jamespetts

I noticed - that looks rather impressive.

I already have an agreement from the shed people on the price and that they will take all necessary steps to procure that the building comply with building regulations, so they would not be entitled to charge me more for taking a step to ensure that the building comply with the regulations. If there are no non-price disadvantages, cement composite weatherboards do seem to be potentially a good solution.

I have revised this slightly to allow for HSTs and DMUs to cross over to the other side's fiddle yards and reverse without using the reversing loops, which are really only relevant for locomotive hauled trains. This will allow the first class on HSTs to remain oriented towards London and possibly reduce the number of conflicting movements in the fiddle yards. I have also added provision for a separate parcels building near the parcels dock and added some signals.

Is there any disadvantage to having the shed clad entirely in cement composite weatherboards as far as you know?

Indeed - that is the reason.

That sounds like an impressive shed. I am also thinking of having air conditioning installed.

I have now modified this design a little to take on board some elements of Satan's Goldfish's design, and also to add a further pair of tracks to the fiddle yards and make the representation of the scenic areas, platforms and station buildings more explicit. I have retained the original straight layout in part because this will be easier to lay, in part because this is intended to represent a railway through a relatively flat part of the country (hence the level crossing), and in part because I want to have HSTs passing through at a scale 125mph, as would be possible on a nice straight section of track. I should be grateful for any views on the revised plan, especially on: (1) the placement of the level crossing; (2) the track layout with respect to the parcels dock (I am trying to take inspiration from Oxford for this, but it is hard to find the old track layouts for the parcels dock from when it was in use); and (3) the replacement of the diamond crossing on the right hand/north side of the station with a pair of large radius sets of points.

Returning to this topic for a moment - I have recently been in correspondence with the shed people, who have in turn been in correspondence with the local building control officer. The shed people tell me that they will need to clad the shed in cement composite rather than wood boards to comply with the relevant parts of the Building Regulations (or, perhaps, in order to be exempt, on the basis that the cement composite is non-flammable); the representative of the shed people asked my views on the idea of using cement composite instead of wood. My reply was that I would not object on principle to having a material other than wood, but would need to know more about the properties of the cement composite before making a final decision, and I asked about its appearance, durability, longevity, maintenance, insulative properties and thickness. I have yet to have a reply to this, albeit my e-mail was only sent on Thursday. In the meantime, I have managed to do a little preliminary research on cement composite cladding, which, from what I have seen so far, seems positive. If it is the same fibrous cement composite panelling (which can apparently be made into weatherboard planks of the same shape and size as wood and used as a direct substitute for wood), what I have seen suggests that it has better insulative properties than wood and is lower maintenance, as well, of course, as being non-flammable. The appearance may not be quite the same as wood, lacking grain unless this be added artificially, but I do not think that this would be too concerning for me. Does anyone have any experience with outbuildings (or any structure) made from or clad in cement composite weatherboards?

I have tried both: in Firefox, I can zoom in very far, but the text is indistinct. Saving locally and opening using the Ubuntu document viewer, I am not able to zoom in very far at all.

Yes, zooming using the +/- buttons does not give me clarity anywhere near that. That is very odd.

That is very odd - in Firefox, zooming in to see the small town names gives me blurry and indistinct writing, and, in the Document Reader in Ubuntu, it will simply not let me zoom in very far.

Thank you for your thoughts. As to the atlas, I can zoom it to 100% - while the size of the text on the screen is adequate at that zoom level, the resolution is not, and the text of the smaller stations is indistinct. The file size of the atlas at 1Mb suggests that there is insufficient resolution, too.

I do not think that I have anything to read that format - thank you for uploading, however.

