sharris

Thanks! The problem with that is, that just to the left of the box is a small waiting room that the steps would run into. Maybe I should have built Notgnilliw instead and build everything backwards

In this enthralling episode Simon goes to ExpoEM and buys a signal box kit. I'm at Expo EM, and it's been a while since I've done anything with brass, so I think, Aha, London Road Models do a nice LNWR signal box brass kit. I'll practice some brass kit building with that before I attempt anything that actually has moving parts and stay on the track. So I approach the stand and have a chat with John Redrup (lovely chap) who shows me his gallery and assures me that the kit can be rebuilt in a variety of styles. I didn't know at the time what I'd let myself in for when I whipped out my credit card, and came away with a little box with signal box etches. The first problem I had was that the London Road Models box is a type 4, whereas Willington has a type 5 (as can be seen in the picture Beast linked to earlier). The chief obvious differences between the type 4 and type 5 are that on the type 5 the windows are a little higher and there is a larger overhang on the gables. Now, I decided increasing the window heights would be a very tricky proposition so I'd leave those alone. There was plenty of roof material in the kit, so the gables could be extended - but that would mean ending up with a type 4/type 5 hybrid which would be a bit weird. Working on the assumption that there are probably more people who know what an LNWR signal box looks like than there are who know exactly what signal box was at Willington, I've decided on a bit of a fiction. In my universe the inhabitants of Willington got their wish a few years early, resulting in the station being opened when type 4 signal boxes were still being made (this option may involve me buying up every copy of every book with a picture of Willington signal box!) Now, the next problem I discover is that the LRM box is a few levers longer than the Willington one - this means the LRM box window pattern at the front is 2+3+2 panels while the Willington box (a 20 level box) has a 2+2+2 panel pattern. This requires some shortening of the box. The third problem is that the LRM box has the lavatory hut, door and steps at the left hand end when looking from the front, whereare Willington has them on the right. And finally, the LRM box has a single stairway while the Willington box has a two-stage stairway - stage 1 to the platform, stage 2 from the platform to the ground. The last two problems caused the biggest headaches. This is what you get if you build the London Road Models kit as per the instructions (well, actually you only get the cabin, they leave the locking room to you): And I wanted to build something as close to this as I could: So, pretty much the first thing I did was throw away the instructions! There goes my introduction to 'kit building' - now it's just a fret of parts to chop up and rearrange, and replace and make overlays for as required. On to construction (I should have taken photographs during the process, but I only thought about that after it was almost finished!) Step 1: Shortening the box from 25 levers to 20 levers. the first thing I did was to shorten the window frame. I cut the frame from the etch and then adjusted as in this sketch. The centre panel on the Willington box has two windows, one fixed and the one on the left sliding. So I cut out a section from right side of the left hand panel divider one window wide (counting from the left, that's the 3rd window. This leaves two pieces, the left panel and a centre+right panel piece - the centre panel should now be 2 windows wide. I then carefully cut out the frame of the remaining left hand window on the centre panel, leaving just two window frames on this piece (as shown in the bottom sketch). I then brought these two pieces together, and ensuring they were straight soldered them together with a butt joint and a bit of scrap etch on the back at top and bottom to hold it together. I then soldered the sliding windows to the back of the frame (for simplicity I decided it was a cold day so had all the windows closed!) - I had to snip the corners of one of these to fit around the scrap etch holding it all together! So, now we have a front window unit with a 2+2+2 pattern and the sliding windows in the right places. This will determine the size of the whole box now. The next stage in shortening the box was to shorten the front panel. To do this, with a razor saw I cut along from the left edge of the window surround downwards, and up from the edge of the right window surround. I also cut the bottom of the left panel divider and the top of the right one - the front panel now comes apart into to F shaped pieces. Now I laid the two parts on top of the modified window frame and slid the two 'F's over each other until the window panel dividers on the front pieces matched up with the panel dividers on the window piece. I then marked off how much overlapped and cut it off. I then soldered the shortened 'F' pieces back together with a bit of scrap at the top and bottom. I decided at this point to solder the window frame to the back of the front piece to give this somewhat fragile piece full strength. The final part of reducing the length was to measure up the shortened front and shorten the back to the same length. Actually, there's a floor pan etch as well which needs shortening - I tried to shorten it, but had problems trying to fit the box into it, so in the end gave up on that and made a new floor unit (others may be better at this than me and manage to get it to fit) - actually I can't remember whether the instructions were altogether clear on whether the ends should go between the front and back, or the front and back should go between the ends - that would make a difference to how well things fit in the floor pan! Step 2: reversing the box. This step took most work as it involved making overlays and rearranging things. Before doing anything else, I took the end pieces and with the plain side downwards, drew round them onto the plain side of some planked plastikard I happened to have (the station building uses a lot more of this - later!), trimming the card first to ensure the planks were level. I then roughly undercut the window and door apertures in the plastikard. Now I had two plastikard pieces oppositely handed to the brass. Now, offering them up to the brass and trimming the apertures until the window cut-out matched the brass and the door cut-out matched the doorframe on the brass etching, I ended up with plastic mirror images of the brass ends - but without the window bars or the door (these