Leicester Great Central Station

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burnie
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Leicester Great Central Station

Post by burnie »

Having built a "layout" for me and the grand kids, which isn't very satisfying, after much deliberating, I've decided to fulfil an ambition I've had for half a century.
I just hope I live long enough to finish it, but yesterday I started the base for it, the station area allocated is at present going to be 20 feet long and 5 feet wide at it's widest point where the turntable will sit. The idea is to have a full "oval" of track to be able to run trains round a distance to warm the locos up.
I have a track plan and although not able to do an exact scale model of the accurate track, I intend to use one of these at each end of the station
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152548562278? ... EBIDX%3AIT to make it easier to wire up and run. The rest of the rail track will be as accurate as I can get it. The intention is to have a section of the GC south of Leicester where I used to live on the opposite side of the oval that will be landscaped to remind me of the times I spent trackside. I have a passenger timetable to work from to give a reasonably accurate working, I just need about 80 or so 16 ton mineral wagons now!! The time scale to be modelled will be 1958 to the end of steam running, so there may be some diesel running and even a gas turbine if I can find one that's not overly expensive.
burnie
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by burnie »

Having now printed off full size track components and then laid them out I am aware that some serious compromises will have to done, the platform at full scale is considerably longer than I have room to accommodate if I am to have large radii at each end to allow an oval track. Also to raise all of it to facilitate the scale size blue brick viaducts is also another serious undertaking that I had not accounted for, makes you realise what a mammoth feat of engineering the Great Central was and what a waste it was in closing it down and then demolishing it.
Hatfield Shed
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by Hatfield Shed »

Three immediate thoughts I would like to offer:

Reducing the platform length and associated track length: a great trick is to model only one end of a station, making use of a convenient scenic break: in the case of many GCR stations the classic form of a road overbridge with the station's buildings built off it is almost custom made for the job.

Secondly, the plain track section would be lovely, but unless you have loops off it (fiddle yard/storage roads) that seriously limits the number of trains that can be run.

Quite apart from the complication of the brick arches, Leicester is a relatively large station. One of the smaller characteristic road overbridge stations of the GCR can be built single ended, such that the country end of the station will have some plain running line leading to it, freeing space the other side of the room for the storage roads that will enable a representative timetable operation to be operated.

I realise this probably reads as dismissive of 'the dream', but compromise is a necessity: the railway sprawled...
burnie
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by burnie »

Thanks for those ideas, it has to be Leicester, I did think about my "local station" at Whetstone, but at present Leicester with the centre of the station compressed a bit. There is no plan at present for fiddle yards as the station was a main stopping point for engine and or crew changes I have 4 "loops" on both the up and down lines, plus the 2 platforms in the centre of the "H" section at each at each end. With a turntable and additional engine waiting areas I hope to run this line fairly accurately and still have a bit of countryside too. I have an option if I need it as there would be room at one end of the oval.
The theory is I will have 6 trains for each direction and the availability of engine changes in either direction as the loops and main tracks can be accessed from both ends in either direction, which was how the prototype worked with engines going up and down the station often in the wrong direction, must have been a nightmare for the signalmen.
Hatfield Shed
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by Hatfield Shed »

If you can discipline yourself to just those twelve train formations, I salute you! The ever present temptation to add another one has beaten down my resistance.

The solution I have adopted to eliminate a wide fiddle/storage yard to accomodate them is to wind the running lines round the room on a slight gradient so most of the storage is serial on the running lines, with the return loops either end allowing passing moves and any 'fiddling'. Other than this intervention, and any operator moves in the through (inner suburban country end terminus, three branch junction) station; the trains then cycle through using DCC to advance them control section to control section. The idea being that the through traffic acts as the backdrop to the operator task of handling all the stopping services to timetable.

