What amazes me when you look closely in to these old station building plans is the amount of care and attention to detail that went into each one. Which makes it so tragic that so many were just bulldozed.
Firstly another fantastic video. So I live a couple of miles from the guys doing the renovation and it’s certainly awesome to see the work they are doing. I’ve quite a collection of books on the local railways as I’m a keen n-gauge modeller focusing mainly on south wales Industry, I’ve really not been able to find any documentation about the stations within my collection. However might I suggest ‘if you haven’t done already’ looking at Barry island station as it’s of very similar layout. I might take a trip down myself very soon and gather images/videos I would happily forward them to you.
The Station BUilding in question was built by the Barry Railway. You could check with the Wales Archives to see if any Barry Railway building plans where.
My thoughts about the semi-octagonal shape in one of the drawings…booking office with counter, two windows with a central stand for tickets which could be accessed by either booking clerk…basically a closed off area which passengers can approach, buy tickets and move off to the waiting rooms or platform. There doesn’t appear to be a platform access to the area, however it could be a simple partition construction with door to the waiting room.
I have a suspicion that the Gent's Waiting Room is for Gentlemen only. The riff-raff would wait on the platform... or general waiting room if there was one. Gent's WC might be split - a private privy for the Gentlemen, and exterior access to a separate room for the peasants. What you have as the Station Masters office probably only has an exterior door to the platform, but none to the entrance hall - maybe an extra door to the ticket office. From my memories, by the 1960's the Gentlemen's Waiting Rooms were being phased out in favor of General Waiting Rooms, and the Ladies were retained for purpose until much later 1980's(?)
Hi Julian. The amount of research that you do for all of your buildings on the layout is impressive. It's no wonder why such projects are never finished!. I agree with Dunk057 with regards to the semi-octagon, but my thoughts differ slightly. The station itself appears to be quite big and, therefore, maybe a main or suburban station rather than rural. In which case, it might possibly have had two counters, one on either of the octagon. From what I can make out on my small screen, there appears to be the outline of a desk sculptured at both ends so that one would work on the right and the other on the left with both sharing the central and larger part of the desk. It is truly fascinating and inspirational to follow your channel.
Some stations such as Bicester north has a gents toilet which is only accessible from outside. You would normally group the ladies and toilets together to make plumbing easier. The video was interesting as you can see from the painted architraves in the roof show where the station master w outdoor have lived. There is a staircase on the plan you first showed. Station staff used to live at or near the station I have been in several very old stations as part of my job and you often find staff quarters provided places such as Crewe station have extensive facilities. If the owners can provide some long distance shots of all sides given you know the wall height should enable you to calculate roof heights
another great update . I have been on quite a few trains in the UK and around East Midlands most of the stations are either Big or tiny like the one at Long Eaton it was very basic . Regards Greg
8:20 There appear to be stairs to the right of the living room just as you would enter a small foyer at the 'north' wall of the building. A pantry is located 'south' of the stairs. This would infer there is a second floor and possibly bedrooms. Living quarters for the station master would not be unusual.
Great bit of research, I am from the North of England and have visited a lot of stations ex Great Central LMS and Midland and most had a central passenger entrance with a single ticket window and door on one side and two rooms on the other side Station Master and Storage or waiting room.
Hi Jules! I suspect the octagonal arrangement was a multi-window ticket office to maximise the light and space through the main part of the building 🤔 As for the purpose of each room, I reckon your guesstimations are fairly accurate, so as long as you get all the rooms you want, I reckon you’ll do fine 👍 Just a wee idea I had about the station entrance: I reckon you have a couple of options, one would be to have a raised road area but with a one-way system in place to enable you to minimise the road width, plus you could maybe include a couple of bays for buses and taxis. Then just have the road dropping away, with the pedestrian walkway lower at shop level with a railing protecting them from the road (hope that makes sense), which I have seen at stations before where the street has predated the station but station access was key: another would be to again keep the road single and have a broader stair arrangement up to the front doors, again leading down to bus bays and taxi ranks with the Roda staying at shop level: or three, lift the buildings and just try adding a new substrate that slopes down to the bridge. I still think the single file road is a winner as it was around this time that such things were introduced where space was tight in order to discourage traffic away from the busy station area 😎
Hello again, Julian. It wasn't until the end of the video that I was aware of where the station was located. I have no plans or photographs of it, but views of it must be buried down deep in my memory because I used to travel from Worcester station to Barry Island to visit my uncle and aunty. Of course, my most vivid memories of that trip were going past Barry scrap yard and seeing all of the fallen giants. Thanks be to the people of heritage railways and likes of Laura and Gil for saving our history. I think that I would have liked to have made an old station into a family home, complete with some track and a stationary coach or wagon to house my model railway. Are they thinking of doing the same?
