unravelled

The wall and gates may be new, but I suspect that the roadway inside is part of the entrance way to the GNR coal depot in Mantle Road at Brockley

Dave

Nearly a year on, time for an update. I had a long idle spell after my last post, but then managed a few weeks good progress. During this I compleeted the trial wiring. Those of a nervous disposition should probably look away now...

What I have done is bring out all the tortoise, frog and feed connections to the front, where I can make the necessary interconnections. At a later stage I can simplifym and tidy up somewhat. Honest. One of the reasons for the quantity of wires is that I opted to use 4 pole changeover switches for point operation, which with a bit of cunning allows for a degree of non prototypical "interlocking". The intention is to use the spare poles to swich the appropriate controller to the track sections adjacent to the points. In most cases, thee switches operate two pairs of points, or a pair of points and a slip end as a crossover. The tortoise switches can be used for frog polarity, and a spare way, although so far I have found the unifrog work well enough without frog switching. My point butchery to get prototypical spacing caused some problems, but nothing that couldn't be sorted. My biggest problem was with the short crossing scissors arrangement accessing the goods yard. The construction of the flat bottom electrofrog crossing required that the polarities for the bottom left to top right route were opposite to the bottom right to top left one. If both were switched together, I'd have a short circuit between them. My solution was to cross wire the operating switches, so that when one is set, the other switch does nothing. This does mean that if both switches are thrown then one does not match the points, but it works for me. In operation, the fact that there is no noise from the point motors is an alert that something is amiss.

All this wiring made me decide to relocate the operating position to the middle of the of the scenic section, and further to have all the ponts for the main station operated from a control panel. I spent some time drawing this up on GIMP.

The circles indicate positions of point switches. This will be A4 width, so quite compact. One decision I made was to operate both ends of the top goods yard loop, and half the double slip, together. Looking at it now I'm not sure if that's a good idea. I may have to squeeze in another switch for the right hand end pair of points.

The goods yard layout, with the back loop is interesting. At Thame it was changed when the goods yard was widened, to more conventional single ended sidings, but with the lack of space I have, it seemed an interesting arrangement. I'd like to know how this layout would have been worked. One thought is that as wagons/vans had been processed through the goods shed, they could be moved out of the way to the back loop for collection. I'm assuming a shunting horse was on site.

On the layout there is not enough room to fit a catch points as shown on the diagram, so I had to resort, with some trepidation, to a bit of Peco butchery, to make this.

It s prototypical for at least part of Thame's history, and it fits the space. It still needs a bit of tweaking, and chars replacing, but does the job. The way I made it was to select the places to cut the rails, hopefully leaving emough chairs for good support. Then I cut away the chairs where the rails were to be realigned. Next was what I thought of as the risky bit, cutting the rails. I just used a Xuron cutter, so as to leave the cleaner cut side where the point blade would be fishplated. Then I put a slight bend in the diverging stub rails. The blades were quickly filed up from  spare rail, (not very well, I must redo them), and soldered to a copperclad tiebar. All in all I was impressed by how robust the bullhead points are. While they feel a lot more flimsy that their other ranges, they will put up with a lot of abuse.

One of the other tasks I have been working on is how to build the platforms. At the moment the plan is to build each face separately on a wooden core. then install them, fill between, and finally fit the platform edging.

This is my first real attempt, and I think it shoes promise, as long as I can get the corbelled rows squarer faced, I need to play with scoring to sharpen them up. . However they will be shadowed by the edging, so difficult to see. I just need to keep the camera away.

I'm using the brickwork software from Beckenham MRC. Very flexible, if a bit frustrating at times.

One blow to modelling. My main source of free card has been discontinued. Lidl have changed their porridge packaging.

Fortunately I have built up fairly good stocks of the card already.

So that's me up to date for another year...

Thanks

Dave

They have certainly blocked access to the level crossing from the town side, but I think the other side is in use as an access point

I  hadn't thought of the crossing as an alternative when the bridge was flooded, rather for occasional vehcles too tall for it. More needed before the bypasses than now.

By only digging out one half of the road for the ducts, they maintained works vehicle access under the line. I think there are still services close to the surface on the station side of the road. Once the ducts are in place it should be possible to divert those services while the bridge is open. I would have thought that there is plenty of space to the sides of the road to work on moving services after the road is reopened at its old level.Then the dig out can occur after the new bridge is installed.

Dave

I was back in Oxford recently, and took these photos on the 6th of April.

