Leek station- an O Gauge project

For a long while I've harboured a desire to build a detailed model of my home town railway station of Leek, the issue was the building was demolished nearly fifty years ago and no structural references of the stones actually still exist... that was until a small team of us pedantic researchers discovered a few little know elements still exist. all we had were photos to work from until it was found that some of the stonework had been incorporated into a self-build home and even more amazingly copies of several original estate plans relating to the North Staffordshire Railway extensions alterations and modifications were made available from an hitherto unknown private collection in the South of England. A visit to the self build to examine the stones and photograph them for texture reference and the long process of redrawing the plans to create a working drawing in 7mm scale began... at last we were in business as the estate plans represented proof beyond all expectations that it was possible we could model an exact size replication with only very minimal artistic license in Super Real detail. The model is to be constructed from laminations of architectural plasticard sheet and the intricate door and window mouldings will be 3D printed from some meticulous design craftsmanship by Andy Sollis but I'll let him add his own story here. Also a big thank you to Fruit when we sent him off to various obscure locations with a tape measure to get facts and for wandering around Morrison's supermarket car park looking completely lost whilst counting brick courses on the A52 road over railway bridge in order to gain some sort of a perspective for the model.

Anyway I started by drawing the elevation plans for the Macclesfield platform waiting shelter, here is the end elevation showing the cantilever canopy overhang.




So the project has now become "live" at last and progress has reached a point where we now have something tangible to report on, this diorama will take a long time to make but a start has now been made.

Construction began making the buildings shell from sheets of 1.5 mm thickness Plasticard forming the basic carcass which will take the printed doors and windows wheere initial cut outs have already been made. This measures eight and a half inches wide by sixteen inches in length.









The next part of the station I turned attention to was the Parcels Office and Booking Hall where a floor plan was drawn and this will allow me to measure and cut the various wall elevations. We think the best way is to cut the different wall sections out first marking them for the doors and windows then once fitted the various wall can be glued together and the stone coursing decor detail of each building can be added in as an overlay. other elements of the station will be the drawing up of the main waiting rooms and staff room, then the toilet areas with the glass atrium entrance awning and platform canopies. The water tower and the main road bridge along with the milk dock and horse landing will be added as features of this scene.




That's all for now until the next development happens.

Here is the drawing so far

 

As we can see the cast iron water tank segments the actual design shape are not something which ordinarily is noticed but get it wrong and the whole structure looks wrong, thankfully we are very lucky because as a teenage self I took pictures of the water tank way back when in 1971 /2 before demolition. Another super find was aquiring a digital copy of an original NSR water tank build plan in watercolour on linen, this particular tank was located on the Biddulph Valley Line at Knipersley, the route of the line was from Milton Junction to Congleton Brunswick Street Wharf with a back spur connection to the Macclesfield - Stoke main line at Congleton Upper Junction. Ok so its not Leek but when I studied this document looking particularly in the method of underpinning and supporting the tank base to the walls the hitherto forgotten memory of how the Leek tank was suddenly came flooding back, now we can build an exact replication of the Leek water tank as it was because we have certain crucial measurements.

 

I think it was well worth all the interrogation to get the shape as near to true as we possibly can given the time and effort involved, the final version of stone decor moulding around windows and doors is as close as we will ever be. Lets be honest when this model eventually goes to show who is ever going to know... we will have created a Super Real object which captures the spirit and essence of the real thing, that has to be correct for historical accuracy.

 

Chaps that last view is looking south towards Alton Towers, Uttoxeter and Derby... the goods warehouse was a listed building ... i think in this very sad shot the only thing it is listing is to one side and total collapse. Apparently the warehouse alone without the 1880 office and the later beer landing was over 57 metres in length and 18 metres wide.

 

Yes Keith it is called London Mill... not to mention all the other textile mills braid, yarn, silk and dye works in the town, Brittains Paper and Pulp at Cheddleton even though some of their traffic was handled at Cheddleton, there was also all the beer traffic hence the beer landing, the horse and cattle traffic, the coal traffic to the gas works, all the perishable produce and the sugar beet for cattle and corn consigned as Paul's Poultry Foods. Not to mention Market day traffic and sundries along with general cross town cartage and all the newspaper traffic.

 

The square looking building to the right with the three metal brackets in the roof is the old parcel office and behind it out of view was the booking hall and clerks office, the three metal brackets carried the long wooden sign which Andy made saying LEEK PASSENGER STATION. The longer building behind the parcels office consisted of the general waiting room, the WH Smith bookstall and ladies room with lavatory, this was the part of the station which in 1912 as part of a expansion and modernisation program was totally rebuilt some fourteen feet back from the platform, notice the clean stonework below where the roof gully line becomes lower, this was because there once stood a beautiful cast column and glass roofed atrium entrance area which protected passengers from the harsh elements of Staffordshire weather. In the back ground can been seen the headshunts which were used as horse landings and cattle dock with a milk churn bay behind the building and obscured out of sight in the picture.