Lacathedrale

I've read in the 'what if the Pilot Scheme was allowed to Run' thread in the discussion forum, and would just like to confirm the reasoning why so many people have written there that the 44/45/46's were essentially obsolete in favour of the 47. Is it purely a cost/power comparison, or is there something else to it? I'm reminded of the wonderful video on YT about the Peaks:

Checking back on a discussion thread in the Brighton Circle, I was pleased to find that Mr. N. Holliday and Mr. A. Budgen have dredged up a little information around the Katharine St. bridge - courtesy of Mr P. Beeston who went scurrying down there during the construction of Fairfield halls, while it was excavated: The original 1875 OS Map shows the details in situ: The latter image also validates my idea of the throat for the original 1868 track plan (i.e. the layout which I'm modelling). Included in the discussion are some more drawings of the station building which are mostly similar to the ones I made myself, but more refined - I'll save those for another post when I'm a bit further along on the construction - so far, nothing has stirred and my time has been taken up with a Gauge 3 LBSCR H2!

I decided to go with the Gauge 3 / 2.5" Gauge LBSCR H2 Atlantic and it's plodding along:

I've done a short video of me refurbing the above A4 if that's of interest to upload?

They go for peanuts on eBay - normally attached a completely unrelated piece of stock like a diesel shunter!

@009 micro modeller I have no idea, mine was mostly unpainted (?) mazak and black when recieved - must've been that experimental Silver Link BR livery lol. Speaking of colours, I'm not even trying to paint match - that's Vallejo Heavy Green. The A4 i have also has the BR crest molded onto the tender so unless you wanted to file that off there's no dice for a garter blue version, though I had considered (and may yet) sort one in BR Express Blue. I have a coach stripped and ready to paint also, I'll let you know how that goes!

Repainted my silver Lone Star A4 into BR Green:

I'll give them a shot, for the sake of having something on a narrow boat trip. Thanks for the advice!

Quite a stark difference to the complexity of the Sunny South layout earlier. A prototype shift obviously can impact your design choices but this is a stark difference for sure. You seemed (?) so very confident and satisfied with the operational complexity of the BR(S) layout, and this couldn't be more opposed. The new layout is wonderful too, but I am curious how you feel overall of the shift in location, layout style, era, etc. ?

By the way I made a short video showing some more 3D views, mostly of the same cabinet and a few of the larger items there: I went to the Beckenham & West Wickham MRC meeting over lunch one day (working near Beckenham Jct at the Capita offices in Clockhouse) and couldn't believe the racket I heard, until I turned around and saw a huge vintage set. I didn't pay it much heed really, to my own loss - I left feeling that the scenic layouts there were missing something, and I'm sure if I'd given it the time of day I'd have found that je nais ses quoi in the tinplate area. I'm currently building a Gauge 3 LBSCR Alantic designed and built in 1922 by Curly Lawrence, so I'm well into the vintage bracket if not in models, then model engineering.

My personal fave is the Gauge 1 clockwork GCR 4-6-2T! What a cracker!

I went to the Brighton Toy & Model Museum and thought this thread might appreciate a few pictures!

I figured I may as well put those retaining wall braces in, and while I was at it, took a couple more photos: Station building Retaining wall rising up towards Park Lane Cheers!

Katherine Street cut out and about to be glued up - due to the gradient it's a little more tough to see the zig-zag of the road but I'm sure it'll become more evident as the retaining walls/etc. come up. This must have been some time later due to the trees in Queen's Gardens, which wouldn't have been permitted while the railway operated - I would imagine no earlier than the WW1-period? An opposite view in the 1950's - a view seen by the chimney sweep upon scaling the booking office roof? Retaining wall My next task, after I all this setup is dried is to create the jigs for the angled retaining wall - thanks to borrowing a compound mitre saw I shoud be able to get them all the same 6 degree angle to form a carcass for applying plasticard sheet. In the above picture it looks to me like there are railing supports that bow out over the retaining wall capstones and are fixed into the brickwork underneath - very ornate! I'm assuming stone capstones about 18" wide? A picture from Wikimedia Commons handily shows the bond and bricks of the retaining wall still in situ:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Croydon_Central_Station_5.jpg - it looks like English Bond to me, and very sooty red bricks? Katherine St. in the 1980's Not many shots of Katharine Street online, but here's one from 1982 showing a similar angle as the first. Just about the only thing the same are the two buildings on the High Street at the far end. Croydon Coke& Gas Company Showrooms was rebuilt in 1939 as SEGAS House, and the the rest obliterated (including the Kings Arms Hotel and Pub, and a series of buildings similar to those seen on the High Street) in the 1970's. Here's a wider shot of SEGAS House, showing the junction and railings between Park Lane (foreground) and Katharine Street. I'd model the side profile of this building for the BR Blue era.

