sharris

The signal box looks better there. If it's not a silly question though (it only just occurred to me!) - how are passengers supposed to get to the platform, I'm not sure that British Rail would want them clambering over two sets of points? I know how they did it in real life (as I did it myself on numerous occasions when I lived in Bedford) across a barrow crossing at the end of the platform - left end looking at your model from the front. Should we assume this is just off-stage to the left of the model? I was wondering if some steps from the far (backscene) side of the 'London Road' bridge to the platform would be more obvious for the model - possibly H&S might have something to say about the steepness of them though!

I have just been catching up with the Cooper Craft thread courtesy of Siberian Snooper. How disappointing (I thought C&L had Slaters, but they must have sold them on again!). I picked up a few Midland 6-wheeler bits and pieces from the Cooper Craft stand at Expo EM last year (they're still in their packets waiting to be built - need to build my own chassis for them) and didn't know the CC situation was so fragile - it looks like picking up what you can at shows is the best plan. It will be a shame when the Slaters kits run out - I like those. I might be following Bill Bedford's ruse with the centre axle now I know about that.

That's coming along nicely. Nice bit of staining on the fence - reminds me, 'er indoors will be sending me out to the garden soon with a tin of Ronseal to do the fences there! If you are planning on doing a bit of weathering on the station structure, there's a nice colour picture from the 1970s here: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/bedford_st_johns/index5.shtml (btw. notice the concrete 'feet' on the girders - a bit of Milliput would do nicely there). And as an interlude to running trains, here's a scene you could model! http://bedford.townvoice.co.uk/2014/06/09/exercise-test-emergency-response/ (edit) I've just noticed that the corner of the signal box looks a little close to the track and is probably closer than the minimum required distance. Is it possible to move it away from the track by about 10mm or so? There's a chart of clearances here: http://85a.co.uk/forum/view_topic.php?id=2589&forum_id=1 (I hope the moderators don't mind me linking to another forum!) Disclaimer: I am just assuming that this is a genuine chart and the figures in it are true. Happy new year! Simon.

Having consulted Richard Foster's A Pictorial Record of LNWR Signalling it looks like the second picture of the gates approximately follows the LNWR crossing gate design - lighter than a public road crossing, but the general arrangement of cross-bars and diagonals appears similar enough that I might believe it could be a contemporary design.

A few pictures from my field trip: The platelayer's hut: North side (facing track) East side (facing Cambridge) with doorway. West side (facing Bedford) South side (facing away from track) with large window - larger than I was expecting for a hut, although there appear to be some bricks missing from the bottom, so originally the hole for the window would have been a bit smaller - looking at the unevenness of the bricks on the left, I'd say about 6 courses have been removed from the bottom of the window opening. Immediately to the west of the hut was an occupational crossing - looking along the pathway in each direction: Looking south: Looking north: Both gates are not likely to be 1930s vintage (the one looking south appears newest), however the one looking north might be more believable as something that can be copied for the model. A few pictures of the goods/cattle dock. End view of the west end of the dock - a line runs along the left hand end of this - effectively a loop. There is a small bay into which a short line (approx. 1 wagon length?) runs and to the right of this a line runs along the right hand side of the dock - essentially the dock is an island platform. View along the short dock platform - I'll be counting the bricks to see how many wagons can actually fit here! (err, unless anyone wants to count them for me - no, didn't think so! ) View along the north platform of the goods dock - it's had a bit of a tidy up since I last visited! Closeup of the brickwork on the north platform - if the brickwork on the station is anything like this, it looks like I've been too generous with the brick red, and need ample helpings of grey to get the colouring right! Also apparent in the closeup is the drainage hole every yard or so at the bottom of the brickwork - this continues the whole length of the dock (the cattle dock would have needed a good wash-down after use!). What I have absolutely no information about is the layout on the platform of how the cattle-dock area and goods loading (vegetables were a major part of the output from Willington) areas were partitioned. Other bits and bobs that will come in handy. This cart is next to the chicken house owned, I believe, by the Danish Camp people (it was closed on my Christmas Eve visit). I'm sure Dart Castings do something similar and might make a nice little cameo somewhere on the model. This weighbridge is set into the approach road to the station and appears in this location on Ordnance Survey maps at least as far back as 1901 - some original road surface is also apparent.