will be added later). The lavatory block was next - this was essentially made pretty much as normal, except back-to-front, so the corner posts are on the right hand side rather than the left. I think the door-frame is not quite central, but it's hardly noticeably that it's the wrong way. Now, because it would be impossible to solder the lavatory onto the end of the box, I found some scrap channel and soldered it to the inner (open) end of the lavatory. This will give a good surface area for gluing it to the plastic overlays later. The ends have window frames that need soldering in - I did this next. Now I soldered the brass ends inside the ends of the front and back, trying to keep everything square, and insetting them by about 20thou (1/2mm) from the ends - this is approximately the thickness of the overlay plastikard. As mentioned earlier, I couldn't get the floor pan to fit, so after some ineffectual fiddling with it, I gave up on it, cut a rectangle of brass to the right size, and soldered the end + side assembly to it. When measuring up to cut the floor, I placed the end-overlays over the brass to ensure they got taken into account in the measurements. The floor pan in the kit includes the bottom ironwork for the box - this was replicated with 1/8" and 1/32" x 1/64" brass strip. The 1/8" strip soldered to the bottom edge of the cabin and floor, and the 1/32" strip at the top of the 1/8" strip. Next I soldered the corner-posts. The front ones can be used as normal. However the one that is normal right-rear needs to be folded the wrong way (etch outward) and fitted left-rear. Before soldering them, I placed some scrap sacrificial plastikard planking along the edge being soldered to gauge the depth that the overlays would need. The veranda floor went on next - because the bottom ironwork made from strip was not identical to what was expected from the folded up floor-pan, I soldered a staple of scrap brass from the fret under the veranda floor to give a good area for soldering to the box. Now it's beginning to look a bit like a signal box, but the end walls are brass blanks with window frames in them. If all goes to plan the end overlays will now slide into place into the gap between the corner posts and the end etchings (I said If all goes to plan!) - in fact the ends needed a little bit of fettling to slide them in - naturally the sacrificial plastic used as a spacer got a little soft when doing the corner posts, so it all got a little tight - a few minutes trimming and sanding fixed this. It's quite a tight fit, and didn't need a lot of glueing - I used a bit of superglue around the window and door surrounds and along the top edges as these are the least supported places. I then glued the barge boards to the ends with a bit of superglue. Almost there now with the kit. Step 3 - Some detailing and painting. Time to get the styrene strip out now. The end still only has a cut-out where the door should be, backing onto plain brass. I fabricated a new door with panels made from various widths of strip, and ran a strip around the under the windows to replicate the window-sill strip on the original box. Now a good clean up, and out with the Halfords grey primer. At this point I had not yet attached the lavatory unit, so the main box and lavatory were individually sprayed. A bit of filler to patch up the worst gaps - mostly fixing up the transitions between overlays and brass windows, and some paint to follow - white for the window frames, light cream for most of the woodwork, dark brown for the end-posts, doors and metalwork. Now I glazed the lavatory unit and glued it to the main box. Finally, handrails were glued around the windows. Step 4 - The Locking room. Next we're onto the locking room. Photographs show that there are two arched windows on this brick build construction, and that just above the level of the platform, the brickwork is expanded very slightly. I estimated the height of the room above the platform by counting bricks and estimated the positions of the windows from the photographs. The box itself was built from balsa wood. The sides and back from 3/32" wood - the front from 1/32" and 1/16" with window etches from the LRM kit sandwiched between them. I found a fret of windows and doors from somewhere (not sure the provenance of that - must have been around from some years ago last time I was tickled with the modelling bug) which seemed to have an appropriate door. A strip of 1/32" balsa was wrapped around the lower half of the box where the brickwork was stepped out. Finally, the whole lot was covered in embossed brick paper and painted. I had to do this stage before embarking on the steps as their height depends on the height of the locking room and platform. Now, with a piece of platform (more on this in a later episode) and the locking room we can work on the steps. Step 5 - The steps. Originally I tried cutting down the kit's steps to fit between the veranda floor and the platform, but I couldn't get a good fit between the veranda and platform so I decided to start from scratch (the alternative version is I made a complete cock-up of trying to re-engineer and solder up the kit steps!). The new steps I made from plastic strip - I'm still not entirely happy with them, and they're still a work in progress - in the photographs they have long vertical supports - these are purely there during construction and will be chopped off once the platform and signal box are in place and glued down. The current version is, I think, my third attempt! Step 6 - Interior details. I raised the floor with a rectangle of balsa, to just below the level of the door, and glued a sheet of thin plastikard to this (in reality, these boxes had lino floors). Currently I'm glazing the box and adding interior components. These are more a rough approximation that truely accurate representations as they will barely been seen. This is my interpretation of a lever frame (the paintwork needs a bit of touching up) made from offcuts of rail filed down and brass wire (err - don't count the levers - I mis-calculated and am a couple short! - oops) And here is my version of a train staff machine. There is also a miniature staff machine, table, chair, block instrument shelf and stove to go in there - fortunately the Bill Simpson book includes not one, but two views of the inside of this box, so I should be able to get the furniture in about the right place! So, here it is, currently roofless (I'll be finishing that when I've finished the glazing and got the insides glued down). For the moment the cabin is just plonked ontop of the locking room (that still needs glazing too) and the steps propped up against it and the platform.

