Lower Thames Yard

[Tallpaul70]

Perchance does your local modeling shop have the reissued Rocket in stock?

The store is AGR Models and their website is:-
www.agrmodelrailwaystore.co.uk.

Hope they can help you?

Cheers
Paul

[Chops]

Thanks, Paul. No dice. I expect what with things the way they are, might not see it for a while.
I wouldn’t mind paying more if only to see that “Made in Britain” stamp on the bottom.
Cui Bono?

[Tallpaul70]

Thanks, Paul. No dice. I expect what with things the way they are, might not see it for a while.
I wouldn’t mind paying more if only to see that “Made in Britain” stamp on the bottom.
Cui Bono?

Hello there,
Not my cup of tea, but each to their own!

Meanwhile, I have made a start on the Goods Shed for my Lower Thames Goods Shed layout. This will be built so that it can easily be extended for the Goods Shed on Lower Thames Yard, although the easiest way to do the extension might be to keep the brick built shed the same length and add to it the later built metal clad west end extension.
The first stage was to draw out full size the plan of the Shed and then derive side and end views. A drawing will also be required for the roof and an interior view showing the internal supports and features such as the loading/unloading platform.

This set of drawings proved tricky and I am not yet satisfied with some aspects of them, so back to the drawing board (pun intentional!).
Luckily I have, ( and could find!) the instructions for the Superquick Goods Shed which helps on construction methods. However it is likely that I will incorporate some wooden parts to give added strength and rigidity.

The original shed had 12 bays in its rail side wall, which I might reduce to 10. Due to space considerations I have moved the goods shed from being a through siding building in the up yard to a single ended siding building on a siding off the branch platform . Because the straight shed is hiding the curve towards it of the branch platform line and is therefore next to and at an angle to the Station building, I will be moving the offices from the road side of the up end to the rail side with the shed siding protruding about a wagon length from the up end of the shed.

One thing I have to decide whether I can live with or not is a plain rail side aspect of the shed. Originally when I was only going to use the shed in the "Yard" layout where it would be viewed from the road side and outer end I had been thinking of avoiding the work in replicating the 12 bays mentioned above as the would not be seen. However having now conceived the "Goods Shed" layout it will be seen on this layout from the other side.

I am telling myself at present that "Goods Shed" is a test bed layout, not trying to be accurate in all things, so the effort on the bays is not worthwhile!

Now I have had a break writing this post and looking at some photos of the Goods Shed, I must get back to it!

Keep Safe everyone,
Cheers
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon All,
Here is a couple of Lower Thames Yard sketches that explain how I intend to model Maidenhead Station Approach and Grenfell Road.

Remember the railway only portrays the Relief Lines and the Wycombe Branch. The two tracks to the outside of the lines (bottom of the plans are the down relief loop+ its siding (the siding much longer than in reality, and the track down to the low level sidings. I have yet to work out how to shield this track from the layout as trains on it will be seen with their top halfs above the layout track level!

The first shows how the Goods Shed, Branch Platform overall roof and Station buildings are grouped to mask the up end of the layout curves. Now that I have more closeup photos of the Goods Shed I may lengthen it to nearer its true length and have a small version of the later metal clad extension rather than the shorter (nearer Tetbury!) length shown here. However I do want to have a short open goods bank on the end for unloading things like horses and fish!

Maidenhead - Lower Thames Yard plan board 4.jpg

The buildings between the approach and Grenfell road may be removed to make the car park area larger. I am also considering a few stands for buses. The goods yard needs smaller buildings such as the Weighbridge office to be added in and a wall/gate is needed to fence off the yard from the station approach. The small square in the middle of Grenfell road is the clocktower, an essential feature of the area although the roads are distorted by the fact that there is no bridge under the railway!

The second plan fits to the left of the first and shows boards 5 and 6. This incorporates Grenfell Road up to the bridge over the Wycombe branch. The length of this is greatly reduced so the houses are only a representation of what still exists there. (H= house!)

