Chart Sutton SECR 1914-1923

[Sophia NSE]

It's time to get the layout planned and as it's SECR I've put it in here to keep it away from the modern image riff raff 

So, welcome to the Kent village of Chart Sutton between WWI and the very early days of grouping. This branch was the intended but unbuilt KESR Maidstone extension and was built as far as Chart Sutton until extending further became too expensive and the SECR gave up on the idea. 

The line runs from the leafy Kent countryside, up the Loose valley and into Maidstone (my place of birth) at the West station, where passengers can change for London bound services.

Anyway, enough waffling for now, you want to see the track plan, right? 

Absolutely no technology spared! 

The intention was for a second platform to be built upon extension to Headcorn, but that obviously hasn't happened.

Passenger traffic will mostly be a couple of clerestories behind an 0-4-4T so the platform needs to be long enough to accommodate those and a luggage van. The bay will be for goods and is fenced off from the main platform with direct access to the street. It will also be used to store the passenger stock at night.

The small engine shed could either be for the passenger loco or for a station shunter, whichever is more feasible.

The baseboards will be from Scale Model Scenery and measure in at 1655mm by 225mm for the main scenic area. Hopefully I can get what I want in there. Trackwork will be Peco code 100 as its what I already have.

Are we all still awake? Good!

Edited March 12, 2023 by Sophia NSE
Extended timeframe

[Oldddudders]

The Loose Women's Institute beckons! I lived in Strood, then Cranbrook, actually Flishinghurst.

 

I never quite fathomed how the KESR was going to cross the SER at Deadcorn (my boss's wife's name for their village). But if you can give the impression of unhurried secondary railway that even today's quite-busy KESR generates, you will have a winner. 

[Sophia NSE]

The Loose Women's Institute will never get old!

I've also wondered how the KESR would have crossed the mainline.

I'm hoping to give that exact impression of a backwater branch with occasional bursts of life.

 

I'm more than happy to take on any ideas and suggestions anyone might have

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Sophia NSE said:

Passenger traffic will mostly be a couple of clerestories behind an 0-4-4T so the platform needs to be long enough to accommodate those and a luggage van. The bay will be for goods and is fenced off from the main platform with direct access to the street. It will also be used to store the passenger stock at night.

The small engine shed could either be for the passenger loco or for a station shunter, whichever is more feasible.

Make sure the loop run-off is longer than the 0-4-4T, at least for an 0-6-0, but ideally if you can get a luggage can plus the 0-4-4T into it, you can get into some more interesting shunts.

You can store the passenger coaches in the run round loop overnight. Some stations even keep them in the platform road, I believe, but it does depend on gradients.

Given the limited size of the station, I suspect that a station shunter is extremely infeasible, but I have to say that I like where you are going with this plan!

[Sophia NSE]

Longest loco on the layout will be a C or O1 class 0-6-0 so the runoff will be long enough for that. 

I was tempted to give the bay road a canopy for extra cover but its not entirely necessary. I'll have to make the shed long enough for the 0-4-4T in that case.

I'm wanting to keep it as simple as possible but make it as good as I can

[Tom Burnham]

I've seen a photo of an R1 060T on the Tovil Goods line at Maidstone West, so one might well turn up at Chart Sutton.  Actually getting up the ridge at Sutton Valance without heavy engineering works would be tricky.  There was an early proposal (well before Col Stephens) for a Headcorn-Maidstone cut-off line for main line trains that would have involved a long tunnel.  

[Sophia NSE]

12 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

I've seen a photo of an R1 060T on the Tovil Goods line at Maidstone West, so one might well turn up at Chart Sutton.  Actually getting up the ridge at Sutton Valance without heavy engineering works would be tricky.  There was an early proposal (well before Col Stephens) for a Headcorn-Maidstone cut-off line for main line trains that would have involved a long tunnel.  

I'd best get myself painting an R1 grey then!

[Nearholmer]

On 23/10/2021 at 12:17, Sophia NSE said:

couple of clerestories

Did the SECR have clerestory coaches - it might have had a few, I think, but for this sort of thing?

 

Anyway, I’ve long liked the concept behind all this, so good luck with it. Keeping it simple is definitely a good idea, both for practical modelling reasons and so as not to over-egg the pudding in terms of prototype feasibility.

