J. Lyons & Co Ltd, Greenford Green Depot

[nomisd]

I would guess that I am not alone in being an inveterate designer of potential layout ideas. Very few have ever seen the light of day. But I have had some good ideas! I think that almost every idea that I have ever had has in someway revolved around the idea of an industrial scenario. Recently as part pf preparing the room for the layout that this is all about, I came across a whole folder full of ideas, track plans, jottings. This included my idea of a whole series of layouts based around a fictional dock system named PFA (never really decided what the F stood for, the P and A being Port and Authority), a cement works and quarry, a lumber mill. My last serious one was a whole light railway.

 

The light railway progressed enough to buy locos and wagons. In the last couple of months I have finally got around to building the boards for the layout (well I didn’t but they were built). In the intervening time between starting to buy the stock and getting the boards built, I started to change my mind on the light railway idea. I had changed the location from the initial idea but the idea didn’t really sit right with me. I wasn’t completely sold on the idea and started to think about what to do.

 

The question was what to build instead. I had sort of stymied myself by actually buying stock. The thing was I hadn’t invested in any old everyman stock. Whilst my rtr industrial locos – a 48DS Ruston and a Hunslet built BR class 05 (plenty of which became industrial locos after withdrawal) were easily enough to locate at any sort of industrial location   anywhere in the UK, the mainline stock that I had got was a bit more difficult to place geographically. They are a BR class 15 in green and a streamlined GW railcar in blood and custard. After much cogitating, I came to the conclusion that there was only one place that I could set a layout – London.

 

With a location decided, what to model? There was only one thing to do – break out the London and Hertfordshire and Middlesex IRS handbooks and look for inspiration. I wasn’t looking for an exact location to model, more somewhere to base an idea on. It didn’t take me long to come up with somewhere – J Lyons & Cos Greenford Depot. The real-life site at Greenford opened in 1921 and was responsible for the manufacturing and packing of tea, cocoa, chocolate, confectionary, coffee and other foodstuffs as well as being a distribution warehouse for goods produced elsewhere. Raw materials were mainly received by road or canal with finished goods being dispatched by rail and road. The connection with BR was finally removed in 1969. In total they had five steam locos and one diesel loco (that is all straight from the Middlesex handbook).

 

As soon as I read this, I knew this was it. It gave a nice easy traffic flow – vans for outward traffic and that basically is it. Throw in a few milk tanks for inward traffic (especially after I found a photo of milk tanks at the Lyons Maid factory), a diesel tank or two for loco fuel and that is it. Despite being mainly the factory I want to base the layout around, the premise is that it set at the end of a short branch which terminates at a station, which means I can run the railcar. Initially all the trains that come in and out on BR are coming to and from the Eastern Region, although that will change I am sure. As will the GW railcar not be the last word in passenger trains. I am fairly flexible in a time period – early 60s to early 80s (just because Lyons closed in the late 1960s doesn’t mean that mine will). I haven’t come up with any names yet, either for the place or the factory, although as far as place some portmanteau of bits of real west London names – Greenvale, Periford, Greenwell etc – will be end up being the station name, possible with a cardinal direction or a Park thrown in!

Edited February 26, 2022 by Ruston

[nomisd]

I spent some time today playing around with track that is left over from previous projects and cardboard template of buildings that I have obtained to start the facility. All of them are Walthers and will be the first order of construction.

 

 

The tank is one of five that I have that will be the milk tanks, they are from another Walthers kit, this time a oil distribution depot. The office is from another one, a grain silo kit. The points in front of that are my idea for the location of a loco shed. The curved track is the mainline.

 

 

 

The idea is to bring all of the tracks to building C at the back. Buildings  A and C both have track running trough them. 

 

 

Looking back from the scenic break (where the strip of ply is) and the fiddle yard. My initial idea for the scenic break is a canal on an embankment.I think I am going to need more low relief factory buildings from the Milk tanks to the embankment. This is the are for the loco shed.

 

 

Another general view of the factory site.

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by nomisd

[nomisd]

An overview of the rest if the layout.

 

 

The rest of the layout is intended to be very simple. A three road exchange sidings (modelled pretty much that of the Barrington Light Railway) and a very simple single road dead end station, with perhaps a single siding for loco layover.

 

 

Where Ratio carriage shed and various other Walther buidings are - currently a toss up between a builders merchants (I have been fascinated by the builders Merchants between the mainline and DC on the way out of Euston since I was a kid - I always thought it was such a strange place to have a builders merchants) or a bus garage. The rest will be a houses and shops, probably slightly raised as per the Metcalfe house.

 

Any comments or ideas are welcome.

