bécasse

Indeed, I have no doubt what the reaction of the Inspecting Officer to the concept of an incline leading straight into a wrong direction running line and into a tunnel to boot. He would no doubt have used some choice words to express that reaction verbally but in writing it would simply have been "NO!".

There is an 1:148 white metal kit available for a steam roller which might make a suitable load - and provide a raison d'être for the use of the G1 diagram wagon. Lytchett-Manor steam roller link

It is a strange thing (because most ex-GWR carriages that were painted crimson quickly weathered to a pale, almost orange, colour - I suspect that a white or light grey undercoat might have been used), but those ex-GWR autocars that were painted allover crimson came out a dowdy dark colour that was very close to how they would have looked in the later maroon had they ever been painted thus (and I agree that they wouldn't have been). When the Airfix model first came out, I remember a learned friend saying that it was so nice because "that was just how people remember them".

If an N is basically the same as an A26 with a section cut out, and an A26 body is available from Simon Dawson (Rue d'Êtropal), have you asked Simon if he would add an N to his range. Since he already has a CAD file for an A26, creating a file for the shorter N should, at least in theory, be a very simple task.

The layout may seem haphazard to you but you can be sure that there was a logical reason for it. the most likely reason for choosing particular inter-window spacings is that they made best use of the timber sizes available in the works, minimising the amount of sawing (and especially sawing along the grain) required. It is by no means impossible that there was no fully dimensioned drawing when the first example was built (drawings weren't normally used on the shop-floor of railway works anyway) and the men on the ground (and especially the foreman) worked out the most efficient way of arranging the required doors and windows, the general arrangement drawing then being created to show what had been built rather than what was to be built.

As you have doubtless spotted, Tim, those "knees" are there to help support a cantilevered walkway with handrail that runs the length of each roof outside the guttering whose purpose was to facilitate the maintenance of the slate roofing. The walkway could have been either wooden planking or a steel/iron grill, the photo suggesting the former. Such walkways were actually quite common on roofs on large buildings, indicating that provision for (relatively) safe working at a height didn't start with an EU directive on the subject (or even the UK's own H&S legislation of the sixties). Glass roofs over passenger stations tended to have even more elaborate provision of walkways for access. When I worked at 50 Liverpool Street in the mid-1970s my office in the "attics" had a special window which gave direct access to the roof walkways over Liverpool Street station and it wasn't unknown for the younger and more intrepid members of my staff to go "exploring" while I was out even though this was at the height of the IRA bombing campaign. With the window open, we could hear clearly the station announcements and the initiation of the "Will all passengers and staff please leave the station immediately" announcement gave us a good thirty seconds to pack our bags before the building evacuation bells started ringing!

Now that I have had my memory triggered, I agree, both names were familiar but I couldn't quite remember how they fitted with each other. I couldn't be certain about the 1930 changeover date, but if that is what Mike says, it is bound to be right.

Actually, sarking was commonplace anywhere, the slates have to be nailed to something and in the days before the Great War when timber (and labour) was relatively cheap it was probably simpler to lay planks rather than battens. After the Great War new roofs, at least in the London area, tended to be tiled rather than slated and, although they were laid on battens (the tiles having moulded projections so that they didn't need nailing), they were also stronger and incendiary bombs were less likely to break through them. The great danger with incendiary bombs was that they would lodge somewhere on the roof structure (those gulleys, for example) and that is why neighbourhood fire watching (and the provision of equipment to enable the bombs to be quickly dealt with) was organised in urban areas during WWII.

I meant to comment on the roofs visible in this photo when it first appeared but somehow failed to do so. Most domestic properties in the inner suburbs of London whose roofs are fronted by parapet walls, as these are, have twin slopes draining down from the fire walls either side (an LCC Building Regulations requirement) into a central front to back gully, and there are plenty of such examples modelled on CF. These, however, have a single slope which drains down to a (hidden in this view) gully along the nearer fire wall. This might just give more usable attic space but I suspect at the expense of keeping the fire wall clear of damp penetration; it is certainly an arrangement I haven't noted before and may be linked to a particular developer. The roof on the furthest building from the camera on the right (a public house?) is also unusual in having a single slope down, parallel to the road, with its apex immediately behind and level with the top of the parapet, again an arrangement new to me - I must spend more time looking at Google Earth views of such surviving buildings in this area. It is also worth noting the number of roofs where the covering is apparently of pantiles (but possibly concrete tiles) instead of the original slates. Given that we know, from the presence of the Ladykillers "house", that the photo dates from the early 1950s, these are presumably wartime or immediate post-war replacements for slate roofs damaged during air raids (when bomb blasts would lift roof coverings almost within a wider radius than they would blow in glass windows).

