number6

Made the same mistake myself with both choice of point motor and their position in relation to my waning enthusiasm to lie under the baseboards. On the positive side the ECML had a history of big freight pileups so true to prototype there.

Looks to be about the same as BILs and CORs in blue - it ends with a narrow strip of blue before the door. These photos from Robert Carroll's collection on Flickr.

I've often eyed-up Kirk kits of all 3rds and thought one could make a passable Triang-esk PUL motor coach out of them. You can get cab ends from Silver Fox on ebay. 🤔

Two units got blue and full yellow ends: 3042 and 3045 in 1967 when on the Southeastern. There is a picture and details in David Brown's Southern Electric Vol2. Don't think any green units got full yellow.

Great image of the excavator on the beach. I believe that the river mouth is quite high and the cause of major flooding in the valley in recent years as the water had nowhere to go… higher up stream toward Alfriston it’s regularly underwater for long periods. But that’s what floodplains should be for. This line would be out in the water for parts of the year.

Anything nice and 30s Southern in the Cuckmere Valley would have been flattened by the Army during the War. They even used Belle Tout lighthouse as target practice! I have this fascinating book about the valley. Including how it had a decoy lighting setup to pretend to be Newhaven and distract bombers. The whole of the Downs and all the coastal area here was airfields and tank roads and crawling with training and exercises and high risk for invasion. Like at Tidemills between Newhaven and Bishopstone all buildings of note were flattened to reduce cover for invading forces. Think the tiny wooden office on concrete platform is just right for this location. Beautiful as it can be it is one of those landscapes that is actually quite scarred and even the straight channel cut for the Cuckmere makes in barely a natural landscape anymore and very 'manmade' even if its pretty much the only section of the coast that is not built up.

Bit niche this but mine was the curved shape of the roof ends above the corridor connections on a pair of MKII coaches at Paddington. I grew up in Sussex and until then had never seen the like. Everything in the south had MkI ‘square’ ends. I distinctly remember looking at them from an adjacent train under the canopies up the top of the platforms (and probably oblivious to the Western or Warship on the front).

What artwork are you using to print the seat designs? I presume printed onto adhesive backed sheets?

Remarkable job! I have a set of these brass bodies for a 4BUF and I just took one look and then put them back in the box they came from ebay! One shame about the green of SR units is it hides a huge amount of the detail. I've always been very fond of MTK and their rather robust style, can remember scanning the boxes of all the exotic units at exhibitions in the 70s and admiring wonky units on various layouts back in the day. I don't even mind the slightly over-sized corners to the windows - still very much a Southern unit with overtones of a 2HAL where the windows were much more rounded.

Doors should have locks. A friend of my Mother around the 1990s time told us that she had been on a WCML train, went down the carriage to the loo and noticed the door was slightly open. She tried to close it fully but it opened and dragged her outside with it. She said she was trapped against the door by the wind and the fact her arm was through the window for 'what seemed like ages' until she was able to inch back into the vestibule. Another passing passenger then helped her get the door shut and I've no idea if the guard was informed or the communication card was pulled or the train stopped. I remember us all sat there in shock while she told the story... I've seen doors opened and slammed shut on moving trains countless times in 'the old days', Seen people fall flat on their face jumping off coming into stations, people open doors off the end of platforms, get off the wrong side of the train onto the track in the dark etc. etc. I'm not sure people were that much better at behaving themselves around doors...

Enjoyed moving the discs around on one of mine - not that easy to do - and had to drill one out which had been glued in but no harm done. I also noticed that the small round windows in the sides cause the body to bow out slightly so I filed them down a little bit. Beware when fitting the third rail shoes - best to prise the shoe beam out a bit and slide the shoe onto the pegs from the side. Rather than press down on the little pegs from above. I snapped one peg off and had to drill the beam and glue in a bit of wire to hold the shoe in place. Sorry (but not sorry) I have also already painted the buffer beam and buffers on the blue one black - more to my liking! Now to fashion some discs as per the LCGB BPPS Railtour. Lovely otherwise.

The experts will be along in a minute but this little snippet from this excellent book by Jack Somers shines a light on the loco coal traffic. This example is when he was shedmaster at Sheffield Darnall. Cover picture is the [now] very familiar Peterborough North. "The weather apart, a thorn in my side was the loco call train which would arrive unannounced in the early hours precisely when engines for important passenger trains were getting ready to leave the shed. With the loco coal on the scene the shed was completely tied up and resulted in strong complaints from the operating side about delays due to engines arriving late for their workings. Counter complaints from me that the delay was due to the traffic department blocking the shed with one of their trains – even though it had loco coal on – fell on stony ground and eventually I hatched a plot with my friend in Darnall box, arranging for the loco coal to be held on the mainline until I was ready to accept it. This produced howls of rage from the district control but resulted, eventually, in someone agreeing to hold the train back and not enter the local areas until I has happy for it to enter the shed."

That trip to Lewes East Sidings was a freight working: New Cross to Polegate via Lewes. Back to Lewes East light, turn around and then down to Newhaven to work the boat train. Mondays excepted. They really got a lot of use out of those locos. And in Simon’s Southern Way he outlines how that intensive working dropped off later in their lives. There being more flexible locos about by then (EDs and Cromptons). I really admire the level of intensive use but when things went wrong I guess there could have been some scrambling around to cover locos being out of place - especially as is mentioned earlier Boats have a habit of being a bit late?!

Superb work. So satisfying to see it come together - and such attention to detail. Passed through here twice a day for many years during the period you are modelling. The Lion King and From the Oasthouse👌. Recognise that temptation to move onto new projects and parts of the build.

We can forgive that on a small layout, that is unavoidable - I think it is something that strikes me on large layouts where even in the space available a foot or so can't be allowed for the tunnel. I'm as guilty of the next of squeezing as much real-estate out of the available space. Perhaps because I recently went to a fascinating slide show by Adrian Backshall of tunnels he photographed while working for Network Rail? So much more detail inside them all worth modelling... The dot of light at the end of Catesby Tunnel is genius.