You are both right - I was half asleep when I was reading Bill Simpson's book - the date I had was for goods traffic. Passenger services ended, as you said, at the end of December 1967.

The OS Map was from 1926 - the box should be in it's final resting place by then. There is a saga that goes with the model of the signal box - more on that later!

Thanks for the offer of looking for pics in your collection. I just skimmed through (I should be working - will have a proper look later!) your layout pages - that's an impressive Sandy you've got going there. My parents still live in Bedford, so when I was home for Christmas last, I took the opportunity to go out to Willington to see what was there. When I suggested the idea to them that a trip to pace out and photograph overgrown relics of the station would be a fun way to spend the Sunday after Christmas, I was expecting a certain amount of bemusement, but instead got "Oh, we often go out to the garden centre at Willington and stop at the Danish Camp for lunch". So off we went on a frosty Sunday, me trudging around the remains of the goods/cattle dock (turns out to be about 33 of my feet wide) while my parents and girlfriend had a wander along the river before lunch - all in all a quite useful trip. I found a few more pictures from the Disused Stations website http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/willington/index.shtmlincluding the only one I know of that shows anything of the road side of the station building (although in a somewhat derelict state), which gave me some clues as to what that might have looked like - more on that in another episode! I'm sure you've must have come across the disused stations pages already, but there are a few Sandy pictures there http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/sandy/index.shtml Better get back to work now!

