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Looking at the train, both loco and stock (including the U-van for the proverbial kitchen sink), I suspect that it is a return hop-pickers (not hop-pickers' friends) special, quite possibly Hawkhurst to London Bridge via Tonbridge, Redhill and East Croydon, so would be on a Sunday afternoon in September. They sometimes ran via the Crowhurst Spur and sometimes via Redhill and it wasn't unknown for them to run into Bricklayers' Arms rather than London Bridge LL (although that was more common pre-war). When I started school in 1950, there was a girl in my class who was taken out of school for a fortnight each September so that she could accompany her family on their annual hop-picking "holiday", and I remember seeing the odd special train even quite late in the 1950s.

There were only ever three tracks, not four, at today's Kings Cross St.Pancras Metropolitan Line station. Originally the present EB tunnel was empty, built to provide for a never-built connection to the LNWR at Euston, then from the mid-1920s it was used for a single EB-only electrified track which led into the Widened Lines through to Moorgate, serving Kings Cross Met station in its old location (subsequently used for Kings Cross Thameslink). In the late 1930s work started on the current Met station and a platform was added alongside the EB track in this tunnel which was then diverted back on to the route of the EB Met line. The previous double track running tunnel had a new WB platform built on the site of the former EB track. Between these two tunnels a third was bored which had platforms either side of a single terminating track - intended to be used by District Line trains extended from Edgware Road. The new station replaced the old Met station for LPTB purposes in 1940, and the old station was closed for the duration of the war, reopening afterwards to serve LNER (EB only) and LMSR widened line trains to/from Moorgate. The terminating track at the new station was never brought into use, or even electrified, and was subsequently infilled in the 1960s to provide a better circulating area.

Redhill coming off the Tonbridge line and about to pass the shed on the right (the path that leads out of the back of which can be seen in the right foreground), the train will work on from Redhill to the London Bridge area.

Ex-GWR toads were blacked by Southern Region branches of the NUR (to which guards belonged) because of the low height of their veranda sides and the lack of any hand-holds (except at the corners). I rode in one a goods train once (with official permission, I might add) and I certainly didn't feel safe out on the veranda (and I wasn't aware of the SR ban at the time). Any that ended up on the SR (which didn't happen very often) went home either empty or with a WR guard. Once they were withdrawn from normal traffic in 1965 a fair number were used for some years as civil engineer's riding vans, a task to which they were quite well suited.

Snargate Radio. The telex/telegram address for Shipping & Continental/Sealink at Dover was SNARGATE DOVER. It was ironic that Dover was one of the last major towns in the UK to get an automatic telephone exchange - almost exactly 50 years ago. I almost lost count of the number of times that I had to dial 100 and ask the operator to connect me to Dover 800.

Looking at the photos in that link, it is (as you suggest) a fairly pale colour, the comparison with the WDLR bogie wagons which were probably dark grey is particularly telling. Yellow is unlikely, many of the photographic emulsions of the day were pretty insensitive to yellow (and red) and, with a number of photos taken on different occasions, it is likely that at least one would be rendered quite a dark shade if the original had been yellow. Pale blue seems unlikely because it didn't wear well, a FR loco painted light blue c1932 had to be repainted within three years. Pale green (rather lighter than LNER locos) might be a possibility but in the absence of other information I would go for pale (ie photographic) grey which would seem a good fit with the experimental nature of the prototype - and, if definite livery information should become available in the future, would also make a good undercoat.

There is a very important reason for that rule which is rarely appreciated by non-professional railman. A distant signal can't be cleared until the interlocking proves that all the running signals to which it refers have been cleared. Mechanical interlocking works both ways, of course, so as long as the distant is off none of the running signals can be put back if an emergency occurs. With the distant put back once the train has passed it, the signalman isn't constrained from immediately putting back the running signals if the need suddenly arises. (I will leave the question of the constraints that running shunts impose on one side for now.)

That's not how the ends of the wagon in the Warwickshire Railway's site photo are planked. Playing with the contrast levels shows clearly that the ends had 4½ planks, the lowest four all having the same height as the side planks and the same width, while the top narrow plank was obviously rather narrower than the wagon.

And he would have been a passenger, rather than goods, guard.

Jerry I did my best to indicate that I wasn't criticising what you had done this time, I fully understand that the levers won't be visible to the viewing public (but why go to the trouble of painting them at all in that case?). I was merely trying to provide useful guidelines to you, and others, if you find yourself in a similar situation again, perhaps where the levers are rather more visible but you don't know what the correct sequence of colours is (which will often be the case).

They were probably the most common steam engine when I was a spotter at Hither Green station in the mid-1950s so I should know the answer. However it is a long while ago and I can't now be certain (and photos seem very sparse), but I think that they carried the relevant SR cross-London head code but using ex-LNER loco lamps rather than discs.

Jerry There is a fairly standardised layout to levers in a signal box with all the principal running signal levers concentrated at each end (the end from which the relevant trains arrive). So the outermost levers would be yellow (or once upon a time green) if the distants we're worked or white (spare) if they weren't, followed by at least a couple of red levers for home and starting signals, with a mix of red (signal), black (points), blue (fpls) and white (spare) levers in between. If there was a level crossing, the brown levers for its locks might go outside the distant levers at the end closest to the crossing and any wheel. There is nothing wrong with an "artist's impression" approach, indeed it is emminentally sensible in your situation, but it should bear some resemblance to reality, after all, you wouldn't paint the trees on your back scene a random rainbow mix of colours even though some variation in colour would be realistic. Finally, as a rather sad PS, have you heard what has happened to the P4 scale honorary North Cornwall layout St Merryn.

