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The brown/cream LNER colour scheme was superseded in 1937 by a brighter green/cream one. It is possible that "your" station never got repainted into the green/cream but it probably would have done, and it is certainly possible, even probable, that that was still the scheme when the line became a LMR responsibility in 1958, albeit looking somewhat worse for wear. See the station colours website for details, plus photos of the schemes resurrected on preserved stations.

My solution to beefing up such a short length of wire/rod on a completed model would be to find some (preferably black or brown) plastic-covered electrical wire of the correct OD, pull out the copper wire, run a small drill through it to check it is clear, cut it to the correct length(s) and then slit it along one side to enable it to be clipped onto the existing wire/rod.

Don't forget that there would be a fair amount of ex-LMSR (or later BR-built clones) around too on that route, probably including some mixed into WR trains. Possibly some Gresley ex-LNER vehicles too, but very much in the minority compared with the ex-LMSR stock.

London clay ochre? Dabbed on using artists' acrylic paint straight from a tube to give it some body - think boots muddy with clay.

The righthand letter looks to be an E to me, the lefthand one is something dense, could be N or G. Either way, it suggests a pooled wagon and thus a 'tween wars date.

It's definitely a 3 planker as one can just see the plank outlines on the interior of the far end - and it looks as if those ends are about 4½ planks high.

With regard to the Warship you might find this RMweb thread interesting.

This is what 75 Chapel Market looks like today (with thanks to Google Streetview). I was horrified to realise that it must be almost half-a-century since I last visited it to buy some American N gauge stuff from the back room, although I had visited the later Pentonville Road shop a little more recently.

Alterations made during the period in the 1950s when the S&T was still Exeter's responsibility but under the overall control of the WR? I suspect that if the alterations had been made any later than that then a new WR-style diagram would have been provided.

I have a vague recollection of having been told by someone who knew that the BRITISH RAILWAYS legend used briefly on locos/tenders in the late 1940s was (always?) painted by hand. If that was in fact the case I would expect some variation depending on who the actual signwriter was. Ex-LNER signwriters would have been used to applying lettering in the Gill Sans font but not those employed in the works of the other former big four companies.

One further advantage of choosing the J39 is that the prototype was quite at home on both passenger and freight (secondary) duties, at least in parts of the former LNER system, making it potentially a very useful loco for branch or secondary route terminal or through station. They lasted quite late too.

It is possible to reduce the effective diameter of a slightly overlarge tube by cutting a slot of a suitable width along the bottom, squeezing the slot closed, soldering the joint up, and then squeezing again to more or less regain a circular shape. The width of the slot needs to be ∏ x the difference in the two diameters, so if the overlarge diameter is 10mm and the correct diameter is 9,7mm, the slot width would be ∏ x 0,3, say (22 x 0,3)/7 or just under 1mm.

I have to admit having forgotten the use of stencil type indicators (for main running signals), but the earliest SR schemes pre-dated the Westinghouse installations at Manchester, the major scheme at Cannon Street was inaugurated in summer 1926 and it wasn't the first (that being between Holborn and Elephant & Castle, inaugurated earlier in that year and including the first-ever 4-aspect signals). I have (temporarily) forgotten who supplied the earliest schemes on the SR but it wasn't Westinghouse. One oddity to today's eyes was the lack of signal number plates on the earliest schemes as installed, although the need for them was quickly recognised.

Definitely installed in the first SR colour light schemes of mid-1920s. If you think about it there was no other way of showing multiple routings (eg into terminal platforms), especially as those early schemes used side-by-side multiple-aspect signals for junctions rather than lunar lights.

Most manned stations had some sort of lock-up accommodation for smalls traffic, either within the main station buildings or as a separate shed. Typically station trucks (or whatever they were called by the individual railway concerned) were marshalled next to the brake van (or even form part of the brake van - and there could be an open station truck as well as a van depending on traffic requirements), and were left in the platform while train shunted wagons in and out of the sidings. Consignments were transferred from the truck to the lock-up and vice versa, typically while the shunting was taking place. Passenger-rated consignments would most commonly travel in the van of passenger trains but the procedure at stations would be much the same. Between 1870 and 1920, the railways were by far and away the major carrier of goods around the UK and smalls traffic was an important part of that.

