bécasse

Very sad.

Since you are going to declare it, I recommend making a list of everything that you are taking, the separate parts of the layout, each item of rolling stock, the controllers, etc together with your realistic valuations thereof, noting that everything is more than six months old. You would have had to do that for the carnet anyway. Hopefully the Customs' officer will look kindly on you.

So you are taking the layout but no models to run on it - and no tools either? The valuation would be whatever the Customs' officer chooses to say it is and, as a minimum, there would be a significant additional penalty for non-declaration, the officer could however decide to confiscate everything (and, if you were travelling in a vehicle, the vehicle as well). Remember that it is the value which is taxable, not what it cost historically, and the mere fact that you are taking it to be exhibited in Europe demonstrates to the officer that it must be valuable. You might well get away with it but if you don't the penalties are significant. Remember this is what the British voted for, while the way that the British Government has handled the whole situation merely encourages the authorities in Europe to take a harsh line. I might add that if I order a railway book which is only available from a British supplier who isn't registered to collect Belgian TVA (the bigger ones are but tend not to handle specialist books), I end up having to pay around another €30 in taxes and charges on top of the book price and postage, something I didn't before Brexit.

In theory you still need a carnet - but at least if you go by Eurostar you will find out at the controls at St.Pancras if you have a problem.

Perhaps not, although I travelled on the Bournemouth Belle several times (in 2nd class) and the Harrogate Sunday Pullman once (in 1st) I can't remember the precise formation of either now other than the fact that kitchens definitely serviced more than the passengers in that car. It isn't impossible that kitchens served more than one adjacent car, particularly in 1st class where there were less passengers per car. Try looking at historical photos of Pullman trains, although they rarely enable one to see much of the detailed makeup of the rake, the kitchen cars do tend to stand out particularly in views where the car roofs are visible as the ventilator layout was different.

Yes, a Pullman kitchen served passengers in the same car and in an adjacent car, and yes, Pullman kitchens all provided similar facilities (which could be route specific) so a Third/Second Class kitchen car merely provided Third/Second Class (as opposed to First Class) seating. There were, of course, variations over time as to how fuel for cooking was provided.

The numbers were almost always carried by locos working out of sheds on the South Eastern whereas they were often missing on the Central and South Western (so the discs were just plain white). Specials had the letters SPL above the number in a much smaller font. Three digit numbers seem most common but one might expect that.

Each duty spelled out a locomotive's tasks for the "day" together with the timings for those tasks.

One disc on each Southern head code habitually displayed the locomotive duty number.

When I first read the question my immediate reaction was that he couldn't possibly be asking about roads passing below stations (approximately) orthogonally and so he must be asking about examples where roads run under stations approximately parallel to the railway above. I could think of a number of cases of terminal stations where the cab road would qualify for that but I couldn't offhand think of any examples of public roads (except for a possible oblique example at Vauxhall) but there must be one or two examples of that somewhere in the UK surely?

My first was the 1954 Model Railway Club show at Central Hall when I would have been eight. I joined The MRC in 1960 and so stewarded from 1961 onwards except in 1969 (August that year), when I was a demonstrator for the first time, and in 1971 and 1974 (and also at Wembley in 1985), when I was a layout exhibitor. Rather to my astonishment, I have exhibited layouts in France on six occasions since moving to Belgium thirteen years ago.

Roy, assuming that you are viewing RMweb on your iPhone, choosing files should offer you the option of searching your iPhone photo library for the file. If that doesn't work you can transfer a copy of the photo from your photo library to "files" which you do by selecting the photo in the photo library and then selecting the transfer button (square with upward arrow) and scrolling right down until you get to "files" and selecting that option. "files" is one of the options offered when you select "choose files" in RMweb on your iPhone. David

Ah! Eureka moment! All problems solved! Line reopened as an electric interurban tramway with street running through Bodmin linking approach to Bodmin General station to the Camel Trail at the erstwhile Bodmin Jail site, and again through Wadebridge and even perhaps at Padstow. The current preservation group could continue to operate Bodmin General to Boscarne and the Camel Trail could co-exist with the tramway. It doesn't really help the OP although a nice Padstow tram terminal model might be a possibility with HO being perhaps more practical than OO given that most suitable tram models are in that scale.

Looking from abroad, I thought that sowing confusion was one of the raisons d'être of the British Rail network of today. I am just glad, despite possessing a silver pass, that I don't actually have to use it.

Is the apparently separate character in the middle an ampersand (rather than a Welsh "Y"). If it is, it perhaps suggests a colliery named for two joint (original) owners each with a short name. I agree that the lack of any routing instructions suggests that it is very local.

So Bodmin South Parkway it would have to be. Oddly I had been through the same thought process myself!

There are a number of photos on the internet showing BR-era locos, both steam and diesel shunter, which appear in the photos (and in at least one case apparently in reality) to be black but are in fact BR loco green. This would seem to be the result of the atmospheric conversion of the lead compounds in the green paint (which the 1956 green undoubtedly contained) to lead sulphide which, although actually a dark grey colour, appears to be black - the same effect that lead (pun, sorry!) to the darkening of white canvas roofs on rolling stock.

