bécasse

If I actually prepared a drawing of the concrete hut at Morden South, I couldn't find it. I did find my original notes (of 22 March 1969!) and have appended them and also a note on the sizes of the comparable, but naturally smaller, fogman's hut. The additional height of the apex of the roof is necessarily an estimate. I think that the dimensions are a good match with the apparent size of the hut at Downton.

There is a loop or refuge siding hidden by the train too, the near dolly being the obvious clue but a hint of a point blade can be seen under 4080's bogie too. I was going to suggest that the train looked far too long for a Cardiff-Brighton but then remembered that there would have been a Portsmouth portion as well. It is definitely Southern Region stock. Sadly I don't recognise the location but it must surely be somewhere between the Severn Tunnel and Westbury.

Taking the two photos together, I wonder now whether it isn't one of the standard concrete storage huts with the back concrete wall substituted by a timber framework with vertical timber planking mounted on the inside of that framework. The reason for doing so isn't obvious but it may be that there was an identified potential need to subsequently locate the doors there (instead of on the far side of the hut) - swapping the timber "wall" and the doors would have been a relative simple task well within the capability of the local pw gang. I think that I made a drawing of the storage hut that was located on the island platform at Morden South, if I can find it I will post a copy here.

While I have never seen a hut of this precise design before, and I started looking out for LSWR/SR/BR(S) concrete products almost sixty years ago, I can confirm that it is definitely an early Exmouth Junction product, probably pre-1930, the roof design is definitive and was used on both small fogman's huts and rather larger storage huts, both of which had plain panels for their three walls plus wooden doors. It may have been an experimental design which demonstrated that plain walls were better than panelled ones even if they used more concrete in their construction and were therefore heavier to handle. I have come across odd one-offs before during my observations and it is clear that the civil engineers were continually refining the design the products turned out by the concrete works. One interesting aspect of this (which you won't find mentioned in Southern Nouveau) is that the majority of designs were subtly, but obviously, revised immediately after WWII. It would be easy to assume that this was a result of nationalisation but in fact the majority of the revised designs first saw the light of day in 1947 or early 1948, and I now suspect that the redesigns came about as a result of the need to reduce the amount of steel reinforcing (in short supply post war) included. Another interesting initially prevalent but short-lived Exmouth Junction product was the concrete signal post, distinctive because it was solid without lightening holes, which started to be used in the summer of 1926, initially for new-works but very quickly for wide scale replacement of pre-grouping wooden posts too, but which was suddenly superseded by rail-built posts at the end of 1929. Very similar concrete posts continued to be used for yard lighting, and those signal posts which had been installed often survived for forty years, so there was clearly nothing wrong with the concrete post structure per se - my suspicion is that the relative difficulty of making S&T alterations led to their fall from grace. Returning to the depicted hut, I suspect that it is larger than you think and perhaps to the same overall dimensions as the plain-wall storage hut. I wonder if other photos exist showing the hut from different angles but, sadly, photos of any of the stations on that line are rare.

A statement you need to be a bit careful about, Tim. Kings Cross "girls" did indeed have a bit of a reputation, one which originated from the cheap availability of otherwise unoccupied compartments in quad-art sets coming in from Finsbury Park off-peak and which, when quad-art sets were gone, moved to the then cheap run-down housing stock of the KX area. Of course, the area is very gentile now and any red-light is probably the result of someone playing with the remote control for his LED lighting, but back in the days of CF things were different. Had CF been built by a French club (and there are quite a few capable of building layouts that match CF's high standards), I have little doubt that at least one of the trains would have included a depiction of a KX girl at work with her client! Indeed I have a recollection that one of your predecessors as MRC President had a rather larger scale model of a WL sleeper which included just such a (static) depiction. David

