The Burford Branch

Tell us about your layout, where you put it, how you built it, how you operate it.
Dave Holt
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Dave Holt » Mon Mar 08, 2021 8:39 pm

It all looks perfectly convincing to me, Martin. I should say that I know nothing about GWR goods sheds, though, so that might not count for much.
Dave.

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:14 pm

With the interior of the Goods Shed competed, I turned my attention again to the front wall.

I started by adding vertical battens to the wall, to which enamel adverts would be fixed. These were painted Dark Stone before being glued in place.

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The windows were then fabricated and fixed in place. As before, these were assembled from Evergreen strip, comprising an outer frame (painted Dark Stone) and a plain white inner frame to which the vertical glazing bars were fixed. The inner frame was built by fitting its components to the pre-painted outer frame. No measurements were involved; I simply cut the styrene strip to fit, and glued the pieces in place as assembly proceeded. Both the inner and outer frames were generously wide to allow easy fixing to the inside of the wall, leaving only a fairly thin frame visible from the outside. The glazing (10-thou clear styrene sheet from Evergreen) was fixed to the inside of the window frames with ‘Glue-n’-Glaze’ so as to avoid fogging of the clear styrene sheet, and when the windows had been fixed to the inside of the wall, wide strips of styrene strip were glued to the inside of the window assemblies so as to ‘trap’ the window frames and the glazing in place in order to avoid them coming adrift in the future.
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martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Fri Mar 19, 2021 10:29 am

Enamel adverts have now been fixed to the vertical battens on the front wall of the Goods Shed. These are from the Roger Smith range, which are brighter and seem to be less prone to fading than others I have used in the past.

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The GWR issued instructions to station masters on the way enamel adverts should be displayed. The idea was that they should be organised in a reasonably tidy fashion, rather than being randomly displayed in no particular order. So I tried to achieve a degree of symmetry in the layout of these adverts, which were chosen primarily by size, irrespective of the rather miscellaneous range of products they advertised.

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The panel under the central window has been left clear because there will be a platform seat under this window, and I want to see how much room there will be for adverts (if any) when this seat is in place.

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The next shot shows the extent of progress on the model so far.

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I have kept the front wall separate up to now so that I could work on it in the flat on the workbench. So the next job will be to fix this wall to the rest of the structure, and I can then build the timber arches over the rail entrances to the shed, together with the smaller arch over the road entrance.
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martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sun Mar 21, 2021 3:32 pm

The final operation to complete the main structure of the Goods Shed was to make and install the timber arches above the rail entrances at both ends of the shed and above the road entrance at the Up end. These were based on photos I took of prototype examples.

The arch profile varied from one goods shed to another. At West Ealing [Castle Hill] these took the form of a segmental arch, as seen in the photo I posted here on 17 January. But I chose to copy the elliptical arches from the goods shed at Kidlington (below). I printed this photo exactly to scale size in an effort to get the arch profile correct on the model, and the print was marked up to assist in transferring the arch profile to my working drawing.

[The goods sheds at both Princes Risborough and at Thame also had elliptical arches over the rail entrances. This prompted me to wonder whether the third of the trio of goods sheds on the Wycombe Railway extension, at Aylesbury, also had elliptical arches over the rail entrances. The answer is that it did, although in this case the timbering at the end of the building (at least at the Up end) extended across the entire width of the building – a feature seen on some other GWR goods sheds of this period. Presumably, the goods office was at the Down end of the shed at Aylesbury, giving an arrangement at that end similar to my model. However, I have not seen any photos that show the Down end of that shed. It was replaced when the whole station was rebuilt by the LNER in 1925 (on behalf of the joint station committee).]

Scan GS1.jpg


For the road entrance, I copied the semi-circular arch at Hungerford [which, again was similar to those at Princes Risborough and at Thame]. In the photo below you can also see the corbelling back of the brickwork at the opposite end of the shed to give access to an outside loading bank – a feature that I also copied for my model of the goods shed at Burford.

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The construction of these timber arches took the form of vertical ‘board and batten’, and I saved myself a bit of time by using Evergreen sheet (4544) for this purpose.