Thank you all for your thoughts. This discussion raises some interesting philosophical/artistic questions about layouts not strictly modelling a real location, and what it means for such a layout to be realistic. Just like a painting of a fictional scene imagined from the artist's mind, the scene can, despite being fictional, be more or less plausible in various distinct ways, from the quality of the brushwork, the representation of light and shade, to the juxtaposition of objects and people in the scene. So, too with model railways: the individual items of track, signals, rolling stock and scenery can more or less realistically resemble the real thing; and also the relations between them can be more or less plausible. When something is not a replica of a specific real life place and time, the important thing is plausibility, to my mind at least: if it had been real, would (or might) it have been done this way? How to deal with that is fairly straightforward in principle (subject to the vagaries of research in practice) when selecting which items of rolling stock existed in a given era, the type of signalling, operational practice, track layout, and the combining of items of rolling stock that would have operated in a general geographical location on services of the general type represented. When dealing, however, with such things as what routes that inter-regional expresses might have taken to reach a wholly fictitious place, or whether, in light of the existence of this fictitious place, junctions at one or two non-fictitious stations would, had the fictitious place been real, have been configured differently to allow for through running to the said fictitious place (e.g., from London via Alton), the question is more difficult to answer. Probably the best way of trying to answer it is to ask: is it reasonably plausible that things might have been done this way? Was the fact that it was not done this way economic or practical inevitability, or was it a matter of happenstance? For example, the LNER expresses using the East London Line: the infrastructure was present to allow for this, and through passenger services had been run on this line, even though local services had been taken over by the London Underground in the 1930s. Would there have been any reason in principle that it could not have been done this way? Were the tunnels too small to take express carriages? (I do not know the answer to this). Were the local services too intensive to allow the slots for through trains? (I think that the answer to this is in the negative). In relation to the Pullman car, although I can see on the one hand that having two separate Pullman services (and only one non-Pullman dining service) to a single destination might not have been how things were done, and an ordinary dining car might have been used instead (giving two dining car expresses and one Pullman service). However, thinking about it further, is this really the most plausible arrangement? The LSWR was the only company of the Soutern's constituents that had its own dining cars: the other two, including the LBSCR, used Pullman services. These usually involved fixed term contracts spanning a number of years. If we imagine that the LBSCR ran London expresses in competition to the LSWR to this destination, it seems reasonably likely that, if the LSWR had a Pullman or dining service to this destination, then the LBSCR would have had a Pullman service. When the Southern took over the LBSCR in 1923, it would have inherited the Pullman contracts and have been bound to continue them for a number of years. Such Pullman contracts as were inherited in 1923 would probably have expired by 1935, but the Southern does not seem to have had a policy of replacing Pullman services with its own catering services (unlike, for example, the LMS), so it is as likely as not that the Southern would have renewed the Pullman contract for the route providing that it were profitable (and if it were not, it would probably have withdrawn the service entirely). From what I understand, trains on the Southern were just as likely to have a Pullman car as a dining car, especially in the central and eastern sections. I note with interest that, according to the link given in my earlier post above, Bognor Regis appeared to get two Pullman trains per day.

Thank you for that - the link to that atlas is very useful: I have been looking for something like that. I was imagining this layout to be set in a sort of portmanteau of Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth - a fictional agglomeration of some of the features of (and services to) each of those places, with some unique features of its own (such as the much discussed fishing industry). The website that I linked showed trains to Portsmouth via Alton and also via Croydon, coming from the Brighton lines. However, I wonder whether the via Alton route would localise to Portsmouth too much, as, looking at that atlas, the junctions at Eastleigh and another place just west of there whose name is too small to read on the atlas, it might not have been possible for trains to head further west without reversing at Eastleigh. The idea of the York via the Brighton lines train is that there is a great imbalance in fiddle yard use if the York train were to use the LSWR main line; would it not have been possible in principle for a train from the ECML to reach the Brighton lines via New Cross and the Wapping/Rotherhithe tunnel? I have not, in my brief searches so far, found much in the way of information on through passenger services on this line. However, if we delete the via Alton service, then there might well be room to incorporate this as having come through a Westerly route, although this might make things less varied. An alternative would be to retain the York (via New Cross) arrangement and substitute the via Alton semi-fast with another inter-regional train from the LMS via Coventry, Leamington, Newbury, etc., or alternatively just imagine a via Newbury semi-fast from London. In relation to express services on the Brighton line, this is intended to include semi-fast as well as true express trains; but surely the London train with the Pullman car and the through (reversing) to the West of England trains count as true expresses?

Interesting - thank you. That is helpful. Edit: I can only find the Dapol CCTs in N-gauge so far. Incidentally, I am putting together an idea of what sort of service pattern that this station might have based on some of the information that I have found here (albeit that information is correct for circa 1929, so the train formations will be a little different by 1935 - but this will be very useful when I get to the first backdating point of 1928/9). So far, I have the following provisional diagrams (for 1935): London line Express passenger London express - N15/LN - 5-set + diner + loose depending on demand (~3-4) + PLV London Pullman - LN - complete Pullman set + 2x PLV London via Alton - N - 4-set + loose + 4-set West of England (terminating) - T9 - 3-set + 3-set Cardiff (from the GWR) - V/N15 - GWR K-set (5) + Maunsell loose depending on demand (~2-3) + PLV Excursion (Saturdays only) - S15/700 - 4-set + 5x loose non-cor + PLV Local passenger Basingstoke - M7 - non-cor 4 1/2 set Salisbury - M7 - non-cor 4 1/2 set Branch - O2 - P&P gate stock 2-set Non-passenger London fish (weekdays only (?)) - N/S15 - vans (TBC) Locomotive coal (weekdays only (?)) - 700 - 4-5x coal trucks + brake van Parcels (weekdays only (?)) - N/M7 - 3-6x PLV (?) Brighton line Express passenger London via Croydon - V/H1/H2 - 3-set + 2-set + Pullman + 3-set West of England (through/reversing) - N/T9 - 4-set + loose + PLV Excursion (Saturdays only) - 700/S15/N - 4-set + 5x loose non-cor Brighton - N/T9 - 5-set + 2 loose non-cor York (from the LNER) - V/N15 (Maunsell only) - LNER carriages x 8 Local passenger Littlehampton - E4 - birdcage 3-set Bognor Regis - E4 - birdcage 3-set + birdcage 2-set Non-passenger Parcels (weekdays only (?)) - E4 - 3x PLV (?) Through/reversing local freight (weekdays only) - N/700 - mixed freight + local fish vans for south coast destinations (?) This would mean that not all of the trains from the London lines may be able to fit into the fiddle yard at the same time, but there should be room for 2-3 trains to queue on the reversing loop and approaches (depending on the length), and it may be that more than one shorter train can fit into some of the longer sidings. Does the above seem to make sense? Can anyone think of any possible additional semi-fast or express services for the Brighton line? Edit: Amended to add York train

