Goldhawk

l don’t think there was ever such a thing as a rigid standard colour scheme for stations but there were a lot of what might be described as “typical”. The painting scheme for small to medium station might be - Black for ironwork, metal fencing, door and door frames, window frames, platform seats and lamps. Pale cream was used for the undersides of canopies and canopy valencing, timber buildings and fencing. White for window sashes and glazing bars.

Nescafé Azera instant coffee tins which have resealable plastic lids when filled with water will make ideal weights for holding down track and other things while the glue sets. Also plastic milk bottle caps are useful for mixing small quantities of paint.

The location is Surbiton. Might this show the loading of the Surbiton to Okehampton car train?

Another variation to mention, W33 Bembridge had a cab roof made in three panels rather than the usual two and without a ventilator. l’m not sure if this applied to any other of the island O2s.

Many years ago at a depot open day, l think it was Old Oak Common, there were a pair of 08 shunters named ‘Victor’ and ‘Margaret’ after the Meldews in One foot in the grave.

Not that I have found it a problem, the layout represents a very small freight yard. Freight only, no passenger, six wagons would be a long train my little model world and I rarely need to use anything even close to full throttle. Lima locos have a massive lump of solid steel inside that plants them very firmly on to the track. Perhaps the nickel-silver wheels can achieve a better grip on nickel-silver rail than brass would?

Are you able to run any non Lima locos with which to make a comparison? On my short shunting plank layout I have two class 73s, they both require a slightly higher controller setting (about an extra 10% on the turn of the dial) when compared to my other locos (Bachmann) in order to get them moving but once under way will run just as smoothly if not as quietly! They both still have their original Lima motors but fitted with replacement brushes and springs from Peters Spares. I have also fitted Ultrascale wheels and additional pick-ups. If your locos have been fitted with extra pick-ups might I suggest checking that they are not pressing too hard against the wheels and acting as a brake.

Taking up Wickham Green's suggestion I dug out my copy of "An Illustrated Survey of Selected SOUTHERN STATIONS" and picked out Hayes (Kent) as a good example of a Southern Railway reconstruction of the inter-war period. The plans are all scaled at 160 ft/inch and the measured distance between lamp posts on the plan I found to be about 20/32nds of an inch, which suggests that they were spaced about 100 feet apart. Hayes is a island platform terminus type station and from the accompanying photos the platform lamps were of the double sided concrete type to be found at many of the Southern stations rebuilt or modernized at that time.

According to G.W.R Disused Stations in Greater London by J.E.Connor, the shelters at South Greenford were reputed to have come from the nearby Trumpers Crossing Halt (on the Brentford Branch) which had closed earlier in 1926.

The second and third coaches are FOs.

Norton Fitzwarren, Norton Junction, Brize Norton..............are there any other GWR Nortons! Definitely a no-no for Norton. Just tried again on a second laptop and Mcafee seems quite happy with it!

In Mk1 coaches the lighting voltage is indeed 24v and I believe that this is also the case in pre-nationalisation designs as well. The caps on the bulbs are of the standard domestic 22mm bayonet type*. I have not seen what happens when a 24 volt bulb is put into a 240 volt light socket but suspect that the result would be similar to the old press photographers camera! Nowadays a lot heritage railways use LED bulbs in their coach light fittings, these come either as a direct replacement or have an adaptor bayonet cap fitted, brighter and also less draw on the batteries. *EMU stock has a variation in that there are three pins on the bulb cap intead of the normal two, I understand that voltage is also different, 70 volts I believe.

Working for Royal Mail at the time I remember that there was a steady rise in the number of Amazon packages that were being handled in the the system, mainly books at first. But once Amazon's operations became big enough to justify their own distribution network that business virtually disappeared almost over night.

A solution that I have tried is to make the lens from a small piece of clear selotape stuck to the back of the spectacle plate. Trim off the excess around the edges with a sharp blade. Finally colour the lens using a wash of green or red gloss paint diluted with thinners to get a translucent look. I would try first on a piece of spare selotape first to get the right consistency. Hope that this is of help.