Managed a bit of a field visit this afternoon, and now have plenty of photos of the platelayer's hut beyond the end of the goods/cattle dock (106 of my paces beyond the end of the dock to be precise!)

After a bit of a hiatus from my Brazilian trip, it's time to come back to Willington! Platforms for Willington. The Bedfordshire archives state Pictorial evidence shows that the platforms were wooden for the Cambridge platform and partly wooden and partly stone and brick for the Bedford platform, with the stone and brick portion supporting the main station building. We'll start with the Cambridge platform, since this is all wooden. The Bedfordshire archives states, regarding the fire that burned down the first station: So, I have assumed the remaining wooden sections were similarly built. Now, how wide to make the platform? Again, I turned to the Bedfordshire archive, where there is a 1927 photograph, showing the Cambridge platform pretty much end-on: There are a couple of figures standing on the platform, so I used the taller of them to estimate the platform width: The platform appears to be about one and a half men wide, so I estimated it to be about 9'. Constructing the wooden platforms. Now, a while ago I had plans to use ply and rivet sleeps and had purchased a quantity of ply sleepering, but had since changed my mind to use C&L plastic sleepers. Since the platform was described as 'sleeper built' this seemed like the ideal time to use up those spare ply sleepers. So, having cut up lots of them to 9' (36mm) pieces, I had the platform surface. The sub-structure is based on drawings in V R Anderson and G K Fox, A Pictorial History of LMS Architecture with diagonal bracing approximating what I could see in the photographs and 'X' cross-bracing as I interpreted from the drawings. The top surface consisted of 1/16" balsa flanked by 1/8" square balsa strips. I made legs from 1/8" square balsa - if I remember correctly spaced at 11' (44mm) intervals. I also placed 1/8" strips running along the bottom - these aren't really prototypical, but give the model some strength and stability, and provide a structure to glue the platform to the baseboard when finished. In situ these will be less evident as ballast will hide them a bit. Cross-bracing was 1/8" x 1/16" balsa. The top surface had the ply sleepers glued onto them. Probably some pictures can describe this better than words! And looking from underneath - hmmm, I wonder if the X-bracing will be visible - well, at least I know it's there! Having looked as the state of some of the wooden platforms on the Bedford to Bletchley part of the line, I tried staining the platforms with some sleeper stain I made years ago when I was thinking of using the sleepers as sleepers (a mixture of black indian ink, brown, water and a bit of isopropyl alcohol). This kind of represents worn woodwork, but wasn't entirely successful - I think the balsa cement I used has soaked into the wood in places and is protecting it from taking up the stain. The wooden sections of the Bedford platform are made in the same way. The Brick and stone platform This section supports the station building and consists of a brick base with a stone surface. Photographs indicate that this section is slightly longer than the station building - by about the width of a gate each side. The depth of the platform I set to 9' plus the depth of the station building (about 8') - some photographs show this platform approximately end-on so I could estimate approximately the relationship between the depth of the building and the depth of the platform in front of it. None of the sources I had seem to show the platform surface well enough to say what it is, so I travelled (metaphyically perhaps) up the line to Potton - the Disused Stations website has a picture of the platform surface there which shows it it to be granite setts, edged with tiles - I have assumed brick tiles. The model of this section of platform was made from Balsa wood - a fairly simple box structure with some bracing to prevent the platform surface sagging. The brickwork on the front steps out a little - these steps were made with 1/32" balsa strips. The platform sides were then clad with embossed brick paper, as per the signal box and shed. For the surface I used SE Finecast granite setts - maybe they look a little too regular compared to Potton. These were cut out to the shape of the station building so that this is set into the surface rather than sitting on top. The edging tiles I made by taking some corrugated plastic sheet and sanding it down to reduce the corrugations. The first lesson I learned was not to use UHU strong glue to stick the stone down - it started off leaving bubbles in the surface and as it dried it curled and shrivelled - for the second attempt, I coarsely sanded the back of the sheet so there was some rough texture to give purchase and used PVA which worked much better. (Apologies for the state of the painting of the station building - it's still in an early state and I've only roughed in some of the paintwork so far). Oops - that looks like a bit of a kink in the track there - I don't think it's as bad as it looks from that picture! The rear (road side) of the platform will have the landscape built up to the height of the station building, so the brickwork there will not really be very visible. Barrow crossings There is a barrow crossing at each end of the platform - I made these using ply sleepers again, on a 1/32" balsa backing - apart from the bit at the end of the platform, these aren't stuck down yet (and I think a few bits escaped to the floor somewhere!) There is some more planking which leads across the tracks from the signal box - presumably to protect signal cables and telegraph wires - this appears to run under the Bedford platform (there will be a signal between the station building and the little shed) - I think a bit of this is another casualty to the floor! Edit: oops - pressed the 'post button far to early!

