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A Southern MPD Layout 1946-49ish

Entries in this blog

Talking Stock #27 4mm Bulleid coaches – new R-T-R on the way?

The topic of Bulleid coaches has come to the fore again via a number of mediums. Firstly; the new Graham Farish Bulleid coaches in 2mm N gauge have hit the shops, a good review of them by Nigel Burkin can be found on the Model Railways Live website here. Secondly; current Model Rail magazine editor Ben Jones included a bit of crystal ball gazing in his editorial within the magazines Winter issue No. 191 mentioning that an upgrade of the now long in the tooth Bachmann 4mm Bulleid coaches as a pos

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

21C6, Peninsular & Oriental S. N. Co to make debut on Fisherton Sarum. (at Ab-Rail 2011 on 5th March)

Bulleid Merchant Navy pacific 21C6 will be seen hauling the Atlantic Coast Express on Fisherton Sarum at Ab-Rail 2011 on the 5th March. Further details about the show can be found here.   In December 1941 Merchant Navy class locomotive number 21C6 was rolled out of Eastleigh Works, later to be named Peninsular & Oriental S. N. Co. after the famous shipping line. 21C6 was unique amongst the Southern Railway Merchant Navy pacific’s in that she spent her entire working life allocated solel

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #14 The Adams family (William Adams of the LSWR that is!)

William Adams was the Locomotive Superintendent of the London South Western Railway between 1878 and his retirement due to ill health in 1895. He arrived having held similar positions on the North London Railway and the Great Eastern Railway at Stratford. On the LSWR he was responsible for the introduction of 524 locomotives across 16 classes ranging from diminutive 0-4-0 B4 tanks to 4-4-0 express tender engines such as the T6 and X6 classes and the of course the 0415 class Radial tanks that ach

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #23 Pull Push set 734 ex LSWR Emigrant Stock

The Southern Railway following on from its constituents made use of Pull Push sets across the network and this practice carried on well into British Railways Southern Region days. Other railways companies also made of such although they were often also known as autocoach, motor coach or push pull sets on these other railways. Originally many of the units were converted from either ex steam railmotors, following early pre grouping experiments that found them to be inflexible and often under power

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #22 The Missing Mogul – the K class

With respect to the Southern Railway Mogul 2-6-0 locomotive fleet most people probably immediately think of the Maunsell Moguls, the N/N1 and U/U1 classes. Their origins lead back to the SECR for the 5’6? driving wheeled N class followed by the later Southern built, also under the design auspices of Maunsell who was now CME of the Southern, the U class with their larger 6? driving wheels.   The missing mogul in more ways than one is the ex London Brighton and South Coast railway (LBSC) K class

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #26 The four Urie G16 large tanks

I have a bit of a soft spot for all large tank locomotives and a number of classes of large tanks existed on the Southern Railway such as the H16 4-6-2T, W 2-6-4T, the Z class 0-8-0T that I featured in my Talking Stock# 19 post here and the topic of this post the G16 4-8-0T. The H16 and W classes will I am sure be the subject of future posts.   The ex London and Southern Western (LSWR) Urie G16 class of four 4-8-0tanks were introduce in 1921, the same year as the larger H16 4-6-2T. The two c

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Go west young man, Fisherton Sarum at Barnstaple Exhibiton 30/07 and win a Hornby N15 ‘Pendragon’

With a nod to a lyric from the Genesis track ‘Deep in the Motherlode’ from their ‘Then there were three’ album (did I not mention before I am a bit of a Genesis geek) Fisherton Sarum is celebrating its 10th birthday (its first exhibition was in back in 2006) by heading West on Saturday 30th July to be at the Barnstaple Model Railway Club exhibition.   This one day show is organised by my friends at the Barnstaple MRC, and has gained a reputation for enticing good quality layouts to North Devon

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking stock #20 The Devon Belle

The “Devon Belle” Pullman service between London Waterloo and Ilfracombe with a portion to Plymouth did not in reality last for long as named train services go. It was introduced by the Southern Railway on 20th June 1947 and lasted until September 1954. Usually the train was worked from London to Exeter with Merchant Navy class pacific’s and was then split with a four coach portion heading to Plymouth and the remaining eight (sometimes up to ten) coaches including the iconic observation car head