My apologies for the delay in replying but there proved to be rather more work involved in preparing this reply than I had anticipated. The drawings below which are approximately to scale (with each "box" representing a square foot in 2mm scale and a two-foot square box in 4mm scale - or 152 feet square in reality) show as much of the real history of the Croydon Central site as I have been able to ascertain, plus a fictional sequel that would have facilitated its survival into the modern day. Although I have taken it no further forward than the introduction of colour light signalling in March 1955, that layout and signalling, had it been installed, would almost certainly have been retained unaltered until 1984 when signalling control of the whole area was transferred to Three Bridges. The fictional sequel assumes that, when the station site was sold to Croydon Corporation in 1890 for the construction of a new Town Hall, that new Town Hall ended up being built elsewhere for one reason or another leaving the station site unused, other than for a sunken public garden, until well after the Great War. During that war, two adjacent RFC/RAF aerodromes had been built west of Croydon at Beddington and Waddon and in 1920 they were integrated to form London's first civil aerodrome under the name Croydon Airport. Somewhat rudimentary at first (as were the planes that used it), by 1925 there was an urgent need to upgrade it and the Croydon Airport Act of that year facilitated the construction of proper runways, plus terminal buildings alongside the new Purley Way. The two Great War aerodromes had been built with the aid of a railway siding which joined the LB&SCR west of its Waddon station, however this was unsuitable for passenger use and in fact the new Airport remained unserved by rail. However, with the former Croydon Central station site effectively unused and East Croydon soon to be part of the new 3rd rail Southern Electric network, it is possible to imagine a new electrified branch being constructed through the old station site to the new Airport terminal buildings on Purley Way. Less than two miles long, with a new 520 foot island platform Croydon Old Town station facing on to Croydon High Street, it would have been quite simple to construct and would have entailed surprisingly little destruction of property. This new station would have been provided with turn back facilities for both multiple-unit and loco-hauled trains. The line would have seen steam-hauled goods trains serving new factories located adjacent to Purley Way as well as a regular service of electric suburban trains and would have opened on 6 March 1928, the same day that 3rd rail electric trains started running between London Bridge and Caterham/Tattenham Corner via East Croydon, and only a few weeks after the new Airport terminal itself opened. The LB&SCR had always retained the land between the Park Lane bridge and the main line and had gradually developed a significant civil engineer's yard on it, known as Fairfield Yard. This would have been retained initially, with modified connections to the new branch, but subsequently became redundant, closing in February 1933. Subsequent to its removal a new electrified lay-by loop would have been installed on the north side of the branch between the Old Town station and the junction. When the Croydon area belatedly received colour light signalling in May 1955, the new East Croydon box would have assumed responsibility for the points and signals at Croydon Old Town, working Sykes Lock and Block to Croydon Airport which would have retained its 1928 mechanical signalling, albeit doubtless upgraded to upper quadrant.

About the same time, following the removal of most suburban goods (coal) yards and their attendant part-time signal boxes, the Southern Region retained the trailing crossovers for use in emergencies and during engineering possessions by clipping and padlocking them. It didn't take long (five years, perhaps?) for the penny to drop that even unworked they wore more than plain track so they were taken out (although I believe that at least a couple of standard crossover formations were retained in store for a while ready to be dropped quickly into place if an emergency occurred).

Mounting the motor with its other face uppermost should change the direction of rotation to your layout standard. Obviously, since you have applied superglue to fix it in place, you won't wish to do this at the moment but if it ever becomes unstuck, it might be worth trying. And talking of "unstuck", are you sure that the motor will run cool enough not to break the superglue bond, or are you using a glue that is impervious to at least low levels of heat?

The E5000's were only suitable for yard to yard working of freight trains and then only when the yards concerned had wired reception roads, although there were more of these than one might assume (they even included the length of Mr. Angerstein's railway in SE London). Almost all such workings ran during the night hours when the number of passenger trains was minimal - hence the lack of photographs. I lived alongside Hither Green sorting sidings and the only E5000-hauled freights that I actually saw were the rakes of ferry wagons to/from the new Continental Freight Depot there which were able to run fast enough to be slotted into daytime timetables. There were, though, always a handful of the locos siting in a wired siding on the down side at the Grove Park end of the yard. The other E5000-hauled working* that I saw regularly during the 1961-1962 timetable year was the 7NA12am Holborn Viaduct, 7.24am London Bridge to Dover which was formed of a BR MkI 3-set and innumerable vans, prior to electrification it had been worked by a D1, E1 or C. It didn't run on Sundays or public holidays. * Apart from the Night Ferry and Golden Arrow, of course

I couldn't help wondering whether the "easement" largely existed to permit the conveyance of odd (loaded) cattle wagons by passenger trains.

Branch goods trains frequently ran during the day often using, as has been suggested, the same loco as worked some or all of the branch passenger trains. Sometimes the goods train was used to changeover the branch loco, a fresh one arriving with the goods and the old one departing with it. A perusal of branch line timetables will often identify a gap in the passenger service during the day when the goods ran. Most branch lines would have been closed for eight hours overnight with the signal box(es) unmanned, (generally) preventing the operation of trains. As for the absence of photographs, photography was relatively expensive (and clumsy with plate cameras) and the few photographers of the period rarely wasted shots on the mundane. Furthermore, with a five and a half day working week, a disproportionate amount of railway photography was done on Saturday afternoons (when pick up goods trains tended not to run), a fact that brings many a trap for the unwary in assuming that historic photos portray typical railway operation. (Photos by Reverend gentlemen, though, tend to have been taken on Mondays and are, therefore, more typical.)

