Recommended Books for Modelling Southern Region

[BobDM]

Hi

I would like to model Eastbourne Railway station and need some good books that will help me with information about modelling the Southern region, especially East Sussex.

 

I have Chris Ford's book Modelling the Southern Region and 2 members of Eastbourne MRC have helped me with some valuable info which has helped get me started, but there is a lot I still need to know.

 

Is the Southern Railway Handbook any good?

 

Any recommendations for books on rolling stock and infrastructure would be welcome.

[Nearholmer]

Vivian Thompson modelled eastbourne Station in the 1970s and wrote an entire book about it. Job done?

Edited January 31, 2018 by Nearholmer

[peterfgf]

For those interested in Southern matters, the Oxfam bookshop in Dorking has about 20 different Bradford Barton books on the southern region in stock today.  if they had been Midland region they would no longer be there...

Peterfgf

[BobDM]

Thanks Nearholmer.

 

You don't happen to know the title do you?

[Oldddudders]

Middleton press are always a good bet for Southern matters. 

[Nearholmer]

Details of the book here: http://unnycoombelala.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/vivien-thompson.html

 

It is well worth searching-out her articles in Rm in the early 1970s, because she built a really excellent model of the station area as it was pre-WW1.

 

As OD says, Middleton. Also look out for the Wild Swan book about the Cuckoo Line, which has good material as far south as Polegate, and, without checking, I think some coverage of Eastbourne.

 

After that, it depends a lot on your period, because which books are worth having is heavily dependant upon that. .

 

There is good coverage in the Bennett Collection for the LBSCR period, and I think there is some in the ‘Bedford of Lewes’.

 

For the pre-electric SR period material is very spread about, ditto for later periods.

 

Kevin

[Oldddudders]

I thought the Thompson era in RM was late '60s, but could be wrong, although the publication date of the book is 1971, implying the formative articles must have been earlier. She certainly made me sit up sharply, modelling a prototype so much less fashionable than the then-favoured GWR, including scratchbuilding almost everything. Since the LBSCR was my local line, and I'd read the Hamilton Ellis history, a creditable model was unexpected - and female modellers, then and now, were and are a sadly scarce breed. 

 

In the mid-80s, my late first wife Deb was a member of the BRB Public Affairs Group, and they had a visit to an exhibition of railway architecture, inevitably including models. When Deb saw some of the exhibits she said they must be by VT - whereupon she was introduced!

[Nearholmer]

Blow me; late 60s it was!

 

Seems like yesterday, and I’m still a ‘junior member’, so goodness knows what will seem like yesterday in ten years time.

[St Enodoc]

Middleton press are always a good bet for Southern matters. 

Look out for South Coast Railways: Brighton to Eastbourne and South Coast Railways: Eastbourne to Hastings.

[2ManySpams]

You asked specifically about The Southern Handbook. I have the copy I was sent by BRM to review for the magazine. Here's the contents page:

 

 

There are half a dozen references to Eastbourne in the index but all of them are to passing references about electrification and London-Eastbourne services. Nothing that would help you model the station.

 

It is a generally interesting book as it gives you a bit if background on the companies that made up the Southern, their London terminus stations and the key personalities. There's quite a lot about the Southern through WW2 and the electrification programme. Eastbourne isn't mentioned in the destinations chapter.

 

There's very little about non-electrified stock and hardly a mention of freight stock/services. I also found the occasional error in the loco listings in the appendices.

 

I think in summary the book is likely to be of little use to you modelling Eastbourne but may provide you with a low level introduction to the Southern. Might be worth buying if you see it in a bargain bin but I would first buy the M&P books and Cuckoo line books others have recommended above.

 

As others have said it would help if you let us know what period you are interested in: LBSCR, SR, BR(S) or modern.

[BobDM]

Thanks a lot for the replies which have been really helpful. I managed to find a copy of Vivien Thompson's book at Abebooks and it landed on the doormat yesterday morning. Fantastic - scale drawings of the signal box and the goods shed, as well as some drawings showing part of the station. If I could find a copy of the Railway Modeller for January 1968 where I think she shows drawings of the roundhouse and possibly the rest of the station I think I would have everything I need.

 

I am actually modelling the station in the mid 1970s period (1974-75) though I have decided to take liberties with the facts as I would like to include the roundhouse and goods shed. The roundhouse was badly damaged by German bombing and towards the end of its life was basically still a bombsite with some structures still standing. I think it was gone by 1974.