Much better. I would, however, place the goods shed so that its road vehicle access faces the front of the layout - that may be what you intend anyway but it isn't clear from the plan.

I suspect that your ultimate rendition of the tree and other growth along the river bank is very close to how I would have ended up had I been doing it. It both looks natural and provides good viewing windows of the railway that lies behind it.

While it may or may not have been the reason in this case, such odd workings often occurred to enable loco men to retain their route knowledge of an emergency diversionary route.

In the British Railways era, the traditional-style Southern Region books (pre mid-1960s) definitely showed connections in the same font as other timings, just as this MR book appears to do so. Unless there was a definitive note ("through carriages" or "change at") one had to guess that a timing was a connection.

The use of an italic font for connecting times is a (comparatively) recent innovation, I suspect coincident with the introduction of timings in 24-hour clock format in the mid-1960s. Although prior to that the various regional books all contained their own idiosyncrasies that were inherited from the big-four companies (and sometimes even the pre-grouping companies) and which tended to be prolonged by the fact that the several printing companies involved held the winter and summer editions of the passenger (and often the working) timetables as standing print which were merely updated and not reset each time. (There was an obvious cost to this but that cost was not only lower than the cost of full print-setting but was less susceptible to the propagation of errors.) Without a copy of the full timetable in front of me it is difficult to speculate accurately but I suspect that the Midland were using an italic font to indicate that the train concerned either didn't run every day or was subject to some other sort of restriction.

Generally round the British Isles, coal would arrive at ports by sea rather than by rail. In some cases that sea-borne coal would then be distributed to nearby areas by rail, but I have no idea whether that was the case at Whitby.

The table that you have shown appears to comprehensively cover only the line from Trent (then a major multi-way junction, albeit with little local traffic) to Bedford, note that the station bank has references to other tables which doubtless show services between those stations in a more comprehensive manner. The 550 from Derby to Leicester may add a portion from Nottingham at Trent or it may merely be a connection, almost certainly the Nottingham arrival time is a connection, looking at the separate Derby-Trent-Nottingham table would provide more information (as it is also possible that the 550 from Derby goes to Nottingham and it is the 552 from Nottingham that goes to Leicester). The important thing for a passenger timetable of that era is that all the journey opportunities are shown.

A Jinty adds a further dimension as they were basically a Midland Railway shunting engine adapted as an LMS standard design. I doubt whether there were many places (bar joint lines, eg Birmingham New Street) where an ex-LNWR Coal Tank and a Jinty could be seen together in the early pre-grouping years - and that is before trying to add an ex-LSWR M7 into the equation. Even somewhere around Kew in S.W.London where the three railways ran pre-grouping is unlikely to have seen that combination of locos. Perhaps the answer is to be unambitious to start with, a short length of double track in a cutting framed by reasonably anonymous over bridges at either end would take you back to a concept commonplace (but in 7mm scale) seven decades ago, but nevertheless still useful for honing your 2FS skills.

The 1962 Hither Green box certainly used GPLs. Not only did I live there at the time but I am one of a small number of people who saw the two Down Elmstead Woods 3-lamp calling-on GPLs (think permissive working of passenger trains) in situ on the Sunday morning that the scheme was commissioned - they were removed the same day on the instructions of the Inspecting Officer. What is unusual is that there were examples of power-discs as well but I can't remember, 60 years on, what was installed where. Both the 1959 and 1962 (Kent electrification) schemes used contractors for installation which was a big change so far as the Region was concerned but was necessary to meet timescales. Although both schemes adhered to common specifications, the actual equipment installed reflected, to some extent, the current practices of the contractor concerned. One big difference between the two schemes is that the 1962 scheme used route-setting panels throughout.

I seem to recollect that he was also, at one time, the Principal of the BR's Senior Management Training Centre at Woking.