On the Eastern and Central sections the contractor was the Pullman Car Company, sometimes using that company's vehicles, sometimes using vehicles supplied by the Southern Railway. An obvious example of which was the 6-car electric sets which worked on the Brighton main and east and west coast lines - the 6-PUL sets having a single Pullman car which provided light catering for the whole set (as well as providing seating for which a supplementary charge was payable), while the 6-PAN sets just included a pantry with serving hatch within one of the seating carriages which again provided light catering for the whole set. Like Johnofwessex I can't now remember who the contractor on the Western section was and I have a feeling that the catering there may have eventually been taken in-house by the SR. The catering on the Bournemouth Belle was, of course, the responsibility of the Pullman Car company and they also provided Pullman cars on some Southampton Ocean Liner Expresses, but that was the limit of the PCC involvement on the Western section.

Interesting that that was a three-horse dray, although I think it unlikely that they would have been used in the (relatively) heavy traffic in London - too difficult to control. Photos in Oakwood Press's book on the potato railways of Lincolnshire show two horse and one horse (but with an assisting horse) drays. The cost of moving potatoes, even in a rural area, by horse and dray was, of course, the rationale behind the creation of the county's many potato railways many of which were worked by horse.

Judging by the 5kg bags that I buy in the supermarket, potatoes are quite heavy items for their bulk and that leads me to believe that two-horse drays would have been used. Coal merchants generally got away with using a single horse but, firstly, their deliveries were usually quite local and consequently the dray was probably stationary for unloading more than it was on the move, and, secondly, the load would have got progressively lighter as the round progressed; both factors significantly reducing the total effort required by a single horse.

There is a (small) drawing of a two horse dray in Beal's Modelling the Old Time Railways and there should be a copy in the MRC library - once you can get back to Keen House, of course.

No.7 is Neath Riverside on the former Neath & Brecon line. Brecon is a likely destination for the train pictured - so no later than 1962. I wondered if no.9 might be in the rugged "arrière pays" between Calais and Boulogne and whether the train, given the stock it is formed of, might be a (British) enthusiasts' special.

I have always thought that Richard Beeching was given the wrong target. Just think how much more money he could have saved if he had been asked identify under-used roads for closure - especially in the early 1960s.

One thing that isn't always obvious from photos (other than close-ups) is that with yellow brickwork the mortar is typically a little darker than the actual brickwork.

Sounds like a natural for 3D printing.

It is a J4, built in 1900 and withdrawn, as LNER 3394, in 1932.

I think that if I were setting out to create window frame etches for a very regular rectangular building like that in 2FS, I would aim to create a single window frame etch for each side, even if it meant that I had to have two (presumably identical) etches run off, and then just add (plasticard?) overlays to the etch for the concrete and brickwork.

The MS&LR (which became the GCR) used 30 foot track panels, not 45 foot. It shouldn't be impossible to move sleepers around on the flexi track by cutting the webs between them. It's also possible to widen the sleepers by glueing a piece of 40 thou black plasticard at each end. The most obvious discrepancy is likely to be the chairs which are probably quite different to those used by the MS&LR/GCR - but it will probably only be spotted by someone who is interested in the history of permanent way.

I think that the Jinties working through the Widened Lines only served the ex-LMS elevated coal sidings alongside the ex-LCDR viaduct in the Camberwell area, although they may well have worked on to the Loughborough/Herne Hill siding complex if only to take water and run-round their trains (although there was some exchange traffic in the sidings so may be the Jinties worked that as well). I never saw a Jinty at Hither Green, J50s a plenty of course, but exchange traffic from Willesden and Cricklewood came via the West London or Dudding Hill loop lines and was almost universally worked by 8Fs with just a very rare Crab for variety.

Most, if not all, through traffic between the SR and the WR in the London area was worked by Southern locos via the West London Line. There was though an ex-GWR depot close to Stewart's Lane and traffic to/from that via the West London Line was pannier worked. The Widened Lines mostly saw goods (especially coal) and parcels traffic off the GN main line. The goods had been worked by N1s and J52s but some time about 1953 the traffic was handed to a fleet of (non-condensing) J50s which, it has to be said, handled it remarkably well. Passenger traffic via Snow Hill and the Widened Lines to/from either the GN or Midland was limited to the odd special, probably mainly military, as there were restrictions on the carriage stock which was acceptable.

In London, the loco would be serviced (turned, coaled, watered, etc) at Nine Elms depot. It was unusual at Waterloo for train locos to handle ecs, a fleet of M7s, Panniers, H16s, etc were retained for working ecs between Waterloo and Clapham Junction (or more rarely sidings further out).

Strictly speaking, they worked to and from Eastleigh tender first - which was standard Southern practice for working locos between termini and the loco depots that serviced them, the tender-first locos sometimes working ECS, rather than just being LE, if that suited the operational requirement on the day.

The ubiquitous 4w U-vans (known by the staff as Cavells) were in fact a SE&CR design (and thus pre-grouping) even though the Southern eventually built most of them.