As far as I can tell, they're H0 - wonder how hard it would be to convert them to H0m. I saw one of their train sets in the Sierra Verde gift shop, but wasn't that tempted. I see their 'where to buy' doesn't have any UK options (pretty short on any European options!).

Hi Eddie, I tried to look for some information on the Baldwin - it appears that it was previously at the Bariqui amusement park in Curitiba, and was moved to the yard at Curitiba Station some time around 2003, and has since gone through some restoration and ended up at the mall museum (not sure when, apparently there was a 2-6-0 Baldwin there in 2001). http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/brazil19.htm http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/brazil37.htm (that page says 'compiled by Eddie Edmunson' - that's not you is it?) Best wishes, Simon.

The final Brazilian railway excursion is to a shopping mall in Curitiba. The Estação Shopping Center (google maps https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@-25.4381767,-49.2664645,16z) was, in 1883 the Curitiba railway station for the line to Paranagua (the current railway station for the Sierra Verde express is quite close by to the East). To reflect its heritage, the mall contains a small railway museum and has a locomotive and carriage in the main shopping area. The locomotive is a Baldwin 4-4-0 from 1903. Someone more adventurous than me can model the motion gear here! Cab details Tender details The Carriage on display The small museum contained another locomotive - this time a small industrial British made engine for use in mining. The museum also recreated a ticket office: Finally, a few shots of the exterior - this section of the mall is part of the original station: Well, that about wraps it up for Brazil (until I can manage another visit anyway!), so it's back to the LNWR in Bedfordshire for me now! Images in all these posts are reduced for the web, mostly from 24 MPixel originals and are © Simon J Harris. If you want higher resolution versions, please PM me.

That hammerhead nickname is well deserved! My current project is an LNWR line in Bedfordshire, but everywhere I go is tempting as an extra project! Must resist (he says having just spent the last 25 minutes googling for model GT22s!) Cheers, Simon.

As a follow up, while I was doing a bit of investigation on the locomotives, I came across this site for the railway company: http://pt.rumoall.com/conteudo_eni.asp?idioma=1&conta=46&tipo=27585 which may be of use to anyone modelling Brazilian freight as it appears to have many downloadable drawings of wagons.

