Kiwirail

Hi All - Sorry I've been away from everything for a bit and distracted by other projects.  Good to have a catch up on everyone's progress.

Interesting a couple of you talking of school days.  My parents met at Ilkley grammar in about 1955/56 and were there until 1961 ish.  David Palmer and Joan Tomblin.  Be amazingly small world if any of you chaps knew them.

Still no progress here, but no COVID either, which is a big plus. 

Stay safe and away from each other! :-)

Cheers

Andrew

Great aerial photos Pete.  Thanks for sharing.  I've stored them away for (much) later when I finally get around to doing some modelling!

Good to see some progress on the layout.  I enjoyed the YouTube clip of the turntable.  Keep up the good work.

Cheers

Andrew

Hi Tom

Is that recent Bill Smith book any good?  I'll have to see if they'll post out to NZ but if it is a good read I'll suck up the no doubt ridiculous postage cost.....

Cheers

Andrew

Great stuff Pete.  Good to see some progress.

Summer here in New Zealand so little time for indoor things, but I did manage to get the railway room finally cleared out after construction works finished months ago...  We may see progress at my end prior to 2035 at this rate.

I agree that on closer inspection the coaling stage drawing has a number of detail differences from the available photograph.  I've often wondered with old drawings how much detail was left up to the contractor 150 years ago.  As an engineer myself I see a lot of drawings (typically 20 A3 sheets for an ordinary house here in NZ!) yet things like an engine shed or station roof appear to have been defined in only two or three sheets in times past.  There must have been much more reliance back then on good trades practice and site instruction by the designer.

Cheers

Andrew

Just had a look at Sir Douglas' drawings and indeed the coaling stage is four feet wide, so it's encouraging to know that my plan isn't a million miles off even at gross enlargement and freehand measuring!

Some of the drawings are better preserved than others.  I have a full set now and am happy to redistribute via PM.  I've also asked Sir Douglas to see if we can get a set properly scanned which may benefit more than one or two of us.

Thanks Sir Douglas for your valuable input.

Cheers

Andrew

Sir Douglas

I'd really appreciate any drawings/photos you have.  Details of the water tower and goods shed in particular have been impossible to find thus far. 

In terms of scale, I've dug out my site plan and here are the metric building footprint dimensions as close as I can make out.

Water Tower: 5045 x 3930 excluding the lump on the western end, which I'm picking is some sort of chimney breast maybe?

Goods Shed: 20480 x 9790 (main body of the shed).  Office at western end adds another 7980 x 5200.  Excludes steps.

Coaling stage: 9395 x 1165 (excluding the steps).  I suspect that this structure was actually closer to 4' wide (1220 mm) but we're scraping into areas of high implied precision scaling off my scanned plan!

According to Smith & Binns (1986), Brook St Bridge was 25.9 m long but according to the plan, this dimension is actually the overall length from the back of each of the abutments on the northern side.  The bowstring girders themselves scale at 28.7 m and the true span (front face of abutment to front face of abutment) is 23.9 m on the north side and 25.5 m on the south side.

Should be enough info here to enable useful interpretation of the plans.

I'll PM my email shortly.

Thanks very much

Andrew

Great stuff Tom.  Really inspiring.

Don't get depressed about lack of progress Pete.  All I have to show for my efforts at present is a big empty space.  It may be some years before the first sleeper gets laid down here.  Still, at least half the fun is the planning and research.

Cheers

Andrew

Hi Tom

Great pictures.  Marvellous to see something actually more or less finished!  Well done.

I'm interested in your model of the station itself.  Could you post a couple of shots please?  Particularly the overall roof (if you've got that far).  I've had various thoughts how to tackle it over the years, but I'd be fascinated to see what you've achieved.

Cheers

Andrew

Looks super. What sort of ash went into the coffee grinder? Are we talking about coal here, or wood or something else?

Did the teddy bear object to the removal of fur?

Cheers

Andrew

Hey Pete

What's the rail/sleeper/chair system you are using for this build?  Looks great.

Thanks

Andrew

Pete

Loving those windows and the turntable. Really excellent stuff!

Summer's here, so not spending too much time inside on the computer.  But good to see some progress at your end while I have been away.

Cheers

Andrew

Hi All

Been off topic for a week or so following our little earthquake.  Being a geotechnical engineer, I tend to get pretty busy when the earth moves.

I have some photos of the coal drops c. 1983, before they were butchered for the car park entrance.  I will try and dig something out and post it when I get a minute.

Cheers

Andrew

Bryan

Well - so much for all of our collective wisdom and informed ignorance!  Who'd have thought it?  Next time there's a curious detail that seeks an interesting and unusual explanation, I'll just blame it on a TV production!

Thanks very much for that little snippet.  My layout will be set in late 1970s/ early 1980s, so I shall make sure that the footbridge is suitably grubby and uniformly grey throughout.

Cheers

Andrew

Tom

I don't suppose you have a contact for the guy who gave the talk?  Presumably he'd be a good source for new photos for this thread?

I think the plan I've posted pieces of here previously and sent to a few of the chaps dates from around 1900, so it wouldn't surprise me if the outhouses at the Springs Lane cottages had changed by the 1950s.

Cheers

Andrew

Hi Pete

Great to see progress on the layout, and hear of your success getting rid of your flatmates, thus freeing up space for more modelling (both railways and underwear, it would appear).

