Harlequin

That is a bit fiddly and awkward to my eye. And there are some things that don’t work very well. Sorry, I know this is a difficult puzzle to solve.

Moretonhampstead and Ashburton, which are very close genetically to what John is trying to create, both had small turntables in front of the shed originally. They were later removed. Actually, @John Hubbard I steered you wrong, sorry, and 45ft may be too big. That was the size at Fairford originally but those at MH, Ashburton and Princetown were smaller. Princetown was 23ft6in but I can’t find a reference for the others. In proportion to the known size of the engine shed at MH it was probably about 23 - 25ft.

Hi @Junctionmad The track and platfom colours I used on Sproston are not solid. I gave them a bit of variation to simulate an ink wash and I gave them a smaller scale transparency variation to give a slightly grainy effect. So their final appearance depends on the colour behind them. Here they are in close up over the light buff paper colour that I used for the drawing and also over pure white: I can't claim that these colours are accurate to the prototype drawings. The photographs that you can find on the net usually show very old drawings that are yellowed with age and/or bleached by exposure to sunlight. So I made best guesses to the original colours without going too saturated. The convention I'm using for track colours is: grey for primary running lines, blue for sidings and orange for secondary running lines (such as goods relief lines). The secondary orange is a slightly stronger version of the platform orange shown above but I didn't have to use it on Sproston. Sample RGB values over buff paper colour: Platform orange = #ecceb3 Primary grey = #c6c1bb Siding blue = #a4c5d7 Sample RGB values over white: Platform orange = #f6e1d3 Primary grey = #c5c0bd Siding blue = #abcbde The track outlines are 60% black (#666666) - they should possibly be a bit darker.

That’s a very sad story...

Hi John, You are trying to crack an age old conundrum: How to make a GWR BLT that is believable but a little bit different. You are definitely on the right track. All permutations of positions for platform, goods shed, engine shed, cattle dock, etc, are possible so long as they can be operated reasonably sensibly. Position2 for the cattle dock is very Moretonhampstead, as you know. You are right not to bring the tracks too close to the west end of the boards. Even a little bit of non railway scenery there will help to set the station in the landscape. The bay platform is a very useful modeller's cliche but in your period would a bay be likely? Amongst models, the lack of bay platform would be a factor that made yours more unusual! (Unlikely to have smelly livestock too near the passengers, BTW, although even that permutation was known. See cattle pens on the platform at Princetown!) You always need some form of trapping between the goods and the passenger lines (to do things properly). In your period its very likely that there would have been a small turntable (~45ft) at the station - possibly in the middle of the engine shed siding or in a kick back off it. Consider making the design more dynamic by angling and/or curving the main running line. (I'm sure David didn't mean literally straight, just that the dogleg was undesirable.) As David said, a long back siding or mileage siding for unloading open wagons would be common but wasn't always found as a dedicated length of track. See Ashburton.

Do you think that information might be locked away at STEAM or at Kew, maybe?

Super kit-bashing but I'm worried about the roof pitches being different. That would be highly unusual in a building designed and constructed in one phase and it might look odd.

"GWR Signalling Practice" covers the subject briefly on Pages 258-259 (with photos of two different styles on 257 and 258). It suggests that the change in the representation of TCs was not coincident with the introduction of illuminated diagrams. For some period the style of showing black track sections was used with the TC indicators on the shelf amongst all the other instruments. So the sequence for showing TC on box diagrams was: Thin red lines, non-illuminated Thick black lines, non-illuminated Thick black lines, illuminated (mid 1930s onwards starting at larger installations)

It's starting to look more authentic now! (It's the Gents that does it.) I would have kept a door in the StationMaster's office, as well as a small window. He needs quick access to the platform to sort problems out. There ought to be some secure place to handle parcels. That's often part of the station building but it can also be done in a corrugated iron hut on the platform. And don't forget your lamp hut. (Starting to build an ecosystem!) You have a problem with your rooflines, I'm afraid. If we assume that the central roof is the same pitch as the others (it usually would be) and with similar overhangs then, because you've shown that ridge to be lower than the waiting room ridge, the central part of the building must be less deep than the waiting room is wide... Doesn't seem reasonable to me. I reckon it would be the same width, possibly wider, so the ridge would be the same height as the waiting room, possibly higher. That will ithen ntersect the house roof at the other end but that's good - in fact the house roof could be a bit lower to save the railway company money. The inhabitants are only railway employees so they can put up with slopey ceilings and pokey dormer windows