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

A view from the line #13 creating the impression of depth – effective backscenes

A particular pet hate of mine is viewing layouts that have no backscene, even simple a plain blue or grey painted back board is better that nothing. The last thing I want to see is the clutter behind the layout and the midriffs (being kind) of the operators. A good backscene helps create impression of depth and finishes the overall illusion that we are trying to create with a layout. There are a number of methods that can be used to create the backscene from the simple single colour plain pain

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #9 Around the table of the N15 King Arthurs

Although not iconically named after Arthurian legends until (Sir) John Elliot joined the Southern Railway in 1925, and set up what is reputedly the UKs first Public Relations Department, the N15 ‘King Arthur’ class of 4-6-0 locomotives were first designed by Urie of the London and South Western Railway in 1918. The design was adopted and modified by Maunsell as the newly appointed CME of the Southern Railway and this along with differing build batches, including some contracted to North Brit

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #4 Cabs and Deflectors, Bulleid Light Pacific Variations

When first introduced 21C101 to 21C163 had the original Bulleid style cab with narrow front lookout and two large side windows, the rear one of which slid forwards behind the front. Complaints were made due to a restricted forward view, not helped by the position, inside the cab, of the vacuum ejector controls, in front of the window on the driver’s side. Therefore starting in July 1947 the cabs were modified, with a wedge shaped front (sometimes referred to a ‘V’ shaped) giving a larger front w

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

And the winner of the Hornby N15 is… and also Fisherton Sarum at the Barnstaple show

Firstly I would like to thank all the readers of my little corner of the blogosphere whom took the time to enter my little competition to win a brand new Hornby R2620 Urie N15 King Arthur Class number 746 ‘ Pendragon’ in Bulleid post war malachite green livery. The competition set in my post here in conjunction with Fisherton Sarum’s appearance at the Barnstaple Model Railway Club exhibition last Saturday, and celebrating ten years of exhibiting Fisherton Sarum, asked the question “where has Fis

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #17 Drummond’s 4-4-0s more than just T9s!

This post highlights some of the examples of Dougal Drummond of the LSWR 4-4-0s that I have models of (some of his other classes will no doubt be the subject of future posts) and can sometimes be seen running on Fisherton Sarum. Many of these these examples have been kit built.   Although not his first 4-4-0 design for the LSWR, that was the C8 class, his second is probably his most well known and much loved being the T9 class known as ‘greyhounds’. First introduced in 1899 the 66 strong clas

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Post war – pre nationalisation, why do I model it?

When one looks at the majority of steam era model layouts of the big four railway companies, or the subsequent British Railways regions, the majority tend to be set in either the 1930s or the 1950/60s this also tends to be reflected by the choice of models and liveries from the major ready-to-run manufacturers. Leaving aside the arguments of the least modelled and supported of the big four or BR regions the period that seems to most get overlooked in model form is the immediate post war to natio

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #24 3rd Series Merchant Navy initial livery variations

The third and final series of Bulleid’s Merchant Navy Pacifics were not introduced until after the formation of British Railways in the Autumn of 1948. As a result they were numbered immediately into the new BR numbering series 35021 to 35030 but still initially appeared in malachite green whilst British Railways developed their own new livery schemes.   he locomotives were built at Eastleigh and five of the first seven were finished before the completion at Brighton of their 6000 gallon te

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Controlling Interests #2 Turning Tables

In my controlling interest #1 post I mentioned the change of turntable control system to the Model Railway Electronic Group (MERG) turntable control unit.Since I first built Fisherton Sarum the turntable was powered via a Frixinghall motor and gearbox that did not have any form of automatic indexing. This meant that the rotational speed of the table was not easy to control and track alignment had to be done by eye (sometimes hitting the mark easier than at othertimes) via a toggle switch. Frien

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

From the Archive #3 Making an exhibition of myself or Fisherton Sarum’s first outing, 10 years on…

November this year sees the 10th anniversary since the first exhibition outing for Fisherton Sarum. Wycrail 2006 , the annual exhibition of the High Wycombe and District Model Railway Society , was the first public appearance, and was the first time the layout was actually fully operated. I was however able to set the layout up for the very first time at the Society’s clubrooms the week before and some very last minute corrections to wiring etc. (thanks again Mark!) ensured that on the day itse

