phil_sutters

Would the Airfix/Dapol platforms be an alternative? There are ads on line from £4.50 a pack. (up to £19.99 - cos they're vintage and collectable!!) They have concrete legs* on one side and a brick wall on the other. *That is assuming they are actually good representations of the Southern style.

According to Paul O'Callaghan in his book 'East Sussex Coastal Railways - Volume 2', the original promoter of the 2ft line, A.F.Smith Ltd. negotiated a lease to construct the line with permission to extract 4000 cubic yards of shingle a week from 1933. The line ran just over a mile from a wharf at the beach up a far as the their goods yard beside the A259, where the southern visitors'car park now sits. World War 2 stopped this traffic. The area was a training ground for, among others, troops from Canada. The area that is now Friston Forest was used for tank crew training. So the 1950 agreement was for the post-war phase, which finished in 1964.

Somewhat less in recent years. Will someone get nostalgic about 313s?

According to a 2022 study ( https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/190176/6/1-s2.0-S0950061822018815-main.pdf ) crushed limestone is among the best materials for railway ballast, although not as durable as granite, and Mendip is the most southerly source of carboniferous limestone in England. In the early days of the railways, the cost of transporting stone to the new railways, in the quantities needed, was such that stone from local sources was sometimes preferred to the better suited materials. The LBSCR's use of shingle and some of the disasterous consequences has been documented in some detail I believe. So I guess that the S&D was fortunate to have considerable quantities of good quality materials close at hand.

Holcombe would be off the northern section. There are several quarries right on its doorstep. At Coleford, just over the hill. we could hear the warning sirens and the blasts. When travelling in the area, you could sometimes find the road blocked by a guy with a red flag, a precautionery measure in case any fragments flew out of the quarry when the blasting took place. It's the Somerset Central that would have had to access supplies from the quarries around Cheddar and Wells and those further east.

I hate to tell you this but in a 1994 aerial view there appears to be a long row of chimneys to the west of the ridge. You can see them in this view from the Southwark Mapping Services - https://geomap.southwark.gov.uk/connect/analyst/mobile/#/main?mapcfg=%2FAnalyst%2FNamedProjects%2FSouthwark historic maps You will need to click on 'Aerial 1994' at the top right and then scroll across to Drummond Road. Southwark Park lies just beyond and provides a useful landmark. If you have problems, assuming you want to see the chimneys, I could do a screen dump for you.

I have wondered what would happen if the owner wanted to take the 'shed' off the top of No.78, just to the south of your two houses. I bet it would be refused by the planning department conservation officer.

Any use to you?

Is this leaflet helpful or are you already aware of it? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/395032433706?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20200818143230%26meid%3D2a1f49fd0d0b48209405aa06a6f79242%26pid%3D101224%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D5%26sd%3D363800472601%26itm%3D395032433706%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D4429486%26algv%3DDefaultOrganicWebV9BertRefreshRanker&_trksid=p4429486.c101224.m-1

Chris Handley, in Volume 2 of Radstock Coal & Steam, says that the reason that the canopy at Radstock sloped up, rather than down, towards the tracks, could have been to allow loco crews a better view along the curved platform. These two volumes are packed with information, photos and scale drawings of Radstock and the surrounding collieries.

Looking through my harbour snaps, I noticed that Shoreham, west of Brighton, has a fixed crane. Actually it has two, but one seems to be a super heavy-duty one for handling the lock gates when they need servicing. This one has a long lattice jib. If you look at Siku models, there are several HO scale cranes with that type of jib. Although I think they are mostly the mobile sort, they would provide the jib. Their HO models are priced at reasonable levels. Oxford Diecast do at least one long reach crawler bucket excavator in 1/76th.

This is a small modern short sea routes freighter - 64 metres long - 84.2 cm or 33ins in 1/76th scale. The loading of this scrap and the aggregates here at Newhaven is all done by crawler cranes with buckets or grabs. However at neither of the two quays are the cargoes transferred directly unto rail. They are processed or graded on site and then transferred to rail. Dover has some static cranes with more traditional jibs, but on modern pillar like support structures. You can see them here. http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/album/1322066 but I don't know what they handle,

Whether or not you can find any relevant tree info. here, there is a magnificent array of W&U photos on this site. It shows - don't just look at railway sources. I searched for old photos of Upwell. https://www.kingslynn-forums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1103

No hi-viz or bowler hats in those days

Weirdly it was a recent experience. Having had twenty or so years of steam in Somerset and Bristol, then forty or so with 3rd rail electrics at home and work locations and Thames Turbos and HSTs when visiting my parents in Oxford, I went on a snapping trip around some London stations I had rarely frequented. The penultimate London stop was Marylebone. For the first time in ages I saw a loco powered train that wasn't a special. I say powered rather than hauled, as it was 68012 propelling.

