Bankside - Austerity in 1951

[brightspark]

Hello all and welcome to the Bankside thread.

This is a P4 layout by the South London Area Group (SLAG).

Set in south London in 1951, this layout is in contrast to the groups previous layout St.Merryn, that was set in sunny Cornwall.

The layout is based loosely on Ewer Street in London and is split into two parts. The first part in the foreground is a loco servicing facility with a turntable and watering facilities. The background is a goods depot handling parcels traffic and it will feature some ferry wagons from the continent.

 

For details of the group and its activities including St.Merryn please see the groups webpage and of course it has its own page on the Scalefour society website the Scalefour forum.

Edited September 24, 2022 by brightspark
added header picture

[brightspark]

The layout was actually started back in 2014/2015 and the first loco ran on it in August 2015.

It made it's debut show as a layout under construction at the 101 not out event in Epsom on 12th March 2016.

Unfortunately since then it has stalled with minimal amount of work being done on it as the group concentrated on other projects.

The main problem we had with the layout was getting the turntable to work properly. As this is the main feature of the layout it has to work with great reliability. The biggest headache being that it has to align with adjoining tracks very accurately. We worked out, with a lot of trial and error that 0,15mm is the limit for P4.

It was thanks to Brian's efforts that the indexing was finally sorted out and then lockdown happened. 

 

So I start this thread with the news that Bankside will be at Scaleforum 2022 this coming weekend as a layout under construction (still), but with a bit more progress since  2016.

Come along and have a chat to us.

We will be discussing aligning turntables, CBUS, and discussing ideas on how to display and light the layout.

 

BTW If a layout based on Ewer street seems familiar, then you are probably thinking of this thread by Westerham.

Followers of that thread will have seen the rise and fall of his interpretation of Ewer Street and be aware that he recently demolished it. However it lives on as he has kindly donated some of the structures to SLAG for our project.

 

See you at High Wycombe.

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by brightspark
correction. I had incorrectly stated 0,25mm alignment for P4. It is 0,15mm, anything larger causes the flange to ride on top of the rail. 11-OCT-2022.

[brightspark]

Just to get your juices flowing, here is my contribution to Bankside.

 

 

 

Just finished today and hopefully will perform suitably well over the weekend.

This is a Judith Edge kit and is my first effort in P4.

 

Andy

[westerhamstation]

Hi, I will be following Bankside with great interest to see out it evolves, I am pleased that the buildings have found a good home and that you can make some use of them.

All the best Adrian.

[dasatcopthorne]

Here we go again.  😀

[brightspark]

So today we set up the layout at Scaleforum in High Wycombe.

Everything is tested and everything works.

 

What is so great is that this is the first time all of the base elements have come together. So we are seeing stock, operating controls and the card mock-ups all together for the first time.

 

Below are a few snaps that should give you a flavour of what we hope to achieve.

 

 

 

 

 

Mean streets?

 

Ferry traffic. 

 

The turntable is the first element that is complete. Fully weathered by Chris McCarthy.

 

(Chris hates the Scalescenes hut that has appeared on the layout. So to placate him I added a sign.) :-)

 

If you come to Scaleforum do pop by and say hello.

 

Andy

 

 

 

[BrushType4]

Great to see this  layout. It has great potential to be something special if all your plans are anything to go by, 

[brightspark]

The weekend went very well and we had a very good reaction from the 'front of house'.

I have posted this picture on Westerham's thread, so please forgive me for posting it again here.

This is the end display and when Adrian's models arrived we added them to it.

 

One or two bits found themselves placed onto the layout straight away.

We also had a couple of locos running on the layout from St.Merryn, that I have just repaired. 

The first is the 02, this had minor damage to the buffer beams and body. The roof detaches and we managed to find that in the car park well away from the loco. It is still missing the right hand brake cylinder (I have that to fabricate) and the boiler back-head. If anyone knows where I can source one please let me know.

 

The second is the Prairie tank. Obviously a bit lost as it finds itself in London and south of the river.

This had some damage to the body and rear pony truck.

I want to thank Pat and Colin of Alan Gibson for supplying the replacement wheels needed to get this model complete. They were both very upset about St.Merryn and want to help. 

 

Michael Edge also came down to have a look at 11001 and was suitably pleased. He had never seen one done in P4.

 

So next, the layout goes back to the club house for reassembly and fault finding. A couple of gremlins did creep in late on the Sunday, but considering that this was the first time out as an operating layout these were very minor.

Now we have to decide what to do next.

 

Andy

[Barclay]

Very much my kind of layout - looking forward to seeing developments. 

[WFPettigrew]

Was great to see it, and talk on Saturday.  I did mention then about the idea of some sort of lifting FY to allow the viaduct line to actually be operational whilst not blocking the main lower FY - and having thought more about it since, having a passenger train permanently stuck at the signal on the viaduct does seem a shame given that electric units would have been buzzing backwards and forwards along such a line at almost dizzying frequency.  Yes keep your proposed signal on the bridge, and use that to protect the lifting section when it is, err, lifted, with the shuttle train controlled by computer with the added interest of sometimes slowing for the signal?  (Not sure if there's room back right for a two road traverser so you can switch between a couple of units, too?!)

 

Looking forward to seeing this develop!

 

Neil