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The paling fence in the background is going to have been around 3 feet high, so that is probably the approximate length of the lever too. However, a minor light railway and interlocking with block instruments, about as likely as Boris Johnson making a sensible statement.

The initial BR non-corridor livery, introduced officially in February 1949 but effectively not before early-summer that year, was waist-lined crimson with the painted number at the LEFT hand end of each vehicle side. This livery officially continued until the spring of 1951 when the waist-lining of non-corridor vehicles (which often looked ridiculous in practice) was discontinued and the painted numbers were transferred to the right hand end. Swindon was slow to apply the Railway Executive instruction to make these particular livery changes and it was probably mid-1952 before they were implemented there. The paucity (and poor quality) of early colour photographs makes it difficult to be certain but black & white photos suggest that newly-painted non-corridor stock turned out by Swindon looked just like such stock turned out by other works, the crimson looking rich and quite dark. What does seem certain from colour photographs is that Swindon-painted crimson stock faded much faster than stock painted elsewhere, my suspicions are that Swindon, having traditionally always had cream upper works (which it still had on corridor stock, of course), used a pale undercoat whereas other works used a darker one, although it is possible (but seems unlikely) that Swindon's painting (or possibly revarnishing) techniques were sub-standard. Certainly by the mid-1950s typical WR non-corridor vehicles looked very different to, say, typical SR ones, which of course they met in the West Country. The 1956 maroon livery was initially lined only for vestibuled vehicles, the lining being extended to non-corridor stock from mid-1959, (this lining was normally, but not always, applied at contrail level as well as at waist level), but in all cases the painted numbers were applied to the right hand end of the sides and therefore the photo cannot show a lined maroon liveried vehicle as the painted number is clearly at the left hand end.

No. The vehicle next to it is in the earliest BR livery for non-corridor vehicles - lined crimson with the painted number at the left hand end of the vehicle side - so circa 1950.

The real kudos comes when you exhibit the layout in the general vicinity of where it is fictionally located and the punters come up to you reminiscing about how well they remember it and what a shame it is that Beeching closed it.

It looks as if it is fitted with acetylene lamps front and back, possibly with sliders to enable a red light to be shown at either or both ends if required.

You have quite a few facing points which are remote from the signals protecting them and are therefore unprotected from unauthorised movement. They could be protected by track circuiting which would have been possible but perhaps still unlikely at that date but otherwise would have had to be protected by yet more signals. The NER was very fond of signalling installations and I suspect that more signals would have been installed, particularly if the layout dated back several decades as seems likely, given that the further back historically that it was installed the less likely it would have been that track circuiting provided the solution. However, there are others who are far more expert than me in NER signalling and doubtless they will offer their opinions in time - and may even know of a comparable real layout.

Not just on the Western. Well into BR days, many signal box diagram linens, from which the display prints were produced, were updated originals dating back before 1930 when upper quadrant signals were all but unknown and thus showed lower quadrant signals even though the real things had been converted to UQ (or replaced by UQ signals). In fact, it wasn't unusual to find linens that dated back to the pregrouping era.

As is usually the case, one shouldn't take the captioned date as being the gospel truth. There are too many photos around where someone once had a (not unreasonable) stab at a date and that date has since become established as the assumed actual date even though it was originally no more than an informed (or even not so informed) guess. In this case it is unlikely to have been before 1929 as the vessel was built with a dummy second funnel which was only removed in 1928. The mass of road vehicles present would be more typical of the 20s than the 30s and that would suggest that, even if the 1929 date isn't correct, it is only a year or so out, which doesn't affect the premise that the stock livery was updated ahead of its normal repainting schedule. The clothing styles visible also support that dating window.

The Southern was certainly laying plain track with concrete sleepers and chaired bullhead track by the mid-1950s, often on single track branch lines, and with concrete sleepers and flat bottom rail by later in the same decade. (However, concrete sleepers were at that time incompatible with third-rail electrification so their use on the Southern was confined to areas where electrification neither existed nor was planned.) Doubtless the other Regions followed much the same timescale, relaying using bullhead rail would have become unusual by about 1960 at the latest.

The phase I 4-CEPs came into service in June 1959 with the opening of the Kent Coast electrification so were built 1958-1959. It was the phase II 4-CEPS that were built 1960-1961, coming into service in June 1961, initially working to the ex-steam timetable. There were four prototype 4-CEPS (and two 4-BEPS) which came into service in 1956 and worked on the Central Division and they certainly had the original "frameless" windows.