I guess they are reinstating the road at the existing level to get traffic moving again, and will dig out to the fimal depth after the new bridge is installed. It looks as if most of the services which were outside the trench at my last visit have now been reburied. As well as the services in individual small (100/150mm) ducts, it looks as if corrugated ducts are being installed for the shallow run services  which can be seen in the last photos. Or perhaps the smaller ducts have been run in further corrugated ducts below those vsible. Hopefully there is space in them  to future proof the setup too.

I do wonder whether it would have been easier to replace the bridge first, and relocate services in the extra space alongside the existing carriageway, which might have allowed light controlled traffic on one lane for most of the work.

Dave

I think there may be another Oxford station thread, but I haven't found it, so I am posting here.

I was back in Oxford this weekend and made a quick visit to the station to see the works. For now the footbridge makes a good vantage point, and the only two high viz'd people I could see were also there looking at the site. There is one deep excavation of the westbound  lane, which seems reasonably dry considering its depth and the rain we've had. I got the impression that they hoped all the surprises had been found, and it will just be a matter of getting on with it when revised plans are agreed.

A mixed bunch

Thanks

Dave

73068 at Evercreech Junction and Windsor Hill tunnels. Mid 1965

82041 runing round at Binegar, also mid 1965

And at Evercreech, probably November 1965

Dave

5 hours ago, Stoke West said:

Note hoppers in yard for the Ardley to Greaves working this lasted after steam class ee type 4 worked . looking at the date wouldn't be surprised if one of the locos was off of this working

Around that date I only saw the hoppers on a couple of occasions, hauled by 56xx 0-6-2T's.

I find that for a lot of emails the message title is enough information, so don't need to open them. Only one group is moaning that I don't read them.

Dave

12/5/65. 7920 rescued  D1593  somewhere north of Ardley Station.

At Adley it was replaced by 6823, presumably sent out from Banbury

For those of us interested in such things, the leading vehicle appears to be W111W,  a K41 brake.

Thanks

Dave

Now rails in the towpath. These are long gone, and were on the south bank of the Thames near Crossness. I think they disappeared in the tidying up after the completion of the waste transfer facility, which was then under construction. A scan of NLS shows a possible stretch of unconnected track leading from Belvedere mills (Bovril, disused) on the 1897 map.

Some distance upstream, still on the South bank, between Vauxhall and Chelsea bridges, this bullhead rail is seen. Possibly reinforcements for the wall, or fixings for timbers ob the river wall.

On the river Lea, an improvised bollard/cleat

And finally for tonight, some real rails in the ground. This time at Railway Fields Nature Reserve in Haringey, a repurposed goods yard.

Thanks

Dave

I did a search on S J & R  Stockton, ( I thought Stackton, but Google suggested the correct spelling), and they were making rails for New Zealand's railways in 1874, the date on this gatepost, so would know what  a rail looked like for these castings. Incidentally I think it should be read as S J & R of Stockton, as another later supplier was S J R & Co Stockton. Looking again, I can see there is a full stop before Stockton on the casting.

For info, a bit found in Graces Guide "The Moor Ironworks, situated upon the west side of the borough, and erected upon land purchased from Messrs Wren, are now in active operation. We take the following description of the works from the Iron and Coal Trades Review : — The proprietors are Messrs Shaw, Johnson and Reay. The works are laid for the manufacture of puddled bars and plates, though the addition of a sheet mill and rail mill is contemplated."

This is a section of bridge rail in a stream, somewhere near Blaenavon, taken a few years ago. There was no sigh of a structure it might have come from

And in Brentford, not quite in the road, is a fair length of Barlow rail, being used as a kerb.

Also, to add to my erroneous identification more, presumably cast, rail styled posts. This time in  the beer garden of the George, in Southwark.

There is a railway connection here, as this former coaching in was used by The GNR as a parcels office, as were other coaching inns by other companies. Whether the posts date from then I don't know

Thanks

Dave

1 hour ago, bécasse said:

Except that they are not old rails! They were cast that shape specifically for use as gate (and possibly fence) posts. Fifty years ago they were still a commonplace feature at former SE&CR locations.

That's interesting, thanks, I will have to reconsider some intended future posts (!).  But I have plenty of genuine recycled rail photos to add. Incidentally, are there genuine cases of old rails being cut and reformed like this for neatness? I think that the thing which fooled me is that there looks to be a blobby join at the top. Did they intend to fool people, or did the castings copy an older version where recycled  rails were used?

