Selective Compression- how-to?

[Mountain]

Gosh. Down here when I worked on the railway one line I worked had two trains a day spaced 12 hours apart (I once had a family of six and their luggage refuse to get on board as my train didnt have tables! They wanted to wait for the next train! I did tell them to get off at a mainline station further up the line to catch a train with tables... They refused. I dont even know if the second daily train had tables!). Down here more then 5 trains each way a day and it is a well used line.

Reducing train lengths can work. For example, if the prototype express had 14 coaches you could get away with using 9 coaches or 10, however, 8 or less and it would not really look right. Some things can't be reduced and look right. For example, when I used to watch the old B.R. liveried HST's pass on our local main line in a 7 coach and two powercar formation, a 6 or 5 coach formation in model form just looked so odd that one may as well run a single coach! Yet, I ran a full 7 coach formation using the older shorter Hornby coaches (Saving about a foot in overall length) and it didnt look odd at all.
It makes me think there may be a good market in the sales of short coaches. Maybe Triang was onto a good idea after all!

[flying scotsman123]

You might findthis handy calculator useful. A quick look on google maps suggests the current platforms themselves are about 240m long, which comes out as about 3 metres or 10 feet in OO. If you ever think you've gone wrong on a calculation think it through - OO gauge coach is ~30cm say, so platforms of 3 metres could accommodate 10 coaches, which sounds plausable enough that the only inaccuracy is likely to be inaccurate measurements rather than any conversion errors.

[flying scotsman123]

I'm just wondering how useful current google maps will be helpful to you, as the station's had two major rebuilds since your proposed dates. I remember the subject of Hastings came up on another forum a while ago, going back th the thread produced these maps of Hastings in 1910 before the rebuild, 1928 with some preparation for the rebuild in evidence, and 1936 after completion, which might be more useful. Also this site was mentioned, the britain from above website might be worth a look, a repository for historic aerial photos going back to the 1920s.

[kiwitram]

I'm just wondering how useful current google maps will be helpful to you, as the station's had two major rebuilds since your proposed dates.

I was only using the Google map just to affirm the main dimensions of the station overall, between the two road bridges and from Devonshire Road/Cornwallis Terrace up to the row of houses above the station building; this was (eventually!) found and I did have some photos from 'Britain from above' already, and a couple of old maps from online (possibly from the same site you've used, Scotsman, I can't recall) but they weren't terribly clear: these two links are far easier to see, thank you.

The two other photos are from Hastings' historical society, but are a tad basic in detail.

[TimberSurf]

OK, two points
1. Printing to a scale is very difficult due to printers actually shrinking images to fit the unprintable edges, only fixable if you print very small, have a photo printer (can print to edge) or a plotter that you can calibrate to a known scale. Printing to pdf's is even worse as its "tweaked" twice.
The up side is that most maps can be printed and have a "Scale bar" in one corner. This is accurate, but needs some maths, measure the actual bar, then work out the scale (X:Y), then measure the required item and reverse the scale for real dimension.
Second point
2. Dont bother! Do as the was intended and measure electronically!
Google has a built in scaled measuring tool.
On your computer, open Google Maps. If you're using Maps in Lite mode, you’ll see a lightning bolt at the bottom and you won't be able to measure the distance between points.
click the bar to toggle between Metric and imperial.
Right-click on your starting point.
Choose Measure distance.
Click anywhere on the map to create a path to measure. To add another point, click anywhere on the map.
Optional: Drag a point or path to move it, or click a point to remove it.
At the bottom, you’ll see the total distance in feet (ft) and meters (m).
When done: On the card at the bottom, click Close Close
Jobs a goodun!

For old maps, print and follow item 1

[flying scotsman123]

A quick look on google maps suggests the current platforms themselves are about 240m long, which comes out as about 3 metres or 10 feet in OO.

I got it to be a little bit longer for cash:

873 feet, and as we generally class our scale as 4mm to the foot that transfers up to 3493mm

hastings.jpg

Fair enough, I realised as I was about to work it out I'd packed all my rulers to go home along with all other modelling stuff, so platform lengths were measured by fingerwidth...

[kiwitram]

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for your input so far.

I've calculated the maximum space I can afford for the prospective layout without it becoming 'silly', or conversely being too small. This stands at ten foot long (305cm) and four and a half foot wide (actually 137cm; this is rounded to 140cm for ease of board-cutting). Additionally, I have printed out a copy of the 1910 map which Flying Scotsman linked me to (here is it again, just in case anyone can't find it- http://maps.nls.uk/view/103674745#zoom= ... &layers=BT) and on this map, I have colour-coded the main items, namely buildings, railway infastructure, track to keep and track which will be omitted:

I've also calculated that at the most my trains will be no longer than 110cm (this does include locomotives) which, given the station is on a curve, should make for an even easier compression. It's been pointed out to me before that 'platforms are often longer than the length of a train', and I appreciate the truth in that but I'm not sure how far I could apply this to Hastings, especially given it was a terminus station on the Brighton side. On the other hand, this could make things easier as I could *technically* try to fit two trains per track per platform, if this makes sense?

