Potential entry - Oxenholme(ish) Engine Shed c1939

[IanLMS]

Maybe we can add the two together and complete the whole area. Saves me building a second fiddle yard

We may have a problem with stock as mine will be 1870's vintage

That might be a small, tiny little challenge we would have to overcome!!

[Jol Wilkinson]

London Road Models do a kit for the 42ft turntable.

Jol

Its on the list of purchases and they look like they build up really nicely.

I have just emptied my bank account and ordered a B7 point kit and a length of plain track from C&L to see how i get on building a point. Hopefuly the British Finescale points are compatable with the C&L 1.5mm thick sleepers as they will work out much cheaper to buy. A couple of points may need to be curved so will need to build them from the templot plan. Thats where the real fun will start!!![/quote]


Ian,

I bought some C&L P4 track, albeit the thin sleeper variety, and found it to be under gauge. I suggest you check it.

Jol

[IanLMS]

I bought some C&L P4 track, albeit the thin sleeper variety, and found it to be under gauge. I suggest you check it.

Jol[/quote]

Thank you Jol. I hope not! They cost enough. I only ordered one length and can check it against their point kit. I will get some jigs from the S4 shop to check them against.

[Terry Bendall]

I have just emptied my bank account and ordered a B7 point kit and a length of plain track from C&L to see how i get on building a point.

I have not built a C&L turnout kit but with the Exactoscale ones I found putting a track gauge across the common crossing area whilst the glue dried helped to keep the gauge correct. Phil Reid of C&L is a modeller himself so if things are not to gauge I am sure he will sort things out. Building a point kit is not difficult - if you can make a decent job of an Airfix kit you can do a turnout!

Terry Bendall

[Jol Wilkinson]

Terry,

it wasn't a C&L point kit but plain 1 metre flexitrack. It was glued down with Copydex to 1/8" closed cell foam underlay. I did wonder if that had caused the problem but on checking the unused lengths I still had, found that they were the same. As a result I didn't used those on the curved rail sections but, having laid the straight lines in the storage siding, decided to live with it.

Rather annoying as I ended up building about 19 metres of plain ply and rivet track.

Jol

[zebedeesknees]

Ian,
I bought some C&L P4 track, albeit the thin sleeper variety, and found it to be under gauge. I suggest you check it.
Jol

I bought a job lot of the pre-Hi-Ni from Brian, thick sleeper, and that turned out to be 18.64mm gauge. We had an amusing exchange after...
It is fine on straights and large radius curves, especially with P4 b-b, but a check rail is advisable on any radius under 5ft. Well well...!

Or it can be glued down with a narrow srtip of tape under the middle of the sleepers to spread the rail heads a little.
It is my contention that the centres of the chairs were at 18.83, and no allowance was made for the 1:20 angle of the rail.

Ted.

[Terry Bendall]

Rather annoying as I ended up building about 19 metres of plain ply and rivet track.

Yes I am sure it was Jol. I expect Phil Reid would still like to know.

Terry Bendall

[IanLMS]

Interesting to hear that. Thanks for the info. The 1 metre length may end up in the bin or on a siding thats not going to get much use, if any. Wont be much help as a test track either then .

Ian

[Mark Tatlow]

Hi Ian,

I am looking forward to this for a variety of reasons including having Oxenholme on my long list (to be fair it is a very long list!) of possible layout ideas - although I was likely to tackle the portion north of the bridge rather than that south of.

As others have said, Templot will load OS maps from the National Library of Scotland into the programme at the correct scale. This should instantly correct the concerns that you have as to overall size of the layout. Older OS maps are fairly good to scale when you are looking at landscapes but rather less good to scale individual features such as an engine shed or turntable from - if you think about it the width of the line might be as much as a couple feet on the ground!

Are you aware that the Blackburn club had a model of Oxenholme on the circuit for some years. The photos have been lost from RMweb now, but this is the thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/13 ... nt-3209005 They are now doing Beattock, so you you might enquire of what historical information they have?

You are going to need a lot of Fowler 2-6-4s and those big beefy LNWR 0-8-4s!! The former are Comet chassis on Hornby or kitbuilt bodies, Brassmasters used to do a kit for the latter but it has been out of production for some time (still worth speaking to them though?).

I look forward to the application form in due course.

[davebradwell]

Out-of-gauge track isn't a new problem, we've been here before. An early North Shields article describes thumping each sleeper of flexi-track with a blunt chisel to spread the gauge - they end up looking like marks left by a derailed wagon.

