Glasgow North Track Plan

I'm just going to leave this here for now, and then we can talk about it later.......
Timeframe is 1962-64.

 

Okay folks. I think I may have done something wrong. I was expecting the image of the track plan to be clickable so it could be biggerised (it's a word now), but alas it isn't.....
Anyway, to give some background to the project (and you may wish to sit down for the saga), Glasgow North was born out of a previous project, the one I really thought I wanted to carry-out, Perth General. Perth General had a circa 5 year planning process, not helped by a bout of emotional illness, divorce, house move and all the other aspects of life that get in the way, but throughout everything it gently simmered away and I was able to keep popping back to it and refining, and improving, the layout. Ultimately the layout construction was never started, beyond an initial fiddle yard (and in an earlier iteration, a helix from a low-level fiddle yard to the station board above. In that respect, the time was not wasted, and I learned a lot about what not to do as much as honing good skills.
The Anyrail plan for my Perth General is displayed below for your perusement (yes that's a word now, too), and is as near to scale that I could make it within 17.5ft length of garage. I scaled Google Maps to give me the right scale in Anyrail and used it as a template for the track layout. I combined this with old OS maps on the NLS website, along with period photographs to get as a near an accurate plan, within the confines of PECO Code 55 pointwork. Unfortunately there were some compromises, the most obvious of which (for those familiar with the prototype) being the culling of the line to Dundee. There is a small bit of compression to the main platforms, but not much. Anyway, initially I thought I could live with said compromises, and to an extent, I suppose in the end I could have. The plan still had the fundamental elements of Perth; the carriage shed through the wall, the roadway ramp down to the "island" of platforms 4 through 9, etc.


However, when I came to simulate operation of the layout, using paper platforms and flat cardboard counters representing trains, it all got a bit overwhelming and there was a real danger that operation would be very a disjointed affair. Add to that the fact that there was very limited photographic and videographic opportunities "Built into" the plan, I reluctantly came to the conclusion that it would be best to abandon the idea.
A potential problem with abandonment, of course, was what to do instead. This was especially troubling since I had already amassed a reasonable amount of stock, principally for the Glasgow Buchanan Street - Aberdeen route, via Perth. Indeed, the overriding factors leading me to choose Perth for the project in the first place was, a) I was raised in Perth, only leaving in my thirties, and b) I wanted to depict the lightly loaded, A4 powered, 3hr expresses between Glasgow and Aberdeen. I also wanted lots of through freight trains. Perth in the sixties, was a very important railway town, the Crewe of the north some called it, and it had something like 6 London trains arriving and departing or passing through it da And motorail and sleeper trains at that. Fantastic stuff!!. N gauge gives the possibility to model those trains at scale length.
So what to do instead? Stirling was a possibility, but it was as complex a station as Perth, in most respects, and again like Perth, it wasn't a terminus, so you need space to get railway in and out of both ends. Aberdeen, for the most part was/is a terminus with, I think, 4 through lines, but there was something about Aberdeen that I didn't like, maybe the expanse of sidings immediately on the approach, that I wouldn't be able to take on for space reasons.
That left Buchanan Street. It was almost ideal, except that, a) there was no through freight opportunities and b) it didn't serve London or the south. Principal destinations were North, i.e. Stirling, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen, Oban and Inverness. I really wanted long sleepers............
The answer came from a website, I believe called urbanglasgow, and on the forum I saw discussed a proposed station born out of the Bruce Report, designed to modernise the post war city. In it, Glasgow Queen Street and Buchanan Street would be closed and replaced by a huge station complex called Glasgow North. Similarly, the proposal was for St Enoch and Central , serving South of the Clyde, to close and a new Glasgow South to be constructed. Ultimately, of course, it never happened, but who's to say it couldn't have, particularly with some tweeks?
So, for your pleasure, or otherwise, I present my alternative history of Glasgow termini north of the Clyde.
The time is sometime in the early to mid sixties.....on a thursday......sometime around lunchtime.......Ford Prefect has just unravelled his towel onto the grou.....wait, that's a different story altogether!
(to be continued...)
(I hope I haven't bored you all to tears...........)

 

Okay, so where dis I get to?
"A victim of the only Zeppelin raid on Glasgow, in 1915, the old Caledonian Buchanan Street Station was eventually demolished in 1930, having soldiered on in a make do and mend, bomb-damaged capacity during the depression years of the twenties, and rebuilt as Glasgow North by the LMS. Centrepiece of the project was a hotel-come-station building, not unlike in style to that at Liverpool Lime Street. With ten platforms, however, the station was grossly under-utilised up until and after nationalisation, primarily concerned with services to Glasgow, Inverness, Dundee, Stirling and Oban.
In 1960, as part of the railway modernisation plan, some rationalisation, with regard to the railways in Glasgow, and in particular the four termini, was on the cards. St Enoch was closed and most of the traffic from south of the Clyde was redirected into Central. This put some pressure on the already busy station to cope. Spare capacity at Glasgow North was the obvious solution, and most of Central's long distance, cross border trains were transferred across the river. Glasgow North would now inherited The Caledonian, the Mid-Day Scot, the Royal Scot, The Night Limited (all serving Euston), and The standard Sleeper (serving Kensington Olympia.) In addition, the Continental Boat Train (serving Newhaven) and the North Briton (Leeds) and The Queen of Scots (Kings Cross Pullman) were transferred from St Enoch, Queen Street and Queen Street respectively.
Further, three Edinburgh Waverley trains per day (two on Sunday) migrated from Queen Street into Glasgow North. This had the welcome effect of relieving some of the pressure on Queen Streets' confined and restricted platforms.
Earlier, in 1959, as part of the same modernisation project, a cross city line was developed. Twin tracks tunneled just to the south of Glasgow North, to join with the extant low level lines under glasgow, the wye-junction itself being located just to the west of Queen Street Low Level Station. This construction allowed freight from Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire and further south, and from the docks on the North and South of the Clyde to cross the city much more directly and with less impact on the main passenger routes of the region. Although utilised almost exclusively by freight trains, the sub surface route sees a handful of "cross- rail" services each day. Studies are being carried out with regard to viability of operating Dundee and Stirling to Stranraer boat trains via the connection.
In 1962, further modernisation came to Glasgow North with coloured light signalling, controlled from Glasgow North Power Box, and demolition of the old LMS Steam Shed, adjacent and just to the north east of the platforms. In the shed's place, a new carriage servicing facility and DMU and Diesel locomotive servicing point were constructed.
The short bay platforms were also converted into Motorail loading/unloading bays."