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The paintwork still looks very clean, and I shall weather this later by brushing soot over the woodwork, and also over the walls, to tone everything down and give the building a well-worn workaday appearance.

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I have been working on this model now for several months, and so I may do something else for a change in the next few weeks, before building the roof for the Goods Shed and its lean-to extensions, and finally completing the model.
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Mon Apr 12, 2021 4:02 pm

In the past couple of weeks, I have been preparing artwork for some etched fittings that I intend to use as an easier way of mounting my ‘Burford’ auto-couplings under various rolling stock. This process did not lend itself to photography, and until I can get some test etches done, it remains ‘a work in progress’.

Now at last, however, I have been able to return to the layout, and I brought with me the partially completed Goods Shed in order to fit it in place on the layout, and see how it looks in its setting.

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As I had expected, some careful cutting and fitting was required to get it to sit down firmly on the baseboard, but I am reasonably happy with the overall effect.

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As these photos show, I shall need to adjust the glazing bars on the right-hand front window, which are currently distorted and need straightening up.

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These photos also show various other things that are awaiting attention on the layout, including reinstalling the mill chimney and the plume of smoke above it to disguise the joint in the backscene.

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My choice of yellow London stock bricks for the Goods Shed in preference to the more commonly used red bricks seems to have worked as a means of ensuring that the colour of this building complements the Cotswold stone of the surrounding buildings. These bricks were used for the goods shed at Kidlington, where the nearby station building was built of Cotswold stone.

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I shall postpone further work on the building itself (roof and roof details, etc., followed by extra weathering) until I have laid paving into the road entrance to the shed, which will require continued access to the inside of the building until this paving has been completed.
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Alan Woodard
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Alan Woodard » Mon Apr 12, 2021 7:21 pm

Bloody gorgeous Martin. Love this layout and look forward to updates.
Cheers.

Al.

Dave Holt
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Dave Holt » Mon Apr 12, 2021 7:52 pm

Very nice indeed, Martin.
At some stage, though, you're going to have to knuckle down and ballast the track.
Dave.

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Winander
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Winander » Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:28 pm

Dave Holt wrote:At some stage, though, you're going to have to knuckle down and ballast the track.


Don't mention chairs ;)

A very nice model, excellent. work.

I am always surprised by the amount of advertising on early railways - I doubt we would stand for it today.
Richard Hodgson
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martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Tue Apr 13, 2021 9:16 am

Thanks, gents, for your kind remarks.

Dave, you’ve got me bang to rights! I have been meaning to get around to chairing and ballasting the track for years on end. My excuse used to be that I wanted to check the running thoroughly and complete any necessary adjustments before I added the chairs, but that process was completed several years ago. My current excuse is that I want to put down the rodding stool bases before ballasting commences, and install the point rodding in conjunction with the ballasting, but I can’t do that right now as the long lengths of straight nickel silver wire I bought for the rodding have still not been found after the layout and all its associated gubbins were moved last year. (A subsidiary excuse is that I want to make further progress on the buildings first.)

On the question of advertising, Richard is absolutely right, and this didn’t apply only to railways. Towns were festooned with adverts everywhere, and it was in reaction to this that we now have an unduly restrictive advertisement control regime. Wearing my professional hat, I had more than a few battles over outdoor advertising in my career.

On the railways (and no doubt elsewhere), enamel adverts eventually gave way in the inter-war period to poster advertising, and this is a point we need to bear in mind on our layouts. I have set my period nominally in the early 1920s, when quite a few enamel adverts were still to be seen on the railways, although perhaps not as many or as densely packed as in the pre-First World War period. For a layout based in the mid to late-1930s, I suggest that you would see rather fewer enamels ads and more poster boards, especially on the platform fence. Enamel “Virol” adverts seem to have been the last to disappear, and could still be seen in a few places in the post-Second World War period, and into the 1950s.

One other point is worth noting. The enamel adverts on my goods shed can only be justified by the fact that it immediately backs on to the passenger platform. If this goods shed stood in the middle of the goods yard (as many did) it is very unlikely that any adverts would have been displayed on it. And putting adverts on a signal box, even if it was on the station platform, was strictly verboten by the GWR.

