kitpw

Thanks Mikkel - much entertained (and informed) by that and Farthing too, throughout the year.

From BFI - a slightly clearer version of 'Windsor Castle'. It includes a ringed distant signal which Is why I have it bookmarked - https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-brilliant-biograph-2020-online.

(If I remember rightly) it's called "French Second Empire" style, characterised by mansard roofs. Quite why it was seen as appropriate for GWR station buildings, I cannot imagine.

I think you should award yourself several bites for the building so far (and several more when it's done, I dare say).

Might help - https://www.axminstertools.com/axminster-precision-centre-finding-rule-ax96220

Overview... yes! The hole in the wall is made. The viaduct is made but as yet undetailed - no rivets and detail. The current header shows the hole (old photo). The baseboard for Vineyard Hill will wait on finding the Vineyard Hill end of the viaduct to get the location exact, (it was nearly a ferro-cement viaduct but...). The viaduct is a separate "baseboard" which can be removed and the hole shuttered against the cold. Then, before winter sets in, "car port" (model port) baseboard making. The modeller's apprentice has learned much from Swan Hill but has a long way to go yet. Kit PW

I hope so... as trains at Swan Hill run round outside the station (run round loops inside seem to take more than their share of very limited space), the extension to Vineyard Hill permits that and increases overall movement activity. Ah yes, the eternal city... Kit PW

The modeller's apprentice - October 2023 Phase 1 [incomplete]: the layout model ends with a short viaduct at the right hand end, Phase 2: the semi-external [car port] type structure is complete and the layout is to be extended through the wall to Vineyard Hill. Phase 2: there is room for a yard at the right hand end - about 7', which is a bit short. It can be extended further if needs be into an adjacent shed: maybe it will, maybe it won't. It depends if the trains get long enough. The viaduct is under construction - pictures to follow. The grid is 300mm , the layout about 2' at its narrowest and widens to about 3' at Vineyard Hill. Kit PW

Everywhere I've ever been in the world, 'the chairman' has got there first with his indestructable garden seating and coffee tables, always the same pattern. There they are, under the tree... Nice blog by the way, the aluminium Metro-Cammel coaches are wonderful things.

Lead flashing: grey paper & pencil (and grubby finger) to give the surface a bit of shine. Kit PW

I visited Nine Elms when it was still a steam shed, say 1962 or, perhaps, '63. This was a special day out organised by our slightly eccentric headmaster. I wish I'd taken more interest in the wagon sheet supporters but, sadly, I did not.

...and all over late Victorian / turn of the century London as well. ...a bit earlier I think: the storey heights suggest it could be pretty old, possibly a timber frame which has had a brick facade added by way of an upgrade or repair. The ground outside appears to have been graded to respect an earlier road/pavement level. A nice collection of buildings. At less than £3 s/h, the Observer's Book of Architecture (I think now out of print) is an excellent investment. Amazon have several for sale: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Observers-Architecture-Forewordby-Written-Illustrated/dp/1854710397. Very good for a general sense of dating and style.

Diagram 0.2 was almost the same but had a single arc roof. The 3 arc roof type is diagram 0.1 as it has the top framing finished with a heavy, full width straight as per the illustration in your post: diagram 0.3 is also 3 arc, same dimensions, but the top rail is also 3 arc following the roof line, not a straight. There is a photo of 0.1 and 0.3 with C19th lettering style with GWR on the top plank in Slinn & Clarke's GW siphons HMRS 1986 edition. Let me know if you need a copy of relevant pages - I think the book is now out of print. (the 7mm scratch built model I've 'unfinished' for several years is diagram 0.2).

The MET. No 3, built 1896 is in the LT Museum - very handsome it is too in varnished teak. It's here: https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/vehicles/item/1981-540

There is a summary of the history of "containerisation" here: http://www.conflat.co.uk/con_hist.html "The origins of containerisation on Britain's Railways can be traced right back to their very beginning - although the idea took more than 100 years to catch on! In the 1830s the Liverpool & Manchester Railway used "simple rectangular boxes, four to a waggon, ...to convey coal from the Lancashire collieries to Liverpool, where they were transferred to horse-drawn carts by crane" But although there were some advantages, in particular the reduced handling of the cargo, the idea does not appear to have caught on. Even so, by the early 1900s the London & North Western, Lancashire & Yorkshire, and Midland Railway companies were carrying 'box coal' on flat wagons, the coal being destined for use by steamboats. The original Great Central Railway also played a part in the story of containerisation, being one of only three companies which provided special wagons for the conveyance of 'fish tanks'. The GCR carried considerable fish traffic and the 'fish tanks' were designed to ensure that the fish reached its destination as fresh as possible. As such, the wagons were classified as passenger stock. The other two companies were the Midland and the Great Northern; the latter referred to its containers as 'cod boxes' and some of them lasted into the 1930s. By the late 19th Century the closed container was with us. Resembling a wooden box van body, but with end doors, these were initially known as 'lift vans' and were privately owned by several furniture removal firms. They were carried both on railway wagons and on flat road trailers drawn by horses or steam tractors. The 'box coal' is familiar in model form - the 'cod boxes' I've been unable to find, model or prototype. There was some discussion on RMweb a few years ago about fish traffic but I don't think it covered 'cod boxes' - as a search term on RMweb, it returns no results.