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Fisherton Sarum on tour this Autumn

There are two more chances to see Fisherton Sarum in operation at exhibitions this year, I have timed this post to act a reminder and hopefully give you a chance to include them in your diary. As regular readers of this blog will know I only usually exhibit the layout at three or four shows each year. I am as ever indebted to my parents and fellow members of the High Wycombe and District Model Railway Society for their time and assistance at these shows to enable Fisherton Sarum to be exhibited

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

A view from the line #3. Taking coal at Fisherton Sarum

The elevated coal stage at Fisherton Sarum like the shed, as discussed in my post a view from the line #2 below opened in 1901. Just like the Shed itself, the coal stages were also built in a house style and as such as well as Salisbury similar stages existed at Eastleigh, Basingstoke and Plymouth Friary. Construction was wooden lapboard panels within a steel frame and a slate roof. Loco coal for Salisbury was supplied from the South Wales coal fields by the Southern Railway loco coal contra

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #34 ex LSWR Ironclad coaches and a tribute to Gordon Weddell

This Talking Stock #34 post about ex LSWR Ironclad coaches is published by way of a tribute to Gordon Weddell whom sadly passed away just over a two weeks ago and whose funeral takes place today. Gordon was the authority on London and South Western Railway (LSWR) coaches and other rolling stock. He published a number of volumes of reference books on the subject which are a must have for anyone interested in or modelling LSWR rolling stock. I was lucky to have met Gordon on a number of occasions

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #18 Drummond’s T14 Class 4-6-0 he had to get one almost right…

I mentioned in my Talking Stock # 17 Drummond’s 4-4-0s more than just T9s! that whilst Drummond had managed some successful 4-4-0 designs his various 4-6-0’s for the London South Western Railway (LSWR) were somewhat more variable in performance. This was quite worrying as increased passenger loading, the requirement for faster schedules and in general heavier rolling stock increased the demands of the locomotive fleet. His previously introduced 4-6-0 class such as F13, E14, G14 and P14 classes

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Fisherton Sarum 2333 #Remembrance at Tolworth Showtrain #lestweforget

Locomotive 333 was built originally by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, designed by Billinton, as an L class 4-6-4 ‘Baltic’ tank. She was given the name Remembrance and became the companies War Memorial engine and carried a plaque with the inscription: “In grateful remembrance of the 532 men of the L.B.& S.C.Rly. who gave their lives for their country, 1914-1919″ In 1934, under the auspices of Maunsell they were rebuilt as Class N15x (an appropriate Brighton-style suf

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #25 Marsh got one Atlantic 4-4-2 tank right with the I3

Douglas Earie-Marsh will probably be best known for the popular and graceful H1 and H2 Atlantic express engines, although these were essentially Ivatt designs from the Great Northern with whom March previously worked. His fist design of Atlantic tanks the I1 and I2 classes were not at all successful performers. The I3 tanks however changed that and quickly gained an excellent reputation especially with respect to fuel economy. When used on the ‘Sunny South Special’ between Brighton and Rugby,

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Talking Stock #21 – Bulleid’s Q1 ugly duckling or powerfully out of the ordinary?

During the second world war the need for a goods locomotive with wide route availability at a time of scarce raw materials and labour was to provide Bulleid with a challenge. He has already voiced his dislike of the Maunsell Q class 0-6-0 (appartently stating he would have cancelled the build if he had taken over as CME soon enough). Bulleid being Bulleid, looked away from usual convention in some areas and introduced the 40 strong Q1 class. It was a powerful, reliable loco with a large fire gr

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

Fisherton Sarum to host the 1948 Locomotive exchanges this weekend (during the Astolat show 15/01/11)

This coming Saturday (15/01/11) at the Astolat model railway Exhibition in Guildford Fisherton Sarum will be hosting some of the locomotives seen on the Southern Railway (yes I know technically it was a region by then) during the locomotive exchanges held during April and June 1948.   In the immediate aftermath of the formation of British Railways the newly formed Regions were generally allowed to continue the locomotive build programmes that had already been approved and put in place by the p

Graham_Muz

Graham_Muz

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