First I need to get the ground levels set up properly, which after some musing I think I can achieve - the distance from the top of retaining wall to the backscene is 80mm at its narrowest, and I have some 80mm strip left over from the original ply sheet. This will mean I can kick the can of the GPO platform question down the road a little further. I feel that this GPO platform is rapidly becoming a textbook case of "killing [my] darling" - though it is an interesting modelling opportunity, I can't really get over the demands it will require scenically to the rest of the layout. Operationally, I think it might be MORE interesting to use P1 for off-peak parcels/newspaper usage, as it will require shuffling carriages around from inbound trains, those on the platform and any of those in the runaround - while dodging outbound services from P2. Additionally, I was really hoping to avoid the high degree of parallelism which is anathema to a natural-looking diorama, and the inclusion of the GPO platform forces even more straight lines into what is already quite a linear layout.

With the other video Jago Hazzard did about Central Croydon and now this, one might think he follows this thread...

This isn't strictly a scale model so also doesn't fit in the exact theme of the thread. It's a Stuart 10V stationary engine, all but finished now. This video was taken during the first trial assembly and is missing the valve components: I've got to repair a damaged valve spindle and bolt it together, and it's finished. And now I find myself in something of an impassé for my next project. I think I've narrowed it down to four options: all are well established and documented designs and I have the tools and physical capacity (if not the skills) to either. A 5" Gauge SECR L-class 4-4-0. My 'apex predator' project has always been a 5" Gauge loocmotive, but really I've no idea if I have the skills to pull it off and it's a huge undertaking over a very long period indeed. The complexity of this build is several orders of magnitude more challenging than anything I've ever done, and the cost in time and money is very high - £3,000+ over 4 to 6 years. The main carrot for this is that when the project is complete, there is a local track less than a mile away that would love to have more locomotives and drivers to pull public trains, and it would in theory have some level of utility when it's done. While not my favourite locomotive, it's certainly very attractive and has the benefit of being a well proven design. A coal fired 2.5" Gauge LBSCR H2 4-4-2. I went as far as to buy laser cut steel frames and materials for a good part of this locomotive already. While still pricey, it would account for around a quarter of the investment in time and money in comparison with the 5" Gauge L-class. There's significant less to do with this model when it's done, however. Indeed, my love affair with 2.5" cooled somewhat when I came to realise there was precious little in the way of tracks, clubs, or people in the south of the country - but it's a solid condender for a beautiful locomotive, and I have a strong affection for the locomotive and the line, this photo being taken about 100yds from my house in 1925 was definitely a big influence! The following two are a pair of options which are less about the result and more about the process: I could build a much larger stationary beam engine, i.e. the Tubal Cain "Mary" Non-condensing Beam Engine. It's more complex than the Stuart 10V above, but significantly less than the H2. I could also build a Gauge 1 LMS 4F - it's the simplest live steam locomotive and can be produced entirely by fabrication with the exception of the wheel castings. It's by far the cheapest option, clocking in at around £250 including the wheels, and would likely be the quickest - less than a year to complete if I pulled my finger out. The unfortunate thing is that I couldn't care less about the 4F, and the other G1MRA locomotive builds such as the SECR D-class or H-class while attractive are at least as costly and complex as the H2 - which defeats the object of doing something in Gauge 1 entirely! I appreciate this is a railway modelling forum than a model engineering one - but I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback.

On that note, I recieved an email from the proprietor who said there should be an announcement of sorts at the end of the month.

Mockup mocked up: ] Platform-side Road-side - minus recessed canopied area Original photograph showing roughly the same aspect.

Buxted was built in the same year and has a similar frontage, albeit a narrower waiting room and in parallel to the tracks rather than as a terminus. Though superficially similar however, it's quite different in detail!