These ex-MR branches were transferred to the WR post-nationalisation in two "bites". Firstly in 1949(?), they were transferred for commercial and infrastructure purposes but remained part of the Midland (? - not sure about the nomenclature) Operating Area for operational purposes including the provision of locomotives and rolling stock. Secondly, in 1958, they fully became part of the Western Region, and in fairly short-term the use of WR locomotives and rolling stock became the norm.

The one at Tufnell Park is more or less directly outside a newsagents so objection overruled. However, it should be noted that the two actually serve a different market. The newsstand sells to those in a hurry for their evening papers (choice of The Star, Evening News and Evening Standard in those days) who almost throw their pennies?, halfpennies? at the vendor as they grab their paper of choice without pausing, while the newsagent sells to those with a little more time who may want a magazine, fags, sweets (or indeed a morning paper).

They all look to have been replanked at some stage. I wonder whether the ex-GWR one may not have started life as a FRUIT D.

The two lifts in each shaft were totally independent of each other and I am reasonably certain that there wasn't a counterweight either. The "cages" were relatively lightweight in construction and could take 40 people at a time so there would have been a huge difference between the cage weight unladen and the cage weight totally laden which, although it wouldn't have rendered a counterweight totally useless, would have still required a substantial motor to raise the lift (and possibly produce a partial braking effect for the descent too). In later days there used to be a mechanical display that showed whereabouts in the shaft(s) each lift was, even at a four lift station it was by no means unknown for all the lifts to be more or less at the top or the bottom at the same time. The photos in Thomas's book show that these displays post date the 1920s. Incidentally, it struck me that the news vendor's stand outside Tufnell Park station would make a nice cameo outside York Road on CF - without requiring too many hours of modelling.

May 1959 electrification and resignalling, see: Signalling diagram Sheerness branch 1959.pdf

Taken out in the WR era then, presumably the points were clipped and padlocked and the siding subsequently used only for engineering vehicles or, perhaps in extremis, the odd cripple.

Was it ever removed? ... or just not shown on that 1948 box diagram? Without a disc or indicator at the exit from the (worked) siding to the running line, neither of which are shown, that layout would have not have met the requirements of the Inspectorate. If it got past the head of section at DE Exeter, it would soon have been spotted when a copy was received at Wimbledon - who would have been placated by an assurance that a point indicator was still in place. Its absence from the diagram would not have been a big issue for the bobby, or his DI, because it wasn't worked separately.

Some Underground lift scans from J.P.Thomas' "Handling London's Underground Traffic", published by the Underground Group in 1928 (and therefore long out of copyright) and still one of the best railway books ever published! I believe the photos were all taken specially for the book and are thus contemporary. I have also scanned this photo of the facade of Tufnell Park station which shows that that "UNDERGROUND" upright cuboid was sometimes attached to the facade rather than being mounted on the corner of the roof.

Of course the Western had a bit of a problem with discs, if they hung one on a lamp iron it wasn't very visible from the front being edge on.

Transferring from an erstwhile WR location in the Wolverhampton area to an LMR route onward to Leeds would of itself have involved some convoluted routing in 1963 as only very limited links then existed between the two systems. If it wasn't for that, I would have favoured Burton-Derby-Rotherham-Leeds as it is likely that there were drivers available who had knowledge for the whole route (and therefore could act as a conductor even if none of them had the requisite traction knowledge). However, the easiest physical route would be via the Bushbury link and that might favour a Stockport route if it wasn't for the fact that the Bushbury link wasn't actually signalled (even though it was used for Sunday diversions of LMR trains from the north into Low Level and thence Snow Hill).

I thought it was the coal hopper for a steam-heating boiler. Doubtless an unrecorded trial to see if a coal- (or, more likely, anthracite-) fired boiler might prove more reliable than the oil-fired ones the locos were built with.

In S&DJtR days the responsibility for painting all structures, and providing signs, was the responsibility of the District Engineer, Glastonbury, which was a L&SWR appointment. That isn't to say that L&SWR standards and colours were used, of course, but it is a potential pointer. The same DE was responsible for signalling and we all know how idiosyncratic that could be. MR input would generally be limited to approving expenditure, which probably meant that economic solutions were more important on the Joint Line than on the rest of the L&SWR. When the DE Glastonbury position was abolished (possible prior to 1930, I can't remember now), responsibility passed to the SR''s DE Exeter (which actually came under the WR for much of the 1950s), an office which had a bit of a reputation for independence from HQ. None of which helps determine why the sign has, apparently, a blue background. I did wonder whether it had actually been black, and faded to an apparent blue, as i do remember seeing odd WR painted signs with a black background in the mid-1960s. Painting it blue would seem very odd as I doubt whether a painting gang under WR control would even have had any blue pigments, let alone ready-mixed paint, given that the WR separated out S&T painting gangs (who would have had a palish blue for levers).

Potential lack of concentricity apart, I would want a sleeve to be a push-on fit to a 0,8mm ø motor shaft rather than a press fit. It is all too easy to bend a thin motor shaft when pressing anything on, whereas just pushing it on by hand and fixing it with Loctite shouldn't create any problems unless you are very ham-fisted.