Maidenhead Lower Thames Yard plan boards 5&6.jpg

The two sidings next to the road behind the houses run round into the Wycombe line fiddle yard and allow for the swapping of full and empty coal wagons and other open trucks!
As I have not been able to incorporate the real access to the yard via the bridge under the branch I am considering a bridge under the whole railway on the right of Board 5.

I hope these plans explain the position of the goods shed discussed in my last post, as well as giving a feel for the scenic side of the layout?

Keep Smiling,
Regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I have updated Lower Thames Yard in line with my comments in my last post, so I have revised the approach road and added the weighbridge office and yard front wall/gate, but I am playing around with the position of Grenfell road along the front of board 5:-

I have tried a bridge under the lines at the right side of board 5 which didn't look right and would make the woodwork complicated, so I have ditched that idea.
However in trying this I have realized that the area between the tracks and the road cannot slope towards the road as labelled without changing the edge of board 5 which may already be cut!
So I have been playing around with bringing the road away from the tracks to have a slope off the edge of the board and some buildings at the road level. An advantage of this approach is that it removes the road dogleg at the corner of board 4.

The thing I have yet to settle on is the width of the area for the buildings. I am inclined to make these industrial units of some sort so that they are mainly single storey and therefore do not mask the trains on the tracks too much.

Once I have settled this I will post a copy of the revised versions of boards 4 and 5.

I am also debating the best approach to the Goods Shed. I would like the shed and its later metal clad extension to be full size, but this would not leave any open track between the end of the shed and the point connecting the goods shed siding to the Branch Siding.
So I am debating whether to reduce the size of the bays in the Goods Shed or to keep their size but reduce their number. I cannot reduce the length of the original Goods Shed too much otherwise it will not look right with two road vehicle loading docks which I am keen to retain to differentiate it from smaller sheds of this pattern such as Twyford or Tetbury.

Looking at the article on Twyford in GWJ, an air view of the station has given me ideas on the other small sheds etc. that I should include in Lower Thames Yard's area around the Goods Shed, so these will be included in the next update.

Meanwhile, I wish everyone well, especially those in OZ and areas in the UK such as Leicester who have once again to face up to the problems of lockdown.
Cheers
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon,
I have been working at improvements to the scenic part of the plans for Lower Thames Yard.

Firstly, as you can see from Plan 4 below, I have redrawn the Goods Shed to better show the Original brick portion and the later block built extension.
I would be grateful for any photos of the extension as currently I only have a couple from the rail side.

I have yet to decide how to deal with the offices. The options seem to be:-
1) move the shed down the track slightly and fit them in the correct position.
2) place them on the outer end of the original shed, but this makes the extension difficult.
3) put them either end on the side of the shed between the road loading bay and the end of the shed.

Maidenhead Lower Thames Yard Board 4 13-07-20.jpg

I have also at the bottom left of the plan added the Water Tower, but not in its correct location between the tracks as there is not enough room, and its attendant Water Pump House at the bottom of the embankment.

I have also altered Grenfell Road to increase the distance up to the Branch over bridge because the gradient was too steep.
This needs more work to improve the curve at the road junction half way up the hill.
This is shown on Plan 6 below.

Maidenhead Lower Thames Yard Board 6 13-07-20.jpg

I have also added the pub which in reality stood on the corner of the Goods Yard Access road, but now I have given a car park.
The access road could be represented by one crossing the branch by a level crossing as I have no room for an under bridge.

Any thoughts or suggestions on the above would be welcome?

Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Hi everybody,
10 days ago I posted some thoughts about Maidenhead Goods Shed and its Extension as a basis for the Goods shed in my Lower Thames Yard Layout.
Since I had few details about the extension and the published material seemed slim I decided to find out about other similar GWR Goods Shed Extensions.
My researches have thrown up Witney Goods Shed Extension.

As you can see from the attached exterior view this looks similar to Maidenhead although I suspect it is of prewar construction whereas Maidenhead's extension is post war (1947).

