Another one for the signalling afficiandos, and the index, including the puzzling signal and sign arrangement at Kings Cross. Go to London, Kings Cross, for the photos, amongst many others.

http://www.roscalen.com/signals/MoretonInMarsh/index.htm

That's a great find Mojo.

It seems that there is also a bracket semaphore signal near the Gasworks Tunnel amongst the sea of colour lights!

That's a really good one mojo with many ideas for modellers, track layouts, station details etc as well as signalling. A good find.

looking at these pictures you notice something you do not see on most layouts, clutter. if you take away the station and the buildings you are left with boxes, steel, cabling, signage, cranks, pulleys and all sorts of other junk. great pictures. more mess and clutter the better.

Trouble is, Matt, I find junk difficult to scale, something like colour in 4mm vs the real thing. I've been struggling with this for the last couple of weeks on my layout. Each signal needs relay boxes, as do points, complete with cable trunking. Speed signs, general junk, all the additional items manufactured for detailing layouts which I struggle to remember seeing in real life. I want to squeeze it all in but know instinctively that it will be too much. I find it difficult to scale down when I see a large part of my layout in one glance as opposed to the view I get when looking at the real thing. That's why I tend to stick things down with plasticine so that I can move them around more easily to get a better balance. Sometimes less is more but getting the balance right to avoid clutter I am finding is not that easy. Usually a digital photo shows me when things are getting overcrowded. It goes back to the idea of how do you model empty space? How do you get the balance?

Actually Mojo, you raise an interesting point there.

I've seen a few exhibition layouts that have been immaculately presented. Fencing along every yard of the mainline, telegraph poles everywhere (all strung), signals, point rodding, lineside signs and warnings and a huge amount of realistic clutter. No detail has been left unmodelled. The result :question Total unmitigated disaster :exclam:exclam

The layout done like this invarably look like the contents of my odds-and-ends box has been scattered around the layout like confetti. I think you have put your finger on the reason for this when you mention the difference in scale feet as opposed to real feet that the eye sees. If you can see 3 telegraph poles in real life when looking down a straight stretch of line, you bet it will be 10 or more when you look at a model of the same situation. When you multiply this by the number of items that are simularly affected, you see a huge amount of extra bits and pieces at once on a model than on a real railway. The result is just as wrong as if you saw 10 0r 15 telegraph poles alongside 100 yards of real track.

How do you get a balance? Now that's partly down to the skill of a modeller. Experience counts, but trust your eye as to what looks right. I like the idea of placing items with blue tac or plasticine for a while and getting the feel of the scene and moving them around for a while before finally deciding.

One thing is certain, you can't model everything you see on the prototype at the correct scale distance apart, so space things out a bit. We rarely see lots of detail more than 25 yards away, so sometimes when modelling over a significant distance less really is more. 

The subject of junk and clutter is a difficult one, IMHO.  Some of the great American urban layouts show great detail - litter, discarded junk, TV and phone cables, etc etc.  Sometimes it works, and looks brilliant, and then at other times it distracts from what the overall effect of the layout is trying to do:  Give the impression of a railway scene.  As Jeff says, I suppose it's all a question of balance.

Thinking further on the theme about what you see in real life I have had to travel a lot recently between Newcastle and King's Cross. When waiting for the trains I often wander around just looking at the current scene, as you do, even though it's way outside the timescale I model. At Newcastle, what do I notice besides the station building and underside of the roof, platforms, trackwork, and the movement of trains and people? Signals, primarily because they are illuminated and give notice of something about to happen, and the background of sky and/or urban buildings framing the "layout". I hear the station announcer-something I could consider trying to scale down for my layout-garbled of course, although the "This is York" BFI film used a very plummy, and clear speaking, train announcer. If I look closely at any particular point the cabling and trunking becomes apparent, rubbish between the tracks, discarded equipment, though a lot less than on open, urban lines outside of stations, it seems. Little platform clutter as parcels do not figure in the modern railway, and unattended packages could spell trouble. At King's Cross my eye is always drawn down the platform, taking in the roof detail, towards the tunnels, partly because they always inspired anticipation as to what was going to appear next. This was one layout design element I particularly wanted but couldn't replicate on Bradford Westgate because of the space considerations ie the face on view of the tunnel mouths. Movement, buildings; the track layout is less complicated than previous years but is still less clear from eye level unless a train runs across it. The dark tunnel mouths are preceeded again by the colour light signals, with a large amount of skyline above the tunnel and buildings to the side of the station area. I'm still unclear about how much to put in but think I will concentrate on some of the above elements and take it from there. I'd be interested to hear what others see/remember from their own experiences that adds to their authenticity, so that I don't end up swamping it with, as Jeff puts it, the contents of my odds-and-ends box.