Edited May 20, 2022 by nomisd

[nomisd]

I decided that in order to get a feel of where I am trying to evoke, I would have a look at the superb website of the National Library of Scotland and its collection of OS maps. This was twofold. The first was to try and look at the actual layout of the internal railway system at Lyons at Greenford. The second was to get an idea of how the area grew up and the style of architecture that would have been used. It was quite an instructive exercise.

 

What I have done is knock up a map based on the 1936 6inch to a mile OS map for the area that I have then hand annotated (as I find it easier than trying to annotate in GIMP, my chosen drawing software) so apologies for the weird colours, I think my print heads need cleaning.

 

 

Edited April 19, 2022 by nomisd
Pictures, innit

[nomisd]

The earliest useful map is 6 inch to a mile map revised in 1868. On this the only things that are my map are the canal (which I have forgotten to label but is the Paddington Arm or Branch of the Grand Union – it opened in 1801), Oldfield Lane, the Black Horse pub and the Dye Works (marked D on my map). On this map, Oldfield Lane goes south to the place actual known at the time as Greenford, which appears to have been farms, a church, pub, school – the epitome of what we would now model as a typical English village. The area north of the canal is shown as being known as Greenford Green

 

The 1896 25 inch to a mile map shows pretty much the same thing. The only differences are that the Dye Works is marked as disused and a row of houses have been built opposite the Black Horse pub. The area is, as my mate once said to his daughters as they were driving out of his local Tescos, all fields round here when I was your age (at which point he told me he felt like he had officially become old!).

 

The 1915 25inch to a mile map is where it starts to radically alter. Small changes have occurred – the house opposite the Black Horse now have allotments behind them and a manure works has been built directly south of the houses. But the really big change is the railway has arrived. The railway now bisects the map as shown on my map. According to the London Railway Atlas by Joe Brown (I have the 2006 edition) the GWR opened the line from Old Oak Common Junction to Greenford in 1903 with the extension north west being opened in 1906. The line from Greenford to Ealing opened in 1903-04. Greenford station is shown in its original position (the site mark on my map) from 1904 to 1963 (I assume that the current combined Central Line/BR station was built at that point).

 

The row of house on the east side of the road, just south of railway on Oldfield Lane are shown on the 1915 map. What is also interestingly shown just east of the station, on the north side of the line are a number of sidings, quite a few of which are not connected to any other track. This is I assume the plant depot, operated by Pauling from 1907 to 1925 and then by Caffin & Co until 1921. The IRS Herts & Middlesex handbook says that part of the Lyons factory was built of the western end of this yard. The other interesting thing about this map is that the area south of the railway line and west from Oldfield Lane to the canal is shown as a golf course.

 

The next available maps are the mid 1930s one that my map is based on and as you can see the railway was the catalyst for much building. The Lyons factory was opened in 1921. I assume that all of the development south of the railway line took place at the same time. Graces Guide show the British Bath Co from 1928 and I have found a photo of the factory taken in 1930 which shows the houses just south of it being built – does anyone have any ideas as to what the straight sided building shown in this photo and on my map is? My guess is that it is a barracks for the construction workers. A tantalising glimpse of the Lyons factory can be seen in the background of this photo. (I will revisit the Britain from Above photos some other time as there are some good photos of the Lyons factory on i)).

 

So what have I learned from this? The main things is that I need to give my surroundings a bit more thought. It would seem pointless if I am trying to evoke a place, West London that was developed from the end of WW1 to the 1930s, by using for example Metcalfe terrace houses. They would be wrong and it wouldn’t give the right feeling. So I have learned I am going to have to find some models of 1920s and 1930s London houses (I will not use the M word….).

[nomisd]

What is it that sells the conceit of a model railway? My answer came to me last night whilst I was sitting watching the first live music I have seen in three years (The Australian Pink Floyd) – the name. It was just after the thought, “well Greenford Green really is too good a name to pass up”. It was after I had come to the conclusion that if I am going to try a do a Lyons like factory, do a Lyons factory at Greenford. But there is already one there and I don’t want to do a reproduction, I want to do an extension built in the late 1920s early 1930s. It is in part true there was land “on the north side of the canal” to quote the only source I have found. Now having played around with the map I think that this the plot of land that is where all my hand writing is. This a clear plot. I think that this is where the land is.

