An alternative engine shed for York?

[Colombo]

My layout features a model based on the south or up end of York Station complete with a bit of the City Walls and the old No.1 Erecting Shops which became the LNER lost property office and store when York Loco Works closed. This building is still a dominant feature at York Station to this day, and long may it remain so.

Just to the South of the No.1 Shop was the old boiler Shop, which, up to the 1960s and the end of steam, was used as a stabling point for "foreign" passenger locos waiting for their home working. After 1958 there was often a Pacific waiting there as well in case of a Class 40 diesel failure . The roof fell in sometime later onto some Engineers inspection saloons, and the building was demolished.

Prior to Nationalisation, this had also been used as the LMS shed and their code for York was, I believe, 19F.

I wanted an engine stabling point there, but having started to build a truncated version of the Lost Property Office/Erecting Shop, I did not really have room. My solution was to imagine that that the Boiler Shop roof had fallen in a lot earlier, and the Erecting Shop had been hastily converted into a Loco shed. This gave me room to add a coaling stage and a turntable.

The erecting shop is adjoining the spectators side of the layout and small people will be able to peer inside, where it will be fully fitted out with smoke hoods, roof trusses, lighting and all the paraphenalia one associates with the servicing of locos. This will not be a model of any particular shed, it is more a pastiche of bits and pieces from the NER/LNER and BR.

I have posted some photographs below showing my progress so far.
This time I have used none of my fancy photo editing programs. You can see my rather untidy workshop in the background.

Colombo

[CVR1865]

Colombo,

That's a great looking shed, and a fair size. When you said that you were going to cobble something together i forsaw a two road jobby with room for a pacific and a half.

Have you already sited the turntable?

Simon

[Colombo]

Simon,

I have room for 8 tender locomotives in the shed, plus 5 outside, another three round the turntable, and a siding for dead locos down the side of the shed.

The turntable is complete and located to the "south" of the coaling stage which, as you can see, has yet to be clad in rusty corrugated iron sheeting like the one at West Hartlepool. In fact the real turntable was where my coaling stage is now.

Whilst the shed is presumed to have been the LMS 19F until Nationalisation, it would have been provided by the LNER for visiting LMS engines. The coaling stage is an NER type, because the Midland/LMS did not own the shed, they leased it, and so the NER would presumably have built their own design for use by their tennant.

The shed front is based on North Blyth where there was a similar 3 road shed. In my model, I am presuming that the individual NER smoke hoods had all been replaced in the 1950s with a standard BR design fabricated out of steel.

Colombo

[CVR1865]

thats excellent, a lot of work too. in additition another question on a related topic, how llong are the mainline corridor stock trains you run? are you able to get close to the real size, i'm having a bash at building the Northern Belle i posted about a little while back and at 12 coaches long i'm going to need to extend my layout to fit it on at full length.

simon

[mick b]

Top job. Where is your layout based?? home or in a hall??

Mick

[Colombo]

Simon,

I am able to run up to ten coach trains, because the platform only needs to accomodate half the train, the rest being in the fiddle yard. Each through road leads to two long storage roads, and of each pair, one is wired to hold two shorter trains to give a bit of variety.

Mick,

The layout is housed in an old uninhabitable farm labourer's cottage that I happen to have in my garden.

Colombo

[GeoffB]

Hi Colombo,

Super job you're doing there - I'm humbled when I see modelling to this standard. Can't ever see my railway reaching those sort of heights. Too much to do laying all the track, etc outside to get down to the fine detail - still I hope something will come eventually, when all the "heavy" work is out of the way, but I can't see it getting to your standards.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,

GeoffB

PS did you get hold of Templot? If so, how are you doing with it? I've just designed the new through station area for the outside and I'm well impressed with the software.

[Colombo]

Geoff,

One of our members at the club is using a system that may be Templot to design and build his own track. When we will decide to start another new layout at the Clay Cross MRS, I don't know. It would rather dilute our efforts on the current layout. We have few enough really active members to consider a second one at present.

Colombo

[John B]

Colombo,

That is one extremely nice layout, it appears very realistic (even including some diesels) and I love the used look you have managed to give everything. The roof trusses in your shed are very detailed and give a real air of authenticity, it will be quite a stunner once all the smoke hoods are in place.

It is a very long and substantial layout, you are fortunate indeed to have access to such a large space. I doubt I shall have anything like the space when we move into our new home at Christmas.

Just how long is your layout and when do you think you will consider the job finished?

[Colombo]

John,

The layout is 17.5 ft by 10.5 ft. I think that it looks longer due to the lense on the camera having a relatively short focal length.

I could rush to finish the job quite quickly, but that would give me less satisfaction, and I hope to have a lot of long winter evenings and wet days, to get it finished. There are no cardboard buildings, it is all Plastikard or plaster panels on good quality ply wood. At my present rate of working, I expect to be at it for a good few years yet.

There is no signalling at all. I have to decide whether to opt for NER lower quadrant signals, which would be wrong for my period, but at least the operator can see them working. Alternatively, I could use the more correct, for York, colour light signals, but then the operator cannot see them change. However, I am quite intrigued by the possibility of creating some working theatre indicators. That could be fun.

I quite enjoyed building the turntable with the electronic circuit that used a reflective IR detector to reverse the polarity of the TT tracks as it revolved. I went the Wakefield Model Railway Exhibition yesterday and saw the LNWR layout Narrow Road (a skit on Broad Street). This has a turntable that uses a similar system to stop the TT in exactly the right position.

Colombo

[Bullhead]

May I add my words of admiration, too?

Not only does your model capture the "look" of one of my favourite places, the trackwork in particular has that elusive combination of delicacy and robustness which shows how much care has gone into it. The whole thing looks great.

Will you post additional pictures as your labour of love develops?

[mick b]

Hi
Any updates on your layout ??

Mick

[Colombo]

Mick

I have had difficulties attaching photos recently due to new software. However I have just tried again.

Here is a photo taken inside the shed last year.

The lighting was a problem. At the time I had not tried warm white LEDs. The grain of wheat bulbs take quite a lot of power and I had to introduce another transformer, but then they got too hot, so I used a voltage regulator to step down the voltage..then that got too hot, so I added another circuit and split the load between two voltage regulators. It works now, but LEDs might have been easier, although they tend to send a tight beam rather than a diffuse light.

Colombo

[mick b]

Hi
Thanks for update, i look forward to some more pictures

Mick