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ASLEF only choose which dates to strike, it is the UK government which effectively forces ASLEF to call strikes at the English-based rail companies as has been aptly demonstrated by the settlements agreed with the Scottish and Welsh devolved governments.

The Tilbury-Gravesend passenger ferry was a long established statutory ferry which the LT&SR purchased, it was still part of the Sealink empire when I worked for them 1969-83 albeit rarely mentioned as such. The opening of the Dartford Tunnel and the slow run down of the classic Tilbury Docks had had a considerable effect on its profitably, the former car ferry (which wasn't statutory) had been discontinued when the Tunnel opened, but the statutory nature of the passenger ferry meant that discontinuation wasn't an option for that. I left Sealink prior to privatisation but it, and the obligation to operate it, would have been included in the package sold to Sea Containers.

I suspect that most 58' rebuilt sets that appeared in "BR" green were in reality in malachite revarnished with BR lettering substituted for the earlier Southern lettering as part of the revarnishing process. Many will have been repainted BR red - and withdrawn in BR red - and at least one set in BR red was lined (I don't know which one, the set number wasn't visible in the photo I saw).

Yes, they were darker, but not much darker, than the Southern building colour green, with gold lettering. Pre-war they often had trestle tables out front, covered with a cloth (also possibly dark green), with piles of books on them.

I suspect that the biggest problem is that the 58-footer rebuilds used the bodies from middle two vehicles in LSWR four sets and that the two outer vehicles were brakes with large brake compartments that bore no resemblance to the new brake compartments in the 58-footers. Thus you would be faced with a considerable amount of scratch building with no assistance forthcoming from the Hornby models. IIRC (and I haven't checked) the 48-foot brakes could work together without one or both of the intermediate compartment carriages (albeit with a considerable loss of passenger accommodation) but that the 48-foot compartment carriages couldn't work solus, they had to form part of a set with brakes at both ends. The LSWR (and the other two SR constituents) were significant innovators in respect off fixed set operation.

Those carriages aren't the Maunsell 58' rebuilds (on new under frames) but 48' originals. The normal Lyme Regis branch set did become one of the 58' rebuild sets once they became available, possibly only a few months after the photo was taken. The 58' rebuilds by the way usually used all compartment 48' originals with a new 10' guards compartment added at the outer ends of the two carriages in each set. These new guard's compartments were quite distinctive and enable the rebuilds to be readily identified in photos, they didn't offer much accommodation for luggage or prams, though, and so a 4-w U-van was often attached to the train.

The "prize" offered by the M&SWJcR at that time was effective direct access (by continuing over the Sprat & Winkle) to the ever growing port of Southampton. Military traffic grew too in time but that growth probably wouldn't have been foreseen at the period when the MR & LSWR would have been likely to take over an ailing MSWJcR in the absence of Sam Fay. Indeed, my guess would be that the S&DJR would have become the poor relation of the two joint lines. In practice, of course, Sam Fay did run the M&SWJcR for a sufficient length of time to turn it into an effective and productive link between the MR and LSWR and it served them, and during the Great War the country, well without the expenditure of management effort that would have been required if it were a joint line.

Had the MR and LSWR jointly purchased the M&SWJcR (on the assumption that Sam Fay hadn't taken on the management of the line), they would have acquired that railway's running powers over the relevant part of the Banbury & Cheltenham, such as they were. Fay, of course, persuaded the GWR to double that section and allow the M&SWJcR's trains to serve intermediate stations, apparently by threatening to build a by-pass line as had been done earlier south of Marlborough. I don't doubt that the putative new joint owners would have done the same but could well have called the GWR's bluff and actually built the by-pass line. It shouldn't be forgotten that the M&SWJcR route was important to the military and that the LSWR, doubtless because of its own military connections, maintained an excellent relationship with the Board of Trade, thus easing the passage of any Act required for a new line.

The MSWJcR's "problem" was Sam Fay who had made too good a job of running it before he moved to the GCR. If it hadn't been for him, the line, which was useful to the MR and LSWR (and even more useful to the military authorities), would almost certainly have become a parallel joint line to the S&DJR, whether it would have shared management with the S&DJR or have had a separate (but same partners) joint management team put in place is a moot point. Another interesting grouping apparent "mis-allocation" was the Cambrian Railways which, prior to the state control of the Great War and after, had very definitely been under the wing of the LNWR (influenced by but not owned by it) and yet was grouped into the GWR and not the LMSR.

The station was Western Region, and so were the painting gang, at that period, therefore any repaint that involved a sign with a "regional" mention (which would previously have been LMSR/S&DJR at Bath Green Park) would now read some version of RAILWAY EXECUTIVE/BRITISH RAILWAYS/BRITISH RAILWAYS (W)/WESTERN REGION/W R with probably a lot depending on exactly what the sign had previously said and what space was available.

With the infrastructure under WR control it was maintained by WR engineering staff (or their contractors) so any repainting or resigning would have been done to WR standards - just look at all those ex-SR stations in the West Country that acquired a chocolate & cream colour scheme during the same period. Operational control basically covered the provision and operation of locomotives and rolling stock and the minutiae of the timetable. I am not quite sure about Bath Green Park itself but the S&D was part of the Southern Operating Area (which is what appeared on WTTs), not part of the Southern Region, they were two separate entities.