All support and encouragement for my efforts on the layout is gratefully received, but I have to confess that I am discouraged sometimes by the time it is taking, and I occasionally despair of ever getting it finished, bearing in mind that I am now on the ‘wrong’ side of 70. I enjoy making models of buildings from scratch (and if I want to model these particular buildings, which I do, there is no alternative, as kits are not available and are unlikely to be produced for them). But the fact has to be faced that model-making is an inescapably time-consuming process and, as a result of my own experience of building what is not a particularly large or complicated branch line terminus, my respect and admiration for heroic layout builders of the past, such as John Ahern and Peter Denny, has immeasurably deepened and increased.
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bécasse
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby bécasse » Tue Apr 13, 2021 11:13 am

As Martin says, VIROL enamel advertisement signs were the last to disappear from the British railway scene. They all went overnight when the contract expired some time in 1958.

Most of the others, at least on the Southern Railway, seem to have gone in the late-1920s or early-1930s. It has always surprised me that no-one seems to have analysed which signs went when.

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Will L
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Will L » Tue Apr 13, 2021 1:09 pm

martin goodall wrote:...we now have an unduly restrictive advertisement control regime.
Not in my book, I've always blamed the Americans for the idea we should be grateful for being advertised at, but perhaps like many undesirable feature of America life they got it from us.

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Noel
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Noel » Tue Apr 13, 2021 2:00 pm

Will L wrote:Not in my book, I've always blamed the Americans for the idea we should be grateful for being advertised at, but perhaps like many undesirable feature of America life they got it from us.


I can't comment on enamelled metal signs, but printed posters seem to have originated in France in the mid-19th century as the result of a contemporary improvement in printing processes.

bécasse wrote:Most of the others, at least on the Southern Railway, seem to have gone in the late-1920s or early-1930s. It has always surprised me that no-one seems to have analysed which signs went when.


Since they were essentially ephemeral despite the materials used, there would seem to be little reason to retain the associated paper records, which would presumably mostly have been thrown away or recycled during WW2, so presumably the only dating evidence left would be photographs, which didn't become common until after metal advertising signs became largely obsolete.
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Noel
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Noel » Tue Apr 13, 2021 2:56 pm

martin goodall wrote:On the railways (and no doubt elsewhere), enamel adverts eventually gave way in the inter-war period to poster advertising, and this is a point we need to bear in mind on our layouts. I have set my period nominally in the early 1920s, when quite a few enamel adverts were still to be seen on the railways, although perhaps not as many or as densely packed as in the pre-First World War period. For a layout based in the mid to late-1930s, I suggest that you would see rather fewer enamels ads and more poster boards, especially on the platform fence. Enamel “Virol” adverts seem to have been the last to disappear, and could still be seen in a few places in the post-Second World War period, and into the 1950s.


There is a difference here which should be born in mind, between the small posters produced by the railways for their own purposes, which originated in the 1890s, and posters produced for more general display. The former would have been restricted largely to areas under station canopies, or within other structures such as waiting shelters, but very rarely completely in the open. The latter might appear as small posters in similar covered outdoor areas, but were more usually larger and necessarily in the open.

The railways managed the advertising on their own property, and quite a few sites in BR days had 10ft x 6ft 8ins poster boards, usually sited in busy locations where they would be seen by lots of people, not necessarily restricted to, or even including, those on or in the railway premises on which the poster was displayed. Major stations might well have them all round the external walls, for example, while even the likes of Kingsbridge had several on the station approach road. They also appeared on inner-city goods warehouses and freestanding inside the boundaries of goods yards, on embankments, anywhere there was a big enough number of potential viewers. The posters displayed might be railway ones [they did produce a small number this size] but were more often for commercial products.

martin goodall wrote:The enamel adverts on my goods shed can only be justified by the fact that it immediately backs on to the passenger platform.


And you can add some more when you make the fence at the back of the platform! May I, though, make one comment about those on the goods shed, which is that they look to my eyes to be rather too symmetrical? As bécasse mentioned, these were part of the railways' commercial activities, so that they appeared and disappeared in a way that appeared almost random, and therefore do not normally show a neat pattern in contemporary photos.

I am always impressed by the standard of your modelling, not least because it looks as good in reality as it does in photographs, which is not always the case. I look forward to further instalments.
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Noel

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:21 pm

Thanks for the further comments.

