Oakington & Cottenham LR forced perspective diorama

[Dunalastair]

It may be obvious that my 'diorama-a-day' postings have not reflected my build rate - most have been from the past two or three years. However today's posting is work-in-progress. In the County Council Tramway thread, we discussed another never-built scheme in Cambridgeshire, the Oakington & Cottenham Light Railway. A LRO was made for a 2' 6" mainly roadside tramway running from the GER at Oakington through Cottenham (with a branch to a brickworks) to a wharf on Cottenham Lode (a waterway) by what is now Smithy Fen bridge. 

 

@cctransuk (John Isherwood) kindly shared photographs of his model from 1977 using Tri-ang TT track and mechanisms. John envisaged skirted locos in the manner of the W&U. My vision was of small tram engines in the manner of the sadly short-lived Alford & Sutton which had the same gauge as the proposed Cambridgeshire line. I shared the montage below of a ghostly A&S train working south from Cottenham's distinctive church tower, with its brick upper stage.

 

 

As with my Weedon Depot diorama, a forced perspective design was used, based loosely on the montage above. Here are three photographs of the result as it came off the printer. Note the knobbly pinnacles on the church tower. Focus can be a challenge when photographing models like this.

 

 

 

 

Once again, this is a small model - these are 1cm squares on the cutting mat - and painting it is going to be another challenge. It may well look better at this stage! 

 

I recently bought a copy of W J K Davies' 'The Vicinal Story' but the idea of Belgian low cost roadside tramways never really caught on in the UK. For many places, this is because conventional railways got there first, but Cottenham had a population of 2300 in 1851 without ever seeing any rails across the fen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottenham. What might have been ...

[stewartingram]

I don't know if we've had this before:

 

 

Oakington & Cottenham Light Railway.pdf

[009 micro modeller]

3 hours ago, stewartingram said:

I don't know if we've had this before:

 

 

Oakington & Cottenham Light Railway.pdf 2.65 MB · 6 downloads

The suggestion that transporter wagons would potentially have been used is very interesting to me, given my current micro layout project that uses such wagons. In fact I’m almost tempted to actually use this as the basis for it, but not sure whether modelling what is basically a real location (even if it’s a might have been) will just be making extra work for myself. Was the idea of using transporters a serious part of the plan?

Edited July 21, 2023 by 009 micro modeller

[Dunalastair]

No mention of transporters that I could see in the LRO, but they would presumably not have had to be explicitly authorised.

 

So here is the forced perspective model, now somewhat unsubtly painted, and with a waiting shelter on the corner. I'm not sure that I did not prefer the all-grey version - like the village on the day of a 'fen blow'. The far building on the right was thatched, having escaped the Great Fire of Cottenham - presumably newly so judging by the colour.

 

[Dunalastair]

On 21/07/2023 at 19:22, stewartingram said:

I don't know if we've had this before:

 

 

Oakington & Cottenham Light Railway.pdf 2.65 MB · 21 downloads

 

I have now had the chance to read this and found it most interesting - especially, indeed, the references to the transporter wagons (though they seem to have missed that one of the Manifold transporters was tried at Ashover but not found practical). Lots that I had not previously found. Such transporter wagon trains would have needed more power than the simple tram engine I represented in my diorama.

 

"Well, write CRC members Bob Caldecote and Mike Page, it was one of a number of Cambridgeshire railways' 'might-have-beens' and it almost happened."

 

Can I ask where it came from? I cannot immediately see it on the web. I once worked for Cambridge Regional College, but I think this is a different CRC. 

[009 micro modeller]

20 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

No mention of transporters that I could see in the LRO, but they would presumably not have had to be explicitly authorised.

 

So here is the forced perspective model, now somewhat unsubtly painted, and with a waiting shelter on the corner. I'm not sure that I did not prefer the all-grey version - like the village on the day of a 'fen blow'. The far building on the right was thatched, having escaped the Great Fire of Cottenham - presumably newly so judging by the colour.