In early Trinity term 1966 the OURS made arrangements with the Bristol Division of the WR for one or two members at a time to have a brake van trip over the Strood and Nailsworth ex-MR branches which were about to close. My turn came on Friday 27 May which turned out to be the day on which the final scheduled train ran. When I arrived at Stroud ex-GW station and found the Area ops man as instructed, I was informed by him that the Division had made a mistake and issued a cab pass instead of a brake van permit but had, of course, failed to roster an accompanying Inspector. However, he had had a word with the driver who was quite happy to have a passenger riding with him and so I was driven over to the ex-MR station where D9500 was already waiting with a long assembled train of empty wagons plus one loaded with scrap metal and a brake van on each end. The driver was very chatty and seemed genuinely pleased to have an interested passenger but I remember being surprised at how cramped the cab was despite looking roomy from outside. We ran round at Dudbridge and then proceeded up to Nailsworth (where only the goods sidings remained), dropping off the loaded wagon at a single-siding scrap yard en route. Yet more empty wagons were picked up at Nailsworth making for quite a hefty train which D9500 seemed to have no problems in handling and after clearing the branch at Stonehouse we had quite a spirited run up the Bristol main line towards Gloucester until a howling noise behind us indicated that a wagon axle box was running hot, causing a more cautious pace to be adopted. D9500 was almost two years old at that time and the driver seemed quite enthusiastic about his steed which he had also driven on the various remaining goods branches in the Forest of Dean, certainly I didn't hear a single word of criticism. I realise now that there cannot have been many other non-railwaymen enthusiasts who rode in the cab of one of the class while undertaking their originally-intended duties on BR. Their was a somewhat amusing epilogue, two or three weeks later the OURS secretary told me that he had some money for me, "in view of the error made in issuing the permit" Bristol Division had refunded the fee that I had paid for the trip!

A quick search of the Railway Magazine archive produced a reference to British mixed traffic engines in 1897.

Surely the infrastructure, but not the operational responsibility, at Bath Green Park passed to the Western Region in 1950.

There weren't very many of them on Southern stations, Colyton in Devon was one - and still there on the Seaton Tramway - but they were definitely green as that was the standard colour for miscellaneous metal items within a station curtilage (grey elsewhere).

Second entry down on the right-hand South Eastern list - white on red because it was electrified (quite early in fact). As you say Greenwich Park was omitted because it closed during the Great War - although it remained intact but derelict more or less throughout the 1920s. I have often thought that it would make an interesting "might have been" model addition to the Southern Electric network with a (perfectly practical) connection cut through towards Maze Hill and the station, in its cutting, rebuilt by the SR in a simple compact style. The basic train service would be by a diversion of the South London line 2-EPB trains across a new connection between Denmark Hill and Peckham Rye, running through to the loop platform at Maze Hill off-peak (to connect with Greenwich-Woolwich line trains) but turning back at Greenwich Park itself during the peak. In addition to the basic service, empty units (4-CEPs perhaps) would work between Victoria/Stewarts Lane and Slade Green for maintenance and C-class hauled ex-SECR birdcage sets would work empty between Maze Hill sidings and Victoria/Blackfriars to form excursions. There might be some inter-regional/divisional freight to/from Hoo Junction too. The period would be tail end of the 1950s.

This lists mainland Southern Railway termini (other than those in central London), those with a red background had been electrified by World War II and those marked with a ¶ were habitually worked by pull & push rail motors for at least part of the Southern Railway/Region period (although not necessarily exclusively). Some existed only for part of the Southern Railway period (some very briefly indeed). A few through secondary lines were also partly worked by rail motors. The only SR pull & push units available ready-to-run from the "trade" have been very limited in scope being either convertions from Maunsell SO and BCK carriages which only existed as such for a few years in the early 1960s or ex-LSWR gate stock which was only used on a few of South Western branches.

Actually the Q1s, whilst they roamed reasonably freely on much of the Southern, were extremely rare west of Salisbury and certainly shouldn't feature on any SR west of England layout. Most of the Southern moguls had definite "home territories" at various periods, with the N probably being the one that spread itself most widely.

One useful wheeze (not that you appear to have needed it) when fitting coal rail fitted cab windows is to leave one of the central rails long so that it will protrude above the cab roof when fitted. The extra length makes it much easier to check visually that you do have the rails truly vertical, and, once everything is soldered correctly in place, it is easy to cut or file the single over length rail back to its correct length.

All the U-van clones including those with brake compartments attracted brake block dust like there was no tomorrow and as they were never cleaned (other than round the painted number), their everyday livery was best described as "yuk". I remember that in the late 1960s almost the only way of telling whether one was blue or still green was to look at the font used for number which differed between the two liveries. That may well explain why you found it difficult to observe the "stove" markings in photographs. There were, of course, the odd clean freshly painted vans newly ex-overhaul, and an attempt certainly seems to have been made to keep the handful of vans allocated to Ocean Liner boat train traffic clean, but generally they were filthy - oddly it seemed to suit them.

And he was on the editorial team at Meccano Magazine before that.

Continental Modeller is even remarkable. It isn't far off its fiftieth anniversary (although it only appeared occasionally in its early years) and has, I believe, only had two permanent editors in that time - David Lloyd until his untimely death and Andrew Burnham since.

Cab ventilator cover removed for some reason?

Columns headed RC in the Southern Region public timetable for the London-South West England routes (table 35?) almost certainly indicate that the train was booked to convey a Bulleid 2-car restaurant set between Waterloo and Exeter. These were the ex-Tavern car sets and may just have still been so in 1960.

Actually the LSWR Exeter-Chagford road motor service operated during the summer of 1904, ceased for that winter but restarted for summer 1905 and continued until withdrawn by the Southern Railway in 1924. http://www.lthlibrary.org.uk/library/PDF-169-1.pdf My suspicion is that, although it is housed in what appears to be a genuine case, it is a "modern" reproduction. I remember that in 1957/58, at least one of the reformed ex-LBSCR 4-SUBs in the 45xx series had some early Southern Railway London area route maps which showed electrified lines in red and which dated from c1930, and they definitely showed their age, the deterioration of the thin board on which they were printed being obvious.