You seem to be thinking through your gauge conversion very well, Ian so welcome to the real P4 challenge of using bits which have occasionally gone through an imperfect stage. You should be able to pick up a box of second-hand unused track which was made in the good years.

MarkT seems to have tidied up a few loose ends.

DaveB

[IanLMS]

Thank you both. I did a search before for Oxenholme layouts, without much success so look forward to looking at the link.

I ordered 1 mtr of the new C&L 3 bolt track so not sure if thats the same with gauging issues or if its been resolved since. At £13 a length i may have to look for used or buy from another source.
I have joined the LNWR society as well so with any luck, that will provide me with some more data.
I tried loading the 1912 map from NLS into Templot but it wouldnt drop in. It said the function for that map isnt supported in templot yet, or i have the county wrong etc.

Overlaying P4 track on the uploaded image in templot is causing me to modify the track plan slightly to avoid the tight radius points (A5/B5) it is requiring. So far i am losing the siding adjacent to the engine shed near the TT and at least one line adjacent to a line leading from what looks like a slip.

Definately need to print the map off to 4mm scale to check the 6ft/10ft ways are accurate!

As mentioned before, it may not be an exact reproduction of Oxenholme, but more a "based on" ficticious layout.

[Mark Tatlow]

Hi Ian,

I also stumbled across this, which is someone seeking to create a templot plan of Oxenholme station.

https://85a.uk/templot/archive/topics/topic_3810.php

The portion being discussed and visible in the thread is the section north of the bridge where there was (at certain era) an inside single slip, a barry slip and an outside slip (although the debate is that it might be a half scissors crossover). However, he might have done the whole station.

The Templot forum is open to all and allows people to send private messages (possibly after a probationary period) so potentially worth enquiring. Its owner, Martin Wynne, comes on here fairly regularly too so may be able to enlighten.

A further source of reference is the planning portal of South Lakes Council but they seem to have made thier system more difficult to use by deleting the map search feature. However, a bit of searching may prove fruitful (and Richard, if you weren't already aware there are some modern surveys of the station buildings - they will help with dimensions although beware that they will show the modern arrangement).

[Tony Wilkins]

Definitely need to print the map off to 4mm scale to check the 6ft/10ft ways are accurate!

Hi Ian.
You don't need to do that, there are various measuring tools available within Templot to do this on screen.
Regards
Tony.

[Winander]

and Richard, if you weren't already aware there are some modern surveys of the station buildings

Got those if they are the Virgin Trains ones. Bit surprised they still rent flats in the station buildings, it can't be a blissfully quiet, vibration free idyll. But many thanks for letting me know.

[Philip Hall]

I've had some lengths of both C&L thin and Scaleway with some gauge narrowing, not enough to cause trouble, but as Dave B says, earlier vintage was ok. Use in sidings has been fine. My preference was for Exactoscale FastTrack which is true to gauge and robust, and has proved very reliable on my main running lines, pinned lightly to cork underlay. I think the Stores still has some bases.

Philip

[Jol Wilkinson]

I've had some lengths of both C&L thin and Scaleway with some gauge narrowing, not enough to cause trouble, but as Dave B says, earlier vintage was ok. Use in sidings has been fine. My preference was for Exactoscale FastTrack which is true to gauge and robust, and has proved very reliable on my main running lines, pinned lightly to cork underlay. I think the Stores still has some bases.

Philip

I bought some of the 4FT102A Exactoscale P4 widened gauge track bases but found these have thick sleepers (this isn't mentioned on the Stores listing). Presumably the others Exactoscale track bases are the same. They should match Ian's C&L point kit if that also has the thick timbering option.

This could be an issue now that the P4 Finetrax points are also available and the Stores listing should state sleeper thickness for the various track products listed to avoid confusion, especially for newcomers to the Society/track building.

[IanLMS]

I had ordered the 1.5mm thick sleepers as someone mentioned it will match the BFS points soon so be available from the society shop and are much cheaper than the C&L.

Track planning on Templot is coming along nicely. Tutorials on You-Tube have helped immensly. Its a great tool but so much to learn to use it properly.

As mentioned before, i am not following the Oxenholme track plan exactly and have been moving/omitting a few points and roads here and there for various reasons:

1. Experience using templot
2. Trying to keep type of points to minimum of B6
3. Making sure points arent crossing the baseboard joins
4. Time (building the layout incl track and buildings)
5. Cost
6. Experience building my own track either kit or from components
7. Operational complexity. Keeping it simple but still interesting. I am a one man band so operating two fiddle yards is going to prove challenging.
8. Length of fiddle yard cassettes to max of 4ft which will limit train lengths. I think anything longer would be hard to manage and keep flat without bending in the middle. I may research other fiddle yard options but cassettes seem to be the best option so far for storage and turning the trains.
9. I have never operated a layout at an exhibition (assuming i would get that far and make it to the shortlist for the show)

It will retain most of the features of Oxenholme and i know i may dissappoint a few folks but i really dont think i can complete a true and accurate version which would be convincing enough to do the prototype justice in the time we have left.

