Author

Webmaster

Date

10th April 2020

Reading Time

2 minutes

This S scale cabin was started some while ago but ground to a halt due to delivery (!) issues of the ‘crittall’ windows.  However this has now been resolved using my ‘silhoutte’ cutter. The windows were redrawn on its dedicated drawing program and cut from thin self-adhesive black vinyl.  You might even note the work done just before the weekend, ie plumbing for the kitchenette sink and bog.  The interior will be detailed and the WC pan is on back-order with one of Wilson Works (however it seems there might be a delay due to the resin supplies being used on rather more important products). The pipe brackets are from Wills, but the SVP is garden wire  with insulation and the ‘lead’ sink wate pipe ditto but stripped of its insulation. Sorry – iron, not prototypical lead! The upper part of the SVP has wall fixing brackets ready and waiting for when the cabin is finally fixed to the retaining wall recess. Other parts of the interior in place are the glazed bricks (green and white) as described in the Railway Mag for the early 1920s Baker Street signal cabin, which is of course the inspiration of this model. You might be interested in the material used for the box. A bit like foam board but much tougher – the core is very hard balsa wood (4d Models).  Before using it I had couple of sheets in stock for a couple of years and there was no suggestion of warping. To indicate how tough the core is, following consultation with a late employee of the Westinghouse Brake & Signal Co (Ian Pusey) I had to replicate the access door on the building front at Baker St which involved making a recess in the building front. The sharpest chisel found it a bit uphill, so I set up my new Myford S7 – Unimat SL combination of vertical  mill, as the mill at Keen House is not accessible.  This was in fact the first serious exercise for this set-up & was 100% successful. Just as well as I did not want to damage what was already made & the stucco painted!

As an aside, I very recently found a ‘new’ picture of the Baker St cabin – attached.

This is a photo taken by Alan Cruickshank in 1932 and is the only photo found of this period when cables had started to adorn the outside walls. The huge boxes in front are a bit of a mystery – possibly conductor rail isolators.  If anyone has an idea I would be delighted to hear from them.

Leslie