Photos of the real Sidmouth station, right up to the final period when it was being operated by WR dmus and bubble cars, show the coal office, mineral wagons, coal lorry and piles of coal on the ground and available 25" OS maps show no indications whatsoever of coal pens (even though these were normally shown where they existed). There is only one possible conclusion, there never were any coal pens at SIdmouth, and the ones that exist on the model in question are a (not unusual) figment of the modeller's imagination. Incidentally, Sidmouth, with a population of around 10.000, would probably have needed around 5.000 tons of household coal a year (plus, of course, coal for the gasworks during the period it existed), an average of less than 10 wagonloads a week.

By and large, pens for domestic coal were introduced during WWII although they had existed at appropriate locations for industrial users of coal (who wanted stocks held in the rail yard because they didn't have suitable storage space on their own premises) and pens were also used for various building supplies (aggregates and sand, for example). The change during WWII came about because of the desire to even out the year round flow of coal from the pits (and even ship more during the long summer days rather than in winter blackout). That inevitably entailed storage close to the final point of delivery, hence the pens. Before the war, individual coal merchants were inadequately capitalised to be able to fund the costs inherent in holding coal stocks that they were unable to immediately sell on to the final customer.

The minimum permitted height (above rail level) of the contact wire was lower south of Crewe, albeit by not that much, and that was the reason for certain steam locos being banned there once the wires were energised.

I don't know about the full size ETS machines but with METS it is quite easy to extract a staff without the opposite signalman providing a release - and neither machine nor staff needs to be worn, if you know how, you can do it in seconds.

When the blue-grey (and just blue) livery first appeared in the mid-1960s chassis were painted brown reflecting what was perceived to be the actual colour of black-painted ones after some months in service (principally, but not totally, the result of brake-block dust).

And here is a scale drawing of just such a point lever measured up at Witney Goods (WR).

Don't forget, especially if the layout may be exhibited in the future or if it lives in, say, a loft, that you will have to allow for thermal expansion (and contraction) on the modelled rodding.

One suspects that it started to become an issue when bonuses were introduced for freight train working - in the previous decade? It is, perhaps, also worth remembering that locomotives weren't the only things to have specific speed limits when running light, following some interesting experiments, a speed limit of 60mph was imposed on Southern Region 4-REP units when running "light" in order to discourage drivers from trying to see just how fast they would go (which was certainly well in excess of the maximum permitted line speed).

It is possible to grind down sand of the correct colour to make a very realistic looking gravel ballast. However, be warned that grinding sand is not conducive to a long life for the grinder!

My recollection (of many decades ago!) is that lever economisers were standard fitment in SR boxes with electric locks* (unless foot pedal releases were provided) and an even ropier recollection suggests that the lock picked up when one grasped the lever catch handle. Generally the arrangement was easy to work, the one contrary example being Salisbury East which had ex-pneumatic slides which had to be pulled or pushed at precisely the right speed, too fast and the lock didn't pick up in time, too slow and the lock dropped out again, either of which blocked further movement of the slide. Moving the slide at the right speed wasn't helped by the fact that they were quite stiff and were mounted at an awkward height. Obviously the regular bobbies had the knack but for me it was by a long way the most frustrating frame I ever tried to work. * Including those with miniature levers.

Quite a common arrangement for installations up until about the mid-1960s, it obviously required a locally sited signal box unless only very simple pointwork (eg a single siding or crossover) was involved when a (remotely released) local ground frame might be all that was needed to work the points.

Yes, and the same principle would generally apply if a single lever worked more than one FPL.

Not suggested, stated as a fact which it indeed was, a SR colour light signal controlling entry into a terminal platform would display green indicating that the road was clear to the stops or yellow indicating that the road was only partially clear. The last new installation that followed this principle was the emergency replacement signal box at Cannon Street which opened in December 1957 but existing installations continued to use the arrangement until the use of green for entry into terminal roads was abolished throughout BR following the accident at Moorgate in 1975.

But that isn't the one, the top and bottom panelling is clearly different, strongly suggesting that the vehicle originally (still?) had a further single door and two double doors.