.... and chimmneys

Just a quick update. I have finally completed the chimneys for the station building. As see the chimneys on Clarke buildings are ornate so you can see they were made in many parts before being assembled. I have started work on the canopy skylight and have placed it to see what it will look like.

The sum of the parts.

The chimneys temporally fitted held in place with blu tack and the canopy skylight.

The windows, doors.....

It's been some time since my last post, but things have been started put down when I get stuck and other things picked up. Well as the winter modelling season is upon us I moved from the shed at the bottom of the garden to indoors and so have been doing less messy modelling and I decided that the station building needed to progress - so it time for the windows and doors.

The platform side of the station building. 

The rear side. It is interesting that all the station buildings built by William Clarke, the consultant engineer
for the Bristol and North Somerset Rly, had no doors on the rear, only on the platform side. 

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   

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.

A new Station Building - part 1

When Hallatrow was exhibited at the final of the 18.83 Challenge I did not have a station building, however Tim Venton of Clutton fame had previously made a model and has loaned to me ever since. So I thought it was about time I made a start on a model of my own.

The engineer for the Bristol & North Somerset Railway was William Clarke, who was the engineer to a number of local independent companies whose lines were to connect their local community to a main line. In a number of instances these companies were initially worked by the Great Western and were later taken over by them.

As a result his distinctive architectural style can be found around the Great Western system. The station building all followed the same basic design, only increasing in size with the importance of the station. An article in 'British Railway Journal' No. 8 on William Clarke's 'Standard' Buildings gives further details. This article and the Wild Swan book on the Abbotsbury Railway have copies of the original plan of Portesham station. A re-scaling of these plans and that of the GW official survey, plus photos confirmed that the station building at Hallatrow and Portesham were to the same basic design and size. Thus the Portesham plan was used as the basis for Hallatrow's station building.

A site visit in 2003 confirmed that the building still existed, although it has been altered when it was converted into a private dwelling.

After looking at the various types of plastic stone, Wills' Course Stone was a good match and Evergreen strip for the cornices etc. And so finally we have.

The component parts before assembly

The platform side

The rear view from the entrance road

Now that the basic structure is finished all that is left are the windows, doors, canopy, roof and chimney.