And there we have it, ladies and gents, my tenuous justification for Glasgow North. I know it doesn't hold all that much water, particularly the sub-surface through lines, but it's good enough for me and allows me to, with good conscience, operate the trains I want to operate. It's based on Buchanan Street-ish, but because it isn't a model of a real station, I can have some leeway.
One of my criteria for the layout was no "train set curves" in the scenic area. That, probably more than anything else for me, is a big no-no. That is not to denigrate others who have tight curves on their layouts, far from it, so please no-one take offence. I just know that tight curves would jar with me everytime I looked at or operated the layout. I appreciate that not everyone has the space I have, so I am grateful that I have the opportunity to have such a large layout. The curve leading into the station, whilst tighter than I'd like, isn't that far away from being prototypical, so I think it will work okay.

 

Here is my timetable for Glasgow North

Note: Some services have not yet been included (Dunblane, Stirling, Callander, Oban, Edinburgh).
Note: The layout won't be operated to the timetable, but the trains will arrive and depart in the sequence laid down in the timetable.

I've just noticed that the spreadsheet hasn't converted properly into the PDF, so the formations etc are on later pages. In any case, the point of the post, the timetable, occupies pages 1 and 2.

Attached files Book1.pdf  

 

Some 3D views of the layout plan:

FROM THE TOP OF THE TUNNEL MOUTH
Glasgow Northish Terminous_3D 1 by ScottyStitch, on Flickr
THE STATION SWEEPS INTO VIEW Glasgow Northish Terminous_3D 2 by ScottyStitch, on Flickr
POINTWORK INTO THE CARRIAGE AND DIESEL SERVICING AREAS
Glasgow Northish Terminous_3D 3 by ScottyStitch, on Flickr
STATION APPROACH POINTWORK
Glasgow Northish Terminous_3D 4 by ScottyStitch, on Flickr
THE GRADE SEPARATION OF THE THROUGH LINES IS APPARANT
Glasgow Northish Terminous_3D 5 by ScottyStitch, on Flickr

THROUGH ROUTE TUNNEL MOUTH
Glasgow Northish Terminous_3D 6 by ScottyStitch, on Flickr
REVERSE VIEW FROM THE BUFFER STOPS
Glasgow Northish Terminous_3D 7 by ScottyStitch, on Flickr

 

Yes, apologies gents, it is UK N-gauge. Peco code 55 throughout.

 

Ahoy, ladies and gents.

Just a pop-in to confirm that there has been very little movement on this project, save for the plans for converting the Garage into a a man cave (up-and-over door out, windows in) have been submitted to local builders for quotes. Hopefully by the end of October we should have a contract in place, and weather dependent, works completed before Christmas. Watch this space.

Aside from that, not much, although I continue to slowly build up stock. I now have all five coaching rakes assembled for operating the Glasgow-Aberdeen services. Next up, the Dundee rakes.

Hoping to introduce myself to Paul et al at the Dundee MRC show in a couple of weeks' time, also. Can I play with your train set, big man?

 

Hi Gary,

Yes I'm very lucky to have the space I have. The garage comes with a floored loft, so I think that will be suitably lined and Veluxed, and up there will be the workbench for building kits and weathering (I also build scale aircraft kits - how many F-4s is too many F-4s??!!). Who knows, there might even be a second layout installed between the trusses at a later date, but we shall see.
All the stock is in boxes, but if you are good boys and girls I might unpack each rake and set them out on track in correct order.

The completed rakes at present are:

Aberdeen 1 - BSK, SK, SK, RMB, FK, BSK, SK
Aberdeen 2 - BSK, SK, SK, SO, RU, FK, BSK
Aberdeen 3 - BSK, SK, SK, SO, RU, FK, BSK
Aberdeen 4 - BSK, SK, SK, SK, RU, FK, BSK
Aberdeen 5 - PMV, BSK, CK, BSK, BG, BG

The formations are taken directly from Passenger Train Marshalling documents for the period and largely confirmed by consulting photos.

There is a requirement for a total of 3 RUs, but I only have 1, so two of these rakes have RMBs instead, for now, until I can find more RUs.

Livery is BR Maroon, and the time frame is 1961-1964.

In other news, the Nelevator has been ordered, and has an 8 month lead time, so that should fit in nicely. I know what baseboards I need, and these have been costed on Model Railway Solutions website. These will be open frame.

 

Re Elgin - That used to be an annual sojourn for me the last few years, when I lived in Inverurie, but now living south of Aberdeen, it's a wee bit more of a hassle. Maybe when the bypass is completed..............

 

Okay, for those who requested to see some stock, I quickly assembled a couple of trains this afternoon. Not the best images but hopefully okay for illustrative purposes.

First up, Aberdeen 5 (see above)


BRCW Class 26 D5307 & Train


BR(S) PMV


BR MK1 BSK


BR MK1 CK


BR MK1 BSK


BR MK1 BG



BR MK1 BG