Perhaps the loco has just run round the train prior to propelling it west clear of the station in order to cross over on to the up. The pristine state of the wagons does suggest some sort of trial run.

Unless you can find a contemporary reference (Inspection report, local newspapers?), I suspect that differentiating between 1854 and 1856 will prove next to impossible, especially as the dates for other stations vary too. Building style often offers important clues but I would never rely on that for just a couple of years difference. Noting that there would have been a manned level crossing at the station site from the opening of the line, is it possible that initially it was an unofficial stopping place, regularised (and provided with a platform and rudimentary building) when the other stations also opened in 1856? I suspect that 1876 was the year that the suffix "... and Meare" was dropped although the Ordnance Survey continued to use the full name for years after that (which might suggest that any running boards or etched lamp names weren't changed, just the paperwork).

An interesting mix but indicative of the fact that before the pooling of wagons goods trains only contained wagons of companies which had a good reason for being in the rake concerned, rather than being like liquorice all-sorts with wagons of many companies being mixed in with wagons of the predominate local company. Mineral trains with typically a much greater proportion of private-owner wagons would have shown greater variety but, I suspect, even there there would have been less ownership variety than the average "old-time' modeller assumes.

When the use of colour film by individuals was still rare the processors could have an influence on how colour was rendered in the resulting slides. Our next door neighbour's elder daughter got married in the early 1950s and, as her newly betrothed was comfortably off, they went to southern Ireland for their honeymoon accompanied by a decent camera with colour film in it. When they got the slides back they were generally excellent but they were very surprised to find that the deliberately posed shot of the pair of them in front of an ex-GPO pillar box showed the box to be red. When they complained to Kodak, they received a very nice reply (together with a quantity of complimentary colour film) thanking them for the explanation that the box really had been green and not red. Apparently, it had been rendered correctly on the film but the individual processor noticed that what he thought was an obvious British post box hadn't come out the correct colour and so had "corrected" it. Kodak were indeed very pleased to learn that it wasn't a fault of the film but of the perceptions of the processor.

A certain gentleman who was once a sector director and who has more recently been associated with the Ffestiniog Railway would certainly agree with that final comment. In the second half of the 1980s the Treasury insisted that BR moved the basis of its accounting from the traditional calendar year to the fiscal year. After one very strange year that contained 16 accounting periods, the next year reverted to the normal 13 4-week periods but what no-one in authority noticed was that Easter, then a period for bumper InterCity receipts rather than an opportunity to dig half the network up, had fallen in late March before the new fiscal year started and then the next Easter fell in mid/late April after fiscal year had ended. Apparently the period-by-period receipt out-turns were largely in line with forecasts through the year until the final out-turn, with no Easter to bolster it, fell well short, meaning that the year as a whole also fell well short. The result was that the aforesaid gentleman went ballistic, I didn't personally see his "performance" but I did see his shell-shocked sub-sector directors immediately afterwards and they weren't a pretty sight. The real irony is that the aforesaid gentleman had, prior to becoming a sector director, held a senior position in the Board's HQ strategy planning office and consequently might just have been expected to notice the emerging problem himself (rather than constantly trying to score points against the other sector directors).

The board on the right with its back to the photographer would have had a [ T ] indication indicating the terminal point of the PSR on that road. Southern Railway PSR indicators were rare beasts, usually only installed where there was nothing else to help a driver identify his position, clearly here there is a signal but presumably the other end of the PSR wasn't so obvious. The standard top limit on the Southern Railway for steam traction was 85 mph but a lower overall limit may well have applied over the whole S&D, the introduction page to Southern-produced WTTs would have stated it whatever it was.

The 6-COR units concerned 3041-3050 only ever worked regularly on the South Eastern Division and then only on peak hour services during the 1967 summer timetable period. After that they were only used spasmodically including on the Central Division (and just possibly on race trains on the South Western Division). I strongly suspect that, given that they were effectively electric versions of the "long sets", their livery mostly never progressed beyond the green/small yellow patch stage and they were all out of service by the autumn of 1968. Certainly the couple I saw were in that livery, however I believe a couple may have acquired blue with yellow ends. Note that, as built, they marginally fouled the SED loading gauge and it was found necessary to remove the roof board brackets from all the vehicles to comply.

Officially you need a carnet. Not having one, even if the layout is "hidden" in the boot of your car, risks not only the confiscation of the layout for non-declaration but also of the vehicle. It probably wouldn't happen but it can and it isn't only the French Customs who are a risk but the Belgian Customs, who carry out regular spot checks within the country, too. Remember, the UK got unnecessarily nasty post-Brexit by insisting on the need for passports (which the majority of Europeans, including myself, don't have even if they are rather cheaper than British ones) so for the Customs to find a British vehicle carrying "contraband" would be considered a "good win".