The plan your looking at at around @9:36 the urinals would be outside without a roof where as the sit down toilets would be covered. Been thinking a lot about Laura and Gils station and think I've pretty much figured out it's original layout. Also helps to know the station they renovating is heavily in GWR south Wales region. The GWR technically was the longest operating railway company before official grouping in 1923 and still was technically intact through the br era as the western region
9.20 going by NSWGR station layouts, which followed 19th Century UK practise, its not uncommon for access to the gents being off the platform only, you may find something similiar on older stations in NZ too
Hi, thanks for the video. Just a suggestion, but have you looked at the site of Tony North Eastern. He builds stations from scratch. His best to date is his South Shields Station which he build room by room. It might give you some ideas for your research. Hope you don't mind me mentioning it. All the best with your research and build.
Love a mystery. Think I know what station it is. I have some links I found, you may already have them. If you can tell me where I can send them I'll get them to you. Loved the video content, not boring or nerdy at all. 😊
Hi Julian. Have you tried contacting the National Railway Museum at York? They have a comprehensive archive/records centre which may offer you some further material.
Fascinating stuff Julian. Not sure if all your hard work replicating the interior will be worth the effort with the sizes of the glass panes, but I’m sure in close up it will look amazing.
Depending on the date of construction, it’s not uncommon for ablutions blocks to be built later. I’m doing a similar project on the Mildenhall Branch (eastern, north of Cambridge) and the toilet block was an extension on the right, with the station masters house to the left. The rest all looks plausible
Kept getting error messages trying to post a comment yesterday, and it looks like this didn't post after all: the National Archives at Kew have the records of the Barry Railway Company under the reference RAIL 23 and Rail 23/62 looks particularly interesting: "Main Line station designs" - not available online, so you'd need to find someone who pop along and check the plans and photograph them if they are useful. You could request that they're digitised, but you'd have to pay for that.
I would think that the outside access for the gents toilets and Urinals would be pritty obvious, Urinals are always smelly places, and keeping the entrance away from the waiting rooms would keep the waiting rooms a .ore plesent plact to be in.
A different class of urinal for the general public and the station staff. The waiting rooms were for first class passengers. In your smaller footprint room usage would be combined so the staff only spaces - ticket office/parcel office and porter/lamp room. The station masters house would be included in the range of the station building or across the road or very close by. Along with a Railway Terrace, !! were the porters, shunter, permanent way gang, guard and driver/fireman might live. Only the 'Station Road' and 'Railway Terrace', survive to guide you to a disused railway station site.
Hi Julian. I'm guessing, the gentlemen's urinals were separated from waiting etc rooms and accessed via external doors due to the smell from open urinals. I'm guessing things like sewage design was not as 'advanced' compared to today's standards. Many earlier stations were built using gas and coal as the primary means of fuel/energy. So, I'm guessing, things like electrical extractor etc fans would not have been invented, thus, perhaps, fumes could only dispersed by means of natural air flow.
What year are you modelling ? I have access to to ordnance survey maps and the often have historical maps where they exist if you can let me know the postcode or full address of the station I can search for you to see what I can find it will only provide plan dats but the overall shape should give a clue
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What amazes me when you look closely in to these old station building plans is the amount of care and attention to detail that went into each one. Which makes it so tragic that so many were just bulldozed.
Firstly another fantastic video. So I live a couple of miles from the guys doing the renovation and it’s certainly awesome to see the work they are doing. I’ve quite a collection of books on the local railways as I’m a keen n-gauge modeller focusing mainly on south wales Industry, I’ve really not been able to find any documentation about the stations within my collection. However might I suggest ‘if you haven’t done already’ looking at Barry island station as it’s of very similar layout. I might take a trip down myself very soon and gather images/videos I would happily forward them to you.