There are quite a few references on the web. This is just one. https://www.steampicturelibrary.com/swindon-works/carriage-wagon-works-21-shop/21-shop-wagon-repairs-building-shop-c1930s-486174.html.

These articles are of interest if a little on the long side: https://cmykhistory.com/orthochromatic-photography-part-1/ https://cmykhistory.com/orthochromatic-photography-part-2/ One passage in particular caught my attention (from part 1). "The only method for reducing the amount of blue light reaching the plate was to either modify the illuminating source, or to filter the light at the camera before it reached the negative, using a yellow or orange screen. The use of yellow screens dates back as far as 1858, when William Crookes discovered that a yellow filter placed in front of the camera lens gave a better rendering of color values in reproductions of paintings on gelatino-bromide plates. Screens became a necessary component of the orthochromatic process. Reducing blue light reaching the plate helped emphasize the effect of the sensitizing dyes. While there was no increase in the green or red light, increased sensitivity of orthochromatic plates to those colors, coupled with the reduction in blue light, created a more uniform spectral sensitivity."

Very likely, although it doesn't explain why the Iron Duke buffer beam is dark. However, by a slightly different method, the blue channel only produces this: which is I think "corrected" in that the colours with a red component (buffer beam) are now going towards black where the lighter blues (sky) are going towards white.

Ortho, 2nd row, third from left tells the story - it's really dark which is as it should be, it's the strongest "true red" (to my eye!). The "pan" chart is a scale of greys which again is as it should be, so full marks on both! I must look again at why the buffer beam should come out properly dark using the channels approach; also the red wagon in the goods yard at Farthing is darker than the grey wagon - both are what I expected. I'll have a look at the Photoshop comment/help area and see if that turns up anything.

...not sure! That's the problem of relying on algorithms. I did the colour chart to see if that would confirm what it's actually doing, one way or another. As you pointed out, the red buffer beam has rendered very dark where the reds in the chart are light grey - both by the same method which confuses things a bit. That'll be interesting - I think your latest post just arrived as I was about to send this so I'll press 'submit reply' anyway.

A few further experiments in monochrome.... The grey chart is the same colour chart rendered into b & w in the same way as the Iron Duke picture above. Just to illustrate how greys (or is it grays?) are influenced by what's around them. All the larger grey squares are the same square repeated in different parts of the grid. (There's a small light grey square crept in...don't know where that came from). Although the're the same grey square, they look darker or lighter depending on where they are on the grid.

Some experiments: taking the process as a dark room process rather than a 'taking-pictures' process, akin to printing a colur picture in black & white on panchromatic or orthochromatic paper, Photoshop 'channels' rather than filters allows the removal of different colour sensitivities and relies only on the Photoshop algorithm. The Iron Duke picture can be "printed" with only the blue channel and looks like this: It can also go through some post production, using the RAW filter to increase 'haze': which approximates to the polluted environment which was commonplace in the photos we are used to looking at from the late C19th. It can be increased as required. Using the same processes in Photoshop on one of the Farthing pictures - blue channel only: ...and with added haze and a minor reduction in 'clarity' (which isn't the same as blur): In Photoshop, the process requires the colour channels to be duplicated and the originals deleted. The blue channel can then be selected and the other duplicated channels deleted. The image then needs to be copied and pasted to a new file and the channels tab will show only a gray channel. The post-production is user determined where the transition to b & w is algorithm based - I'm not certain but I think that the channel deletions produce ortho rather than panchromatic "paper" as clouds do not appear in the Iron Duke picture. Mikkel's sky is post-production in the original (I think). I haven't tried this out in DarkTable as I don't yet have much experience of it. What is clear, I think, is that all the colurs are rendered only on the basis of their original tonal quantity/quality when tint is no longer a permitted parameter.

You could try these https://www.jacksonsart.com/faber-castell-pitt-graphite-crayon. Available in the usual grades on the soft side of HB. Being a flat bar of graphite (no wood round it), you could try wiping it over the surface as it won't go into the cracks between slates but I'd try it on some scrap first! As an alternative, I guess that a soft pencil might do the trick anyway particularly when rubbed in gently with a rolled paper smudger or a finger - again, I'd try it first on some scrap as graphite pencil might not take on whatever surface you've now got.

This guide to Stockport of 1883 gives a few names under "Furniture Removers" some of which might still have been around on your chosen date (about 1905/1910?) - http://www.davenportstation.org.uk/archive/stockport-1883-slater.pdf. Kelly's Directory might also be worth a look. Maybe with some names to work on, your librarians could turn up something.

Very tempting to follow your example but I have rather more than 9 levers which put me off a bit and then, like you, I woud be termpted to go the whole hog and look at mechanical interocking. For now (which means indefinitely), I think I'd better stick with switches and relays. I like the idea of developing a Stevens-like frame but scaled to suit the operator's fingers: very nice. WIll you translate the basic frame into brass/steel?