Or when feeling lazy, I can just let the trains go by and watch the glorious procession, as if once more sat linesiding. (I can still hear the calls of my boyhood: 'Arrer', 'Knick knack' 'Spaceship', '1000', 'Racehorse', 'Swedey', 'Bediron', 'Big Met', 'Peppercorn', 'Concrete mixer', 'Jazzer', 'STREAK!'.)
Nova
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by Nova »

Hatfield Shed wrote: Tue Jun 13, 2017 11:16 am Or when feeling lazy, I can just let the trains go by and watch the glorious procession, as if once more sat linesiding. (I can still hear the calls of my boyhood: 'Arrer', 'Knick knack' 'Spaceship', '1000', 'Racehorse', 'Swedey', 'Bediron', 'Big Met', 'Peppercorn', 'Concrete mixer', 'Jazzer', 'STREAK!'.)
I understood some of those of those, but what are Arrers, Racehorses, Knick Knacks, 1000, Swedeys and Big Mets?
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burnie
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by burnie »

Thanks HS, it's very early days yet, station base installed, now need to cut track bed and raise on blocks for the viaduct that this station stood on, luckily there's a blog of a guy who lives in Germany who is ahead of me in the race to finish this station. 36 metres(yards) of track in the pipe line, already have most of the points, I will need a turntable, thinking of the Peco one as it looks pretty much like the original from the photos.
burnie
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by burnie »

We used to see Connies, Mickeys and Stinks around Leicester along with Jubes, Pates as well as the more understandable A3's, V2's, B1's Crabs, Moguls etc
LNER4479
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by LNER4479 »

Nova wrote: Tue Jun 13, 2017 11:49 am
Hatfield Shed wrote: Tue Jun 13, 2017 11:16 am Or when feeling lazy, I can just let the trains go by and watch the glorious procession, as if once more sat linesiding. (I can still hear the calls of my boyhood: 'Arrer', 'Knick knack' 'Spaceship', '1000', 'Racehorse', 'Swedey', 'Bediron', 'Big Met', 'Peppercorn', 'Concrete mixer', 'Jazzer', 'STREAK!'.)
I understood some of those of those, but what are Arrers, Racehorses, Knick Knacks, 1000, Swedeys and Big Mets?
My guess for an 'Arrer' would be a V2 (after the prototype - Green Arrow)
'Racehorse' = A3?

Never heard either of those nicknames used before, mind ...
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manna
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by manna »

G'Day Gents

I know some of them, 1000, is that a K3, Big Met is a N2, swedey, N7 or something off the GE, Knick Knack, a J6, Spaceship, a 9f, concrete mixer, L1, Peppercorn, A1 ?

Then there was 'Shielder
anything with smokedeflectors, U boat, J50, and a Coffeepot, a J52.

manna
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Hatfield Shed
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by Hatfield Shed »

LNER4479 wrote: Tue Jun 13, 2017 2:58 pm ...Never heard either of those nicknames used before, mind ...
Nicknames are often localised or confined to a small group. Our '1000' was of course a 'Bongo' most everywhere else.

Another curio, our family doctor of the time and the parent of one of my schoolfriends always called the Stanier 8F a 'Good goods'. Never heard that usage from anyone else. He had come from Oz to train in medicine at Barts in the 1930's following his father, so I imagine picked it up in the London area. A vastly intersting man who had worked his passage to London on one of the last sailing clippers to make the trip Oz-UK...
croesnewydd
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by croesnewydd »

We used to see Connies, Mickeys and Stinks around Leicester along with Jubes, Pates as well as the more understandable A3's, V2's, B1's Crabs, Moguls etc
The B1s were of course 'Bongos' from the African antelopes in the early numbers
burnie
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by burnie »

Now beginning to place cork underlay and some track onto the base to check for accuracy after using paper print outs. The rail turns out to be quite a bit smaller, so I have the luxury of more room than I thought, so the platform will be exactly 8 feet long, not too far off a decent replica if not exactly to scale.
burnie
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by burnie »

Starting to put some track in place, the north end is in position and the advice is to run a bus line to feed each side of each rail join rather than rely on the fish plates. So before fixing a lot of drilling to do. This end will have surface mounted point motors and the operation position will be at the south end, I will initially operate the south end manually until I have the total track laid and the rolling stock up to a decent level, then return to the final detailing and automation of points and signaling later (short of pocket money as just bought a 9f)
Last edited by burnie on Sun Sep 10, 2017 9:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
burnie
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Re: Leicester Great Central Station

Post by burnie »

I am about to run a bus wire for each direction, attaching at each end of the station area, I am not running DCC so cannot run in additional drops without adding switches.
station wiring.gif
(9.01 KiB) Not downloaded yet
As well as having a continuous loop in each direction, I will now be adding a couple of "passing sidings", not dissimilar to the north and south goods loops, this will enable me to keep at least one track open in each direction in the station area when trying to run to a rather busy timetable at certain times.
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