If you haven't done your window etching yet, I may have a go at CADding up those railings and send something to you as a trial.  I have a copy of the original drawing somewhere here, so combining that with Kingmoorkid's photos we should be on to something.  You never know, you might get onto a model of the station one day and find you need some.....

The other obvious candidate for an etch would be the latticework on the footbridge, but presumably that is available somewhere already?

Cheers

Andrew

Here you are Tom.  One to jog the memory....

These would be a good candidate for etching I'd think.  Or CNC machining.  They'd be an absolute nightmare to do any other way!

Cheers

Andrew

Pete

They look excellent, those drawings of the shed.  A decent scan would be fantastic but the photos are a huge help for detail.

Always a bummer when you find out some niggly little detail when you are committed to another approach!

I've done window frames with a computer controlled mill, which is great once you have programmed it.  Endless copies of the same window.  I've not done etching so I cannot provide any 'wisdom' there I'm sorry. 

It'd be interesting to see if we can come up with an etch drawing for the handrails around the underpass in the station and the footbridge latticework.  Tom - Do you have anything useful here you'd be willing to share?  I've got some reasonable drawings of bits of the inside of the station, but from memory I'm not sure if those handrails are shown.

Great to see some progress.

Cheers

Andrew

Tom

I'd go with trimmed stone, on the back of the photographic evidence.

It'll be interesting to see what Pete can find in Derby.

Cheers

Andrew

Pete

You're going to have a most interesting day I'd think.

I'd be interested personally (on a not for profit, hobby type basis) on anything you can gather related to the Wharfedale line, but particularly Ilkley.  Signal box and goods shed (oh and the water tower :-)) are the last major items that I don't have a drawing of.

I'm no expert, but I'd have thought that stuff from the late 19th century would be well beyond any sort of copyright law, but I don't want anyone getting into trouble!  Heavens - you might get transported to Australia......

I too have had little joy with the NRM online search facility.  I think it probably becomes clearer once you've had the patience to work at it for a few hours.  It certainly did not seem intuitive if you wanted to examine something that wasn't just a picture of the Flying Scotsman.

Good luck with your research.  If you get anything good let me know and I'll send you my email address.

Cheers

Andrew

You probably know about this, but just in case, have a look at http://www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk

The centre is in Derby, and you will have to visit in person, to see and copy the documents they have. They hold a series of drawings of Ilkley buildings, including an architects drawing of the engine shed which may be very useful (drawing no.23473 in the catalogue.) As I said, you need to go there in person, as they don't send anything over the 'net. Worth a look at the website, anyway!

 

Cheers, David 

If anyone's going near Derby, then can they get hold of drawing 23473 and post it here?  It's a bit harder for us antipodeans to get up there to have a browse ourselves!

Sounds great for those of us who have to build a model of the shed (eventually in my case).

I've got a good selection of drawings of the station buildings, but am lacking the signal box, good shed and engine shed.  I found Network Rail were very happy to send stuff by email from their archives.  Their cataloging system is a bit strange though - I ended up with several drawings from random stations around the country as well as the Ilkley ones.

It'd certainly be good to have a look at the Derby archive, but I've not got a trip planned just at the moment.

Sorry Ron about the misunderstanding about the crane.  I've definitely got nothing at all about a mobile one that came into the yard from time to time.

Cheers

Andrew

Hi guys

The only light I can shed on the crane thing is this snippet from the plan:

This shows a single crane in the area between the sidings.  Got no other details though, sorry.

I agree the stonework that looks like brickwork could be the answer to the shed conundrum.  It all fits.

Cheers

Andrew

Check this out chaps:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/20676-ammonia-tankers/

They ran loaded from West to East, often covered in frost.  Ran back empty with no frost, looking completely different.

There's quite a bit of stuff related to this particular train.  Just run a search for 'ammonia' in the Forum Index.

Cheers

Andrew

The plot thickens indeed. 

I felt sure we'd cracked that stone/brick shed issue!  Mind you - do we have faith in a website that tells us that the access to the shed was via the station platform?  Surely there would have been an entrance to the shed area from Railway Road?

I found some useful stuff on one of the other forums all about ammonia tanks.  I will post a link once I refind it!

Thanks for the gen on the tree trunk loading.  I wonder where the trees came from.  It would have been a bit of a mission to bring them through the town to then load them on a train.  Can't think of too many loggable forestry blocks near Ilkley!

More in a bit.

Cheers

Andrew

Hi Chaps

Dug out this part of the plan, showing all eight houses in Railway Tce, plus dunnies in the back yard!

Can anyone enlighten us all on what was stacked in the 'stacking grounds'?

Presumably the P.H. adjacent to the Cart Road is not a very small pub, but another permanent way shed or somesuch.

Cheers

Andrew

Another photo just turned up! Railway Terrace taken from the signal box. A row of eight houses built by the railway company. When I were a lad, they were heated by coal fires, lit by gas, lav and wash house across the back yard (no bathroom of course). Direct access to our playground, the goods yard; ah, the good old days! I bet our kid remembers.

Cow and Calf rocks in the background.

RAILWAY TERRACE.jpg

 

All the best David

That's great - Not an area that features on any of my other photos, just a rather enigmatic reference to 'gardens' on my plan.  Now I know what it all looked like.

Thanks very much

Andrew