 

Have you seen this brilliant model of next to nothing? 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Dana Ashdown]

On 24/10/2021 at 09:38, Nearholmer said:

Did the SECR have clerestory coaches - it might have had a few, I think, but for this sort of thing?

So far as I know, the Hastings Car Train and the Folkestone Car Train had the only clerestories on the SE&CR. The coaches making up the Hastings train were sold to Pullman after the First World War, but I'm not sure about the Folkestone set.

[Tom Burnham]

Yes, all the "Cars" went to Pullman. 

[Sophia NSE]

So I finally got round to buying baseboards and had a play with some track 

A simple branch line terminus that shouldn't be any problems to wire up (electrics aren't my strong point)

A single platform for passenger services and a fenced off bay platform for goods 

A small engine shed with a row of trees behind will hopefully conceal the exit to the fiddle yard enough

 

[whart57]

No clerestories please, the SECR didn't have them in normal service.

 

One possibility given the relative shortness of line is a P class fitted for autotrain operation, and running in the middle of two driving coaches. Might be a useful one to have in the fiddle yard for when you feel too lazy to start running round

 

 

The other change I'd suggest is that instead of a bay road you have a dock and a coal siding.

 

Of course you are, unless my geography is well off beam, in hop country so another bit of operation is the arrival of a hop pickers train with an engine too long for the run round and needing releasing by the branch engine. I believe that happened at Hawkhurst on occasions when Bricklayers Arms provided an F or a B rather than an O1 or C.

[icw]

It's your railway, so you should feel free to use whatever carriages you like! If you would like something a bit more SECR-ish, the paneling on those you have is quite typical of a lot of pre-grouping coaches, so if you were to whip those clerestory roofs off and replace them with something like this, https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/carriage/c10/ (no connection, etc, etc), I think you'd have something that would look very much in keeping.

 

Hope that's a helpful and constructive suggestion! Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

[Sophia NSE]

On 05/12/2021 at 18:08, whart57 said:

No clerestories please, the SECR didn't have them in normal service.

 

One possibility given the relative shortness of line is a P class fitted for autotrain operation, and running in the middle of two driving coaches. Might be a useful one to have in the fiddle yard for when you feel too lazy to start running round

 

 

The other change I'd suggest is that instead of a bay road you have a dock and a coal siding.

 

Of course you are, unless my geography is well off beam, in hop country so another bit of operation is the arrival of a hop pickers train with an engine too long for the run round and needing releasing by the branch engine. I believe that happened at Hawkhurst on occasions when Bricklayers Arms provided an F or a B rather than an O1 or C.

The layout is very much in hop country so it might be an idea to invest in a couple of "foreign" coaches. I also had a play with the roofs on my coaches 

[icw]

Nicely done!

[Dana Ashdown]

Sophia, what's happened to your 0-4-4T conversion? I realised something's missing.

[Sophia NSE]

On 29/12/2021 at 18:40, Dana Ashdown said:

Sophia, what's happened to your 0-4-4T conversion? I realised something's missing.

Right here, with a more colourful friend 

[wainwright1]

12 hours ago, Sophia NSE said:

Right here, with a more colourful friend 

Had a good look at these. Without referring to any books, the blue one looks like an H class judging by the pagoda roof, but what is the grey one ? A Q1 class would have the flared tanks and bunker, but they would be lower than the H. An R1 0-4-4 would have higher tanks etc. but would not have the flares. Is it a R1 0-6-0 cut and shut, though that would have a pagoda roof.

I would be interested to know.

 

All the best

Ray

[Sophia NSE]

2 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

Had a good look at these. Without referring to any books, the blue one looks like an H class judging by the pagoda roof, but what is the grey one ? A Q1 class would have the flared tanks and bunker, but they would be lower than the H. An R1 0-4-4 would have higher tanks etc. but would not have the flares. Is it a R1 0-6-0 cut and shut, though that would have a pagoda roof.

I would be interested to know.

