineering trains and a short train of 4 wheel tankers servicing the fuelling point. One might also imagine other timetable alterations for a week-end service, such as no through trains to the branch, and the insertion of occasional special trains (football specials, perhaps) either stopping or non-stop. The fiddle yard would thus need to be manually re-populated to switch between a week-end and weekday service, although the aim is to work on the weekday service first. The absence of class 117 DMUs in N-gauge makes setting up DMU formations challenging, but I think that I have a workable pattern as set out below. The numbers in brackets represent the service numbers above that the DMU will work: 3-car Class 101 in blue/grey with NSE branding (8) 2 car Class 101 in NSE original + Class 121 in NSE revised (8) 2 car Class 101 in NSE original (9) 2 car Class 101 in NSE original (10) Class 121 in NSE revised+Class 121 in blue/grey with NSE branding (10) Class 121 (unsure of livery - the NSE motorised units are hard to obtain) (11) 2 car Class 108 in blue/grey (13) 2 car Class 150 with "Sprinter" branding (13) This leaves up to 2 additional slots in the fiddle yards for further units if anyone ever decides to produce an N gauge class 117 (or I work out how to 3D print one in colour). The choice of a class 150 is not quite correct for the place and time, as a class 155 would have been preferable, but these are not currently available; class 150/1s were used on the Oxford - Great Malvern service in the early 1990s (albeit with de-branded Centro livery), so this is not too far out, and probably preferable to using class 156s, which strike me as less plausible for this service. I am most keen on having something with "Sprinter" branding using the bay, as I recall seeing one of BR's second generation units with "Sprinter" (I think actually "Super Sprinter") branding for the first time in the bay platform in Oxford in the late 1980s. As to the class 108, there is at least one photograph of a blue/grey class 108 at Oxford in 1988 on a Costwold line service that I have found on Flickr, so this is also plausible. There are plenty of photographs of class 101s on services from Reading to Oxford, Reading to Banbury and Banbury to Oxford, and I have seen at least one photograph of 2x 121s coupled together at Oxford heading for Didcot in 1989. There were at least some NSE branded class 121s left in blue/grey in 1989 according to pictures that I have seen, although I am less sure of the 101s. For shunting the parcels vehicles, a Class 08 may well be required (I have seen pictures of a rail blue Class 08 at Oxford in the parcels dock in 1989), although there is no DCC ready Class 08 in N-gauge, so professional DCC fitting would be required. Does anyone have any idea of quite how parcels docks were used in the 1980s? They were clearly in use during this period, but quite how the train operations worked involving them I do not quite know.

Ahh, yes! I shall have to have a go at that at some point. I have decided to build the N gauge layout first (for two reasons: firstly so that the Peco Bullhead slips and crossings are available when I come to build this one, and secondly so that I have more experience of layout building when I come to build this one, which is probably in many ways the more complex and potentially interesting of the two), so I am not focussing quite as much on this at present, but I think that I will need to redesign the track for the station throat for this somewhat (to incorporate slips and crossings as necessary) in due course. Whether the two thirds of Brighton approach works remains to be seen, but at least I have a good large scale track plan of Brighton in the right sort of era from which to work.

Interesting - how far into the Southern would the GWR locomotives actually go? I know that there was a significant financial disincentive to running too far over other opeators' lines with locomotives under RCH rules. As to the track layout, I have looked at Brighton. I may have a look into that in more detail again - somebody suggested that I use Brighton's track plan minus the Western route, although I am not sure whether that would fit. Designing something imagined to have been put together piecemeal over years is rather harder than designing something imagined to have been designed all at once!

Thank you for your thoughts. May I ask how in practical terms one might represent the sort of unplanned combination that you describe within the confines of space and the operational requirements stated? As to rolling stock, it is interesting that Great Wetern locomotives worked through; I had thought that they had mostly changed to Southern locomotives at places such as Oxford or Didcot:

Having spent some time looking into services from Oxford in the late 1980s, I have redesigned the layout at the right hand side somewhat to allow main line trains to terminate in the bay platform (as Banbury to Oxford locals did at the time, the Bicester Town trains actually running on to Reading). I have also added a little extra locomotive stabling (I have seen photographs of Class 08 shunters in Oxford in the late 1980s - presumably for shunting carriages into the parcels dock) and also removed the level crossing, as I suspect that this would be a little fiddly. The revised layout is below: I wonder whether it might be worthwhile having some further sidings (perhaps even disused sidings) on the lower right hand side?

An interesting thought; I shall bear this in mind when I come to plan the scenery.