 

That is interesting as I had always envisaged using a canal on an embankment as a scenic break. If this were the piece of land it is not a big leap that Lyons would have connected their two factories by an internal line by way of a bridge/tunnel under the canal. The one thing that I could not pin point on any map, including larger scale ones was a loco shed. If I was going to have a two-sided site and only one loco shed. At the moment the factory roster is two, I do have two brass kits (a Judith Edge North British and a High Level RSH Husky) waiting patiently to be made. So the potential minimum roster is four. This is handy as I intend to build tis from a Wills diy kit. There is an outside chance I still try hand at scratch building a shed. I have been thumbing my way through the IRS Big Book of Sheds Parts 1 to 3 and I have to say that the Guinness brewery at Park Royal has a shed that would suffice with a bit lengthening and widening for two road shed. This also fits the bill of a bit of west London industrial railway architecture. Its not out of the question but I have a back up.

 

Having the conceit of an internal line that exits via essential a tunnel solves a problem that I had mentally about my idea. I need a way for my Lyons locos/trains to enter/exit neatly. It has also opened up potential traffic flows (shan’t go to far with that now, could get a bit boring quickly but will come back one day). It also fulfils a long held idea I have had to link two sides of a factory via a neat on/off scenic break. I had always sort of envisaged it as a neat off/on for a quarry system at a cement works. But I think the idea works here.

 

What is not so clear cut is how a BR branch line comes under a canal when you probably wouldn’t have done that in real life (but I have worked out why it was allowed). Also I haven’t really worked out yet where these line would be coming under the canal. Another part of the conceit. A third part of the conceit is that my scheme would go had just to north of it begun to be developed (as far as I can tell what you would describe as South Northolt and which was also a contender for name for a while). My scheme would slightly change the street plan but the would gain a railway station and a nice row art deco shops.

 

There was another more fundamental reason that I decided it had to be Lyons was a discovery whilst placing an order. I was looking for some ID Backscenes overcast sky, which Hattons (my main supplier as they are French VAT registered and deliveries are smooth and easy) had. I had a look round and whist finding  a 2nd hand Dapol milk tank, an Dapol Interfrigo kit (continental traffic – I know the drawbacks of it as being a scale model, put it down to another conceit!), a Pagoda building (surely every GWR station deserves a Pagoda?), they had a Airfix GMR Lyons Tea van. I felt like this was a sign and decided then it had be Lyons and the van is also on its way.

 

So this is a very long winded way of saying this has become J Lyons & Co Ltd, Greenford Green Depot. 

[Pacific231G]

On 22/02/2022 at 10:41, nomisd said:

The earliest useful map is 6 inch to a mile map revised in 1868. On this the only things that are my map are the canal (which I have forgotten to label but is the Paddington Arm or Branch of the Grand Union – it opened in 1801), Oldfield Lane, the Black Horse pub and the Dye Works (marked D on my map). On this map, Oldfield Lane goes south to the place actual known at the time as Greenford, which appears to have been farms, a church, pub, school – the epitome of what we would now model as a typical English village. The area north of the canal is shown as being known as Greenford Green

 

The 1896 25 inch to a mile map shows pretty much the same thing. The only differences are that the Dye Works is marked as disused and a row of houses have been built opposite the Black Horse pub. The area is, as my mate once said to his daughters as they were driving out of his local Tescos, all fields round here when I was your age (at which point he told me he felt like he had officially become old!).

 

The 1915 25inch to a mile map is where it starts to radically alter. Small changes have occurred – the house opposite the Black Horse now have allotments behind them and a manure works has been built directly south of the houses. But the really big change is the railway has arrived. The railway now bisects the map as shown on my map. According to the London Railway Atlas by Joe Brown (I have the 2006 edition) the GWR opened the line from Old Oak Common Junction to Greenford in 1903 with the extension north west being opened in 1906. The line from Greenford to Ealing opened in 1903-04. Greenford station is shown in its original position (the site mark on my map) from 1904 to 1963 (I assume that the current combined Central Line/BR station was built at that point).

 

The row of house on the east side of the road, just south of railway on Oldfield Lane are shown on the 1915 map. What is also interestingly shown just east of the station, on the north side of the line are a number of sidings, quite a few of which are not connected to any other track. This is I assume the plant depot, operated by Pauling from 1907 to 1925 and then by Caffin & Co until 1921. The IRS Herts & Middlesex handbook says that part of the Lyons factory was built of the western end of this yard. The other interesting thing about this map is that the area south of the railway line and west from Oldfield Lane to the canal is shown as a golf course.

 

The next available maps are the mid 1930s one that my map is based on and as you can see the railway was the catalyst for much building. The Lyons factory was opened in 1921. I assume that all of the development south of the railway line took place at the same time. Graces Guide show the British Bath Co from 1928 and I have found a photo of the factory taken in 1930 which shows the houses just south of it being built – does anyone have any ideas as to what the straight sided building shown in this photo and on my map is? My guess is that it is a barracks for the construction workers. A tantalising glimpse of the Lyons factory can be seen in the background of this photo. (I will revisit the Britain from Above photos some other time as there are some good photos of the Lyons factory on i)).

