Like most people I try to make New Year resolutions and this year it is no difference. So here goes with the relevant ones for my model.
I must get on with the 3D kit. I am looking at constructing the interiors and a method of attaching the floors to the body. I already have a power bogie but need to get wheel sets for all the other bogies. Then I have to decide a colour scheme ranging from all over green too all over blue.
The planning for the layout is still on-going but the recent photos have really added at lot of details. So I can now begin to work on the fuel depot and possibly the scotch derrick as well.
I am hoping to build the layout in the garage but in the spring I will have to seal the walls and floor. Then its into baseboard building and track laying. I am going to use C&L components and will need to make five points. luckily for me C&L are just down the road! They also supply Peco so that will cover the fiddle yard as well.
Well that is the basis of my list for this year. No doubt it will all change especially as our first Granddaughter is due at Easter but one can hope.........
I have digital copies of the original plans of the main station building and the smaller building on the other platform, plus track plans. I was sent these by Ian White, who built the model layout called "Rowfant Grange" that you can Google. See also suitable kits for the signal box and station masters house at : abmrailcraft.weebly.com
ReplyDeleteWould appreciate any detail you have of the fuel sidings
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info Ian has also sent me the relevant copies. So far on the oil sidings. Set up as a fuel depot during WWII then post WWII used as fuel store for supply of Gatwick airport. The depot could only deal with Type A tankers top unloading hence the gantry way as opposed to Type B gravity emptying. Shell Mex - BP looked at keeping the sidings in operation after planed closure but as there was also a change in fuel type being used at the airport this was abandoned. Gatwick was then supplied initially from a siding just north of the airport and later from Salfords until it was superseded by a fuel pipeline that serves the airport now. Currently I cannot confirm from which refineries the oil trains originated from. My guess is from Shell haven/Coryton but others have said from Fawley. I did witness whilst trainspotting on the Brighton line Cl37 hauled tank trains. There is also a rumour that a Cl31 had been seen as well.
DeleteThanks. I joined South East History Boards to get that sort of info about the fuel depot, but I have yet to find any photos of the sidings, apart from glimpses from the main platforms. My dad used to deliver mail around Rowfant in the 1950s and in my mid-teens in the early sixties I went bike riding with my dad and Jock the signalman at Rowfant recognised him and we had tea in the signal box. I remember H Class 31306 there in around 1961 and I have an 00 Works made H Class which Roderick (who owns 00 Works in Robersbridge) numbered it 31306 for me. I traveled on the line when the DMUs were in use but was at school nearby Three Bridges during the 1958/1963 period when I could see when a push pull set had arrived. The push pull coach sets were stabled in sidings on the east side of the main line just north of Three Bridges. I have the Hornby Maunsell Push Pull set but remember the LBSCR push pulls set in use at Rowfant too.
ReplyDeleteMikeK do a search on Flickr and have a look at pictures from Ian D Nolan. There are a couple that show the best shots I have seen of the sidings.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Got them. Incidentally, for the LBSCR push pull coaches also used on this branchline, see http://www.roxeymouldings.co.uk/category/30/4mm-scale-lbscr-bogie-coaches
ReplyDeleteI live in Crawley and am semi-retired too, so if you need any measurements of the station building, let me know. Incidentally, someone was selling on Ebay a while back a picture taken looking out of one of the station building windows. I saved a copy of the image and could email to you. It shows the shape of the metalwork outline quite well.
ReplyDeleteThanks MikeK I have to visit Sussex several times a year to see Mum and Sister. Strange how my journey home always seams to end up going via Wallage lane.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a look at the "Memories of Crawley" page on Facebook at the moment, there is a black and white photo of an early crest M7 with an LBSCR push pull set at Three Bridges, on the down platform 5. Going past platform 4 is a 5-BEL set.
ReplyDeleteI think the push pull set would have used this track to and from the berthing sidings north of the station and the set would normally have used the bay platform 6, which is no longer there. This engine would, therefore, have been used on trains through Rowfant.