My method to draw up the station building is inspired by @Nick Holliday - using GIMP's perspective tool to get one of the building faces looking broadly orthogonal in one axis, then measuring the pixel length to known real measurements to calculate a given px/ft ratio on that axis, then simply measuring from edges and corners. Here's what the distorted picture looks like: Clearly, it's foreshortened - but I don't care what the actual widths are, just their relative proportions to each other. For reference, this is the original unmodified photograph: This is what I've come up with, it feels about right to me: Central Croydon Station Building Frontage v1.0 I now need to figure out the chimneys! I think we can determine that the leftmost chimney sits in the middle of the two storey station master's house - three flutes in the chimney imply four pots on top, one for each of the four rooms sited centrally. Photograph of Central Croydon station likely >1886. In 1851 Hammond was an ironmonger situated in Croydon specialising in Ploughs, Stoves, etc. - and Hussey was a gentlemen. Presumably they went into business together for the depot shown! The other well known picture shows the platform side, and the silhouette of the middle chimney - emphasis mine because it's horridly over exposed: It looks like the north waiting room chimney has two pots, and is not hard up against the butt gable. Without a floor plan it's impossible to know what the purpose of these two pots are, any ideas? Both for a fireplace at one end of the waiting room? Lastly, the south chimney appears to be positioned against the theoretical line of the booking office wall underneath the cross gable and has three pots - one for the booking office and two for the south fireplace? One must remember the double windows of the booking office are offset towards the waiting room and I believe the cross gable would be roughly where the sawtooth canopy sits - and is just blown out by the exposure. It is after looking at this platform view I wonder if the main doors were double - likely - rather than the single I have drawn. I will also assume the brick stripes on the front of the building carry on around to the rear, giving a good datum. This view also highlights how the booking office is flush with the waiting room on platform side.

Interesting thought - having it cut into the wedge at the throat end would give a tunnel with about 9' head height - enough for a postie? Or maybe just have the conveyor + maintenance access door going this way? This picture shows a 'minimum island platform' width for the passenger platform, and the imagined depth of the GPO platform. The dashed corner shows the theoretical path of the connection. Presumably if this were a conveyor, then anything on trolleys would have to go the long way around down Katharine Street, through the side entrance and clutter up P1...

I would appreciate some thoughts on the following. I do really like XtrkCAD for laying out simple problems such as siding lengths and testing train routes/etc. - but templot it ain't. I've sketched up the precise buildings/platforms and roadway details - as you can see, it's much skinnier than the plan above: Katharine St. v3.2 - CAD render While the width of the platforms is at the station building end is as per the prototype, the original of course didn't have a parcels bay. Due to the zig-zag alignment of Katherine St - if straightened out It's just about possible to a minimum width single-sided platform infront of the bay, and then quite a narrow GPO platform behind it. I'm finding it hard to figure out how the GPO platform would fit - being in a cutting it would make sense for there to be an overhead conveyor to an adjacent building, but Katharine St. is directly behind the station on both a hill and a bus route, so a conveyor would need to be 25' above that too and suddenly with the limited available width too - it all seems a bit contrived. The alternative is to omit the GPO platform, and as per most suggestions of the prototype's expected behaviour, effectively dedicate P1 for parcels and mail traffic for portions of the operating session. This is what the original platform and road alignment looked like: Katharine St. v4.0 - CAD render without GPO I like that we've broken up the schematic-like parallelism. In both diagrams the dotted lines show the original platform extents - beyond this I'll be modelling SR concrete platform extensions. We could further break up the linearity by extending P2 (bottom) in a curve around the neck of the throat as shown in the 1896 drawings. This is what the retaining wall looks like now: This is the original section by the tunnel, you can see the lighter coloured brick where the road was straightened as part of the town hall / garden construction some time around 1890. In my v4.0 plan above, the retaining wall would kink angle out towards the office buildings in the background. Of note, the SEGAS building is pictured right - looking fairly boring here - the good stuff is on the rounded corners and arched ground floor. Also noting the interesting railings.

A few hours work have resulted in the scenic board being mostly complete using 6mm ply and 20x30mm PSE in the corners. I will need to support the rear edge of the baseboard surface with some offcuts, and I will add the diagonal bracing when I'm sure of the track positionining and that I'll be clear of any turnout tie bars. Speaking of which: A view from the treetops along the south side of Fair field, looking over the station toward the High Street. A view from atop Park Lane tunnel towards the bay platform A bird's eye view Note that the station building has somehow miraculously ended up away from the left side of the layout - this is just a printing error and in reality as per the plan it will be hard up against the left edge. Also note where the tracks become invisible - this is the boundary of the Park Lane tunnel as mentioned above.

One thing that's interesting to me is that there are references to Park Lane Tunnel (as opposed to bridge) being filled in when the station was abandoned in 1890. One would have thought a steel girder bridge would have been a much simpler approach than a tunnel, but nevertheless. My gut feeling is that this appeared to the layman as a tunnel because it was a continuation of the retaining wall, with a brick arch and abutments, see here for example (though irrelevant for this discussion, this bridge is just up the road from me and has extra piers towards the viewpoint which would have carried the aborted LBSCR Ouse Valley branch to Uckfield) https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0302435,-0.1107915,3a,75y,212.48h,97.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4lia7zePZbVRuPG1z0qiOQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 To keep a sense of decorum, but to satisfy @TJ52's historical research aspect - we note but will ignore for now the fact that the OS Maps show at least the headshunt of the gravel siding poking into the original site.)