Interesting - the CCT appears only to be available in kit form, whereas the PLV has the word "luggage" printed on the outside; would this be correct for a fish carrying vehicle?

Thank you for that - that is most helpful. I am not quite sure whether I will use the E2 yet: it will need careful dismantling whether I need to replace the chassis or not, and I am not sure how well that the detailing will survive that. Also, are these old motors any good at slow running? I imagine that slow running is rather important for a pilot engine.

Ahh, yes, I see - you drew it to about 7.05m, whereas I have 7.5m available. Did you produce that in SCARM or similar that I may have the file to modify?

Given that the current plan is for a single layer OO gauge layout (one purpose of which was precisely to accommodate this layout), I am quite keen to proceed with this, especially as I seem to have managed to win an eBay auction for a Dapol HST in InterCity Executive livery, which are really rather hard to get hold of. There is much to like about the Satan's Goldfish's plan above, but the lack of reversing loops would not suit my purposes. I wonder whether there may be some scope for combining elements of the both? I wonder whether there may be some advantage to building this one before the OO gauge layout while I wait for Peco Bullhead slips and crossings to become available.

Interesting - thank you both for the fish related information! Does anyone have any thoughts on the revised fiddle yard arrangements? Edit: On the question of fish vans, I have found two types of van: firstly, a general Southern Railway vacuum fitted van as here, and secondly a van explicitly labelled as a "luggage van" here. Are either of those potentially suitable? Edit 2: Or alternatively, this planked van?

I have had a go at re-organising the fiddle yards. Here is the revised plan: and here is a 3d render showing the revised layout in perspective: Although this looks less neat than the previous version, it has several advantages. Firstly, because the tracks cross at a later point, the gradients can be reduced from a maximum of 1.8% to 1.5%. Secondly, for the same reason, it is possible to have a longer scenic area of main line track, allowing the trains to be enjoyed for a few more centimetres. Thirdly, there is a larger well on the left hand side, allowing easier access to that area. Fourthly, there is one more road on both the upper and lower fiddle yards, as I have allowed them to overlap slightly (overlapping by one track should not make the lower overlapped areas inaccessible). I included the 3d image above as it is difficult to see exactly what is happening with the overlapping tracks in the plan view (and SCARM seems to be quite arbitrary about which things are drawn in front of which other things in the ordinary plan view). In relation to the station itself, I am currently leaning towards this design, as it seems to be potentially easier to operate, requiring fewer shunting movements for handling light engines and allowing fish to be accessed from both main lines. It would also mean that I do not have to wait until Peco Bullhead slips become available, although I am still considering whether I can build this with Marcway pre-built and/or customised components. (Can anyone assist with whether there were any medium sized terminus stations in the 1910s-1930s period that did not have any crossings or slips? Presumably, they would only have been used if necessary, as they would have been more expensive than plain points). For fish traffic, what I envisage is two different sorts of service: (1) a dedicated fish train to London, hauling a long rake of braked vans, which will deposit the empties in the fish siding in the late afternoon and collect the loaded wagons early in the morning, and another, local freight train, with mixed freight types, that will, in the mid-afternoon, enter from either the Brighton or the London side, either couple or uncouple two or three fish vans, and then, with a different locomotive, reverse out onto the other main line. Does this seem to be a reasonably realistic traffic pattern for this sort of facility?

I think that there's something a little fishy about the latest comments.

Thank you for that thought. One possibility is to imagine that the fish train gets to London via Croydon, and thus uses the Brighton line. Another is to move the fish sidings to the lower edge of the station as on the second plan above.

The buffer stops facing south is what I had originally imagined, but west seems to fit the curvature better. What advantages would imagining it facing south have?