Wycombe Broad Gauge Station

[David Bigcheeseplant]

I have been planning a model of the original broad gauge station at High Wycombe 1854-64 for the last twenty years if not more and have had many false starts, although now I have drawn the building in Fusion 360 which I can export the files to AutoCAD to create input to the laser cutter to produce a kit of parts. Interesting thing is how you can see how the building was constructed. the model seen in the images is to 4mm scale so is contructed from the thicknesses of material I intend to build the model from.
David

[martin goodall]

I was really pleased to see these drawings.

I knew from previous contact with David that this Brunel design had been substantially copied by E F Murray when the latter designed the station at Thame, opened in 1862, eight years after the original terminus at High Wycombe. Murray had been Brunel’s assistant on the Wycombe Railway, and persuaded the directors to appoint him as the Engineer for the Thame extension after Brunel’s death.

It seems that Murray’s performance did not meet with the approval of the Wycombe Railway directors, and he was not retained for the Aylesbury Branch (opened in 1863) or the onward extension from Thame to Oxford (opened 1864).

I have assumed that Murray was appointed as the engineer of the Witney & Burford Railway a couple of years later, and that he copied the Brunel design again which he had used for the train shed at Thame, but shortened it to only eight bays. By the mid-1860s, when I assume that the station at Burford was built, this queen post timber truss roof would have been thought somewhat out-of-date. (The two identical train sheds designed by Margary for Moretonhampstead (1866) and Ashburton (1872) were braced by tensioned wrought iron rods in place of the heavy timber truss roofs seen at High Wycombe and Thame.)

As David explained to me some time ago, the original Brunel station building and train shed at High Wycombe is still extant, buried inside the later goods shed at that station. The future of that building still looks a bit chancy, and it is very much to be hoped that it can now be saved for posterity.

Best wishes to David in constructing his model. Laser-cutting is obviously the way to go. It wasn’t an option when I constructed my model of the Train Shed at Burford, and so I used Evergreen strip for much of the roof structure.

[Enigma]

Are the background buildings actually based on ones on Amersham hill or just 'generic' ones?

[David Bigcheeseplant]

GWR 14992 Plan & elevations.pdf

The background is an image of the Flint Cottage which is imported in the design as a decal, at the time the model is set it was called the Prince of Wales. I need to import some of the other buildings in too to give an idea of the surroundings.

As Martin points out the design is the same as Thame although the design and size are identical there are some detail differences. also the stations are rotated to each other so the buffer stop end is at different ends of the train shed of each. The original drawings of Thame survive although there are some details that were changed from the drawing to how it was built but this is not unusal.

I have tried to be as accurate on my design as I can using site measurements and other information, although have designed lengths though brick sizes so everything is a multple of 3mm as it makes it much easier when drawing up the brick bondswith queen closeres round the corners and door and window openings.

Sadly there are no known photos of Wycombe as a station prior to 1900 when extentions and modifications were made.

The photos show Thame and Wycombe from a sort of simular view. The view at Wycombe shows the origanal brick and flint platform which was extented out to another platform wall when the lines became standard gauge. The height and width of the doors windows are also different and the door to the booking office at Wycombe was made into a window.

The drawing shows the replacement 1864 station at Wycombe which is basicly the same at the booking office of the original but without the trainshed at Wycombe and Thame but with an enlarged toilets at one end.

David

[Enigma]

Are the background buildings actually based on ones on Amersham hill or just 'generic' ones?

When we were 'courting' ( a very strange term I reckon!) my girlfiend (soon to be wife) worked in the end building, overlooking the railway, across Amersham Hill from the station. I well remember standing outside looking over the wall into the exhaust fans (and exhaust fumes!) of a Western.

[martin goodall]

The last photo above, showing the inside of the train shed at Thame, reminds me that soot weathering of the inside of the Burford train shed roof is still on my 'To Do' list. It won't be as filthy as the inside of the roof at Thame (which is shown shortly before its closure in the 1960s), but will still need a fair amount of soot deposited on the beams.

Official drawings for the train shed at Thame were reproduced in Richard Lingard's book on the Princes Risborough to Oxford Branch (OPC), and these were the drawings I used for the train shed at Burford.

[Paul Willis]

The last photo above, showing the inside of the train shed at Thame, reminds me that soot weathering of the inside of the Burford train shed roof is still on my 'To Do' list. It won't be as filthy as the inside of the roof at Thame (which is shown shortly before its closure in the 1960s), but will still need a fair amount of soot deposited on the beams.

This also reminds me that chimney smoke is not the sole preserve of steam-era GWR BLTs...

I took this photo earlier this summer, whilst waiting for a train from Bristol TM to Paddington.

Bristol Temple Meads HST smoke.JPG

Clearly (or rather, smokily) the HST powercars had regularly stopped at exactly this spot when arriving/waiting/leaving this platform.

Now if you did this weathering on a contemporary era layout, you'd be accused of taking the mick as steam has ceased regular use for over fifty years

Cheers
Paul

[David Bigcheeseplant]

I have been working the model by adding more buildings and adjusting ground levels. Other than the trainshed and the flint collage all other buildings have long gone, so have had to use photos and maps to produce the other buildings.

[David Bigcheeseplant]

These are renders of my model and photos of the real Langdon Hotel which was demolished in 1936 so its a case of counting bricks and looking at photos to get ratios of window and door sizes correct.