Some more shots of Midford taken last Wednesday, giving some idea of the progress made here in just over a year.
If I get a free hour or two this week I'll try to get some before and after shots put together for the blog, which will serve as a tribute to the work put in by the volunteers (particularly Tom and Stuart Seale) on site.
2 comments:
I think it is fair and objective to say that neither of the two previous restoration efforts at Midford got the station into the good condition it is now, which we know is mostly to the credit of just two people !
What would get the attention of moaning minnies out there in "serious railway enthusiast" circles, would be to put back details the first effort of Simon Castens installed. Here I am thinking of the quite small wooden poster board (which I have got but really is too frail for further use) and large station sign, wicket gate at foot of those steps, and maybe a few replica enamel advert signs? The station "comes to life" with these things, out of all proportion to the effort needed to make and put them in place.
Personally I would also like to see the Hope & Anchor sign gone and picket fence there as before. Does the pub pay rent for it, as its not on their property? I have explained to Steve that the legal boundary is further out than that. Its one of two blatent errors on the purported land map, drawn up I reckon by someone who never even did a site visit.
Just a point of view, other opinions are equally valid!
As always things will fall in place as they become ready - once the building/s are back then signage will be a next step. Obviously everything will be reproduction, which is fine by me! Security reasons alone would mean that valuable signage simply couldn't be left on site, no matter how securely fixed! My own view is that the signage should reflect aparticular era, rather than be a hodge podge of styles and eras that spoil many heritage sites. And my own preference for era would be mid-50s, before the dreaded WR signage began to appear. But that's only my view of course.
I do think that the heritage aspect of the New S&D should aim to reflect a particular year, and it to my mind has to be BR, not the pre nationalisation companies, which very very few people can now remember. The S&D's heydays were in the 1950s, most of the classic photos are from that period and I feel that's the era we need to reflect.
Re the boundary - at the moment we're probably best leving sleeping dogs to lie - let's get the planning permission first, once we've rebuilt the station we can look at these little niggles ...
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