Maidenhead Goods Shed -Extension-Witney_Goods_1970.jpg

I was intending to fit my Maidenhead Goods Shed Extension with an awning and a full length platform for loading of lorries etc. although I had no pictures to prove that as the case. So now I have some evidence for this!

The second shot is of the interior of Witney Goods Shed Extension which is useful for the construction methods and so I intend to follow this for Maidenhead unless I find anything to the contrary!

Maidenhead Witney_goods_shed_extension interior1.jpg

I will appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on these photos?
Also details of any other similar GWR Goods Shed Extensions or further details on Witney's would be welcome.
Many thanks

Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon All,
I hope you are being good and wearing your masks in shops and the other listed places?
I just hope that the measures do reduce the spread of the virus and give everyone more confidence to visit shops. I have my doubts but hope to be proven wrong!

Meanwhile, my modelling has not progressed very much this week.
I am holding off on more work on the Goods shed and its extension until I see if more information comes to light.

I was pleased to see GWR Hall TTS chips are now available. I shall be buying a few of these promptly as I think they will be popular. Especially if many folks follow my example and fit them in other GWR two cylinder locos. I am thinking of trying them in a Grange, County,and 61xx, as well as of course in Halls! If they are good in the other types I might also try them in 28/38xx and when they are produced the Dapol 43xx and Manor!

I have fitted Kadee couplings to some more wagons. I am setting the wagons up in sets of 3 with Kadees at each end and normal couplings in between wagons. I will have to set up some single wagons with Kadees for shunting purposes. Its a while since I did any of these , so I am getting my hand back in on standard Bachmann wagons before trying some kit built wagons which I have not fitted Kadees to before.

There has been a couple of signs of return of normality this week. Firstly I was pleased to see an Engineers train, Simplex powered on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway, so hopefully I will soon be able to sit in the garden listening to the shrill of the steamers whistles as they approach each of the three level crossings nearest to our house. The other thing I saw was that the council had cut the square and marked out the boundary for the local cricket pitch!

I hope you are all progressing with your models?
Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon All,
I haven't posted anything for a few days because the arrival of my sound fitted green Bachmann 121 prompted me to get on with making one circuit round Lower Thames Goods Shed useable as I had nowhere to test run it!

So now I have got the Wycombe branch through Branch platform circuit works although there are a couple of places where a loco stops more often than it runs through so tomorrow I hope to sort them out.

As well as testing the 121 I want to compare it with my Dapol version and my Hornby version of the Lima 121.
If all goes well I may manage to post a video comparison of them in a few days!

As well as running them singly I want to test them with my driving trailer and a set of non motorized Lima 117s, as both these combinations are trains I want to run eventually on Lower Thames Yard, and I need to decide which 121 runs best with the driving trailer and the 117.

Yesterday I exchanged e mails with the guys down to build Lower Thames Yard for me. Since the onset of the Pandemic they have been building smaller layouts with the idea that they were more likely to get them completed if anyone fell ill after they had started them. This apparently has not been too successful, not through the onset of illness but through delays in the delivery of items ordered for them!
I am hoping that they will be able to start my job sometime in September.

Meanwhile, happy modelling!
Regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon Everyone,
Took delivery today of a batch of TTS decoders, A Hall, A Black 5, a Class 47 and a Class 66. The Class 66 is for the 2016 version of Lower Thames Yard.

Meanwhile, I am still solving running problem on the track of Lower Thames Goods Shed. I know it is the track because a number of locos hesitate at the same places.
I will have to replace a couple of lengths of track because they just refuse to wok consistently. I guess this is the sort of thing you have to expect when reusing old track! I thought at first it was the fishplates so I replaced them with new ones. This cured one track piece but not two others. I've looked at the track surface with a magnifying glass but cant see any faults. The only trouble with doing this is that I don't have any spares of the correct length so I will have to cut longer ones, which is more difficult as they are curves.

Still, I no point in grumbling because all the track and points I am using are 20+ years old and previously used on a number of small layouts.

Best regards
Paul