 

Anyway even if I don't ever get the Railway Modelling stuff I still have plenty to get started on. Many thanks everybody.

Edited February 5, 2018 by BobDM

[Tim Dubya]

Try here for the RM:

 

http://www.magazineexchange.co.uk/railway-modeller-magazine-january-1968-issue.html

[w124bob]

There is currently one copy forsale on Ebay, it's in Germany(!) at €1.95 plus €4.70 p&p https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Railway-Modeller-January-1968-ct/372222203355?hash=item56aa2c15db:g:mbIAAOSwLwBaT3Us

[BobDM]

Just in case anyone else wants a copy of this Railway Magazine article, it was split in 2 parts which ran in January & February 1968.

[Marly51]

Thanks a lot for the replies which have been really helpful. I managed to find a copy of Vivien Thompson's book at Abebooks and it landed on the doormat yesterday morning. Fantastic - scale drawings of the signal box and the goods shed, as well as some drawings showing part of the station. If I could find a copy of the Railway Modeller for January 1968 where I think she shows drawings of the roundhouse and possibly the rest of the station I think I would have everything I need.

 

I am actually modelling the station in the mid 1970s period (1974-75) though I have decided to take liberties with the facts as I would like to include the roundhouse and goods shed. The roundhouse was badly damaged by German bombing and towards the end of its life was basically still a bombsite with some structures still standing. I think it was gone by 1974.

 

Anyway even if I don't ever get the Railway Modelling stuff I still have plenty to get started on. Many thanks everybody.

I missed this topic earlier. It was Vivien Thompson who inspired me, as a female Modeller back in the early 1970s, to have a go using Plastikard when I was a student. Building construction, drawing office practice and modelmaking was part of the course. Her drawings are beautiful and it is fantastic that she included them in her book. Hope you enjoy making your model of Eastbourne, Bob?

 

Marlyn

Edited June 4, 2018 by Marly51

[phil_sutters]

Sometimes local historians cover railways. Paul O'Callaghan's two volumes on East Sussex Coastal Railways covers the main Ashford to Brighton line and volume 2 covers 'Branch lines and other railways. I don't have volume 1, which would cover Eastbourne, but volume 2 has a range of photos, although he seems disinclined to show mainline electrics.He does include Eastbourne trams which ran until 1967 and the Crumbles branch which lasted, in part at least, into the 1960s.

As you are modelling in the 60s-70s era Marie Panter's Lost Railways of East Sussex will be too early for you and of course Eastbourne hasn't been 'lost'.

While on the subject of Southern books, one of my sisters recently bought me a booklet called 'Want to run a railway?' Produced by BR's Southern Region in October 1962 it challenges the 'I could run this lot a sight better than they do" brigade to 'run Southern better than we do.'  It is an entertaining and informative read, with some wry humour and an attractive period design by Royston Cooper. As it is doubtless under copyright I can't reproduce any here, but there are some good photos of areas not usually recorded - e.g. - timetablers - MP foreman & guard regulator & ticket inspectors. Current railway company efforts to explain the pressures and constraints don't seem to come across with the same degree of style and imagination.

[corneliuslundie]

For rolling stock liveries and building painting standards you will need the forthcoming HMRS book "Southern Style after nationalisation" being published next month. Not on the website for a while yet as the author has to prepare the paint swatch cards but it will be good (says he who is only slightly biased).

Jonathan

[Nearholmer]

it will be worth buying, if only to allow one continuing participation in the Great Malachite Green Argument, which it won't lay to rest, because some controversies have a life well beyond the careful weighing of evidence and the reaching of a balanced and nuanced opinion.

[Oldddudders]

While on the subject of Southern books, one of my sisters recently bought me a booklet called 'Want to run a railway?' Produced by BR's Southern Region in October 1962 it challenges the 'I could run this lot a sight better than they do" brigade to 'run Southern better than we do.' It is an entertaining and informative read, with some wry humour and an attractive period design by Royston Cooper. As it is doubtless under copyright I can't reproduce any here, but there are some good photos of areas not usually recorded - e.g. - timetablers - MP foreman & guard regulator & ticket inspectors. Current railway company efforts to explain the pressures and constraints don't seem to come across with the same degree of style and imagination.

My father, then a commuter as he had been since being demobbed in 1945, brought home a copy, and I pored over it. The recurring theme was “You’re in charge now!”, I think. Some bits might have been regretted later, not least “Broken rail”, which ISTR it sought to trivialise and reassured was in no way unsafe. The Hither Green disaster a few years later told otherwise.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Oldddudders