GE in Town and Country (1): Bow Locks

Introduction
Waterway enthusiasts will know that Bow Locks divides the Lea Navigation from the tidal River Lea near to Bromley by Bow station in East London.  Railway enthusiasts should know there is no real Bow Locks station!
But Bow Locks does exist as a 4mm OO gauge station in my 14’ x 8’ garden den. It is a wall hugging continuous run layout sitting above a second layout (Great Easton) described elsewhere in this Showcase.  Given that the GER served both City areas and country areas, then only way I felt I could tackle both was to produce two layouts.Try as many modellers might, I cannot concoct a plausible alternative history for Bow Locks to have a GER station – especially one with a four track line and a platform awing style used mainly on the Edmonton line. But most readers will understand that a service advertising strap line of “Bow Locks to the City” is a bit of fun, if said quickly, and places the model firmly in the Essex side of London.
This layout is my excuse to model elements of the London area GE scene. Inspiration for the various elements is drawn from my local line to Enfield Town mixed with the Woolwich branch to Docklands. The pictures and captions that follow will explain further.
We can now take a journey along the layout from left to right as a visitor would see it.

The Way In
To view or operate Bow Locks requires entry via a "duck under" at the doorway. The layout is pitched at 4' above the floor, so its relatively easy for all ages. At this point I have turned the layout inside out so a short section can be viewed from the outside as a stand alone cameo. Trains rush past much to the delight of the Children - Grand or grown up alike. In this shot a D16/3 (Little Engines/Portescap) hurries by with some Ex GER 50 footers (D&S). The tail end of a Quint can be seen heading for the station.


Enter Stage Left
Grimy N7 (Wills/Mashima) and Quint (Kirk) come off the single line to enter Bow Locks station.

An East End Background

This Hoxton Press book contains prints of colour slides of the East End taken mainly in the 70's. This was the London I knew as a student. Online pictures from the book are "collaged” using Powerpoint to create backscenes around the layout as seen in the background here.

Eastern Region Suburbia
Another N7 (Oxford Models) hauled set stops to pick up passengers. I took a square on picture of  prototype canopy valancing at Bruce Grove, inserted it into PowerPoint, scaled it then over-drew the elevation using the PowerPoint drawing facility. This was sent to my friend in Cyprus who laser cut it from plastic. No colour has been applied as the cut marks did the weathering job for me.


Four Tracks
The stretch between Bethnal Green and Hackney Downs is of four tracks. The fast lines bypass the stations at Cambridge heath and London Fields. I have sought to reproduce this arrangement, albeit not on Viaduct. Here 70000, Britannia, (Hornby) overtakes a Lea valley DMU as it slows to a stop at Bow Locks.

General View
Farewell Class EB1
North Eastern electric loco number 11 was converted to become the Works Shunter at Ilford when the lines to Shenfield were electrified to 1500v DC just after the war. By 1960 the electrification changed to 6.25Kv and so number 11 became redundant. I remember seeing her marshalled between wagons at Goodmayes, most likely in readiness to move to Doncaster where she was scrapped in 1964. This is my take on that train. 26510 is constructed from a Judith Edge kit and is unpowered.

The Docks corner.
I could not resist this little PLA Peckett by Hornby. As this station could well have been near the River Lea tidal basin, I created a hint of a dock in the corner of the layout by using a commercial backscene and creating a dock wall inspired by that which once stood opposite Custom House station. The tail end of a home brewed Lea Valley DMU is seen passing.

3 Little Beauties
Peckett (Hornby) BEL N01 (Recreation 21) and J70 (Rapido) await their turn on docks shunting duties

Exeunt
We must not forget the extent of the GER system run by London Underground (my former employer). Here I apply “Rule number one” which is “ this is my layout, so I will run what I want!”. As far as I can discover all CL Trains were delivered from Birmingham via Ruislip and not Hainault. If any Member knows better, please get in touch via the Members Forum. Nevertheless  this Rule 1 working shows some 1959 Stock (EFE) is being delivered to Hainault. The train is passing under the right hand end scenic break formed of a Triang girder bridge which I have kept since childhood.