Today's Brazilian railway excursion is the Sierra Verde Express travelling from Curitiba to Morretes through the Atlantic Rainforest. Google maps reference: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@-25.4588223,-49.2218362,11z Again, this is really a tourist line, but unlike the line from Bento Gonçalves, there is still an industrial aspect to this line, and traction is provided by diesel rather than steam. The line starts from the station in central Curitiba - to start with a few shots of the train prior to leaving. The train was hauled by a GE EMD GT22CUM-1 locomotive number 4617 in ALL livery (I understand this particular locomotive is not dedicated to this train, and others are also used) The coaching stock was a mixed bag including various plain steel sheeted sided types and stainless steel. Now, this is my type of train! On with the journey... Parallel to the running line: Rather overgrown, and I wondered whether it was disused, but a few minutes later, along came our first goods train. Double headed - the lead engine was another GE EMD GT22CUM-1 number 4625: Following are a selection of hopper wagons from that train to illustrate the liveries in use and their state of cleanliness (or not!) should anyone be thinking of modelling and weathering some. This was one of the disused stations along the line that has been put to a new use showing the typical style of architecture used. Sadly, many of the stations have not survived and many are now burned out and overgrown. Also seen along the journey, a GE C30-7 (number 7663) running light. Not exactly the fastest of lines! The second freight train of the day - mostly this consisted of containers and high sided vans: Again, showing the various liveries currently in use, the end details of the temperature controlled containers and the varieties of van sides, with and without graffiti. Again, this was double headed, the trailing locomotive being a GT22CUM-1 Number 4613(?). If you're modelling the leading locomotive, don't bother painting on a livery - just cover it with dirt and weathering! The last train to pass us, headed by 4611 (another GT22CUM-1) was an engineering train hauling bogie bolsters laiden with rails. Finally in this set, at Marumbi station a couple more locomotives - GT22CUM-1s number 4644 in red ALL livery and number 4616 in blue and grey RUMO ALL livery. Notice the grime on the front of 4644 and the grime and pile of leaves picked up by 4616. That's the end of this set. The next trip will be to a shopping mall in Curitiba where there is a small railway museum.

I just discovered, regarding the second locomotive in the shed, there is a good picture of this one on Flickr outdoors. https://www.flickr.com/photos/aragao/16695883060

So here goes with the first set of pictures. This set of pictures comes from the railway line from Bento Gonçalves south to Carlos Barbosa in Rio Grande do Sol (Google maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@-29.2505411,-51.5000126,11z to get your bearings). This is run as a tourist railway now - it is impossible on the train to escape from the entertainment provided along the route. The area is a 19th century Italian immigrant settlement, and the entertainment consists Italian songs and some ham acting during the journey. On the plus side, you are given wine at the beginning of the journey to Bento Gonçalves and at Garibaldi. The train is pulled by one of two American 2-8-2 locomotives on metre gauge track. As I mentioned above, I know very little about railways on the far side of the Atlantic, so this will be more a 'look at the nice train' than anything intellectual! So, on with the pictures - we start at Bento Gonçalves where there is a station, shed and a couple of carriages on a siding. When I got there, the train (engineless) was in the platform. To give an idea of the architecture of the railway, here is the station building at Bento Gonçalves. As we were visiting in December, the Christmas decorations were out (the train turned out to be decorated too!) As I mentioned, there were carriages already in the station - here are a couple of views of the end one - broadside, and 3/4 view to show the corridor connection: In addition to the carriages at the station, there were a couple out on a siding - a baggage car and buffet car (the baggage car appears to have lost its bogies - or should that be 'trucks' on that side of the Atlantic?): There was also a covered van there: Onto the shed: This is the locomotive that will be on the train later - an American made 2-8-2 from 1941. There was a second locomotive in the shed - called 'Jung' apparently - here are a couple of snaps - mostly it was hidden away, so I could only really see the front end and the tender: You can see that the locomotives are in a kind of 'tourist livery' rather than a genuine Rio Grande do Sul, and appears to have Rede Ferroviária Federal, Sociedade Anônima - (RFFSA) (the nationalised Brazilian railway company) insignia as well as the tourist livery on the tender. Coming back from the shed, a couple of pictures of the trackwork: I thought the first looked so overgrown that it couldn't possibly be in use - but I think it is part of a reversing triangle for the locomotives. As far as the second picture goes, it seems I'm not the only one to lay slightly wonky track! So, a little later in the day and the train is ready with the locomotive (plus assorted tourists): Rather than burning solid wood, these days the train burns sawdust in bags left over from the Tramontina cutlery factory Maria Fumaça is what the Brazilians call a steam engine! On with the journey: A typical Brazilian crossing sign. The obligatory 'down the side of the train on a curve' shot (there will be more of these in the next picture set!). Well, doesn't that just take the biscuit! Named after the Italian general Guiseppe Garibaldi (from whom the biscuits also take their name) who helped in Rio Grande do Sul with the Ragamuffin War - an attempt by Rio Grande do Sul for independence from the Brazilian Empire - the attempt ultimately failed. This was the half-way point for the journey, with more entertainment and wine on the platform - I eschewed the entertainment (but not the wine!) to go off taking more pictures of the engine, to investigate the details on the other side: Getting a bit arty with a driving wheel close up! Maker's plate It was pretty much night time by the time we got to Carlos Barbosa, only a couple of pictures there of some more mundane subjects: Small service car: Point lever: In the next picture installment, there will be some Diesel on another tourist line from Curitiba on the Serra Verde express through the Atlantic rain forest - but for freight enthusiasts, we passed quite a few freight and engineering trains so something different to look forward too.