[IanLMS]

The LNWRS society have a plan of the station produced when the shed was being demolished. It has the reference DPLAN0125. Whilst the roads into the shed are missing, it does show the shed outline and some of the track and is a better general representation than a map particularly as it benefits from a scale.

I am sorry to tell you but according to Dick Smith in the Kendal & Windermere Railway, Oxenholme's turntable was only ever 42 feet long.

Very useful drawing from the LNWR society, thank you! Will definately help plan it better now i know what roads are what and what size points they should be!! The points on the main running side of the engine shed arent too much of a problem except for one i need to move one crossover due to the baseboard join. I have them as B8's/C8's for the most part but will look at using the right type and see how it chages the overall plan on Templot. The two points leading to/from the TT are the ones i am struggling with. The drawing on the 1912 map shows them almost straight, however, the photo attached shows them being quite tight radius, back to back almost Y points with only 2 or 3 sleepers between each blade ends. The V's definately look tighter than a 7 or 8.

Am i also right in thinking the slip on the right of the shed is a standard double slip? The lnwr drawing shows B9 on one road and B7.5 on the other.

[Julian Roberts]

No reason you should avoid a baseboard joint occurring in a turnout so long as you avoid the V and switch. In this B8 anywhere between sleepers 13 and 27 - the joints there are obvious places, and anywhere in between (called the closure rails) is fine

[IanLMS]

I may look at that. Here is what i have done so far, using the drawing from the LNWR society and filling in the missing tracks following the plan from the 1912 map.

Its not perfect, but i am happy with it so far. The lines end at the limits of the baseboard and will lead off to the cassette fiddle yards. 8 roads in, 5 out. I will probably adjust the coal ranp to a smooth curve, even though it will be a few feet out of true.

[TonyMont]

That looks really good. How long will the engine shed be? I think your cassettes are going to be very busy.
Good luck, regards Tony.

[IanLMS]

Based on the drawing, the engine works out to be approx 950mm x 250mm. Trying to find details on the shed is proving difficult, but i would imagine most lnwr sheds followed similar design standards so hopefully i can find data on a similar shed and use that as a guide.

[Winander]

Trying to find details on the shed is proving difficult, but i would imagine most lnwr sheds followed similar design standards

If it was re-roofed in 1938 that part will have some LMS influences. The roof was changed from a typical saw tooth LNWR style to a hipped roof. Jack Nelson's LNWR Portrayed has details of the construction of walls and internals which were unlikely to have been changed.

[IanLMS]

If it was re-roofed in 1938 that part will have some LMS influences. The roof was changed from a typical saw tooth LNWR style to a hipped roof. Jack Nelson's LNWR Portrayed has details of the construction of walls and internals which were unlikely to have been changed.[/quote]

Thanks for that. Book has been ordered.

[IanLMS]

Another few hours today tinkering with Templot, re-adjusting a few things. I have marked out where the baseboard will be and measured it to make sure it will fit within the 18.83 sq ft limit. The inner red box is the full baseboard size. A little trimming was required but i am just within. I had to lose the road bridge and one the other end omit the point leading to the coal drop and engine shed. Will have to simulate using the cassettes. I will have 3 main boards for the scenic area plus 2 fiddle yards. Doubtful it will all fit in my Insignia though!!!! If I can convince my mate to help me at the show, he has a new super-size VW SUV thingy which i should be able to fit it all in

Screenshot of where I am at so far and I have labelled each road based on the drawing on the LNWR site. I have checked that all the joins are lined up properly, so timbering next. I have had a play with the Shift Timbers function, and looks easy enough. Its where they should be located, at what angle, whether they should be full length, trimmed, interlacing etc.......that's the tough bit!!

Quick question - as this was an old LNWR shed, should the timbers be 9' or is 8'6" pretty standard?

Thank you all so far for the help and encouragement you have given me so far - it is very much appreciated. I will hopefully see some of you at Missenden in a few weeks if you are going. This time I have signed up for the painting and lining course. Although track-building would have probably been more suitable all things considered. Not sure if they were putting that one on this year or not.

Ian