Just two further points re adverts. I agree that enamel adverts gradually disappeared during the inter-war period, but I have seen a photo taken at Dolgellau [Dolgelley] which I seem to recall was taken in the 1930s, but which nevertheless showed quite an impressive display of enamel adverts on the platform fence at that time. Rather frustratingly, I have not been able to put my hand on the book in which I noticed this photo.

I shall certainly be putting some enamel adverts on the platform fence at Burford. (The fence will be added when the remainder of the platform surface has been completed. This will have to await the installation of the Signal Box, which is the next building on my 'To Do' list.) The adverts on the fence, like the adverts on the goods shed, will be fairly 'neat and tidy', because I am aware of instructions that the GWR issued to staff, complete with diagrams of acceptable layouts, showing that these adverts should be set out symmetrically, and in line with each other at the top so far as practicable. I have a copy of this circular somewhere among my files, but this too has annoyingly eluded my search.

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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:49 pm

Having signed off just now, I suddenly remembered where I had seen the Dolgellau photo I mentioned. It is the lower photo on page 117 of Great Western Infrastructure (Photographs from the E Wallis Collection) published by Noodle Books in 2014. The photo was taken on Wednesday 10 July 1929, and shows a splendid display of enamel ads on the Up platform. The layout of these advertisements clearly complied with the company instructions I mentioned.

allanferguson
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby allanferguson » Tue Apr 13, 2021 8:53 pm

St Enoch.jpg


They come as a boon and a blessing to men
The Pickwick the Owl and the Waverly pen

Part of my childhood, and there until the station was demolished in the 1970's

I do like the lay - out of the layout, if you see what I mean, and admire the consistency of finish of the buildings

Allan F
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martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Tue Apr 13, 2021 9:59 pm

I have now managed to track down the GWR instructions on the display of enamel adverts. These were included in the Station Instructions (“Instructions Concerning Station Work”) which formed an important part of the Company’s General Appendix to the Rule Book.

The interesting point is that these instructions do not appear in the edition of the General Appendix that I have (issued in 1936), which suggests that the display of enamel adverts had reduced to such an extent by that time that instructions as to their display were no longer needed.

However, in the Summer 2004 issue of Pannier [the journal of the Great Western Study Group], Dr Roger White reproduced an extract from an earlier version of the Station Instructions in the General Appendix [possibly the 1920 edition?] which did contain the instructions that I mentioned. The following points are worth noting:

“The Station Master should as far as possible take care that no advertisements are fixed to walls, bridges or other places, unless battens have been provided. Before battens are provided the Divisional Engineer, Divisional Superintendent and Messrs Wyman and Sons’ representative must decide the positions and the extent to which they may be allowed.”
“The advertisements should be arranged with as much regularity as possible, and in such a way as not to destroy the architectural features of the Stations by overlapping the doors and windows. The Station Master should give this matter personal attention, as the appearance of the Stations can be much improved by the systematic arrangement of the advertisements, and by preventing the frames from being put up in such a way as to become an eyesore and a disfigurement to the Company’s premises generally.”
“Messrs Wyman and Sons’ attention should be directed to all ………… badly chipped enamelled iron advertisements [and] damaged frames [etc.]………”

There is then a set of “Regulations to be observed by the Station Masters and others concerned in the Arrangement of Advertisements”. A couple of points that these covered included the following :
“Advertisements fixed on fences should be arranged between the supports of the fence [as shown in the sketches that were included in the instructions]. The advertisements must be in line at the top.”
“Advertisements must not be allowed on fences if the back view of them would be objectionable from any public roads.”
“No advertisements are to be allowed on Signal Boxes.”

On new or rebuilt Stations, further special conditions applied:
“The battens must be fixed 18 inches apart from centre to centre. It is generally found that it is most convenient to fix them perpendicularly.”
“The advertisements must be confined to the spaces on the Station buildings ……… ”

[The GWR had a contract with Wyman’s to act as their agents in dealing with advertising material displayed on the company’s stations. Wyman’s also had an exclusive contract for bookstalls on GWR stations.]