Newspaper trains, almost by definition, ran in the night hours so effectively no photographs exist and it is far too long ago for personal memories. Stock obviously returned during daylight hours but often in several different trains so even where an up service with vans was photographed it is difficult to say categorically that the vans were newspaper traffic ones. That said, in the early Southern period, newspaper trains would inevitably have been made up of pre-grouping vans, probably with bogie stock predominating as many were tightly timed. Locos were probably mainly the same as those used on lighter passenger trains on the same routes, perhaps with 4-4-0s to the fore. Some Southern newspaper trains conveyed limited passenger accommodation. By the time one got to the branches and twigs of the Southern system, most newspapers were conveyed in luggage accommodation of ordinary passenger stock. The Southern became concerned with the cost of conveying newspapers over the further parts of its system and introduced a series of increasingly ingenious measures aimed at passing newspaper trains in the early hours without opening signal boxes, even on single lines.

I had a 1224 which showed just these symptoms. When I replaced it I opened up the can and found that one of the magnet pieces had broken and become loose - that's terminal.

I think that if you look carefully you will find a substantial number of railways that were actually constructed in accordance with the light railway clauses of the 1868 Act, remember that they still needed an Act of Parliament. Even the L&SWR's first route to Bournemouth was a light railway under the provisions of the 1868 Act. Pain was very vociferous about the three lines (Culm Valley, Highworth and Southwold) that he engineered in accordance with the Act, but I have come to realise that the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway had to have used the Act as certain features would not have passed the Inspecting Officer otherwise, and doubtless there were many other standard gauge lines. A major clue is that the line had to be subject to a 25 mph speed limit and the signalling arrangements can appear odd, sometimes without starting signals, for example.

The spur (bottom right) needs a trap point and the middle siding needs an "either way" trap point. Both types are shown in this 1963 photo of a Southern Region (but to current national standards) installation.

Southern Region practice had definitely changed by the time of the London Bridge scheme in the mid-1970s for which all signals received new-style (white on black) plates with L numbers. Further checking suggests that the London Bridge scheme was the first on the Southern to adopt the new style numbering. Certainly the Dartford scheme earlier in the same decade had signals numbered in accordance with traditional Southern principles. Incidentally, it wasn't just automatic signals on the Central and South Western Divisions that had C and W prefixes as all the signal box codes on those divisions were also so prefixed and thus never comprised less than two letters and quite often three. In respect of automatic signals, it should be remembered that, until emergency replacers appeared on the scene, signal boxes had no control whatsoever over them and that, at least originally on the Southern, trains held overlong at them were required to pass the red aspect and proceed cautiously to the next fixed signal (or an obstruction or hand signal).

Thanks for that, Geraint. I thought that I had taken it somewhere round there but couldn't match it up (having missed the clue of the chimney on the skyline). Having looked more closely at Harry Townley's photo of Longcliffe it has become clear to me that whatever it was constructed of it wasn't corrugated-iron. The wall looks like upright planks or sleepers and the roof covering looks like tar-paper or possibly an old tarpaulin fixed with battens over planking, probably built by the local pw gang rather than being any sort of standard LMSR/LMR structure. The wall looks to be about 11'-6" long by 7'-6" high with the roof adding roughly another 4' to the overall height and another 1' to the length each end. I think that the motor trolleys were about 9' overall length so those estimated dimensions are probably about right. I will see if I can get a rough drawing together.

Corrugated "iron" panels were 26" wide (allowing a minimum 2" overlap) and regularly available in lengths between 6' and 12' in whole feet increments, the corrugations were at 3" centres. You didn't cut the stuff unless you had to but there must have been some sort of tool for bending a sheet at 90° along a corrugation as one often finds a single corrugation bent round in this way at corners. Even from this distant view that starts to provide some possible dimensions. The hut looks to me to have been provided specially for a motor trolley rather than previously having had some other use. While on the subject of the CH&P, around forty years ago I cycled the length of the High Peak trail and took a number of photos. I have been able to identify the precise location of all of them (even MP 13 by Croft Farm) bar one which should be obvious but isn't, at least to me. I have attached it below and would really welcome suggestions, it is looking away from Cromford.