Great investigation Julian! The perfect amount of nitty gritty and nerdiness! :) All the best, Ian.
The Station BUilding in question was built by the Barry Railway. You could check with the Wales Archives to see if any Barry Railway building plans where.
My thoughts about the semi-octagonal shape in one of the drawings…booking office with counter, two windows with a central stand for tickets which could be accessed by either booking clerk…basically a closed off area which passengers can approach, buy tickets and move off to the waiting rooms or platform. There doesn’t appear to be a platform access to the area, however it could be a simple partition construction with door to the waiting room.
I have a suspicion that the Gent's Waiting Room is for Gentlemen only. The riff-raff would wait on the platform... or general waiting room if there was one.
Gent's WC might be split - a private privy for the Gentlemen, and exterior access to a separate room for the peasants.
What you have as the Station Masters office probably only has an exterior door to the platform, but none to the entrance hall - maybe an extra door to the ticket office.
From my memories, by the 1960's the Gentlemen's Waiting Rooms were being phased out in favor of General Waiting Rooms, and the Ladies were retained for purpose until much later 1980's(?)
Hi Julian. The amount of research that you do for all of your buildings on the layout is impressive. It's no wonder why such projects are never finished!. I agree with Dunk057 with regards to the semi-octagon, but my thoughts differ slightly. The station itself appears to be quite big and, therefore, maybe a main or suburban station rather than rural. In which case, it might possibly have had two counters, one on either of the octagon. From what I can make out on my small screen, there appears to be the outline of a desk sculptured at both ends so that one would work on the right and the other on the left with both sharing the central and larger part of the desk. It is truly fascinating and inspirational to follow your channel.
Some stations such as Bicester north has a gents toilet which is only accessible from outside. You would normally group the ladies and toilets together to make plumbing easier. The video was interesting as you can see from the painted architraves in the roof show where the station master w outdoor have lived. There is a staircase on the plan you first showed. Station staff used to live at or near the station I have been in several very old stations as part of my job and you often find staff quarters provided places such as Crewe station have extensive facilities. If the owners can provide some long distance shots of all sides given you know the wall height should enable you to calculate roof heights
another great update . I have been on quite a few trains in the UK and around East Midlands most of the stations are either Big or tiny like the one at Long Eaton it was very basic . Regards Greg
8:20 There appear to be stairs to the right of the living room just as you would enter a small foyer at the 'north' wall of the building. A pantry is located 'south' of the stairs. This would infer there is a second floor and possibly bedrooms. Living quarters for the station master would not be unusual.
Great bit of research, I am from the North of England and have visited a lot of stations ex Great Central LMS and Midland and most had a central passenger entrance with a single ticket window and door on one side and two rooms on the other side Station Master and Storage or waiting room.
Hi Jules! I suspect the octagonal arrangement was a multi-window ticket office to maximise the light and space through the main part of the building 🤔 As for the purpose of each room, I reckon your guesstimations are fairly accurate, so as long as you get all the rooms you want, I reckon you’ll do fine 👍
Just a wee idea I had about the station entrance: I reckon you have a couple of options, one would be to have a raised road area but with a one-way system in place to enable you to minimise the road width, plus you could maybe include a couple of bays for buses and taxis. Then just have the road dropping away, with the pedestrian walkway lower at shop level with a railing protecting them from the road (hope that makes sense), which I have seen at stations before where the street has predated the station but station access was key: another would be to again keep the road single and have a broader stair arrangement up to the front doors, again leading down to bus bays and taxi ranks with the Roda staying at shop level: or three, lift the buildings and just try adding a new substrate that slopes down to the bridge. I still think the single file road is a winner as it was around this time that such things were introduced where space was tight in order to discourage traffic away from the busy station area 😎
Hello again, Julian. It wasn't until the end of the video that I was aware of where the station was located. I have no plans or photographs of it, but views of it must be buried down deep in my memory because I used to travel from Worcester station to Barry Island to visit my uncle and aunty. Of course, my most vivid memories of that trip were going past Barry scrap yard and seeing all of the fallen giants. Thanks be to the people of heritage railways and likes of Laura and Gil for saving our history. I think that I would have liked to have made an old station into a family home, complete with some track and a stationary coach or wagon to house my model railway. Are they thinking of doing the same?