I've been slowly working away on this project for a little while now, with slowly being the operative word, so I thought I'd start to document it here, partly because I think it's an interesting little project, and partly so you guys can give me a kick up the backside when I get lazy. What I want to do with this layout is to create what I think is a reasonably accurate version of a prototype that doesn't exist any longer, and experiment with some construction techniques in the process. An introduction to the prototype. The Oxford to Cambridge Railway via Bedford was proposed as early as 1836, although at the time that proposal was not followed through, partly because the universities rejected the idea as they thought it would make it too easy for students to travel and get distracted by soirees in London [1]. Various schemes were proposed, and by 1860 a Bedford and Cambridge Bill was introduced with work starting on the line in 1861. On 1st July 1862 the line was complete, with the link to the Oxford to Bedford line at Bedford providing through trains from Oxford to Cambridge via Bletchley and Bedford. Although the line was completed in 1862, and the village petitioned for a station to be opened, it wouldn't be until May 1903 that Willington would eventually get its station, the last to be built on the line (excluding the very short lived Girtford). Most stations on the Bedford to Cambridge line were brick built and followed a common pattern. Willington was the exception, being built of wood. That's not to say that prior to 1903 trains didn't serve Willington, but until the station was built, there was only a siding to service the vegetable trade from the village [2]. Disaster! On the night of 12th August 1904 fire struck the station. The station building was wooden, except for brick urinals and the platform being constructed from sleepers, was burned down, the fire probably caused by a spark from a passing train. It was estimated that 200 tons of wood was destroyed[2]. The station's safe was found intact and its contents undamaged. A full report of the fire is in the Bedfordshire county archives[2]. Business resumed with temporary buildings erected two days later. The station was rebuilt, still in wood, but with brick and stone platforms. From the photographs available [1][2][3][4][5], it seems that the stone portions of the platforms only existed under the main building (on the Bedford side). Either side of this, and on the Cambridge side, the platforms still appear to be wooden. More on the platform details later. On the Cambridge side was a small waiting room and an LNWR type 5 signal box. Entrance to the station was from the Bedford side, and access to the Cambridge side was via barrow crossings at the ends of the platforms - no bridges were provided. To the west of the station was an island platform consisting of a goods dock and cattle pen. This platform, although very overgrown, just about still exists, although any equipment and the shape of the cattle dock is now lost. I have not come across any photographs from its operational days, so this part will be pure conjecture on the model. This appears on an Ordnance Survey map of 1926 [3] and the shape can just about be made out with a bit of squinting on Google maps. Interestingly, the OS maps [e.g. ref 2] all seem to show the signal box and waiting room about half way along the Cambridge platform, while the photographs all show them very much towards the east end of the platform. I'm not sure whether that indicates an error on the map or whether by the time the photographs were taken (which appear to be mostly British Railways era) the platforms had been shortened. In the model, I'll be following the photographs. While the Bletchley to Bedford section of the line has survived various closure threats over the years, the Bedford to Cambridge section has not been so lucky and the last passenger train stopped at Willington on 13th July 1964, and track lifting began on 13th August 1968. Many of the brick built stations still exist in private hands, and notably Lords Bridge and the rail-bed around it was used for the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory - the radio telescopes being mounted on tracks allowing their base-line to to adjusted. The trackbed around Willington is now a cycle path, all the wooden structures (and the brick based signal box) have now been removed leaving little to remind one that a railway used to run through. Why Willington? As an ex-Bedfordian, this one appealed to me for its local interest, but also the line seems to have been used as a experimental test-bed for some unusual stock. In 1932 the LMS borrowed a Michelin railcar from France - although this was actually only tested on the Oxford to Bletchley section of the line [7], a stretch of the imagination and a little stretching of the facts could easily see it running through Willington. Another photograph from 1935 shows a different Michelin type railcar at Cambridge [1] - these will present an interesting scratch building challenge as these railcars ran on rubber tyred wheels. Then in 1938, the LMS tried out an experimental streamlined DMU (80000-80002) on the line [1] before handing it over to their Midland section for trials between Bedford and St. Pancras. I think I might cut my teeth on some more conventional rolling stock first though! As it seems to have got to 1.35am and I have work in the morning, I should probably stop here - In the next episode - determining the design of some of the structures. [1] Bill Simpson - Oxford To Cambridge Railway Volume 2 - OPC, SBN 86093 121 8 [2] http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/CommunityArchives/Willington/WillingtonStation.aspx [3] Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith, County Railway Routes: Bletchley to Cambridge. Middleton Press, ISBN 1904474942 [4] V R Anderson and G K Fox, A Pictorial History of LMS Architecture, OPC, SBN 86093 083 1 [5] David Eatwell, Railway Nostalgia around Bedfordshire, W D Wharton, ISBN 0-9518557-6-X [6] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.1390608,-0.377026,350m/data=!3m1!1e3 [7] http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2013/12/15/the-short-lived-experiment-with-rubber-tires-on-railways/

It's looking great, but you know what might look really nice on there with all the other unusual rolling stock - a crane-fitted tank engine.

I've just been building my first C&L turnout in EM - B6 like yours. I build directly onto the board, so don't have the problem of the slide chairs falling off! For most of the chairs I've been using the Exactoscale variety - the C&L point kits only seem to provide standard sized chairs - near the V, I used some of Exactoscale's bridge chairs - they fit much better as you get closer to the common crossing. I've also been trying out some of Exactoscale's insulating fishplates - I had brass droppers to supply power to the rails close to each end of every rail (big believer in redundancy!), and should probably have made the holes in the baseboard a bit larger to give me more wiggle room when putting the rails into place as they're a bit tight and it made mounting the fishplates quite fiddly. They do ensure that rail sections are nicely lined up. As far as the fishplates go, make sure the wooden chocks in the chairs either side point away from the fishplate (as they should), or there's not room for them - I miscalculated on a couple of occasions! As far as pushing the chairs onto the rail go, it can be a bit fiddly and hard on the fingertips, but is easier if you file the bottom bit of the bullhead to a taper at one end. I've been trimming my rails with a razor saw and tidying up the ends with a fine file.