 

I quite like the painting actually - especially the tram loco in green.

 

1 hour ago, Dunalastair said:

I have now had the chance to read this and found it most interesting - especially, indeed, the references to the transporter wagons (though they seem to have missed that one of the Manifold transporters was tried at Ashover but not found practical).

Wasn’t that because the Ashover was 2’ gauge though? The O&C was to have been 2’ 6” if it had been built, the same as the L&M and many of the Continental lines that successfully use transporters.

[Dunalastair]

Indeed - the rebuild to WDLR gauge was not successful. It apparently did not like curves, with wheels fouling frames, and the track was in any case not up to the combined weight. Given the fen soils in places around Cottenham, I wonder if there might have been stability issues even with 2' 6". Did the W&LR not also plan SG on NG transporter wagons, but run out of money to build them?

 

Sydney Lelux wrote a booklet on the subject, but I think that his definition also embraced NG on SG and NG on NG, like on the Padarn.

 

https://www.diandsaulbooks.co.uk/british-transporter-wagons-by-sydney-a-leleux-4243-p.asp

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

Indeed - the rebuild to WDLR gauge was not successful. It apparently did not like curves, with wheels fouling frames, and the track was in any case not up to the combined weight. Given the fen soils in places around Cottenham, I wonder if there might have been stability issues even with 2' 6". Did the W&LR not also plan SG on NG transporter wagons, but run out of money to build them?

 

Sydney Lelux wrote a booklet on the subject, but I think that his definition also embraced NG on SG and NG on NG, like on the Padarn.

 

https://www.diandsaulbooks.co.uk/british-transporter-wagons-by-sydney-a-leleux-4243-p.asp

I don’t see why there would be any more stability issues than are experienced with the continental lines that use transporters. Indeed, with only the L&M in the UK using them (as opposed to ‘host’ wagons as the Padarn and similar are sometimes called) I wonder if Oakington & Cottenham might have used something more similar to the continental designs anyway.

[Dunalastair]

I don't know how familiar you are with roads in the Fen, but the likes of this image are not unusual.

 

 

However, the Wisbech & Upwell managed SG operation in similar circumstances, as did the GER's Benwick freight branch, so it could be done, presumably with more spent on railway ballast than has bene invested over the years on minor roads. And Cottenham is Fen Edge rather than Deep Fen.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Dunalastair

[stewartingram]

On 24/07/2023 at 10:27, Dunalastair said:

 

I have now had the chance to read this and found it most interesting - especially, indeed, the references to the transporter wagons (though they seem to have missed that one of the Manifold transporters was tried at Ashover but not found practical). Lots that I had not previously found. Such transporter wagon trains would have needed more power than the simple tram engine I represented in my diorama.

 

"Well, write CRC members Bob Caldecote and Mike Page, it was one of a number of Cambridgeshire railways' 'might-have-beens' and it almost happened."

 

Can I ask where it came from? I cannot immediately see it on the web. I once worked for Cambridge Regional College, but I think this is a different CRC. 

Bob is an old mate of mine, he passed that copy to me many years ago. I haven't seen him for a few years, hope he still ok. I suspect the CRC mentioned was the Cambridge Railway Circle, which is possibly still going?

Incidentally, Bob used to work for the local paper, Cambridge News, who published an article that he would like to find. He believes in was a Xmas or April 1st article, concerning the Cambridge Underground (!), and included a picture of the Market Square entrance to a station. In reality, this was actually the steps to the undergound toilets in the middle of the market !. Does anyone else recall this article?

[John Isherwood]

40 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

Bob is an old mate of mine, he passed that copy to me many years ago. I haven't seen him for a few years, hope he still ok. I suspect the CRC mentioned was the Cambridge Railway Circle, which is possibly still going?

