David continues:

The first job was to create as accurate a plan of the building as possible. In doing this it soon became obvious that more photographs would be required, and it was necessary to obtain accurate dimensions for the bricks used, and if possible an accurate sizing of one of the bays for comparative purposes.

Fortunately through the auspices of the N gauge Society Roger was able to contact a colleague who carried out a survey and took more photographs.
From these an approximate plan was drawn, from which it emerged that the building was about 330 feet in length which translates as 660mm in N gauge. There were 9 distinct blocks or sections of the building and these were labelled A-I to assist in identification as the various parts of the model were drawn and cut out. A final and accurate plan would not be possible until all the detailed elevations were created (see fig.2).

Figure 2

My father-in-law, David Cambridge became interested in the model of Hereford that I am building in N Gauge and undertook to build a card model of Barrs Court Station for the layout. I think the model is amazing. 

David did this work a few years ago. Sadly, since then, David has died.

The remainder of this post and those that follow under this heading are David’s own description of the work he did to build the model.

Barrs Court Station

This large two-storey railway station of red brick was built in 1853 for the Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway. The architect was R. E. Johnston and the building with its groups of lancet windows set in rusticated stone panels, its tall chimneys and gables, steep roofs and octagonal stone finials is listed Grade II.

Roger’s N gauge scale model of Hereford railway station and its environs required a model of Barrs Court station. He had taken a large number of photographs of the station, but been unable to trace any drawings or plan of the building except for its footprint on an OS map (see fig. 1).
I had some experience of creating models, albeit in 7mm scale, by calculating dimensions from photographs and creating designs along the lines used by Metcalfe card model buildings. This was relatively straightforward using the MSPaint accessory in Microsoft Windows.

While I wanted the model to be as detailed as I could make it I soon realised that in this small scale certain compromises would be necessary. As regards the brick-work it would not be feasible to create separate bricks in relief, so I decided to draw the elevations in as large a pixel scale in MSPaint as was practicable and to draw in individual bricks.

I settled on a scale of 600 pixels per inch and a table was drawn up listing the number of pixels required for inches and feet in 2mm scale. This ensured dimensional accuracy when printing the designs for the various parts of the model.  The table is reproduced below.

Fig. 1

Paint template for HEREFORD station @ 300 x 300 dpi

Prototype dim.      Dim @ 2mm scale                       Pixel equivalent

                                                                    400dpi             300dpi            600dpi

½ inch                         0.08 mm                      1                      1                      2

1 inch                          0.17 mm                      3                      2                      4

2 inches                       0.33 mm                      5                      4                      8

3 inches                       0.5   mm                      8                      6                      12

4 inches                       0.67 mm                      10                    8                      16

5 inches                       0.83 mm                      13                    10                    20

6 inches                       1.0   mm                      15                    12                    24

7 inches                       1.17 mm                      18                    13                    26

8 inches                       1.33 mm                      20                    15                    30

9 inches                       1.5   mm                      23                    17                    34

10 inches                     1.67 mm                      26                    19                    38

11 inches                     1.83 mm                      28                    21                    42

1 foot                          2.0   mm                      31                    23                     46

2 feet                           4.0   mm                      62                    47                    94

3 feet                           6.0   mm                      93                    70                    140

4 feet                           8.0   mm                      124                  94                    188

5 feet                           10.0 mm                      155                  118                  236

6 feet                           12.0 mm                      186                  141                  282

7 feet                           14.0 mm                      217                  165                  330

8 feet                           16.0 mm                      248                  188                  376

9 feet                           18.0 mm                      279                  212                  424

10 feet                         20.0 mm                      310                  236                  472

11 feet                         22.0 mm                      341                  259                  519

12 feet                         24.0 mm                      372                  283                  566

Two Photographs of the signalbox in position on the layout. 

Another card model is the footbridge that spans the tracks at Barrs Court Station, made using layers of card to build up the different steel and timber frames which made up the footbridge as shown in this photo by D. J. Norton (see http://www.photobydjnorton.com/Stations/Hereford.html).

The footbridge took absolutely ages to make. It was drawn on the computer using ‘Paint’ as a series of layers which were then printed onto card and carefully cut out before building the layers up using PVA glue. The last photo shows the footbridge in position on the layout.

I have used card to model a number of buildings at Barrs Court Station in Hereford. One of these is the signalbox which used to be on the platform there.

The above image comes from the site:

http://chasewaterstuff.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/some-early-lines-railways-around-titley/ it carries the following heading and attribution: 1420 at Titley Junction after a trip up the Presteigne branch in August 1964.  B.J.Ashworth.

Here are some further sites of interest if you want to find out more about railways in Herefordshire:

http://www.photobydjnorton.com

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/location.php?photographer=&loc=Worcester%20and%20Hereford%20Railway&offset=0

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/location.php?loc=Hereford

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/groups/hereford

http://www.miac.org.uk/herefordline.html

http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/SO5140 other grid references may provide other photos.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=photos+of+hereford+railways&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=XP-7Us7PEcarhAepuIDIAQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoATge&biw=1280&bih=916

The internet has been a tremendous boon in undertaking research on Hereford. There are many sites which provide historical details and photographs: facebook pages, blogs, flickr, local government sites, britain from the air, etc.

You can find some of these in my post on Herefordshire’s Railways:

https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2013/12/25/herefordshire-railways/

In addition, it is worth getting a flavour of the area you intend to model and sites about community life in the area are helpful, particularly when they contain photos and cover the historic period that you are interested in. See, for example:

http://oldherefordpics.blogspot.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Old-Hereford-Pics/42752762059

https://www.facebook.com/OldHerefordRailwayPhotographs

Hereford lies only 15 miles or so from my wife’s parent’s home in Leominster. Over the years I have tried to pick up as many background photos of Hereford as I can. A small selection are reproduced below. Most of my photos have been uploaded onto flickr and can be found by following this link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/91981218@N02/sets/72157639013230415/

In order to get a really good impression of the station at Hereford, I visited a few times and also managed to get others to take some photos for me. The station building is listed and is a significant, unique and easily recognised structure. I enlisted some help in making the building, but more of that another time. I must have upwards of 200 different photos of the station building at Barrs Court!

A number of period photos were of real help. A variety of different photographers have loaded their shots onto flickr – a search for photos on the internet also proved to be quite productive!

I’ve produced a few of the many photos I have, below.

This next set of photos shows progress after a further year. One control panel (for one of the fiddleyards) has been completed and the wiring is also complete. The second control panel, which controls the station area, is being wired up. About 30℅ of the trackwork is in place. The track is predominantly Code 80, as in some places I have had to use 9″ radius curves and points. Points are a mixture of electrofrog and insulfrog. Virtually all points on the layout will be controlled by wire in tube.