Ok. Can't promise anything for today - Currently waiting at Lisbon airport for my connecting flight home and feeling somewhat jetlagged after the 11 hour flight from Brazil!

I haven't seen much on here about railways in Brazil, but if anyone is interested I can post some pictures from my trip - mostly US made stock (which I currently know absolutely nothing about!) on metre gauge.

In this installment, two more buildings for Willington. So far, I've discussed the two largest buildings on Willington station - the signal box and the main ticket office. There are another two buildings in the station - a small waiting room on the Cambridge platform, and a shed at the end of the Bedford platform. Both of these structures appear in photographs in the various sources already referenced, although not completely, so, as with the main station building, I have done a little guesswork in the design of the models. 1. The waiting room. This room appears on many of the photographs, either end-on, showing the west end of the room, or in 3/4 view, showing the front and end, often in conjunction with the adjacent signal box. Eatwell's book has a very clear picture from the signal box end. The principle features of this waiting room appear to be: A central door with a 4-panel window on the front wall - this door appears similar to those on the signal box, rather than on the main waiting room. Two windows, one either side of the door - these seem to be of the same 6-panel layout as for the main waiting room. All walls are of wooden construction, but with the planking running vertically rather than the horizontal planking on the other platform. The waiting room has a slate roof, and there is the appearance of a chimney in some photographs, so it is likely it was heated. There appear to be four corner posts (similar to the signal box). I don't have any pictures of the rear of the room, but I have made the assumption that, as with the signal box, this wall is blank, and just consists of vertical planking all the way along. I have guessed that 6" wide planks were used, allowing me to use up more of that embossed styrene I used on the waiting room. Estimating sizes from the assumption that the windows are the same as those in the main building, and counting the planks where I could, my guess for the size of the waiting room is 15' by 8', approximately 7'6 to the eaves and 9'6 to the ridge. I made the walls from plain styrene sheet, and clad this with plank embossed sheet. Windows are from Vivak clear sheet and microstrip in exactly the same way as for the main building. The door was also Vivak with styrene strip glued on to form the door's planking and window frame arrangement. Corner posts were from 3mm L section styrene (or possibly 1/8"). After cutting the Wills sheet supplied with the signal box for the roof to the length needed for the signal box, I discovered that I had just enough sheet left over for the waiting room. My original plan was to use paper cut slates (as per the main waiting room) - I even made such a room, but when I found I had exactly the right amount of Wills sheeting left, decided to use that instead for consistency with the neighbouring signal box. Here's the waiting room in its current state - still needs another coat of paint, some barge boards, guttering, ridge tiles and the chimney adding. As it neighbours the signal box, here's a picture of the two together, approximately in their relative positions. In terms of painting, I've assumed a similar colour scheme (cream and dark brown) as used on the signal box and main station building - some later colour pictures Although I don't have any pictures of it, the waiting room must be on some sort of plinth to raise it from ground level to platform level. I have conjectured a wooden platform, constructed in model form from balsa wood on which the waiting room sits. I think the bracing on this is more-or-less in line with that shown by Anderson and Fox in the prefabricated station drawings in their LMS Architecture book. As becomes apparent from my previous posts, none of my buildings have their roofs fixed down yet. And here's a question for the more seasoned modellers - where buildings have some internal details, furniture, lighting etc., do you leave the roof removable to allow for maintenance, or glue it in place in the expectation that nothing with come adrift? 2. The shed. Photographs of the Bedford platform of Willington that show it all the way to the west (Bedford) end ramp show a small structure at ground level that is partly visible behind the fence. Probably a tool or equipment shed. This also just about appears in the Video Dave (Chris P Bacon) put on the 'Bedford St. Giles' thread, but unfortunately the video cuts away to a picture of the Willington station name before any detail can be seen. From the pictures that I have seen (the best are probably the ones in Bill Simpson's book), the shed's roof slopes down in a single direction from the platform side. Although I don't have any direct measurements from the height, I made an estimate counting bricks, and also noticed that the top was approximately lined up with the top of the platform fencing - so I estimated the height by taking a platform section (more on that in a later post), and placing a piece of Slater's fencing on this to see how far it came up. The wall on the platform side appears to be plain brick. My estimate is that the shed slopes down from 7'6 on the platform side to about 6'6 on the other. The west end wall has a door. Rather than being central, this is offset towards the right on the elevation of this side, being closer to the outside edge than the platform edge. This door appears to be made from planks and slopes at the top to match the roof. The outside south wall (facing roadside) is not shown in any photographs that I have seen, so I've made it up, and put a window in the centre of that wall - this was a spare locking room window from the signal box fret. The final (east) wall does not appear clearly in any reference I've seen, so I've assumed it to be plain brick. I've estimated the building to be about 8' x 10' in area. No photographs I've seen show the roof. Just for a change from slate, I've decided to make it from corrugated iron. This is my interpretation of the shed: I decided to model this, mostly from balsa wood. The side and plain walls are 3/32" sheet, while the wall containing the window is a laminate of 1/32" and 1/16" with the window sandwiched between to give some depth of brickwork to the frame. The walls were wrapped in embossed brick paper. The door consisted of a rectangle of styrene with the top-edge angled to match the roof line, and strips glued to it to represent the planking. A couple of strips across near the top and bottom and a bit of 25thou round rod make up the hinges, with squares cut from 20x10thou strip for bolt heads. The roof is cut from rectangles of corrugated styrene sheet. The black and white photographs show the door to be light in colour, so I've used a cream colour (looks a bit dirty in the pictures!), with black for the ironwork. In the context of the platform the shed will look like this:

