bécasse

The 1926 layout at Moorgate Street allowed Metropolitan Railway trains to terminate there but they were always multiple-unit trains (principally slam-door stock) working in from (and returning to) Watford and Uxbridge (and, for a period, Stanmore). Later these trains worked via the Widened Lines, electrified for the purpose, coming on to the Widened Lines east of Euston Square EB and leaving the Widened Lines WB at Farringdon (effectively providing a very elongated flying junction); at this period Kings Cross station on both the Met and the Widened Lines was in the same location later used for Kings Cross Thameslink. When Kings Cross Met was relocated to its current site early in WWII the use of the Widened Lines by LPTB trains ceased (and probably had done so at the outbreak of war). The new Kings Cross Met incorporated a central bay platform which it was intended would be used by District Line services extended on a regular basis from Edgware Road, however this never happened and although the bay road had track laid for quite a long while it was never electrified. District Line trains were extended from Edgware Road to Moorgate over many years but, rather strangely, only on those Saturdays which proceeded a bank holiday Monday (and no, I don't know why). Incidentally, when looking at maps the current route between Barbican and Moorgate isn't the historical one, all four tracks were relocated in the 1960s to facilitate building development. Moorgate station was very badly damaged during WWII and was still effectively a tidied up bomb site right through to the early 1960s.

Some pre-grouping companies, notably the LNWR, preferred to work the points at each end of a crossover from separate levers. Sometimes doing so simplified the interlocking.

....... and Brian Haresnape was a keen and informed observer of the contemporary livery scene. He was most unlikely to have got such a basic (and then current) livery detail wrong.

The BR(S) started to use GPLs in the Kent Coast schemes of 1959 as Sittingbourne box and the Sheerness branch definitely had them (I have my own photos to prove it) but I am not certain that motor-discs weren't used at some of the other boxes in that scheme. Motor-discs were definitely used at Cannon Street (new box December 1957). GPLs were used in the 1962 Kent schemes even though junction indicators were still 3-lamp SR ones (the first 5-lamp one that I noted was a replacement at Lewisham c1965). However, with the very special exception of the Sheerness branch, they were all double-track routes, and the Southern Region simply wouldn't have got the financial authorisation to install colour lights on a single track branch line at that era, a requirement to formulate a closure proposal would have been the most likely response to a request (and, indeed, the majority of such lines did close in the early 1960s). A small yard on a single track branch would have been worked using an Annett's Key on the staff (or equivalent arrangement with the more likely Tyer's token) to unlock the ground frame, with signals neither required nor provided. I forgot to mention before that the knee frame might well have been in a small hut of pregrouping design but certainly could have been free-standing, exposed to the elements.

Because the actual paint specification would almost certainly have been different for road vehicles. Furthermore, the NUR, who represented the men who drove the vehicles, would almost certainly have argued that an all-over maroon scheme would have been less visible and hence less safe than retaining the then current two-tone livery. The recognition that that was an issue was probably the starting point for the development of the all-over yellow livery.

I have to disagree in respect of Southern Region practice. Very little of the SR was equipped with colour light signals in the mid-1960s, schemes were either close to London, the Brighton Line (1930s scheme) or parts of recently electrified Kent. A single line branch like this definitely wouldn't have had colour lights and the "signalling" would almost certainly have been exactly what Mike Romans suggests for the WR - viz a 2-lever ground frame (without ANY signals), the only difference from the WR would be that a "Stevens" knee frame would have been used because that was standard SR practice. ("Stevens" because that company allowed their patent to expire and subsequently the LSWR, SR and BR(S) thereafter bought the basic components from whichever company offered them at the lowest price - on the ground, many were actually mongrels, put together from whatever was in the stores at the time.)

I began "spotting" in about 1955, mainly at Hither Green so I saw plenty of cross-London freight which was mainly coal SB and empties NB. At that time there were plenty of wagons with the tattered and faded remnants of PO liveries apparent but just about all of them had their BR P numbers. One oddity of the faded liveries is that sometimes the lettering stood out in the wagon's body colour rather than white or black, whereas the colour of the rest of the body was barely discernible. At the time we came to the conclusion that it was because the painted lettering had protected the body colour base paint and that became more and more obvious as the lettering weathered, while at the same time the bulk of the body painting was just weathering away. At the same time all steel mineral wagons had reasonably respectable (and occasionally pristine) paintwork with none of the significant rust marks that became almost the norm by the mid- to late-60s.

"Pathing" issues at sea (and in harbours), different vessels were used for inward and outward workings. Scheduling ships could be just as complex as scheduling trains, particularly as suitable berthing slots were very limited. At one period Oostende-Dover car ferries sailed 15 minutes earlier on certain dates, a fact which used to puzzle people but was the result of the need to free up the slot for an incoming ferry which only operated on those dates. I can also remember being at a scheduling meeting at Holyhead to decide the winter timetable for the Dun Laoghaire route and arguing almost till I was blue in the face that they had two ships using the same slot at the same time on the first morning, but was over-ruled by the "experts" who had been doing planning for years. Unsurprisingly, a week before the timetable change a notice arrived from Holyhead noting that operational problems meant that some timings would have to be "adjusted" on the morning of the timetable change!

