Arun Sharma

Going back to the original post... "I think not", would be my answer. A far bigger factor IMO was the difference in manpower requirement per unit of motive power between steam and diesel/electric and that added pension cost down the line. Whilst pension costs appear to be a new concern, the Treasury has been concerned about this for decades. It is probably the single major factor driving privatisation of state industries and creation of agencies doing governmental work but where the [new] staff are not on Civil service pensions. Any concept that reduces the number of people employed to do a job [i.e., increases productivity] will get a sympathetic hearing from the Treasury. Additionally, it was becoming more difficult to recruit cleaners [in the sense of them also being part of the progress chain to firemen and eventually drivers] as well as people to do jobs which were frankly physically hard and dirty. Ask yourself now, if we went back to using coal as a staple fuel, do you have any acquaintances who might be prepared to work in a deep shaft coal mine? Don't forget that WINDRUSH was [largely] about getting people to work for London Transport and similar organisations. Upward changes to the school leaving age also had a negative knock-on effect on [male] kids moving into the industries that their fathers and grandfathers had been in. Another less obvious factor was that employing people in road haulage services and car building [and the associated iron and steel plate industries] was seen as a way of keeping people employed - who would then pay car tax, buy taxable fuel, pay road tax etc., This would counter the negative effects of putting steam-age railwaymen out of work if they could then be employed in those "1960s sunrise industries"! There are, in truth, no shortage of reasons why steam had to go - many of them boil down to economics and IMO none relate to matters Green.

I think Glasgow [High Street] and many of the Great Central stations were entered at street level with steps going down to the platform. Leyton Station on the GE [now LT of course] and Acton Town [LT] also have that type of entrance - in fact many LT and London Overground stations do.

A Bristol Superfreighter aircraft as seen in "Goldfinger". I recall they flew out of Southend Airport once upon a time. Didn't Airfix do a kit of one once?

Given that previous threads have highlighted how the Treasury factors in the cost of lost fuel duty and car tax into their BCR/balance sheets of Public Transport vs. Private Road Transport, your point seems entirely logical.

That's an interesting point regarding duplication - However, if you get your ticket [say, Bournemouth to Manchester] in advance [and why wouldn't you want to?], then the ticket is probably going to be restricted to XC trains only so the fact that you could in theory get out at Birmingham International and perhaps get a Pendolino to Manchester doesn't actually help the traveller if his ticket doesn't allow him to do that.

Coming back from DEMU shows at Burton, I'm pretty sure that the 170 I usually board to get home is going to end up in Cardiff. Nottingham to Cardiff seems a pretty long run to me.

Thank you for all those helpful nuggets of information regarding reversals. I tend, when going either North or South, to get on at Oxford so I wouldn't usually have two reversals on a single journey [i'm not sure where the XC services to Newcastle start from so I don't know whether they reverse at Reading].

As an occasional user of XC's line between the South Coast and the Midlands and hence a sufferer from overcrowding on short trains, I was curious as to which of the two reversals [at Reading and Birmingham New Street] was responsible for XC only being able to use four car trains of class 220 Voyagers? I am assuming that it is a function of short platforms at one or other of these stations of course.

The Croxley link is about one and a half miles. For rather less than £333 million, NR built 40 miles of railway [and a few viaducts] between Edinburgh and Galashiels. A similar statistic holds true for the appallingly expensive bit of the London overground from [i think] New Cross past the new Milwall stadium to Lewisham. Additionally, readers might also care to visit www.railfurures.org.uk regarding campaigns to resurrect closed or mothballed lines.

Personally FWIW I found the letter by Iain Rice the most thought provoking part of this particular issue. MRJ used to announce the publication of volume indexes on the editorial page. They haven't done so with the index to vol 32. With the separation of WS from Cygnet, you can no longer buy indexes for MRJ from the WS stands at exhibitions but only from Hagbourne Road - assuming that you know that one has been published. Perhaps "Not Jeremy" could be persuaded to buy a slack handful for sale on the WS stand at exhibitions?.

London transport Museum at Covent Garden will happily sell you fold-up A2 sized Greater London bus maps showing you what the bus, tram, trolleybus and Underground systems looked like at various dates such as Jan 1943, Jun 1958, Jan 1993 and up to the present day etc - as well as various dates in between. These are facsimile reprints of the original maps of those periods [which of course were given away free at the time]. add. - The 1943 one sitting on my desk at present also has surface rail such as the lines to Vine Street and Colnbrook on it.