Construction of the station building comprises a plastikard shell with a lamination of plank embossed plastikard (probably Slater's, with a 2mm plank spacing). Windows are Vivak 30 thou clear plastic sheet with microstrip to form the frames. Doors with window panels are also Vivak. The non-windowed doors are normal styrene sheet with microstrip to form the panelling. It took some trial and error to find some way of gluing the microstrip frames to the windows without completely crazing the glass. In the end, Butanone and a steady hand turned out to be the best bet - although rather annoyingly after I'd finished and mounted all the windows I found a bottle of Krystal Klear that I'd forgotten about and might have done a neater job! To my eye, the frames look a little heavy handed, even though I was using the 20 x 10 thou Evergreen strip (the smallest they do, as far as I am aware). If I was doing it again, I might get a set of frames etched. The roof of the station building is slate. I tried some experiments with 5 thou styrene but it tended to buckle too much (somehow I managed to make a building roof 20 years ago with 5 thou styrene which came out ok - I don't know if MEKPAK strength has changed over the years. In the end, I've opted for slates cut from printer paper glued with diluted PVA to a card backing, and then glued to balsa for added rigidity. Here's a side view of the part of the platform side of the station building during construction: And a view inside the, as yet unfurnished, waiting room of the ticket window, and door to the office. I'm not sure once the roof is on whether this will actually be visible, but I know it's there!

