Coldstream in P4, c. 1949

[Tim Lewis]

Hello everyone, and welcome to Coldstream, my layout which has been under consideration and construction for a VERY long time. I've had a thread on RMWeb for some time (though I haven't posted anything for a few years) which some of you may have seen. I'm not going to repeat all the stuff that was on RMWeb, rather I will start with the current state of play, and take it from there. But first, a short potted history of the real location.

The station was opened in the mid-19th century by the Berwick and Kelso Railway (soon to be taken over by the North Eastern). When it first opened, the station was known as Cornhill (not unreasonably, as it's in the village of Cornhill-on-Tweed, the town of Coldstream being over a mile away on the other side of the river, and in a different country)! The station was renamed Coldstream in, IIRC, 1873, perhaps in an attempt to lure Victorian tourists to visit. The Berwick and Kelso made an end-on junction with the North British branchline from St. Boswell's (on the Waverley route) just east of Kelso, thereby potentially allowing through traffic between the East Coast main line (at Tweedmouth) and the Waverley, although the NER and NBR seem to have gone out of their way to avoid convenient passenger connections at Kelso. In LNER days, some through passenger services from Berwick to St Boswell's (and indeed Jedburgh) were introduced.

In 1887 the NER opened the Alnwick and Cornhill Branch (A&C), which meandered for about 35 miles through rural Northumberland from Coldstream to Alnwick. Facilities at Coldstream were upgraded at this time, including installation of a turntable.

The A&C was never going to make any money (and the view seems to be that its' construction was mainly a blocking move to discourage the NBR from heading towards Newcastle), and it closed to passengers in 1930. Severe flooding in the area in 1948 resulted in the A&C being cut in two, and operated as two distinct freight branch lines from Alnwick to Ilderton and from Coldstream to Wooler. The southern section closed to freight in 1953.

The Tweed Valley line on which Coldstream lies proved to be extremely useful when part of the East Coast main line was temporarily closed following the floods of 1948: facing junctions at both Tweedmouth and St. Boswells meant that through traffic could be easily routed over the Tweed Valley. Following re-opening of the ECML, a number of freight trains between Newcastle and Edinburgh were routed along the Tweed Valley line each day, presumably to maintain crew route knowledge: this lasted for several years.

The passenger service along the Tweed Valley was rationalised in 1955 when many of the intermediate stations closed. Coldstream hung on for a while longer, passenger services being withdrawn in 1964 and freight services (including the stub of the A&C to Wooler) ceasing in 1965.

More information, and prototype photos, can be found on the Disused Stations website.

I'll give some more information about the layout, and pictures of the current state of play in another post.

 

[Tim Lewis]

So, here are a few pictures that show the current state of progress on Coldstream. First of all, an overview of (what will be) the entire scenic area (at least until my proposed extensions)! The four lines entering from the bottom of the picture are (left to right) down headshunt, down main, up main, up headshunt. Main goods yard and cattle dock on the right, station in the distance.


Next, a closer view of the area near the station cottages. You can see that all the turnouts, with the exception of the main crossover, have interlaced sleepers in typical NER style.


A view of the platforms, showing the mockup of the main station building. The line with no sleepers on it is where the coal drops will be.


A closer look at the station cottages and mocked-up water tower. The track between the cottages and the water tower goes to the turntable.


So, the trackwork on the scenic section is getting there: I still have one and a half turnouts to do, plus the long siding to the rear cattle dock, coal drops and turntable. Not all of the track that has been laid is wired up yet, though I can currently run trains round a complete circle in both directions, across the crossover, and part way into four of the sidings.

That's all for now: I'll post some more pictures later.

 

[Joe's Garage]

Impressive trackwork Tim, I like the interlaced timbering on the points.
Keep posting
Cheers Julian

 

[James Spooner]

That is a very impressive project Tim and your track work has really captured a prototypical feel. I look forward to seeing photos of progress as it develops.

Nigel

 

[dibateg]

Looking very good Tim - I'm looking forward to further progress!

Tony

 

[Tim Lewis]

A few more "current state of play" pictures. Firstly, a view of the front of the station cottages. This is the only building to date that has progressed beyond mockup stage. The two blocks of station cottages are the only real remnants of the railway left at Coldstream now (apart from one bridge abutment and a Wickham trolley shed). Of course, there are no etched windows available of the right size, so I spent some time experimenting with different sizes of microstrip for the window frames, and eventually ended up with something I was reasonably happy with (on the fifth attempt)! Just need to do the other windows and doors now. Not entirely happy with the brick colour, so some dry brushing experiments are called for I think.


Another view of the yard/tracks approaching the station, taken from the non-viewing side.