The plan your looking at at around @9:36 the urinals would be outside without a roof where as the sit down toilets would be covered. Been thinking a lot about Laura and Gils station and think I've pretty much figured out it's original layout. Also helps to know the station they renovating is heavily in GWR south Wales region. The GWR technically was the longest operating railway company before official grouping in 1923 and still was technically intact through the br era as the western region
Another great update Julian!!! Again many thaks for sharing! Cheers Onno.
Really interesting Julian and inspiring too. I need to build a station for my new layout soon. Thanks
9.20 going by NSWGR station layouts, which followed 19th Century UK practise, its not uncommon for access to the gents being off the platform only, you may find something similiar on older stations in NZ too
Hi, thanks for the video. Just a suggestion, but have you looked at the site of Tony North Eastern. He builds stations from scratch. His best to date is his South Shields Station which he build room by room. It might give you some ideas for your research. Hope you don't mind me mentioning it. All the best with your research and build.
Love a mystery. Think I know what station it is. I have some links I found, you may already have them. If you can tell me where I can send them I'll get them to you.
Loved the video content, not boring or nerdy at all. 😊
Hi Julian. Have you tried contacting the National Railway Museum at York? They have a comprehensive archive/records centre which may offer you some further material.
Loved your video, can't wait for nest one. Mike of Bristol UK
Is there anything in MIddleton Press' "Branch Lines around Barry"?
Fascinating stuff Julian. Not sure if all your hard work replicating the interior will be worth the effort with the sizes of the glass panes, but I’m sure in close up it will look amazing.
Yeah I found it of interest. It's funny how different railway companies built their stations.
great vid on the channel thanks lee
Depending on the date of construction, it’s not uncommon for ablutions blocks to be built later.
I’m doing a similar project on the Mildenhall Branch (eastern, north of Cambridge) and the toilet block was an extension on the right, with the station masters house to the left.
The rest all looks plausible
Kept getting error messages trying to post a comment yesterday, and it looks like this didn't post after all: the National Archives at Kew have the records of the Barry Railway Company under the reference RAIL 23 and Rail 23/62 looks particularly interesting: "Main Line station designs" - not available online, so you'd need to find someone who pop along and check the plans and photograph them if they are useful. You could request that they're digitised, but you'd have to pay for that.
Have you seen Hadlow Road Willaston on the wirral England. This is a renovated property.
I would think that the outside access for the gents toilets and Urinals would be pritty obvious, Urinals are always smelly places, and keeping the entrance away from the waiting rooms would keep the waiting rooms a .ore plesent plact to be in.
Always remember back in the day Gentlemen were not the same as the common working man, hence the different arrangements.
A different class of urinal for the general public and the station staff. The waiting rooms were for first class passengers.
In your smaller footprint room usage would be combined so the staff only spaces - ticket office/parcel office and porter/lamp room.
The station masters house would be included in the range of the station building or across the road or very close by. Along with a Railway Terrace, !! were the porters, shunter, permanent way gang, guard and driver/fireman might live.
Only the 'Station Road' and 'Railway Terrace', survive to guide you to a disused railway station site.
Hi Julian. I'm guessing, the gentlemen's urinals were separated from waiting etc rooms and accessed via external doors due to the smell from open urinals. I'm guessing things like sewage design was not as 'advanced' compared to today's standards. Many earlier stations were built using gas and coal as the primary means of fuel/energy. So, I'm guessing, things like electrical extractor etc fans would not have been invented, thus, perhaps, fumes could only dispersed by means of natural air flow.
What year are you modelling ? I have access to to ordnance survey maps and the often have historical maps where they exist if you can let me know the postcode or full address of the station I can search for you to see what I can find it will only provide plan dats but the overall shape should give a clue
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You mention the Barry line I already have a couple of plans of part of the line if you can send me your email address I will forward on