Regarding post#611 10000, 10201, 10202, 10203 were all outwardly intact and parked in one line at the Derby Works open day at the end of Aug 1964. From memory, I would say that their position in post #611 was unchanged. On a related note, does anyone have photographs or information on what locos [apart from 43110] were in Looms scrapyard at Spondon on the same day as the 1964 open day?

That description of behaviour through a neutral section sounds very much like the old LT trolleybus driver's requirement to take his foot off the power pedal [i.e., accelerator equivalent in car terms] when approaching /passing through a power feed to the overhead - in other words "coasting through".

800-001 and 800-002 were running between Southall and Reading today - Departed Reading eastwards [001 leading] around 1435ish after sitting in Platform 8 for about 20minutes.

The three compendia were stand alone paperback books each of about 90 pages. Boradly similar articles to those in the early MRJs but more in depth so layout articles were perhaps closer to those in recent MRJs. Each also had at least one long article on modifying/scratchbuilding or kit building a loco. For example Compendium 3 had an article by Martin Blackwell describing how he built a Dean Goods from a Finney kit and had so many optional bits left over that, with a modicum of scratchbuilding, he was able to build another! The articles tend more to be "how to do" than "this is what I/we did". I think the three books are great - If you can find them, buy them. IMO unlikely that you would be disappointed.

Further to post #110 - Having just seen Issue 111 of "Narrow gauge & Industrial Railway Modelling Review" which is described as their "Locomotive [scratch] Building Special", I would say that this journal is very much in the same mould as MRJ- Both editorially and in terms of print/publication quality. It is also unequivocally aimed at kit/scratch builders and pattern makers. This is the first time I have ever really noticed this journal and I'd be surprised if a builder of any type of rolling stock couldn't learn loads from it. It comes from the same stable as the lamented Finescale Modelling Review. I think I might investigate a few back numbers [issue 107 is reported to be a Locomotive Kit Building Special]. I should declare that I have no connection with this Journal other than am intrigued by its quality.

Wasn't there a proposal by Chiltern [within the last six months] to change their current terminal platforms at Oxford into through platforms [and thence passing through where the current ticket office and entry hall are] and then have that line continuing to pass through the UP side car park to serve Cowley and the Oxford Science park via Kennington Junction? If so, that would render any other use of the car park problematical. It would also significantly influence the form of any proposed rebuild of Oxford Station of course. I'm not sure whether the East-West Rail link is supposed to have OHLE fitted [or whether that's been kicked into the long grass] but, if yes, then those extended Chiltern lines would also have to be wired presumably.

Moving around the topic a bit [and following a perusal of MRJ 257] I think, in no particular order, the journals that have really impressed me over the past few years have been: MORILL - defunct, Modeller's Backtrack - defunct MRJ, Finescale Review- defunct Rail Model Digest- defunct MRC - defunct RM Leaving aside the obvious fact that most of these magazines are defunct, they have/had a certain common editorial ethos & style. They struck me as being geared to modellers who wanted to make things - To that end there was no shortage of prototype information/photographs as well as large diagrams. Many of the MRCs [especially those edited by SW Stevens-Stratten] also contained drawings of road vehicles [as well as railway rolling stock] drawn to a standard of draughtsmanship that remains entirely acceptable today. Indeed it seems to me that the absence of drawings suitable for scratchbuilders/RTR converters/kitbashers in today's magazines [less MRJ & RM] perhaps reflects an editorial self-fulfilling prophecy that readers are no longer prepared to build anything other than background scenery nowadays. I also note that the specialist scale journals such as the Gauge0Guild Gazette and Scalefour Journal have retained drawings and articles relating to kit building/converting rather than concentrating on respraying and building scenery. Whilst that may reflect the relative lack of RTR rolling stock/locos in those scales I believe these editors are fighting back against an encroaching blandness and poverty of imagination amongst proponents of our hobby.

My sub copy arrived today whilst I was out at the REC Show at Woking today. Have just read Peter Kazer's article - fascinating! Pure vintage MRJ. A well photographed and written article describing a labour of love. Classic!

Except of course that the DLR's "train captain" has actually been trained in how to drive the train.

Thank you all - I shall track down a copy of Barry Curl's work.

Peter - I suspect that it will end up being based on the B4 though possibly the preserved ones have been modified in preservation. However it is early days yet.

Is anyone out there aware of any published [or otherwise] photographs of a C14 backhead? I feel the urge to scratchbuild a tiny steam loco!

I can - Courmayeur_Chamonix

The L&Y also called their brake vans "Breaks"