I said in a previous post that I could run trains round in a complete circle: this is achieved by means of these curved boards (this is a wide angle view, so might look a bit distorted).

It is fairly obvious that there are more tracks on these boards than is necessary. This is because these boards are not mine, but are on long term loan from my good friend Gavin Clark (Scalefour News editor). They previously formed part of one of his layouts, but are currently not required. Eventually, these boards will be replaced by newly built boards, some scenic, some not, but until that time then these semi-circular boards have proven invaluable - thanks, Gavin!

Last picture for now. At the other end of the layout is a similar set of semi-circular boards, again on loan from Gavin.


That's all for now.

Tim

 

[Dave Holt]

All looking very nice and the track work impressive, Tim. It's always a pleasure to see another P4 or S4 layout appear on WT.
The board with the station looks quite wide in the photos. Is all the track accessible, heaven forbid there's ever a derailment?
Very much looking forward to following further progress.
Dave.

 

[Tim Lewis]

Thanks Dave. Yes the layout is quite wide - up to about 4'6" (there is no compression of the prototype in the section that I'm currently building). The layout is intended to be operated from the front. "Most" tracks are accessible from there, but a couple of those towards the rear are not. Most stock has 3-link/screw couplings, but those rakes that need to be split (pickup goods etc) will probably have "some sort" of auto-coupling - current thinking is AJs, but this could change. I am hopeful that I can make the couplings work reliably enough so that dropping off and picking up wagons from the "rear roads" will be possible: I accept that I may be being over-optimistic here! Derailments are of course another matter - I will try not to have any!!!!! Seriously, if there are derailments in awkward places then, if operating at home it is easy enough to go round the other side of the layout and sort it out. If exhibiting (which I would really like to do one day, but who knows) then some more thought may be required!

 

[Tim Lewis]

To complete the "current state of play" pictures of the layout, here are a couple of the "fiddle yard" at the back of the layout:

and from the other end:


As you can see, there is not much scope for fiddling! At present, if I want to change the trains, I have to remove and replace manually, or use one of the few sidings on the scenic section that are currently wired up, neither of which is ideal. So one of the priorities for this year is to try and get a proper fiddle yard up and running. I've more or less completed the design in Templot, and I have the plywood for the baseboard tops (but not the sides, a situation which I hope to address soon).

Cheers for now.

 

[Tim Lewis]

It occurred to me that a track plan might help demonstrate the context of the layout.

Many years ago, I met a guy called Christopher Dean at an exhibition and got chatting to him. I didn't know it at the time, but it turned out that he is a bit of an expert on the railways of this area, and he very kindly lent me a copy of an NER surveyed plan from 1908 at a scale of 33ft to an inch. I was able to scan this to produce a digital version which has been immensely useful. Apart from showing exactly where buildings are located etc., I was able to use it as a background on which to do the Templot plan. So, the tracks on the layout are pretty much exactly where they are on this plan. Whether the plan itself is entirely accurate is of course another matter, and there may be one or two minor discrepancies (which of course I discovered AFTER I'd done most of the track), but more on this another time.

This excerpt from the plan shows the current scenic area (note that there are some later, hand-drawn annotations and changes). It may be useful to compare this to the earlier photograph showing the entire scenic area.



The main lines from/to Tweedmouth (on the ECML) come in from the right, flanked by the up and down headshunts (the up headshunt is the uppermost track on the plan). Before entering the station, there is a turnout from the up line to the up yard, with associated catch point, then a crossover between up and down lines, then a turnout to the down headshunt, turntable and coal drops area. The up yard comprises several sidings, including an end-loading dock, goods shed, double-sided cattle dock and an agricultural merchants store (Bibby's). Off-scene at the top of the plan is a large cattle auction mart.

On leaving the station towards Kelso (left hand end of the plan) there is a bridge over what is now the A697, heading south towards Wooler and Alnwick. You can just see the beginning of a double junction immediately over the bridge. One of these lines was a very long siding and the other forms the single line branch to Alnwick. A single slip also forms part of this junction, allowing trains to cross over between down and up lines. In the fullness of time, I hope to extend the layout to include this junction.

Off-scene to the right, i.e. towards Tweedmouth, the down headshunt continues for some way, with no further turnouts. The up headshunt is more complicated however: immediately off scene is a crossover from up headshunt to up main. The headshunt itself continues for several hundred yards before there is another outlet onto the up main. Again, in the fullness of time, I would like to extend the layout to include these features as well (although some compression will be required).

I hope that this has helped set the scene a bit more. Work will continue (probably slowly, as usual!) to finish off the track and associated wiring on the scenic section, so there may not be much to report for a little while.

Cheers for now.