That certainly sounds just the job. If I were to make one, and I might well do, I think that I would use the smallest size (1/16"?) of square brass tube instead of a strip of brass (easier to drill holes through and stronger for its size) and then solder a pair of household pins through the holes in it, trimming the pins to length after soldering (again the steel pins would be stronger for a given diameter than brass wire).

Even better than a screwdriver is a home made tool which uses an X-Acto holder no.2 fitted with an adapted no.18 (chisel shape) blade. To adapt the blade, grind off, or at least blunt, the sharp end and then grind a slot in it wide enough to take the wheel boss (so that it looks rather like the special screwdriver for Romford wheels but with a wider slot). For 2FS you may need to grind a taper in the sides of the blade too so that it will fit within the rim. Of course, the canny ones among us will utillise a well-used blade that has already become less than sharp. It is easiest to use in wheels with an even number of spokes but it seems to work OK with an odd number too even though it can't quite be centred on the wheel.

It was effectively a station (St.Helens) to station (Bembridge) move (albeit within the one OES single line section), propelling at start of the service day, pulling back at end of service day. The connections to both Orchard siding and the goods siding were facing to arriving trains, the latter via the loop. At the end of the day after the arrival of the last passenger service, the loco had to run round the carriages via the turntable before it could pick up the empty wagons from the two sidings (and the points had then to be reset to the mainline by the guard before the OES staff with its Annett's key could be released from the frame in the box enabling the loco and wagons to precede along the branch). In the morning the arriving propelling move had to wait at the station throat while the guard used the AK on the staff to unlock the frame and hence work the points for the sidings, once the wagons were safely deposited the points were reset for the mainline and the loco was able to immediately couple up to the stabled carriages in the platform. Then the regular day's routine - arrive, run round via the turntable, depart - set in, broken only if a PLA (passengers' luggage in advance) van had been added to the branch train at Brading, in which case it was necessary, after the run round, to shunt with the whole train to deposit the van in the goods siding (or to pick one up for taking back to Brading). I think that the PLA van movements were normally confined to Fridays for arrivals and late in the day on Saturdays for departures. The PLA van was normally unloaded and loaded in the platform (most of the luggage would belong to patrons of the Royal Spithead Hotel just across the road and their staff would help) and stabled empty in the goods siding.

There was in later Southern Railway and early BR days an example of a goods train being regularly operated without a brake van and that was on the (to all intents and purposes level) Bembridge branch in the Isle of Wight. Although no mention of it appears in the IoW Sectional Appendix, the practice was sanctioned by the Assistant (to the General Manager), Isle of Wight, apparently dating back to Macleod's days in the post. "In reality the goods train was the first arrival of the day, having started out from Ryde and being propelled from the junction at Brading (where reversal was necessary). It shunted St.Helens Quay en route where the brake van was left, so that it arrived at Bembridge with just the wagons which were shunted into the two sidings. The loco then picked up the carriage set which had been stabled in the platform overnight and worked the day's passenger services. At the end of the day, it left the carriage set in the platform, picked up empty wagons from the sidings, then called at St.Helens Quay to pick up wagons and the brake van, and continued to Sandown where the wagons and van were left to be worked to Medina Wharf via Merstone the next day, the loco finally working back light to Ryde. Only if there were no wagons for St.Helens did the brake van reach Bembridge for stabling, something that was rare pre-WWII but which became much more commonplace thereafter." The guard rode on the loco footplate between St.Helens and Bembridge in each direction.

Not just normal signalling practice but required by law unless the connection from the siding(s) was controlled by an immediately adjacent ground frame. The signal could be a ground signal (or even just a point indicator) or a subsidiary arm mounted on a post.

That view is April 1974 by when I assume that there was less demand for Conflat As for carrying small containers. The decks of the two in the photo appear to have minor modifications to enable the compressors to be secured safely which makes me wonder if they had been allocated their own TOPS code.

I have already stated that the LNWR used blue over black, and as far as I know that was the only colour combination, as opposed to a single colour, that the LNWR used (at least with any frequency) on their levers. That colour combination didn't feature in the standard list of lever colours implemented by the LMSR in 1934 and that, apart from the signalman's mode of attire, was the basis for my original statement that the photo predated the mid-1930s.

That is certainly the sort of thing. Being the LNWR, the wagon turntable probably wouldn't be released directly from the frame but via an Annett's key, possibly housed at one end of the frame, which would be released with the lever reversed and then used to unlock the turntable.