4mm Llanfair ....

[timbowales]

Larry, my subscription copy of the January 2025 Steam World has just landed on my doormat.
You might want to get a look at a copy. The centrespread is a superb photo of Llanfyllin in 1964.

 

[LarryG]

Tittivating sums up recent activity in the awful weather. The signalbox was moved further back from the platform edge with the backwall exposed to ground level. The spear fencing appears to have been vandalised....



A bush was added to the end of the platform...


Wagons carrying agricultural machinery will be pushed beyond the shed for collection at the unloading platform behind the station...

 

[LarryG]

Eerie red sky today, so this was dusk at Llanfair.....

 

[LarryG]

Wishing everyone on Western Thunder a Happy Christmas and Health & Happiness throughout 2025....

 

[LarryG]

When the station building was narrowed, the back end was never made good. Anyway, its done now using scraps of laser cut brick. The 'street' entrance was converted into a large round-top window in the 19th Century when it was found that passengers and goods yard horses and carts did not mix....


This aspect would be rarely seen in photos, but its a bit more of unfinished work completed...


Large agricultural equipment can be unloaded here as well as in the platform for same-day collection...

 

[LarryG]

Whilst I have a plausible excuse for a double track bridge, some folks tell me it should be a single bridge, so's a built one! It's the Wills SS53 plastic kit.

Two pieces of 80 thou plastikard wedged the arch crown down and strengthened the structure...


I added four identical black triangles to ensure the wing walls would be all the same angle...


Finished bridge. I always make one mistake............One of the parapet walls is upside-down...

Bridge plonked in place with photoshopped embankments to see how things would look.....


Did the same with the stone double bridge for comparison.....

 

[Captain Kernow]

Not sure which I prefer, Larry - they both look really good in that location!

 

[daifly]

The vernacular buildings on the back scene are mostly stone coloured so stone would surely be the building material of choice?

Dave

 

[simond]

But the station buildings are brick, so perhaps…

 

[daifly]

….Perhaps they’re wrong too?

Dave

 

[James Spooner]

The vernacular buildings on the back scene are mostly stone coloured so stone would surely be the building material of choice?

Dave

Well yes, except the railways builder obviously had access to a source of bricks, given the brickwork on the station building and the goods shed, so you could put an argument together for either building material…

Nigel

PS Just seen Simon’s post and Dave’s response. The railways builder could just be bringing materials up the line as he built it.

 

[simond]

On a matter of taste, I prefer the stone bridge.

But its not my train set.

and I guess the brick one looks a bit stark being currently unweathered.

 

[PhilH]

Whilst I have a plausible excuse for a double track bridge, some folks tell me it should be a single bridge, so's a built one!

Whoever these folks (or should it be folk ?) were , I think they've got it right. Its unlikely they would build a double track overbridge just to extend the headshunt a few yards or for possible future doubling of a rural branch line to a terminus.

With regard to whether it should be brick or stone - the buildings were based on Llanfyllin which were all brick (the station building and goods shed still exist today), the platform wall was stone, so either stone or brick for the overbridge is perfectly reasonable.

Some of the older buildings in the area the layout represents (Shropshire/Welsh Border) were stone, sometimes rendered, while later brick was used extensively, presumably reflecting the better availability of brick with the building of the railways in the area.

 

[Stephen Freeman]

You would be surprised at just how many single line branches had the civil engineering for double track, even when never installed

 

[Heather Kay]

You would be surprised at just how many single line branches had the civil engineering for double track, even when never installed

My favourite was the Newport Pagnell branch. When the M1 was built across it, the bridge was wide enough to take double track. The branch closed soon after, is now a foot/cycle path and still has the bridge under the motorway.

(Corrected orientations of civil engineering.)

 

[LarryG]

My supposed branch diverges from the Cambrian mainline where buildings were brick (as far as Abermule). Stone onwards from Newtown. Stone appears to be the favoured material for bridges, some having brick parapets. To be honest, the stone bridge is winning my own vote at the moment because it looks better both visually and through the camera lens. There could have been a loco shed on the other side of the bridge in years gone by.

 

[paulc]

My vote is for the stone and why wouldn't you build it big enough for two tracks if that was the intention in the future , which never eventuated.

 

[simond]

Well, the obvious answer is “cost”, but railways did invest for the future, despite being very cost conscious, so it’s plausible either way.

I wonder what a typical bridge cost back in the day. There’s a lot of digging, masonry, woodwork….

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

In my view the double track stone bridge looks better as at the lower photographic angles you can see more of what lies beyond which gives a greater impression of space and distance.

The single track bridge acts like a mousehole and appears to create an air of claustrophobia thereby confining the station area too much.

 

[LarryG]

Thanks for everyone's input. The 'mousehole' effect, as Yorkshire Dave neatly put it, summed things up nicely. So it's settled........ The track with the water tank was also the engine shed road at one time (as at Llanfyllin), so that's the reason for a double track bridge.