 

So what have I learned from this? The main things is that I need to give my surroundings a bit more thought. It would seem pointless if I am trying to evoke a place, West London that was developed from the end of WW1 to the 1930s, by using for example Metcalfe terrace houses. They would be wrong and it wouldn’t give the right feeling. So I have learned I am going to have to find some models of 1920s and 1930s London houses (I will not use the M word….).

Interesting project Nomist and the Lyons factory would give a great variety of rolling stock from milk tankers and grain wagons to box wagons. I'm not sure if it wasn't also a distribution depot which would have taken in things like biscuits (from Reading?)

Greenford Underground station is just to the south of the original GWR station traces of which can still be seen.( You can see the relationship on Google Earth. The terminus road for the Greenford branch that rises between the westbound and eastbound Central Line platforms was built when the Central Line was extended to W. Ruslip in 1947. The adjoining GWR station then gradually ran down as local services moved to Marylebone and it finally closed in 1963.

 

The housing developments round there in the 1930s and immediately after the Second World War were almost entirely the typical suburban semi-detached and short terrace houses  (hall,  two living rooms and a galley kitchen below,  two medium and one small bedrooms and a bathroom above) built in vast numbers in the West London suburbs. I know them well as I live in one of them built in 1938!  

 

You'd need to look at the local contours to see if the Grand Union Canal (Regents Park branch) could conceivably have been crossed with a tunnel under it that wouldn't need constant pumping. It basically follows a contour line around the southern side of rising ground (there are no locks for miles) so the canal is generally above ground level on its southern bank but at or below it on its northern bank. Where the Lyons factory was I think though that it was fairly flat on both sides.  The water table round there is also fairly close to the surface which is presumably why all the railways in the vicinity are above ground level with roads crossing under them.

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Pacific231G

[scottystitch]

Does this 1961 1:1,250 help any?

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=51.54411&lon=-0.34967&layers=170&b=1

 

Best

 

Scott.

[nomisd]

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

You'd need to look at the local contours to see if the Grand Union Canal (Regents Park branch) could conceivably have been crossed with a tunnel under it that wouldn't need constant pumping. It basically follows a contour line around the southern side of rising ground (there are no locks for miles) so the canal is generally above ground level on its southern bank but at or below it on its northern bank. Where the Lyons factory was I think though that it was fairly flat on both sides.  The water table round there is also fairly close to the surface which is presumably why all the railways in the vicinity are above ground level with roads crossing under them.

 

This is something that has occurred to me. Looking at the 1935 map it all essentially sits on the 100ft contour line which means in reality my scheme is a complete no-starter. Looking at the Street View from the canal tow path the north side is slightly lower but no significantly. But thats reality....I think that playing with geology is just as bad as replanning and rebuild a bit of London so its probably at the edge of tolerance for the application of my Modellers License. I have been looking at the map and there is only one place I think I could run the lines and in reality whilst the internal line might just have been built there a BR one almost certainly wouldn't have been. I think that also perhaps the word tunnel doesn't help, perhaps more of a long bridge - I mean some canal overbridges are fairly low, all I have to do is fit trains under them. So perhaps tunnel gives the wrong impression.

[nomisd]

With all of the above preamble, a track plan.

 

Building A is to be a combination of two Walthers kits - this one and this one. The second is a half version of the first. I had intended that the low relief one was going to be along that side but when I cut templates out for the building footprints I decided that I needed another. My intention is to build it with a long length of loading dock down one side with a half width other half. The design of the buildings is vaguely art deco, which would be in line with the actual development of industrial west London. It is my intention to full on art deco with these and paint it white and have suitable colour highlights a la the Hoover Building on the A40 and the Black Cat building at Camden.

 

Building B is to be another Walthers combination - this one and this one. These are concrete framed with brick curtain walls, again fitting with period industrial architecture in the area. I am assuming that both of these grafts and mild kit bashing should be fairly straight forward, they are all Walthers Cornerstone kits and my understanding is that its fairly straightforward to join them together in unplanned ways (famous last words!).