Just to add that, particularly in the early 1960s, it wasn't unknown for auto trailers to be hauled, most commonly singly, by a non-auto fitted loco (eg a 57xx pannier) which obviously had to run round at each end of its journey. Mostly it would happen because of the non-availability of a rostered auto-fitted loco, but non-availability of suitable coaching stock (or diesel units) could be a reason too (just as the use of odd corridor coaches became commonplace on secondary and branch line services in the 1960s).

April 1959, as already mentioned by me upthread!

Victoria, there were connections to Moscow via Oostende too. My office in the Shipping & International Services Division was responsible for dictating which destinations should be displayed for each boat train departure - and we always used the correct local spelling for the place name so Moscow was actually displayed as MOSKVA.

As these two carriages were seemingly elaborate reconstructions of existing vehicles, it is more than possible that no drawings (and more certainly no general arrangement drawings) were ever prepared, although drawings of the under frames as originally constructed probably existed already. It is rarely appreciated these days that drawings rarely reached the shop floor in railway works, the men working from a mixture of the foreman's instructions and their own inherent professional skills. Sometimes general arrangement drawings were prepared after construction as a record, more or less, of what had been built but such extravagance is probably unlikely for semi-unique vehicles converted in the middle of the Great War. The diagrams, much simpler drawings intended for traffic purposes, were likely to be sufficient - and we know that they existed.

Railway Magazine April 1959. I arranged to visit the line after reading the article. I turned up with a camera slung round my shoulders - bad mistake, the only time in my life that I have had a loaded rifle pointed straight at me. The sentries were certainly on the ball and the camera ended up locked away in the guardroom for the duration of the visit. Later I saw some works journeys buses entering the site and they were all thoroughly searched, both decks, by sentries with their rifles ready. The railway was interesting though although you will understandably find few photographs.

I think that it was down to the difference between trying to stop a heavy train moving at, say, 40 mph which definitely needed skill and anticipation with a Charlie, and bringing the same train moving at, say, 2 mph to a precision stop, which the Charlies were undoubtedly good at - I watched them do it with engineers' trains on several occasions (sadly a long time ago now). I have heard it suggested that it was due to the fast action of the steam brake on a Charlie, and, of course, the momentum of a train moving at 40 mph is 400 times greater than that of a train moving at 2 mph so the task is completely different.

To my recollection Charlies were usually used in pairs on ballast trains at the site of engineering works. They were apparently very popular with the pw men because of their ability to position the heavy train "on a sixpence".

Prisoners for Dartmoor prison were taken by train from Waterloo (see the BTF "Terminus") to, I suspect, Tavistock, which was served by the Plymouth portions of West of England trains, and presumably transferred there to a prison van for the last, fairly short, stage of the journey to "the moor".

I agree with Mike, I visited a number of BR loco works in my youth and never saw a set of steam loco frames painted red, it would have been unnecessary once ultrasonic testing became possible (and far more effective) anyway. The purpose of the red had been to make it possible to spot cracks forming, wiping over the frame with an oily rag would have left a fine black line where a crack was forming which was readily visible against the red background, at least to a skilled eye.

Deraillers weren't just used on the continent, the LNER was quite a significant user of them, especially in tight situations.

The insides of the frames were painted red (or vermillion) to ease the task of spotting any cracks that started to form.

The 1931 track layout diagram in that book omits one of the traps (the one at the station end of the loop), it was there though and can be seen in photographs. The one at the Tiverton Junction end of the same loop was worked from the West GF, the others from the GF in the station building.

There were no catch points at Hemyock, normally catch points are incompatible with single track. There were, however, five trap points, four single-blade and one double-blade, this last adjacent to the cattle dock. Trap points are worked in conjunction with their paired point (so effectively forming a sort of semi-blind crossover) and their presence is required by law to protect the running line from runaways.

Doubtless a commercially attractive proposition to both parties which may well be linked to the seasonal nature of certain coal traffic, particularly in household coal.

There were a number of miners' 4-wheelers which had what had previously been a normal passenger compartment labelled as a guard's compartment (in this case without an end window). I have always assumed that (at least) one bench seat was removed and a brake setter installed - it would have been a cheap enough conversion. Most of the miners' 4-wheelers were in overall brown livery, and I suspect had been well before WWII, and presumably the earlier Glyncorrwg bogie vehicles were the same. As has been said, final repaints in BR days were into Crimson, seemingly always unlined.

The Caen "trains" had small diesel engines and were steerable (hence the exposure of the first set of wheels) so, by lifting the guide wheel, lowering the pantograph and starting the diesel engine, they could go away from the guide rail and wire, much as many continental trolleybuses were able to. In "guide rail" mode theywere as silent as a bicycle. As has been said they have been replaced in Caen by a conventional tramway but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have been suitable for a route such as Swansea to Mumbles.

...... or perhaps more probably guided single-wire trolleybuses as used in Caen, for example. photo: Transbus