I'll put it this way: train a is the autotrain for Eastbourne and train b is a stopping service to Robertsbridge for the KESR are both on the same stretch of track on the lower platform. The Eastbourne service would depart first, with the Robertsbridge following shortly after; both are very short train compositions, most likely a Terrier (how cliche) or a D1 and a P, each with a short bogie coach and maybe a closed van, but for the purposes of this hypothesis, we'll discount that:

A Terrier with two Brighton 54' bogies comes in at 33cm (32 cm tight but I've allowed 1cm for coupling slack), and a P with a 48' Brighton bogie comes in at 30cm (29cm but again allowing for coupling slack); the two together with a distance of around 2cm (a scale five feet) would still leave plenty of space for a van on either train: the space both trains occupy, even with the gap, is only 64cm thus far.

I hope this exercise made sense, and illustrated my point. I'll get on with trying to calculate my compression now!

Many thanks,

Alex

[mumbles]

To my eye that looks a reasonable working of the track plan that will keep the overall feel and workings of the station.

[stuartp]

The key to selective compression is identifying the bits you can't compress, and basically fudging everything else fit. You can compress at different rates across the model, and you can miss out non-signature features without a lot of people noticing (you've already knocked out some sidings and loops for example). Concentrate on the relationship of key structures to each other as there are some things which just won't scale whereas others can be shortened, squished (as Nick suggests) or bent through 90 degrees to get round the corner of the spare room. For example, one signature feature on Hastings appears to be that wedge-shaped platform so you need that, but it needn't be as acute as the original and the platforms needn't be as wide. Buildings are often hard to compress but they generally have space around them which can be nibbled away without it being too obvious. If you take part of your plan, and set it out on your lounge carpet with bits of flexitrack, wagons and paper templates for the buildings you'll soon see how sprawling they were in real life and how much you can lose almost without noticing it. (It's more fun than Templot or Anyrail too !).

This is Newton Stewart as drawn by the OS:

The key to the whole plan is in the red circle - the relationship of platform building, footbridge, island platform end and the extention of the bridge over the goods yard throat. That bit has to be right or the rest just won't work - the bridge and adjacent building set the datum from which everything else is fudged. Over in the goods yard the blue circle was just dead ground so can be squashed up, whereas the green circle has to still give the appearance of being wide enough to let a horse and cart turn outside the shed so will be compressed less. The right hand station throat can be bent downwards and actually works quite well using Peco curved points, which means the whole fits neatly into the corner of the garage (blue lines).

The other limiting factor is platform lengths - the island platform has to accommodate 5x Mk1s which is the longest set required to use that platform and run round, the real platform held 6 I think. Most other trains are 2-4 coaches which fit easily, the longest timetabled trains were the overnight boat trains which regularly loaded up to 14 vehicles but they didn't fit in the real platforms so I'm not worried that my 9 coach version won't !

The plan you've come up with seems an excellent compomise, the only alteration to that I would have considered would be to try to keep one of the goods loops (?) in front of the engine shed somehow, but that's only because I like seeing goods trains standing in loops waiting their turn !

[Mountain]

That is excellent advice in suggesting to concentrate on the aspects you can't compress and work from there.

[flying scotsman123]

It's not always necessary to have every siding connected either. On my plan there's one siding that's quite prominent but doesn't connect to the mainline until well off scene, so it's just not connected. It'll either have some siding queens parked on it or I might wire it up for my DCC programming track.

[kiwitram]

Hello again everyone,

I've been researching the rail side equipment of Hastings, and it seems the turntable was 45', with the turntable at St Leonards being 50' until around 1935.

Now, I've looked at all the 'usual' manufacturers of kits (Dapol, Peco and a metal kit company) and virtually all of their kits are oversize, or out of my price range, unfortunately. Obviously a turntable is quite an important piece of a station and MPD, and so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas of where I might be able to find a suitable turntable kit, or RTR?

Alternatively, I was thinking about trying to find a 50' turntable- I imagine they're easier to find than the smaller size- and adapting the history slightly, making out that the turntable had been enlarged a little prior to its full extension in the thirties.

- Alex

[Ex-Pat]

This is a 50ft turntable in its basic form:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=50348

or is it the one you've dismissed as being too expensive?

[kiwitram]

This is a 50ft turntable in its basic form:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=50348

or is it the one you've dismissed as being too expensive?

Yes, that's the one. I suppose at a second glance £69 isn't *too* expensive, although it would be something I'd have to save toward, and even then it would still be anachronistic. But, if it's the one closest to prototype and would make sense in some logic or another, then I can't argue.

- Alex

[Ex-Pat]

I know you don't want to hear this but if you were to go for the kit, although you could dispense with the motorising kit, I would seriously advise you to get the Installation Module as well (£45.95).