The Station Master at Burford has clearly been most conscientious in complying with these admonitions. [But as one friend has kindly pointed out, the workman who actually put these adverts up got tired towards the end and didn't get the tops of the lowest adverts in line. It's just as well that the Divisional Superintendent doesn't seem to have noticed.]

------------

Just a footnote to Allan's contribution. My grandparents owned businesses, originally founded by my great-grandparents, which included a newsagent's, tobacconists and confectioner's shop. As a small girl my mother could not understand the reference to "the Pickwick" and the "Owl". It was only later that she realised that, like the "Waverley", these were also pens. At the same young age, she was also puzzled by "Step Hen's" inks, for which there was an enamel advert outside the shop.
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bécasse
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby bécasse » Sat Apr 17, 2021 9:25 pm

I have tracked down a reliably dated photo of a Southern station in May 1930 with a significant display of enamel signs, other photos (also reliably dated) show that they were all gone by summer 1936.

I have also had further thoughts about the eventual disappearance of the VIROL advertisements. Given the long-standing existence of these, it is likely that the display contract could only be determined on quarter days, and since my memory of their sudden disappearance would suggest a spring 1958 date, that would seem to point to 25 March 1958.

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Tue Apr 20, 2021 4:48 pm

David's remarks about the disappearance of enamel adverts seem to chime in with other photographic evidence I have seen. Plenty of enamel ads in 1930, then a rapid reduction during the 1930s.

So, for a layout based in the late 1930s, maybe no enamel ads should be displayed (except the famous VIROL ads, which lasted into the 1950s, which, as David notes, seem to have disappeared in 1958).

It is possible that some enamel ads may have continued to be seen on private commercial premises through simple inertia, but they seem to have been systematically removed from railway premises during the first half of the 1930s, being replaced by printed paper posters (which had begun to appear earlier in the 20th century). No doubt this reflected the changing contractual arrangements for the display of advertising material on railway premises.

This no doubt accounts for the omission from the 1936 General Appendix to the GWR Rule Book of instructions for the display of enamel ads that had appeared in earlier editions of the Appendix.

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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Joe Newman » Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:54 pm

Martin's account of the use and disappearance of enamel signs has been very interesting. Although I can remember seeing the then new GWR Collett 0-6-0s nos. 3210-3212 on the former DN&S at Newbury in 1947 I have no clear memories of enamel signs on that station but there was plenty of poster advertising.

However, whilst looking for something else, I came across the attached photo of Bournemouth Central station in Off the Rails by Bill Bishop (Kingfisher Railway Productions). It was taken on 14 November 1949 by the Bournemouth Times.

The photo clearly shows two enamel advertising signs, one of which is the oft mentioned Virol and the other Camp Coffee. There is also a large poster advert.

The U class loco 31624 ran into some coaches that were fouling the running line and was derailed. The Eastleigh crane, and Bill Bishop, were called to help the Bournemouth crane

One other interesting feature is that part of the loco's cab has been unbolted to allow the crane chains to be attached to the lifting points.
Image (60) - Copy.jpg
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martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Tue May 11, 2021 2:37 pm

Recent activity on the layout has included working through a short ‘snagging’ list, repairing one or two items of minor damage caused when the layout was moved last year, and adding some extra details to various buildings.

Some missing lead flashing has been added to the Mill Office, and one or two adjoining buildings are awaiting similar attention

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The Blanket Mill and its office building are the only card mock-ups that were retained in their original form and simply ‘tarted up’ to produce acceptable background models. This is what they looked like originally:

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If you look at them from the back, you can see their corrugated card construction, and their origin.

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Ironically, the computer equipment that came in those boxes has long-since been scrapped.

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I have now tightened up the join between the two main baseboards and their respective backscenes, and this has closed up the gap in the sky and enabled me to stick the mill chimney back in place. I literally ‘papered over the crack’ in the sky, retouching the smoke and adding some teased-out cotton wool to disguise this work.

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The main item dealt with recently has been the re-erection of the fiddle yard. This comprises a ‘fiddle deck’ on which cassettes can be slid around to change trains, together with some shelves at the back on which cassettes with spare trains on them can be stored.