I have recently started selling on ebay, and payments so far have been held for a while, I'm assumng until the buyer has a chance to leave feedback. I did notice the markup on postage, but consider it worthwhile. The convenience of having addresses autofilled, and consequent saving of time and reduction in mistakes. I would hope that using their integrated system provides a better audit trail in case of problems.

I have some track and points, but I'm not sure what types. I'll look them out in the next few days.

Dave

2 hours ago, David Bigcheeseplant said:

I have not seen this plan before it does show there is no signal box provided in 1891. and just a short passing loop extending just a short way beyond the platforms.

 I'm glad I included it although it strictly falls outside the era I was asking about. It is tantalising that NLS reference two earlier 25 inch maps, but don't have copies.

Thanks

Dave

On 11/06/2023 at 12:54, KeithMacdonald said:

I've used the 1921 version.

 

 

A friend of mine was a Field Surveyor for the OS. I once asked him about the accuracy of the published maps compared to the original surveying. The survey data is the original and most accurate data, and all published maps are derivatives of that. In our context, the 25 Inch map is the published map closest to the original survey data, and the best available for most rural locations.

 

We'd have to go into towns and cities to find a published map with more detail. e.g. Oxford Station at 1:500 scale.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18.8&lat=51.75346&lon=-1.26956&layers=117746211&b=1&marker=51.740424,-0.971414

 

My OS friend also explained that the Six Inch maps are deliberately simplified versions. The details remaining are decisions made by the cartographers at OS HQ. They have to be simplified, for clarity of the main features, a lot of detail gets discarded, and this the accuracy is reduced as well. That working habit continues to this day, except now the OS has realised it can also charge more (and make more money) by only putting all the available details on commercial versions of the maps, available at higher prices than the current "general public" series.

 

We can see this by comparing older maps from NLS with the current OS maps available. The older maps often have much more detail.

 

https://explore.osmaps.com/?lat=51.739698&lon=-0.962281&zoom=16.4442&style=Standard&type=2d

 

I've always liked the 25 inch maps. My father was an architect in Oxford, and he had amassed quite a collection in the course of his work. I have managed to collect a few ones local to me in London. Looking at the maps, it seems to me that the cartograpers weren't averse to making what could have been seen as unnecessary alterations. I'm thinking here of the slight changes to the trackwork in the second image,, and the rermoving of two cattle pens, though not the legend. Interestingly there is one bit of what might be sloppiness in the addition of the track to the new cattle pens where it cuts through the hatching for the road embankment, rather than have the hatching modified.

Again with the 6 inch maps there seems to have been an effort to be accurate. There are the correct numbers of tracks where it matters (for me), and between the last two examples the later one shows a clear change in style to inprove clarity. 

I think that I have been lucky with my location, in that the area isn't too cluttered, and most of the detail I want can be shown, even in the 6 inch maps.

Does scale still exist now, in the way it did before computers? I wouldn't be surprised if the computer model effectively exists at full size, (even possibly on the surface of a sphere), and algorithms exist to simplify away what wont show, (and flatten them for output). Legends can be generated at any appropriate size from a single source. It's all another rabbithole I could too esily be tempted to explore...

Thanks

Dave

Thanks, I do have a code 100 short crossing which I used as a placeholder until I could get a new code 75 one. I may have to resort to building a copperclad version if all else fails, but I think that's beyond my current skillset.

Dave

Since the last update I have made considerable progress(for me). This started with the removing of all the scenic track through the station, and relaying it to a new alignment, which I think looks much better. This is the current state of play.

All the main track is in place, and only the goods yard lines need to be finalised. I made a late decision to put a double slip in the goods yard scissors, rather than back to back points as I had intended. This is harder work to set up, but matches the prototype. There is some evidence that back to back points may have been used at some stage, but I'm not convinced of that. The double slip was the last pointwork purchase, at Ally Pally in March. Since then I have been laying track and wiring points. Almost all points are now wired and motorised. I decided to go for Tortoise  point machines, and these are fitted using a variety of 3d printed mounts. I have most of the wiring above the baseboard for now. It makes for easier modification and testing, but some sort of control panel is intended for the future.

The section from the west bridge to the platform east ends  should be to scale, with severe compression of the rest  This compromises the goods yard length, but I hope I will be able to keep all the features of the prototype. The Peco pointwork has itself provided some useful compression. I have been pleasantly surprised by the robustness of the bullhead track and pointwork, and have successfully adapted some of the items to narrow the track spacing. The only issue I have is the lack of a short crossing. I have had to use a code 75 flat bottom item, and of course the sleepering doesn't match. I have some ideas about that, but flat bottom will get it running. It won't be difficult to swap it out for a better item  should one appear.