Sort of... I don't think the stationmaster's house would usually have an exit onto the platform. On the other hand, the waiting room probably would have an exit onto the platform (although that could just use the exit through the booking hall). Depending on when you imagine it was built, the Gents might be just a walled area enslosing urinals, with roof only over the few cubicles. That style would have a wooden screen obscuring the entrance rather than a door. The stationmaster's office would probably have it's own window. I should say that the booking hall is divided in two internally, of course: There's the public half with the big doors front and back, and the staff-only half from where tickets are sold through the small hatch to the public side. So the window to the left of the double doors is into the staff only part and the window to the right of the double doors is into the public part. BTW: Sorry to say this but the detail on the gable looks very modern housing estate pastiche.. Urgh!

If you swapped the two wings over then the arrangement of rooms inside would make more sense (to me if no one else!). Then on the ground floor the rooms from left to right would be: Stationmaster's house (two storey wing) Stationmaster's office (internal door to booking hall) Booking hall Waiting room(s) (single storey wing) (internal door to booking hall) Ladies WC might be inside the building at the back but the Gents would be tacked on the outside. I can see a stone plinth. The same finer stone would be used for qoins and lintels, of course. I wonder if some of the windows would be arched?

Hi Steve, Here's the new version, then:

Er, I don't think it is accessed off a running line - it's accessed off a goods/platform loop... No?

http://www.clag.org.uk/41-0rev.html#section3

Hi Steve, Yes, I've got those changes in the drawing. Will wait for the conclusion of these discussions before I post a new version. FYI: 4 is shown as a 3ft arm in the drawing currently but it's trivial to change.

Would the lack of room for a lockbar be a feature of the real-world, uncompressed station? If not you could just ignore that problem and imagine that it is present in the model???

Hi Herbert, This may be a stupid question but: Is your large inventory of rolling stock all to P4 standards? You didn't specify this above and, if not, it could have a significant part to play in the choice of track standard.

Or the smaller doll reads to the carriage siding and the points to the engine shed are hand operated...? It would be a strange ommission to make the effort to provide a signal for the carriage siding but not the shed headshunt only a few yards further on if those points were operated from the box.

For information, Peco recommend no steeper than 1 in 36: https://peco-uk.com/pages/faqs In the real world, the gradient from Exeter St Davids up to Exeter Central is 1 in 37, all on a curve and 240 yards of that in a tunnel!

I fixed the link to the SRS diagram above. Repeated here for convenience: Slightly different...

I think that's too old. Try the 1922 OS Country series map, which shows some changes in the track layout: Most notably altered crossovers and a signal post just opposite the signal box, which is the one in question I believe. That's what I was wondering...

Buxton Midland side.

I found this on the SRS web site: https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/lmsr/M955.gif I’m not sure of the date of that diagram. It may be later than the 30s because there’s no engine shed access shown at all but it shows a 3 doll signal reading into the carriage siding, platform 6 and platform 5 (I assume). The 1922 map seems to show a simpler pair of separate crossovers, facing then trailing, but the signalling would be similar, I think?

Hi Steve, I think I've finished: I've added dummy yardages to get a bit closer to the real thing but they are on a separate layer and can be turned on or off as required. FYI: The diagram fits on a landscape A3 sheet and most of the labels are 8pt. Here's a close up of the small note pasted in the bottom left corner, which I understand was compulsory: Here are the lever labels (without locking info): Please let me know if you want any changes or if you can see any mistakes before I send you the PDF version. (No hurry.) @The Stationmaster Do these drawings look OK to you? Anything horribly wrong??? @Junctionmad I will try to answer your question later.