 

1 is the standard out of the packet Ration oil depot. 2 will be something, either the Wills kit or scratch built. 3 is a pumping station - the reasons for this are three fold. The first and perhaps most important is it fills up a bit of other wise dead space. I decided I need it for the milk tanks at 4. Its all very well getting milk off tank wagons but you then have to do something with the milk. It would need pumping on into the production process. So that is reason 3, Reason 3 is that in planning the layout when the idea was still a light railway, one of the industries I had in mind was an oil terminal. I went as far as buying the Faller Oil tank Farm and associated pumping station and extra pipe work kit. As such I have a surfeit of pipe work that I would like to use and this is a good use for at least some of it. I also think that some random pipe work is what sets of an industrial location from a normal (?!) railway. Nooks and crannies. 4 is what I have labelled the Milk Tanks but there is probably more than one use for them - corn starch, molasses? Lets call it the Tank Delivery Point. 5 would then become the Tank Offices.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by nomisd

[nomisd]

Operations

 

The Greenford Green branch was built thanks to Lyons building their Greenford Green Depot from the mid 1920s onwards. The developer of the land north of this, towards Northolt, heard of this and approached Lyons to see if they were building a branch from the GW at Greenford as part of the building of this new factory. He also approached the GWR to see if this temporary line could have a station built at the end of it, on what would be the developers southern edge of his housing development. He saw the sniff of an opportunity to build a station as part of this development with shops outside. A GWR railcar would operate an irregular service to Paddington (later diverted to Ealing after the decline of passenger services to/from Paddington). The GWR replied that if the developer was willing to pay for the building of the station, then they would. So Greenford Green was built at the expense of the builder which is why it never progressed beyond a platform and a pagoda building. There were never any station building or ticket office built as it was thought that they were superfluous as the railcars were paytrains so why bother with all that extra expense of buildings. The GWR also like an unmanned station.

 

The thing was the GWR weren't that bothered as the line was to stay open anyway. There was to be a small three road exchange sidings where full wagons could be collected from Lyons by GWR  (and other railways to with inter-regional workings to Temple Mills, Ripple Lane, Cricklewood, Willesden, Hither Green and Feltham). Empty inwards, full inwards and tank traffic would all be worked in by GWR/BR to the original (real) factory at the Greenford. Empty vans for loading at the Greenford Green Depot would be worked by (in an ideal world) the morning and afternoon pick up goods) or by a trip services to Greenford. This would be worked by a GWR/WR loco (08 or 35 or at an outside 42 or 52). All the inter-regional workings would be by suitable regional locos (SR class 33, ER class 15 and MR class 25). Inter-regional works can also drop vans off at Greenford. All tank traffic is worked through in the same way, the only difference this comes in full but is then worked by Lyons loco between the two sides. The empty tanks are worked back through internally for the empties to be picked up by GWR/WR from Greenford. This applies to all tanks - diesel, milk, syrup, molasses. 

 

Greenford Green ships loaded wagons only. It ships two things - ice cream and grocery products. Both are shipped on a wagon load basis to anywhere in the country and beyond. The SR working is shipping ice cream out to Europe in continental ferry vans. BR locos arrive light engine, where required with a brake van. Full wagons are picked up from the exchange sidings, having been placed there by Lyons locos. The milk tank wagons are a daily working, fulls arriving in the morning with the loading aimed to be complete by lunch time; the empties are then moved back to the other side by Lyons loco for collection by BR in the afternoon so the wagons can be on a night train to return to their west country depots for refilling. Other food products tanks would be on a couple of times a week basis. Loco diesel would be an occasional working.

 

So the idea is when it finally comes to playing trains, in that dim and distant future, it should have enough operational interest to make running sessions (I believe such things do happen on layouts occasionally) interesting and dare I say it, somewhat prototypical. 

 

. 

[nomisd]

Before I actually get round to do something drastic like laying track, a few points of housekeeping. 

 

Track

 

MIght as well start with his one. Peco Code 75. I have a number of unused points from previous flights of fancy including a double slip and a three way point. This a) both scare me a little bit and b) make for a much more interesting tack layout. 

 

Electrics

 

Good old fashioned DC. It does also give a chance to finally use the 3 track Gaugemaster with inertia control transformer that I purchsed about 15 or 16 years ago and have never got around to really using in anger (it did have a brief foray out with my French based layout a few years ago). What I think I have decided to do is have the factory operating on one controller and the BR operating on another (and as I am properly grown up I shall used the third to power a rolling road). The other thing the controller has are 152 and 16v outlets. These will come in handy for two things. The first is points. I have never powered points before but I feel that at least the 3 way and the double slip need remotely powering, if no other points are. The other is...

 

Lights

 

Mrs nomids is very vehement in her belief that a good looking model railway is a lit model railway. Not being one to disappoint her, it is my intention to light the buildings, street lights etc. I have decided to do this with my own concoction of lights using  LEDs. A proprietary system would be a lot easier but cost.

 

Fiddle yard

 

Another thing that I have never really done. I have used other peoples but never built one myself. The thing that strikes me about them is a space issue. Now whilst I have the room to build a "proper" fiddle yard, I find the idea a bit unappealing. I think that I have decided a cassette system is probably going to be my best option. The unusual construction of my boards also lend its way towards this too. I have some ideas on how this will work but I shan't bore them with it at this point, suffice to say, it will be home made cassettes.

