Hi all,
Although it's nearly two months since my last post here I've not been entirely idle, although I'm still 'enjoying' the limitations visited upon me by disability I have been working on the design of the 'Railway Hotel', and some actual work on progressing Board 1 to a point where I can cobble that together. I then intend to get all three boards to a level of finish where I can at last contemplate track laying.
The original building at Snow Hill was completed in 1897 but only lasted as an Hotel until 1905, from 1906 it continued on primarily as offices with public restaurant and booking hall, finally being demolished in 1969/70.
However, in early 1939 plans were afoot to replace this with a new hotel, but even the mighty GWR had to accept that the strenuous efforts needed against Mr Hitler and his chums would put a bit of a dent in their scheme so it never came to fruition.
Given the nature of the original, I didn't fancy having to contrive something with all those Victorian 'crinkly bits' to contend with. Although the station buildings at platform level are from the same period as the hotel they seem eminently 'do-able', so will be attempted.
Armed with the artists impression in the book
BIRMINGHAN SNOW HILL - A First Class Return by
Derek Harrison, and a front elevation in
BRITAIN'S RAIL SUPER CENTRES - BIRMINGHAM by
Paul Collins I recognised a realistic option given my limited abilities.
The three images above (another of my 3D visualisations - to 1/296th-ish scale) have resulted from some cut-and-shut work using Microsoft Publisher tools. The frontage is taken directly from the front elevation and the rest is improvised to fit the site and my own perculiar notions of architecture!.
Now I can see what it will look like I'll produce proper drawings to work from for the real thing when the time comes.
The cutting to shape of the ply for Board1, producing eventually the 'flat-pack' pieces for assembly as I did for Boards 2 and 3.
The green lines representing the 'Up', anti-clockwise track, the red lines are the 'Down' clockwise track.
The white line encloses the area that the hotel should occupy, whilst the black encloses the location of the platform buildings.
The odd shaped board showing the curved lines will be below the shopping centre site it rests on in this image.
Another of my impressions of how things should go together, with the full size hotel frontage giving the feeling that a miniature Paddington Bear should stroll accross the scene at any moment
Solsbury Hill falls away steeply in the right background, and a removable (to allow access to the tracks below) city shopping complex will sit in the foreground.
Regards.