 

All the best

Ray

Hi Ray,

Both of these are made from the humble R1. The one on the left has had the bunker lengthened and I'm quite tempted to get an 0-6-2 chassis to put under it to create a never built loco. The one on the right is as close to a Q1 that I could get while using the R1 body

[wainwright1]

22 minutes ago, Sophia NSE said:

Hi Ray,

Both of these are made from the humble R1. The one on the left has had the bunker lengthened and I'm quite tempted to get an 0-6-2 chassis to put under it to create a never built loco. The one on the right is as close to a Q1 that I could get while using the R1 body

The Q or Q1 tank would be the ideal loco for my branch train on Hawkhurst. I have at least four pictures showing them in the Wainwright period.

I looked for a suitable kit, but the only ones I could find would be a Falcon Brass one, which be a struggle for me and I do not think is currently available. The other might be a SER Kits 7mm one reduced to 4mm, but that would not include the resin cast boiler, smokebox etc included in the 7mm version. Plus some of the etchings are so fine I do not think that they would reduce down satisfactorily. 

I did look at doing the cut and shut with the R1, but that would have been a major exercise as well and I do not think that there is a suitable chassis to adapt for the purpose.

 

All the best

Ray

[Dana Ashdown]

Turbosnail did artwork for the R1 back in early 2018, both the full Wainwright version and the black SER version for the R Class. They were colour PDFs that you printed and cut out to suit. I did an SE&CR R Class and an SE&CR R1 Class with these using Wrenn engines. With careful cutting, I was able to do cab doors and the rear of the bunker.

 

This is No.69. The green is Humbrol Brunswick Green; the tanks and cab were outlined with black paint before the paper overlays were put on.

 

The Wainwright sheet link is near the bottom of this page:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=949779

 

 

Edited January 7, 2022 by Dana Ashdown

[Sophia NSE]

4 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

The Q or Q1 tank would be the ideal loco for my branch train on Hawkhurst. I have at least four pictures showing them in the Wainwright period.

I looked for a suitable kit, but the only ones I could find would be a Falcon Brass one, which be a struggle for me and I do not think is currently available. The other might be a SER Kits 7mm one reduced to 4mm, but that would not include the resin cast boiler, smokebox etc included in the 7mm version. Plus some of the etchings are so fine I do not think that they would reduce down satisfactorily. 

I did look at doing the cut and shut with the R1, but that would have been a major exercise as well and I do not think that there is a suitable chassis to adapt for the purpose.

 

All the best

Ray

My Chart Sutton layout is very loosely based on Hawkhurst, which is why I chose a Q1 to bash. I used a K's 14xx chassis with a scratchbuilt bogie. I work much better with plastic than brass or whitemetal

[Sophia NSE]

2 hours ago, Dana Ashdown said:

Turbosnail did artwork for the R1 back in early 2018, both the full Wainwright version and the black SER version for the R Class. They were colour PDFs that you printed and cut out to suit. I did an SE&CR R Class and an SE&CR R1 Class with these using Wrenn engines. With careful cutting, I was able to do cab doors and the rear of the bunker.

 

This is No.69. The green is Humbrol Brunswick Green; the tanks and cab were outlined with black paint before the paper overlays were put on.

 

The Wainwright sheet link is near the bottom of this page:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=949779

 

 

I took the lazy option and went for the grey livery, though I will be running mine as 69 as it was shedded at Maidstone West during my layout's time frame

[whart57]

20 hours ago, Sophia NSE said:

Both of these are made from the humble R1. The one on the left has had the bunker lengthened and I'm quite tempted to get an 0-6-2 chassis to put under it to create a never built loco.

 

You mean this one?

 

It was proposed for goods work in the London area, but the Locomotive Department felt it would limit them as they couldn't roster them onto longer runs.

 

If you are into R1 hacking you could always chop funnels and restore a Stirling cab for a Canterbury and Whitstable one that has been sent out from the spares kept at Ashford to do a job.

[Sophia NSE]

6 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

You mean this one?

 

It was proposed for goods work in the London area, but the Locomotive Department felt it would limit them as they couldn't roster them onto longer runs.

 

If you are into R1 hacking you could always chop funnels and restore a Stirling cab for a Canterbury and Whitstable one that has been sent out from the spares kept at Ashford to do a job.

That's the one. I do have a spare R1 body that's had its cab shaped into the Stirling style