grovenor-2685 wrote:The first two places I would look are "Midland Record" and "Modellers Backtrack".
Regards
Thanks Kieth,
I don't have easy access to Midland Record .... though I did manage to pick up a copy of the issue on the Midland Signal Boxes .... however trawling through the various indexes on line .... there doesn't seem to be anything specific relating to track work and specifically switches. I have got hold of the modellers Backtrack issues as recommended by Martin that deal with track work ...
Looking at my references, I see that there was also a series of articles in Modellers' Backtrack
Volume No.1
Number 2 June/July 1991 Making Tracks
Number 5 December 1991/January 1992 Making Tracks part 2 Early Midland Railway permenant way
Volume No.2
Number 3 August/September 1992 Making Tracks part 3
Volume No.3
Number 1 April/May 1993 Making Tracks part 4
Volume No.4
Number 2 June/July 1994 Making tracks part 5 Switching trains
but again ... whilst being very helpful and interesting, their are no close up images or descriptions of Midland switch and stretcher bar arrangements.
Hopefully somebody may have a picture within their collection which might be suitable.
I have a copy of 'Through Limestone Hills' which is very helpful generally (and has a nice piece on Mensal Dale Station), but most of the images are much later than the period I am going to model. Bob Essery in one of his MRJ articles on track work did illustrate (with a couple of different photos) Midland track that was ballasted over the top of the sleepers .... one was labeled 19th century, the other dated 1876. He stated that the 19th century practice was to cover the sleepers and he was uncertain when the practice stopped. As I am hoping to model pretty much on the cusp (1900) I was uncertain whether the ballast would have been removed from the sleepers by this time or not.
Regards
Tim