Incidentally, Bob used to work for the local paper, Cambridge News, who published an article that he would like to find. He believes in was a Xmas or April 1st article, concerning the Cambridge Underground (!), and included a picture of the Market Square entrance to a station. In reality, this was actually the steps to the undergound toilets in the middle of the market !. Does anyone else recall this article?

 

Indeed I do - but no idea when!

 

Wasn't there also a mention of a station under the Catholic Church crossroads, which a reader recalled!

 

What they remembered were the old underground toilets that still exist, though now buried and sealed.

 

CJI.

[Dunalastair]

Thankyou - though I live not far from Cambridge I had not come across the Circle before. It seems as if it still has at least a web presence. Do you know where / if the article was published?

 

https://www.cambridgerailwaycircle.org/

 

As to a Cambridge Underground, a latterday version of that was a rather mad scheme of our previous mayor, James Palmer. Given local geology and watertables, it is hard to imagine how it could have been built without Kings College disappearing into a hole in the ground. What my erstwhile colleagues in local transport planning had to say about the economics of that project would not bear repeating. Gove's speech this week, envisaging turning the area into a technology dystopia, seems to have some of the same flavour. There were, I think, tram tracks dug up at the Catholic Church crossyards during recent roadworks.

[John Isherwood]

6 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

Thankyou - though I live not far from Cambridge I had not come across the Circle before. It seems as if it still has at least a web presence. Do you know where / if the article was published?

 

https://www.cambridgerailwaycircle.org/

 

As to a Cambridge Underground, a latterday version of that was a rather mad scheme of our previous mayor, James Palmer. Given local geology and watertables, it is hard to imagine how it could have been built without Kings College disappearing into a hole in the ground. What my erstwhile colleagues in local transport planning had to say about the economics of that project would not bear repeating. Gove's speech this week, envisaging turning the area into a technology dystopia, seems to have some of the same flavour. There were, I think, tram tracks dug up at the Catholic Church crossyards during recent roadworks.

 

I have a slice of Cambridge Tramways rail, recovered from the St. Mary's Street terminus 'Y', on the windowsill of my 'railway salon'.

 

One of the very few perks of working for Cambridge City Council's Highways Department for forty years.

 

Close examination of the rail profile reveals the reason for the tramway's demise. The rail head had been worn away so badly that the trams had been running on their flanges for years - the secondary groove in the flangeway is very marked!

 

It was a choice of relay the rail or close and, as the University would not countenance the unsightly excresences and noise associated with electrification - close they did!

 

CJI.

[stewartingram]

22 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Indeed I do - but no idea when!

 

Wasn't there also a mention of a station under the Catholic Church crossroads, which a reader recalled!

 

What they remembered were the old underground toilets that still exist, though now buried and sealed.

 

CJI.

I'm not one for investigating them, but I thought on my last visit to the market, the toilets were still available for use to market stall workers?

[John Isherwood]

5 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

I'm not one for investigating them, but I thought on my last visit to the market, the toilets were still available for use to market stall workers?

 

A slight confusion here - there were, apparently, underground toilets at the Catholic Church crossroads, with access from a traffic island in the centre of the junction.

 

Not to be confused with the Market Square toilets - which I have used in my time. My recollection, from before we moved from Cambridge eleven years ago, was that the toilets had been closed to the public, but available for use by the market traders, so this accords with your impression.

 

John Isherwood.

[009 micro modeller]

5 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

I have a slice of Cambridge Tramways rail, recovered from the St. Mary's Street terminus 'Y', on the windowsill of my 'railway salon'.

 

One of the very few perks of working for Cambridge City Council's Highways Department for forty years.

 

Close examination of the rail profile reveals the reason for the tramway's demise. The rail head had been worn away so badly that the trams had been running on their flanges for years - the secondary groove in the flangeway is very marked!

 

It was a choice of relay the rail or close and, as the University would not countenance the unsightly excresences and noise associated with electrification - close they did!

 

CJI.