The LNWR box was a type 5, 50 lever box which was 32' 3.5" long and 12' wide. Comparing the bases of the old and new boxes, the brickwork looks similar, and counting bricks on the new base gives a width of about 12', so probably the same base was used (although the locking room window in Rosspop's picture was now a door). The front windows were arranged on the LNWR boxes for 50 lever boxes in groups 2,3,2,3,2.

A nice picture of the old LNWR signal box at Bedford, However, depending on the exact period to be modelled another box might be more appropriate. The LNWR box was damaged by fire around about 1970 and was rebuilt as a flat roofed version, similar to the old Hornby R145 signal box - the Hornby one is a little short in terms of window panels - Bedford St Johns has 3 groups of 4 panes, the Hornby box has 3 groups of 3.

After I'd started cutting plastic for this building, I discovered that there was a Parkside Dundas LNWR modular station set of components. I too wondered whether it was the same, and whether it could have saved me some work. However, on investigation I discovered they were somewhat different. One window panel from Willington station (cropped and perspective corrected): One window panel from Parkside Dundas: From Anderson and Fox's book, the Parkside modules seem to be suitable for Mossley Hill, Wolverton, Prestatyn, Euxton, Caenarvon, Disley, Broome, Tissington, Coppull, Hindlow and are mostly under canopies. The versions used at Willington are shown at Willington (of course!), Alsop-en-le-Dale, Thorpe Cloud, Heald Green, Burnage and were generally without canopies. The Parkside parts still appear to be listed online, so I assume they are still available. http://www.parksidedundas.co.uk/acatalog/GRAND_JUNCTION.html

A little photographic detective work to design the main station building. As already told, the main station building was burned down early on and replaced by a new wooden structure. The new structure was an LNWR wooden modular design using standard components. While we're not short of photographs of the platform side of the station building (good pictures exist in Bill Simpson's book (Oxford to Cambridge Railway - Volume 2), Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith (Bletchley to Cambridge) and V.R. Anderson and G.K. Fox (A Pictorial Record of LMS Architecture), and a few online sources (The Bedfordshire archives http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/CommunityArchives/Willington/WillingtonStation.aspx, and the Disused Station archive (http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/willington/), the only picture I've found from the road side of the station is on the Disused Station site, of it in a rather dilapidated state. Creating the platform elevation is not too difficult, since all the windows and doors can easily be made out. (apologies for the quality - it's a pencil drawn sketch photographed from my phone - one day I'll get around to reproducing them properly). This general arrangement drawing shows the positions of the windows and doors, as deduced from the photographs. Fortunately, Anderson and Fox reproduce a dimensioned drawing of Burnage Station which, although arranged different, has the same standard door and window modules, so it was easy to rearrange these modules to form a correctly scaled platform side elevation for Willington. The rear elevation is a little more left to the imagination. Working from Ian Barker's 1971 photograph on the Disused Stations site: I've produced a road-side elevation thus: I'm assuming that (maybe as a precaution after the first one burned down) that behind the nearest chimney that can be seen, the wooden panels have been replaced with bricks (the column behind the chimney appears more like dark bricks than the rest of the remaining woodwork). Looking at the chimney, it looks larger than the others, so am assuming the heater is more substantial in this room. The next panel along is missing, but I am assuming it would contain a doorway into what I am imagining is the general waiting room and ticket office. This is followed by a panel with a window. Another couple of missing panels, which I have left blank (one of which appears to have a chimney infront of it - so I am assuming no window there. The next couple of panels I am imagining are for the toilets - the windows appear narrower there, followed by a couple more blanks. The final panel I think is a door. While not obviously labelled, I am assuming it is a parcels and small goods office - there is a unwindowed wooden door on the platform side - I've put a similar door on the road side. Some of the platform side have an awning above them - looking from the right hand end, the first three. The left hand door with an awning has a 'Gentlemen' sign above it. I am assuming the next is the ladies' waiting room (with an internal door to the ladies' lavatories) and the rightmost to be the ticket office and general waiting room. The following floorplan is my best guess of the layout of the main building. (more later - lunchtime outing with the folks now!)