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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.

Tarpaulins didn't stay with wagons other than for the one specific journey where they would have been provided by the Railway on whose metals the wagon started that journey. So if the wagon belonged to the LNER but the journey concerned had started at, say, Stoke-on-Trent, it would have been sheeted with an LMS tarpaulin (which the Southern Railway would subsequently have returned to the LMS).

Significant fertiliser traffic on the railways had started in the early 1930s with many goods yards having "suitable" stores newly provided for the storage of the bagged fertiliser (and often signed accordingly) until it was collected by local farmers (although I don't remember either Westerham or Brasted having such stores). The traffic resulted from new formal agreements between the fertiliser manufacturers and the grouped railways (although I have it in the back of my mind that the LNER wasn't a party to the agreement but still carried the traffic). Prior to that time most agricultural fertiliser would have been rotted and/or liquid manure - and still is in the area where I live.

The two photographs concerned are credited to the author's (ie Ian Futers) collection. Ian obviously didn't know who the original photographer was as otherwise that person would have been acknowledged, as required by law, in the article.

Yes, a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous 2024 to all.

Series/parallel will probably depend on the resistance of the coils and the applied voltage but I suspect that series wiring was the norm. The coils will lie N/S-S/N to enable the yoke to complete the magnetic circuit - it is easy to remember, just think of a commonplace horseshoe permanent magnet which necessarily has one pole S and one pole N alongside each other.

Actually Santa Claus has just swept past my house this evening - only one reindeer though and running over a week late (Saint Nicolas normally brings the children's presents on December 6).

Actually I might suggest that your real problem is that the others look too alike! Look at almost any colour photo of a train conveying "bauxite" coloured wagons and it will quickly strike you that the extent of variation in the bauxite colour in everyday use would qualify for a Heinz 57 varieties label.

Remembering the real things, there was something very atmospheric about those Thompson-era shortie non-corridor carriages and they looked good in BR steam-era livery whether it was crimson or maroon. Somehow the BR suburban carriages just didn't have the same atmosphere, even the rather esoteric versions that prowled around the southern parts of the Eastern Region.

Silver was often mined alongside lead and I believe that was the case for the mine whose wagon is depicted - silver, rather then lead, may be the reason for the padlocks.

I rather wondered whether that right-hand arm in the photo concerned has a white ring centred on it and that is what we can see (with the rest lost in the white stripe and the background). Don't ask me what a ring would signify because I don't know but it would certainly make good sense to centre any ring around the central pivot on a somersault arm. There is a well-established and productive Welsh Railways Research Circle and IIRC Derek Mundy is/was a member so I would expect signalling matters for all the Valleys' companies to have been researched and reported on.

The booster function was useless to get the locos to a third rail, its purpose was to allow the locos to coast over gaps in the third rail, emus overcoming such gaps by normally always having at least one pick-up in contact because of their length. (There were exceptions to that though, it was discovered, very embarrassingly and with considerable disruption to traffic, one evening rush hour that it was possible to gap a 16-car emu at Herne Hill routed Victoria down, down loop, towards Tulse Hill. Having gapped a Holborn-Wimbledon train leaving the down loop, a Victoria-Orpington was brought up behind it to assist, which it did until the whole "train" found gaps in the third rail.)

G6s were yard/depot shunting engines, they would have been finished in the plainest livery applicable at the period concerned. The base colour would have been dark holly green (almost black) in LSWR days and black subsequently.

Whilst that is indeed true, it wouldn't have prevented EMUs being used on Newhaven boat trains any more than the Southern Railway (and later Southern Region) were prevented from operating all 1st class EMUs on Waterloo-Ascot race day specials, the procedures for which were covered in the Sectional Appendix. Relief boat trains were rarely required between London Victoria and Newhaven but, as relief boat trains didn't convey RL, I suspect that EMUs were used on the very rare occasions that they did run.

Registered Luggage under Customs' seal which had to be conveyed in a separate vehicle and thus not in an emu - hence the MLVs introduced with the Kent Coast electrification for use on boat trains.