 

So I think that that is all the preparation and what I am going to build, now to build it. I am currently waiting, with a little trepidation, for the backscenes to arrive. I want to affix the backscenes to the wall before I screw the ply down. Once thats done, I can think about laying track Actually the thing that will come first after the backscenes is considering how to start constructing the canal scenic break.. Hopefully in the near future the topic name will be changed to J Lyons & Co Ltd, Greenford Green Depot to actual reflect the layout.

[nomisd]

My thanks to @Ruston for changing the topic name.

 

The way on and off the layout, through the big bit of wood in the sky. Its something that I think can make or break a layout. Its another one of those things that I think if you need to be happy with in order to build your layout convincingly. So the idea of having a canal at the exting side was like manna from heaven. The simplest, cleanest of exits. So how to approach it?

 

Having thought about how you would carry a large body of water over anything, I typed canal aqueducts UK into Google and saw what it brought back. Turns out there is a whole page list on Wikipedia, all with photos. There are surprisingly few canal aqueducts in the UK. There are however some very interesting variations on the theme. I am particularly taken with the Edstone Aqueduct, Stratford on Avon as a structure but its too early for my purposes. I did however find a nice photo of it with train action.

 

The Telford short aqueducts over roads are also nice but given my structures would have built when the Greenford Green works was built in the late 1920s/early 1930s they are perhaps a little to 19th century looking for my purposes..

 

I then came across one entry in the list that gave me that "hold on..." feeling - the North Circular Road Aqueduct. And whats this in the next column? Grand Union Canal (Paddington branch). And the notes say it was open in 1933. Right canal, right time period, I think I have winner here. So I went and looked for an image of it from the North Circular and I found this. Yep, I have the winner. There are also a couple of other shots of it from the early 1930s here and here. The last one is very interesting as it appears to show one of the 2ft 0in gauge Motor Rails that Willesden UDC hired for work on the North Circular Road construction. 

 

It would be almost rude not try and make some representation of this. I think that this photo is the best "from the track view" so using this as the bench mark, I think that the idea is to take one carriage way and make this the track bed. All of the concrete appears to be associated with the tow path, the actual aqueduct is the cast iron (I assume) trough under the bridge. This raises a question as to whether I need to put the concrete in as if my model really existed then the tow path would be on the other side of the canal. A concrete surround would be visually quite appealing though so maybe I stick two tow paths in.

 

The other thing to consider is what length? I have two options - a) is to go the whole length of the back scene and create a 500 ft long aqueduct or b) create two short aqueducts with a bit of embankment in between? I think that b) is probably the preferred option.

 

What is quite amusing for me is that I spent the best part of six years going underneath the aqueduct on the North Circular every morning and evening on my motorbike going to and from work. I know that the aqueduct was changed when the North Circular was widened in the mid 1990s but I had still gone under the original aqueduct quite a few time when I lived in London in the late 1980s. I have been under this bridge hundreds, probably thousands of times and I never knew it was an aqueduct. You do live and learn.

 

[Pacific231G]

I've also been under and over the North Circular aqueduct very many times but I didn't really know it until after the widening.

 

Though it's an earlier construction (the Great Western and Brentford Railway was Brunel's final  project), you may find the Windmill triple bridge in Hanwell, about four miles south of your Greenford Green location, useful in terms of dimensions etc.

Unfortunately, most photographs are from canal or road level as the railway is in a deep cutting hidden by trees  and generally inaccessible but there are a good selection  on the disused stations site 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/features/windmill_lane_bridge/

and here

https://talesfromthebraziersgrotto.wordpress.com/2019/12/29/brunels-windmill-bridge-in-photos/

 

I suspect the reasons why there are so few canal aqueducts is that canals tended to follow contours as far as possible and also that the weight of water made them far heavier things to build than road or rail overbridges especially as anyone building one would have to maintain the canal's minimum width. In the case of the GUC  that is at least wide enough for a pair of narrow boats or a single broader (14ft 6in beam) canal barge to comfortaby pass through. They'd also have to maintain navigation while building it. Apparently, the only reason why the GWR was forced to take its Brentford branch beneath the Grand Junction Canal (as it then was) was to keep the line low enough to not be seen (and so spoil the view) from the nearby  Osterley Park. 

