Saturday 10 May 2014

A new Station Building - part 2

I thought add another photo of the station building, this time with the canopy in place. The valance was an Exactoscale etch purchased many years ago.


This photo was taken from the platform side, which is the opposite side
under normal operating/viewing conditions   

Wednesday 7 May 2014

The Type 7 Signal Box

As my model of Hallatrow depicts the station before the footbridge was built and after the re-modelling, i.e. late 1909 - 1910, the type 7 box is required. As I don't have a plan of the box I did not fancy counting bricks but the is a plan of the Bishops Lydeard in the book on the West Somerset Line - The Minehead Branch.

The plan was re-scaled to 4mm and and a mock up made to see how it would look on the layout. This proved to be not imposing enough, Bishops Lydeard box only had/has 33 leavers whereas Hallatrow's had 62.But by cutting and pasting the plan an additional 2 windows are added, making a better looking mock up.

Fortunately the distinctive windows and doors are available from Modelex, being those from the Chuchward kit.

Front view of box 

Side and front showing the Churchward etch windowsand doors which are
held in place with 'Blu-Tack'. The brick work is South Eastern Finecast Flemish Bond.
The signal box temporarily in its place on the layout with the embolic roof.


Tuesday 6 May 2014

Signalling at Hallatrow

Originally the Bristol & North Somerset Branch was worked by Ticket and Staff and Hallatrow was in the Pensford to Radstock section. With the opening of the Camerton branch in March 1882 the junction and Hallatrow becoming a section post required the provision of a signal box which was provided by Saxby & Farmer. This enabled two goods trains of a goods train and a passenger train to cross at Hallatrow.

With the extension of the Camerton branch to Limpley Stoke the Great Western applied to the Board of Trade to convert Hallatrow into a passing place in May 1909. The enlarge layout required a new and larger signal box to be built. As a result a Great Western Type 7 box was built with 55 working and 12 spare levers and opened in September 1909.


Three Type 7 boxes still exist in Somerset - Cranmore (a type 7B) on the East Somerset Rly, Bishops Lydeard (a type 7D) and Blue Anchor (a type 7B) both on the West Somerset Rly.



Cranmore's Type 7B signal box



The Hallatrow's new box can be see on the left side of the photo which forms which forms the blog header.