The platforms and other structures are just placeholders to get the feel of the space. There will be a lot of modelling to come.

Track was laid with copydex, which made it easy to lift and modify when i made mistakes. It is als quieter than pva, but smellier. Once the electrics are completed, and the last of the track laid, I'll have to learn the art of ballasting, which should be fun.

In an effort to get a more realistic model, I made a visit to Thame last week. It was quite easy, a train to Haddenham and Thame parkway, and a short cycle ride to the site, which is part of the Phoenix  cycling and walking trail. I was surprised how much remains. As well as being able to measure up the bridges, there were some other identifiable bits of structure which will help the model. The platform structures are largely intact, with only the slabs removed after closure. One of the things I was able to confirm was that the south siding, at the front of tthe layout, was higher than the platform lines. I had guessed at about a foot difference, and rough measurements showed that this was about right.

Time to get back to modelling.

Thanks

Dave

As I am slowly making progress with my model of not Thame, I thought I'd try to gather some information about how the real place was worked.  I have information from several books, studied lots of photos from the internet, and had a lot of help from David bigcheeseplant with plans and photos.

Among other things, I started with this nls 25 inch map of 1921.

This and other maps below are  from the NLS website, https://maps.nls.uk/index.html. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

There are two sidings trailing from the up line, one joining under the west end bridge in a half scissors configuration, and one joining opposite the signal box. What I am interested in is what these two up sidings were used for at that time. Either could probably be used as a refuge siding, for putting a slow up train out of the way of something following.

One later  change was the repurposing of the south siding with the addition of what I imagine are quite extensive cattle docks alongside.

In one other change between these maps the earlier one shows two sets of points toe to toe between the loading dock and the goods shed, while the later one shows a double slip.

Later still, the west end pointwork was simplified with the  connection to the siding relocated further west, as part of the oil depot.

One aspect of the goods yard layout, not shown in the maps above is present on the BR maps in both Richard Lingard's book, and the GWR stations survey series. In this arrangement, the top siding and goods shed line rejoin at the top left of the site.  These maps also show the toe to toe points rather than a double slip. I haven't found an earlier   25 inch map to illustrate this, but it is on the 6 inch ones. This is from 1900, but the yard layout seems not to have been resurveyed later

I am not trusting all track details from 6 inch maps, but this is to illustrate the arrangement in the BR plans. This arrangement has interested me and I wondered how it might be used and whether it is common?

Comparing boundaries between the 6 and 25 inch maps shows a little widening of the goods yard area, possibly connected with the change in track plan.

One idea has come to me while writing this. The loop within the goods yard might make more sense if it relates to an earlier layout before the double track section was extended. Although not trusting the track plan, this 1880s map suggests much more limited shunting opportunities, as well as a shorter  yard layout

But why BR plans are outdated intrigues me, perhaps the authors requested older plans for publication.

Thanks for reading, any comments would be welcome.

Dave

This is an update on my earlier post on using the bullhead pointwork in ways that were not intended  by Peco. I haven't reread the whole thread, so I can't be sure if any of this is new information.

To begin, some thoughts about the construction. Most, if not all sections of rail have one or more small  disks spot welded to the foot These seem to have a double purpose, first to lock the rail sections  into the base, and second as something to spot weld the jumper wires to. In a couple of pieces of pointwork I needed to remove the short frog extension sections, to close up the track spacing. After breaking the wire link off, I was able to pull the rail away  from the frog through its chairs. The disk cut its way through the first chair, and I was then able to cut away the disk and completely withdraw the rail, While this did damage the first chair, it still holds the replacement rail in gauge. While I have been pleasantly surprised by the robustness of the bullhead system, I have had a couple of the link wire spot welds fail, needing extra feeds to be addedI have put this down to my heavy handedness

Another modification  I have used in some places is to break the links to a  frog rail extension, isolating it. This saves having an extra insulated rail joiner between the point and an adjacent isolated section.

Dave

I have a load of 5 pin latching din connector pairs to dispose of, (freeish). PM if interested.

Dave

I know this is a long shot, but has anyone a damaged bullhead slip they want to sell? Single or double will do, I want to harvest some components for  a project.

Thanks

Dave