Having just bought and read The Tramways of East Anglia by R. C. Anderson (mainly for the reference to the O&C proposal but it is interesting and includes a chapter on the Cambridge horse trams) I thought the issue was to do with payments due from the tramway company to the council for road maintenance, which were not similarly demanded from the new competing bus companies?

[009 micro modeller]

12 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

As to a Cambridge Underground, a latterday version of that was a rather mad scheme of our previous mayor, James Palmer.

I did hear about that one. Was it intended to more as a sort of tram with a sub-surface city centre section (as used in some American cities) rather than a full heavy-rail underground though?

[Dunalastair]

On 26/07/2023 at 20:08, 009 micro modeller said:

I did hear about that one. Was it intended to more as a sort of tram with a sub-surface city centre section (as used in some American cities) rather than a full heavy-rail underground though?

 

It was never very clear to me - though there was talk of it stretching over the Suffolk border as I recall. 

 

 

[Dunalastair]

I think this was it: 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-47628185

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridgeshire_Autonomous_Metro

 

Described as 'trackless' but I think that was just our erstwhile mayor ...

 

[Johann Marsbar]

On 26/07/2023 at 14:57, cctransuk said:

 

I have a slice of Cambridge Tramways rail, recovered from the St. Mary's Street terminus 'Y', on the windowsill of my 'railway salon'.

 

One of the very few perks of working for Cambridge City Council's Highways Department for forty years.

 

Close examination of the rail profile reveals the reason for the tramway's demise. The rail head had been worn away so badly that the trams had been running on their flanges for years - the secondary groove in the flangeway is very marked!

 

It was a choice of relay the rail or close and, as the University would not countenance the unsightly excresences and noise associated with electrification - close they did!

 

CJI.

 

I believe the rail our Cambridge tram is sitting on is original track from there......

 

 

We certainly obtained some lengths of Cambridge rail that forms part of the completed display shown above. The detatched section of crossing isn't though as that came from the Ipswich Horse Tram depot in Quadling Street.

If you want to see seriously worn tramtrack, some of the wear on the lengths of original Ipswich electric tramway rails that we have has to be  seen to be believed -They were certainly running on their flanges and was the main reason they were all replaced by trolleybuses in 1926!

 

 

[John Isherwood]

3 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

I believe the rail our Cambridge tram is sitting on is original track from there......

 

 

We certainly obtained some lengths of Cambridge rail that forms part of the completed display shown above. The detatched section of crossing isn't though as that came from the Ipswich Horse Tram depot in Quadling Street.

If you want to see seriously worn tramtrack, some of the wear on the lengths of original Ipswich electric tramway rails that we have has to be  seen to be believed -They were certainly running on their flanges and was the main reason they were all replaced by trolleybuses in 1926!

 

 

 

Yes, I arranged for all of the rail that we exposed to be delivered to the technology museum - apart from a short offcut that was put onto the Council's electric hacksaw to be sliced into mementos for certain staff!I

 

John Isherwood

[Dunalastair]

The Cottenham FP diorama now lives in a box, siimilar to the Weedon diorama, but this time fabricated from foamboard (not very neatly) with a perspex diffuser and a perspex front window. It might have worked better with an internal frame like with the Hobbycraft frame used for Weedon. As it is, you can see around the edges too much. All part of the learning curve ...

 

[willsheldrake]

Just stumbled across this thread and the Oakington & Cottenham Light Railway, a rather intriguing proposal for a light railway. Does anybody know if any drawings or plans exist for the proposed track formation for the light railway?

 

William

[John Isherwood]

8 hours ago, willsheldrake said:

Just stumbled across this thread and the Oakington & Cottenham Light Railway, a rather intriguing proposal for a light railway. Does anybody know if any drawings or plans exist for the proposed track formation for the light railway?

 

William

 

The deposited plans are at the Cambridgeshire Records Office - I copied them years ago.

 

John Isherwood.

[willsheldrake]

Thanks, are the plans easily accessible online, any copies on Rmweb?