After that diversion.
I have been in reflective mood recently. It all stemmed from a comment that Andrew Bluett-Duncan made some time ago and also the maps Martin posted recently have prompted me to delve into the reasons why I chose to model this particular area and period. Why do we choose to model any particular layout? The reasons are obviously many and varied. In my case the chain of events that began this journey started long ago. As with so many of us the seeds were sown in my teenage years and the realisation that the railway scene was changing rapidly. East Anglia was the first area of the country to be fully dieselised. With the closure of Stratford shed to steam in September 1962 and then March shed the following year, it seemed as though things had changed practically overnight and it was to be a couple of years before I discovered that steam still existed in other parts of the country. I must have had an interest in these new forms of traction though as I still have a first edition copy of R S Carter's British Railway Main-line diesels published in 1963 that I chose as my science prize in 1964. All the drawings are in HO scale 3.5mm to the foot.
By the mid 60's all the attention seemed to be on the rapidly dwindling number of steam locos, but I realised that the modern scene was changing quickly too. The most obvious sign of this was the publication of the new corporate image launched in early 1965, although it would be another couple of years before much in the way of visible signs of this appeared on the actual railway. But perhaps the most decisive moment came when a somewhat vociferous argument took place in the letters pages of the model railway press about the appearance of model diesel locos on peoples layouts.
One letter in particular I still remember ranting that it was bad enough having these infernal diesels on the full size railway, without having them on our model railways as well. I often said that my Father was a founding member of the awkward squad and some of that must have rubbed off on me. That was when I decided that I would be scrapping my OO model steam locos and going diesel!
My two local lines were the Churchbury loop / Enfield town line, which wasn't very entertaining as from 1960 most of the traffic consisted of EMUs, apart from diversions and the Lea or Lee (either spelling is acceptable) valley line. This was much more entertaining to observe precisely because it HAD escaped the electrification plans and the traffic was much more varied. What I would be modelling now had it been electrified is an open question I really can't answer as I'm really not keen on all the overhead spaghetti. In fact it was probably the electrification infill scheme that more than anything else attracted me to the idea of trying to model that scene or something approaching it. Work on the electrification of this line began with some track alterations in the latter part of 1967 (about the time I acquired a camera) and seriously in 1968 when ground works for the masts began. Most of this was in place by the end of the year and then the wires went up. The new service was scheduled to begin on the Monday 5th May with the start of the new May 1969 timetable, but actually began on the previous Saturday. How can I be so sure? Well, I decided to have one last ride to Stratford on the DMU only for an electric unit to arrive. This meant a change of train at Tottenham Hale to catch a DMU shuttle to Stratford, which was a different type of DMU to the regular ones.
The other noticeable change during the 1960s was the decline in the amount of freight traffic over the line together with changes in the types of traffic seen.
In January 1969 MAS colour light signals replaced the previous assortment of semaphore and searchlight signals and then many of the station buildings were demolished and replaced often with bus shelter type thingies. I think it was this last event that finally crystalized my desires to replicate some aspect of it the way it was in miniature.
So which station to choose. The two most likely candidates were Ponders End, my local station and Brimsdown, the next station North. The choice was an academic one as I did not have the available space for anything approaching a scale model of either of them.
Although Ponders End's goods yard physically survived closure in 1965, it was unused until it was selected as a base for the electrification trains. However the main deterrent was the gas works to the South of the station, which lasted until 1972 when North Sea gas effectively killed it off, thereafter only a small part of the plant then remained where the gasometers were. It was replaced by an industrial estate.
Ponders end001.jpg
In this 1968 view, just visible behind and above the rear car of the DMU is a huge traveling gantry that was used to move coke both into and out of a large storage area. As viewed here the gantry traveled from left to right. A cabin suspended from the gantry traversed its length with a large grab bucket to carry the coke and it was quite a sight to witness in action. Unfortunately, I never did get round to taking any pictures of it but it does feature partly in the background of some. It was not something that I had a great desire to build a model of though. More because I doubted my ability to do so more than anything else. As part of the making of town gas, coal was heated in a retort to drive off the volatiles, which were scrubbed to remove the coal tar before the remaining gas was stored in the gasometers. The resulting coke was then cooled, sometimes producing water gas in the process. The coke was then transported by wagon to the storage stack to either be used to heat the retort containing more coal or any excess could be sent by rail for use elsewhere. The smell of that plant is something I shall never forget.
To the right of the picture is a stream which went by the salubrious title of Brimsdown ditch. Since this also collected waste water from the gas works it sometimes exhibited an oil slick producing rainbow colours and it is my intention to incorporate a short section of this waterway into the layout even if geographically incorrect.
Brimsdown station 1961 April.jpg
Brimsdown, April 1961, on the other hand seemed to have several things going for it. There were numerous sidings around the station and although the goods yard nominally closed in 1965, it still remained in use for the local coal merchant, if much reduced for a further couple of years.
Looking at the map there was a set of sidings to the south of the station that curved away through well over 90 degrees towards a large industrial estate and to the North of the station the power station exchange sidings curved away from the main in a similar fashion. It therefore seemed a logical thing to do to wrap the main lines around the outside of these to reach the storage sidings to the rear. However I thought I would need 45 feet to do this justice with minimal compression and planing went ahead on that basis. No chance in London of course.
The upshot of all this was the genesis of Green Street named after the road that crosses the level crossing in the picture.
In the meantime in a spirit of optimism I carried out as much research as I could into the area and have been quite surprised by just how much material and information I have been able to amass and things still continue to come to light. Looking back it really was the dusk of an era, so much changed during that decade that it is going to be difficult to say with any certainty exactly what things were like on a particular date. My target date is mid 1965, but in reality the operating window is 1963 to 1967, so some things are going to be incorrect whatever I choose. However the intention is to try to avoid any glaring errors whilst occasionally invoking modellers license when I feel this is justified.
The other aspect of all this has been just how much model railway equipment suitable for this project has become available in recent years, the Exactoscale concrete sleeper base, Colin Craig's BR1 baseplates, the Heljan BTH and NBL type 1s are but some that come readily to mind.
So that is how after a move to Nottinghamshire in 2007 the outlook changed somewhat and although I didn't quite get my 45 feet to play with, and in retrospect, perhaps its not such a bad thing, a redesign resulted in what I regard as an achievable compromise in 10M x 4M and that is how we arrive where we are today.
Regards
Tony.
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Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.