 

Just to the east of Greenford Green (East of Greenford Road and north of Rockware Avenue there is an area known as Paradise fields where the land to the south of the canal (which is the towpath side all the way to Paddington) is further below canal level than elsewhere, probably deep enough for a railway.  It's now a wetland conservation area which probably explains why it was never developed for industry or housing as was most of the rest of the land to the south of  the canal round there. I'm about to go there for a walk so will try to gauge how much higher the canal is (On the 25inch OS maps the only spot heights round there are the 97ft ones along the towpath)

Edited February 27, 2022 by Pacific231G

[DOCJACOB]

Might like some details about this container close to me. 
 

One of 50 built in duraluminum? 

[DOCJACOB]

Another helpful snippet? 
 

 

[nomisd]

Many thanks for those images, very interesting. The container in the field looks very much like it was painted the orange and blue of the Lyons Tea enamel sign. Its also interesting that Duramin are yet another west London link being originally located in Park Royal, before moving to Lyndney after WW2. The container is also very timely as the link that @Pacific231Ggave for the Three Bridges bridge has a photo that was obviously a Lyons publicity shot of the site which includes what looks suspiciously like at conflat (or whatever the GWR called them) with a Lyons container on it, although painted white (and I would imagine blue). This however has given me a traffic idea.

[Pacific231G]

Hi Nomist

I walked along the GUC from Paradise Fields to Northolt today. I didn't see anywhere where the ground to the north of the canal was below towpath level and, on the south (towpath) side the canal wasn't as high above the Paradise Fields wetlands as I'd imagined. probably about 3-4m to towpath level. Between Greenford Road and Oldfleld Lane, where the canal loops to the north to follow the contour, there is an area of warehousing etc  that appears to be about 4-5 m below towpath level, the canal there is  embanked on its southern side but with level ground to the north so I think the land was flattened to the level of Rockware Avenue when it as developed. Just after Oldfield Lane is the Black Horse pub (where I stopped for a drink!) . It's beer garden is about two feet below the towpath and, given the age of the pub that's probably the original lay of the land.  Between there and the site of the Lyons Factory a large new housing etc  development (Greenford Quay) is being built on both sides of the canal around where the wharf was. The land north of the canal there was slightly raised above canal level - maybe about three metres. The Lyons site is of course flat and at towpath level and the dock is still there though all the buildings there are modern.  On the opposite bank, the ground to the north of the canal is covered in shrubbery or open fields and fairlly flat rising very gently to the housing estate which, according to the spot heights  is about twenty feet and fairly flat as is the open space. you then come to the girder bridges that take the Central Line and former GWR line over the canal. West of that the land, which is all industrial, is level with or slightly below the towpath  on the southern side  and generally about three metres (ten feet) above it on the northern side.

 

I'm afraid that, as you surmised, the idea of a railway passing under the canal anywhere around there is, a complete non-starter without a very large dose of modellers licence.

The only thought I had was that if for some reason that loop of the canal to the north had been impossible (failed geology of something) then you could cut across it, that line would place the towpath about  15ft above the level of Oldfield Avenue (a height difference that could be exaggerated)  but you'd probably then need to move the Lyons factory to the east of Oldfield avenue. The old line of the canal could then be some kind of wharfage.

 

What is also worth noting  is that the railways within the Lyons site were at a significantly lower level than the GWR main line so, had Lyons extended from their existing site further west along the canal. I could see their railway system running alongside the towpath and under the main line girder bridge. That would be separate from the industrial branch that ran down to the Aladdin factory on the A40 (now  a Dunelm store but still he original building)  I used a bookbinder down there a few years ago and some of the inset track was still in place - possibly it still is!  

I don't know if any of that is of any use but it was a lovely day for a longer than usual walk - I came back on the tube and, from Greenford Station, which is significantly higher than what's left of the GWR line,  you can still see the up platform of the original station. and a lot of disused sidings where the Rockware factory was.

[nomisd]

6 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I don't know if any of that is of any use but it was a lovely day for a longer than usual walk - I came back on the tube and, from Greenford Station, which is significantly higher than what's left of the GWR line,  you can still see the up platform of the original station. and a lot of disused sidings where the Rockware factory was.

 

I think I owe you a beer the next time I am in London. That is a very useful site visit, especially as I am unable to do one. Thanks for confirming that the only way the idea works is by modellers license. Its not the end of the world given that I intend to have my locos and wagons couple up using a big hoop and hook on the front - hardly prototypical! The Aladdin factory is something, that having passed it for three years (the other two years I commuted down the North Circular, I went the other way at Hanger Lane) on my way to and from work, I am now very intrigued by. I haven't searched yet but as an aside, does anyone know of any photos of the railway there?

[DOCJACOB]

Sorry not sure biscuit orange with blue lettering is 100% correct? 
 

Was to be a repaint project but not cheap, duralumin seems to have weathering coating so issues with stripping & primer. 
 