Most of the clothing could be either side of WW2, but the person, who I think is an ice-cream vendor, down towards the level-crossing, is wearing a long white overall or dress, which I think would place the date before the war. By the later 1930s the wearing of hats was in decline, except for the older generation, especially when in holiday mode. So I cannot see why any of the people look more 40s rather than 30s. Here is my mum, her future sister-in-law and a friend in 1939 at the seaside. I think that the lack of the pill-box is a significant pointer to it being prewar. Regarding the camping coaches - I wonder if the clerestory at the far end of the train is actually part of it and could be a camping coach. It seems a bit out of line with the neighbouring coach. That may just be the difference between the two designs of coach.

I thought I had better chip in to get you beyond the dreaded 666 comment. I like your old Crescent three-way signal. I still have several Crescents. They date from my Hornby Dublo days when HD only did upper quadrants. I don't ever envisage using them. I just can't throw away the few remaining bits of that era of my modelling history. Have a good week.

I am sure you have photos of Sarson's. It was still going STRONG, 😝, when I started my first job's in-service training in Tooley Street., in the late '60s. These are after it shut down. I have included a couple that show the frontage all glammed up for the 21st century Bermondsey citizens.

This appears to be a Mustang, from the badges. I didn't snap the rear view, so don't have any indication of the model. When I looked for a similar one online, I found that none of the front ends looked like this one. The number plate looks odd to me with both New York and Cascais shown on it. The latter is I believe in Portugal, unless there is a neighbourhood in NY of that name. Perhaps the owner has connections with both places. Please do not be concerned about the lady on the left. Despite appearances she does have two legs. It took a lot of magnification to see the tip of her left boot toe just visible beyond its right counterpart.

Andrew Stadden has other ideas about Victorian loco crews' head gear. As a sculptor of highly accurate military models, I expect he did a spot of research before modelling these. https://www.acstadden.co.uk/product-page/oo11-victorian-enginemen

The teacher who taught me geography when I was about twelve was an unpleasant Scot, originally from somewhere in the central lowlands, I think. He was well aware of the coalfields in that belt and was very keen on the Yorks, Derby & Notts coalfield and understood the importance of the south Wales coal fields. As the school was in Kent, he was even aware there was a coalfield at the far end of that county. What he wouldn't concede was that there was a Somerset coalfield. As my home at that time was four miles from Radstock, that somewhat annoyed me. So in my school holidays I wrote to the NCB office there and got a load of leaflets and other information, with which I duly returned to school and he had to admit that he had not had the full facts for his lesson. I doubt that track plans were among the information I got, but even if there had been, they would have disappeared like the rest of the bumf in the 60+ years since.

Just came out of Newhaven Lidl's with two heavy bags of shopping - saw a guy standing on the end of the Town platform with a camera, so hung around with one eye on the neighbouring bus departures board. These were the snaps snapped!

Cattle traffic into a market town was largely cattle market days led. There were the odd farm moves, when all the livestock was moved, perhaps when the farmer acquired a larger farm in a different area. Market traffic tended to be young stock coming in to be sold to farmers and older stock often heading for slaughter. Markets were rarely more than fortnightly. Monthly was quite common. Sometimes cattle was marketed in a different week from sheep and pigs. Frome, however, currently seems to have weekly markets. On those days the yard could be clogged with cattle wagons. There are photos of lines of cattle wagons parked along the dockside siding at Highbridge, when as far as I can ascertain few if any livestock were carried by ship. Cattle docks should not be at the end of a siding. It was important to minimize shunting loaded wagons, so a few would be pushed along side the pens on the dock and unloaded. The livestock. cattle, sheep, pigs and sometimes ponies, would then probably be herded round to the market, with empties pushed further up the siding. Then the next batch could be moved alongside and emptied. At the end of the market loading was done similarly. I would guess that in any area there would be sidings where concentrations of special wagons could be parked until needed, rather than clogging up smaller goods yards. Doubtless there are people here in RMweb who know about these things. I have yet to work out exactly the route taken from Highbridge Wharf's cattle dock to the market, which was the other side of the harbour branch of the River Brue. There doesn't seem to have been access apart from a trek round on the A38, although there was a siding that went almost up to the wall of the market. Country towns were used to livestock being herded through their streets. There is a postcard from 1907 showing sheep about to be driven, away from the market, over the bridge under which the S&DJR crossed the GWR on the level.

Bearing in mind that a typical railway horse wagon is about 11 or 12 feet without the shafts and that the pivot point is a couple of feet in from the end, that should be plenty. Horses can turn in a relatively tight circle. Just look at them at a ploughing match. I see that your cattle dock has moved across to the back of the yard. How do you see the scenery around there? Will there be a separate road access into the yard from far end of the yard? You could keep it more or less where it was. Reduce the carriage landing by half. The road is passing at a higher level and could give fairly level access. If you feel that the space between the cattle dock and the goods shed is too tight, the goods shed could move a bit to the left. Cattle docks can be fitted to the space available. The Highbridge Wharf one was wedge shaped, with road access at the end. Please tell me to butt out if my suggestions are not helpful. With Highbridge Wharf I have been doing things all in a back to front way, starting with the shipping, then building rolling stock and road vehicles and some of the buildings and I haven't a clue how it is all going together. The up side is that I don't need it to be operational, it will just be a diorama. Each to their own!

More or less scary than