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The fiddle yard was built more than 12 years ago, but in its previous home it was a purely portable structure which was simply ‘plugged in’ when needed. It is now bolted to the layout and has acquired its own legs (adapted from a baseboard frame that had been intended for an uncompleted extension of my Crichel Down layout).

This shot also shows the old desk that serves as a workbench. It looks unnaturally tidy at the moment, as it has only just been put in place and has yet to acquire the inevitable clutter, piles of tools and other detritus that workbenches seem to attract. (Well, mine does!)

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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Wed May 19, 2021 2:05 pm

Last December, I was moaning about the fact that in its new home the layout was significantly further away from the tracked ceiling fitting which provides the layout lighting than it used to be, with the result that the light seen under the Train Shed roof looked like a bleak winter’s afternoon, compared with the warm mid-day sunshine of a summer’s day pouring down through the roof opening.

Just to remind you, this is what it looked like in December:

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The problem was that the new railway room is 3 feet wider than the old one, and it also turned out that the ceiling fitting was not centrally located, being 5 feet away from one wall but 6 feet away from the wall against which the layout has been positioned, a difference of 2 feet compared with the 4-foot distance of the lighting rig from the backscene in its old home. Clearly, moving the ceiling fitting was the only way of resolving this problem.

I put off what could clearly be a tricky task for several months, but with the latest lockdown finally over, we could get on at last with some building work downstairs, including the installation of a new kitchen. It turned out that not only the builder but also the electrician are both model railway enthusiasts, each of whom is building a large scenic layout in 00 gauge. So they duly visited the Burford Branch, and I took the opportunity of explaining the lighting problem to them.

It is just as well that I did not attempt to move the light fitting myself, as the run of the floor joists above the railway room made it necessary to open the ceiling, and drill a hole through a couple of joists in order to locate the ceiling fitting where it needs to be. The outcome is that the layout lights have now been moved closer to the layout, and warm sunlight is shining once again over the Burford Branch.

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The lighting is not quite so close to the layout as it was before, but we are talking about no more than a few inches now, and the very slight difference in the way in which the light falls on the layout, compared with the lighting arrangement in its old home, is inconsequential.

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The effect of the light in these shots seems ‘softer’, almost a misty day. I think that may be down to the LED bulbs now in use. If I want to change that at any time, I simply have to substitute different bulbs.

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Meanwhile, I have been having a major tidy up, after bringing various tools and materials over to the new place, and stowing them away around the railway room. This means that no model-making has been done over the past couple of weeks while this has been going on, but at least I will have a well-organised railway room to work in when I can get back to work on the layout shortly.
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martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Wed May 19, 2021 4:06 pm

On the other hand.......it may help if one wipes the camera lens occasionally.

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[The parcels weighing machine was simply plonked down on the platform, and had not been properly bedded down before this photo was taken.]
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Tribus
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Tribus » Wed May 19, 2021 5:49 pm

Stunning work Sir!

martin goodall
Posts: 1425
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2009 6:20 pm

Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sat Jun 12, 2021 11:53 am

Having moved the layout to its new home last year and re-erected it, I have recently transferred a large number of kits, bits, tools and materials to join the layout in the new railway room; and a large part of the time since I last reported progress on the layout has been devoted to sorting all this stuff out, stowing it away, and making a proper note of where everything is, so that I can find it when I need it.

I have, however, managed to find time in the last couple of days to do some further work on the Goods Shed, comprising laying extra flooring and installing a couple of flights of stairs, which had to be dealt with before getting on with building the roof.

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This flooring comprises an area of paving in the cart bay, using the granite setts laid in the rest of the goods yard (Wills scenic sheets), plus some timber planking near the rail entrance at the Up end. The paving will be painted later when the remainder of the goods yard paving has been laid, but I have given the boarding a thin wash of Dark Earth, preliminary to ‘dirty wood’ weathering later.

With this flooring in place and stuck firmly to the baseboard, the two sets of internal stairs could then be cut to length, painted and stuck in place inside the Goods Shed.

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The paving inside the cart bay has been set at the same height as the paving throughout the goods yard, which is about 0.5 mm below rail-top height, so that track cleaning will not rub the paint off the paving

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There are now quite a few jobs on the ‘To Do’ list, which can be tackled in any order, final completion of the Goods Shed being among them.
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