Plan B is the Hunslet Yardmaster 

 

 

[nomisd]

Rather stunningly, the back scenes that I ordered last Tuesday have already made their way from theUK  to France and arrived this morning. Very nice they are too and I am now even more intimidated by them (I am sure with some forethought and patience they will go up just fine).What also arrived with them are all the other goodies that I ordered at the the same time.  So with some bits from the buildings that I already had, I decided to see what the look like together. 

 

 

 

 

 

Given that the Airfix GMR van is the best part of 50 years old (if the 1975 copyright date on it is anything to go by) its actually a really nice model.  Quite possibly completely unprototypical but for its context for this layout it is almost perfect (even if the running number on the van, a six figure number starting with 8 is a bit high). My intention is to use it as an internal wagon. Now surely someone must have made a Lyons Maid van because I'll have one of those too (said possibly the first serious modeller ever)! 

Edited May 20, 2022 by nomisd

[Pacific231G]

The Aladdin Factory can be seen here

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw053617

and here

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW038795

with other images in the sequence.

It's worth registering with Britain from Above as there are a lot of images of that area from 1927 to 1938 and, if registered you can zoom into them. In 1927 it doesn't appear that the GW branch (or long sidings) had yet been built, at elast not beyond the bath factory. 

 

EPW038795 shows the whole of the GWR's industrial branch/sidings before much development had taken place so you can see the tracks very clearly. In that and others you can see the Lyons factory in the background between the main line and the canal. The Aladdin factory was at the end of the line and was simply two blind sidings with other sidings and spurs serving other factories (notably the British Bath company built before Aladdin but others not yet built) which were between the branch and the GUC but, at that stage facing the railway and their road access of Long Drive rather than the canal.

Some of these images are rather bizarre as the factory's art deco (?) frontage facing the new A40 was Actually built before the road and you can also see  Long Lane coming to a sudden halt where it would join the A40. The whole setup is very clear on the 1:2500 OS maps.

These images of the Aladdin and British Bath factories so also show fairly clearly the lie of the land on either side of the canal. I'm intrigued though by the four radio masts just to the north of the canal that appear in some of the images.

 

NB When I was a child we had a small Aladdin "blue flame" lamp in our outside toilet (which was part of a "wash house") to stop the pipes from freezing in winter. It worked, even in the exceptionally cold winter of 1963 ( I hasten to say that we did also have an indoor bathroom and toilet but with six of us living there the outside loo sometimes came in handy.) My granfather also had one of their incandescent lamps in his sitting room. He said he preferred the light to electric lighting. What I hadn't realised was that aladdin lamps are still going strong.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Pacific231G

[nomisd]

I have always loved building Walthers kits. They are a encapsulation of what a good kit should be. I know in a scale world they are are a bit small but they are just too nice not to have. Despite the size of it, the four floor whole building took less time to build that the half relief background building. The tape is only holding one bit on! The idea of combining the kits went out of the window when I realised the fundamental flaw in my plan - roofs. Whilst I can mix and match the wall sections, I need roof parts. I  couldn't actually work out how to do it from the roof sections in the kits. Perhaps it was possible but I decided that it was over complicating things.

 

 

 

I will paint the windows and doors separate from the shells and put them altogether when painted. The next view is an overall view of the Lyons site from the canal

 

 

The space on the very far left  hand side is where the loco shed is going, which I have also started. The Wills Two Road North Light Roof Loco Shed should have a very prominent warning on the box - Only Take This On If You Are Really, Really Sure About Your Modelling Skills. I will let you know how sure mine are once I start cutting the roof walls...

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by nomisd

[Nearholmer]

Reading this interesting thread, I wonder whether you chaps are aware of https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/maps/b9/England/

 

Pan and zoom (very close) topi map, upon which you can click to pick spot-heights.

 

Hours of fun!

 

Screen shot of “your bit”, but you really need to be in the live version to get the full benefit.

 

 

 

 

[Pacific231G]

13 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Reading this interesting thread, I wonder whether you chaps are aware of https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/maps/b9/England/

 

Pan and zoom (very close) topi map, upon which you can click to pick spot-heights.

 

Hours of fun!

 

Screen shot of “your bit”, but you really need to be in the live version to get the full benefit.

 

 

 

 

Thanks. It's quite a good way of getting a feel for the topography. 

I'm wondering though how it calculates its spot heights. There is a 2m variation in the height of the GUC. and given that water finds its own level and there are no locks for miles in either direction.... 

What I've not done yet is to look at the contours on the local 1inch OS map. I had hoped that the altimeter built into my iPhone might give me differential heights when I was exploring on Sunday but it was only accurate to the nearest 10 metres. 

Edited March 1, 2022 by Pacific231G