bécasse

In the old days I used to sometimes bump into Don at the Manchester Model Railway Society Christmas show and we would always quip about what a good show it had to be (and, of course, was) to bring him all the way down from Scotland and me all the way up from the South Coast.

You might be right about the Southern, I don't know, but the point I did try to get over was that they would normally only be provided where there was some problem in giving the relevant hand signal, usually because of the position of the signal box. In those days nobody, including the Southern, spent money unnecessarily.

For shunting ahead into a single line (and it would be a common practice in at least one direction at just about every signalled station on a single line), the provision of a "shunt ahead" arm under the main arm on the starting signal was probably far more useful than providing an advanced starting signal and would have had a much lower cost. The main advantage of providing such a signal was that it authorised movements which would otherwise have required a hand signal from the signalman and at some stations the siting of the signal box might have made that difficult and/or time-consuming. Both starting and shunt ahead signals would share much the same interlocking, although they would obviously (except at some ER/NER locations) be locked to be mutually exclusive pulls, and any electric locking with the single line instrument (by no means universal especially historically) would differ. There were probably many, many more locations with a shunt ahead arm than an advanced starting signal, but even so most single line passing stations would have had neither.

At the moment, the clumps of trees look as if they are almost equally spaced out whereas the reality of nature would favour a more random distribution with more trees clumped together. Can I suggest something like that shown in the attached illustration with clump 2 moved towards single tree 3, and clump 6 moved towards single tree 5, in both cases forming a fairly open clump not dissimilar to clump 4. This would actually give better viewing spaces. Given that there is in reality a near-continuous line of trees, I would add a similar near-continuous line of low-level bushes, some over-hanging the river, to fill the gaps between the trees while retaining good viewing of the layout.

The WR seems to have been quite careless with its signal box keys as I acquired several, including a GWR example, when my late father-in-law, a former bobby on Reading panel, passed on. I also acquired a set of GWR flags (albeit well-used), a number of hand lamps (of which I still have aa well-restored GWR example) and a pilotman's BR(W) arm band. Talking of hand lamps, they would not only be kept by an opening window but, at night, lit and with the red glass already in the lens, and placed with the lens against the wall so that the light couldn't be seen until it was needed. A late friend, a bobby at Feltham in the 1950s, was working a busy night shift when he realised that a train was charging along a head shunt towards a substantial concrete stop clearly under the impression that they had come out onto a parallel running line where indeed a stick was off for an approaching passenger train. He always said that he acted instinctively at the time and just pushed the lamp straight out through the glass window, there was no time to open it. Fortunately the crew saw it and stopped in time. He always reckoned that he was the only person on the railway with a commendation recorded for breaking a signal box window.

Using cassettes, perhaps?

Just to prove that there is nothing new under the sun, I remember receiving exactly the same advice from George Slater personally some sixty years ago, even though the composition of Mekpak has changed considerably in the intervening period and no longer contains MEK if I remember rightly. Do check that the solvent doesn't affect your print though, inkjet printers weren't around in those days.

I certainly remember seeing in the 1960s diagrams where track-circuit occupancy (or rather non-occupancy) was indicated by eye-ball indicators rather than lamps. What I can't now remember is whether any of them were in ex-GWR boxes but it seems likely.

Wet Leclanche cells, which is what would have been used originally, produce 1,4 volts, so seven in series would have produced 9,8 volts. Traditional dry cells produce around 1,5 volts when fully charged, although the various alkaline ones tend to be marginally lower, but the resultant 10,5 volts shouldn't create any problems. I wouldn't go above 10 volts using a bench supply as the insulation in various "antique" parts probably isn't in brilliant condition. 6 volts should be fine.

As Mike says, it was commonplace on the Western to find a class B head code lamp placed in that position although it was probably more common on auto trains than loco-hauled ones. I suspect that the practice started with steam rail motors which seem to have only been able to display the lamp in that position and, once it was accepted practice, the typical railwayman's habit of always doing jobs the easiest way (permitted by the rules) ensured that it endured. Certainly on auto trains it would have made the regular swapping of red and white lamps much easier.

I suspect that it is Woodgate but I don't have a clear view looking east to compare with. The head code merely tells one that it has come down the Brighton main line and round the Cliftonville spur.

The two detonators in the so-called "single shot" detonator placers are so close together that the driver would hear only a single explosion. There used to be one on the line from Charing Cross at Borough Market Junction which worked automatically in accordance with the adjacent 4-aspect colour light (on the rails when red, off the rails for any other aspect) and on one occasion a train I was on ran over the detonators when they failed to withdraw when the aspect cleared. As may be imagined the driver pulled up pretty sharpish, but was shown a yellow flag by the bobby so the delay was minimal. Following trains would not have been so lucky as hand signalling would have been required until the lineman could replace the detonator-placer.

A through Portsmouth to Ilfracombe service may well have been a "marriage of convenience" of stock working, something of which the SWD was fond, there was a through (but unadvertised) Waterloo-Bournemouth-Bath-Bristol-Portishead working for several years in the early 1960s, curtailed at Bristol when the Portishead branch closed. That too had no obvious return working although clearly the stock got home somehow eventually.

The Casserley and Asher book which comprehensively covers Southern locomotive classes at nationalisation indicates that remarkably few locos were still in Maunsell livery at the beginning of 1948, specifically mentioning (and illustrating) 1661 as one of the few examples. The illustration shows the livery to be in terrible condition. More locos would have survived the war in the Maunsell livery, of course, and been overhauled and repainted in the subsequent two and a half years, but it is unlikely that their exterior condition would have been any better than 1661's. Don't forget, too, that the pre-war Bulleid livery wasn't identical to that applied post-war, whether green or black.

It may have the wrong head code - not unknown, of course, and not really a matter of great import on a branch line - but it is indeed unquestionably Corfe Castle. The late Ted West took a near identical photo, but without any trains or rolling stock present, in 1965, and this photo must date from the first half of the 1960s too as pull-and-push working had ceased by summer 1964. Corfe Castle officially retained its goods facilities until September 1965 but they had been scarcely used since the end of the 1950s. It is just possible that the train was on a diagram that continued from Wareham to Ringwood via Wimbourne, in which case the use of this particular head code is understandable.

I hadn't noticed that, perhaps because of the relative paucity of photographs of the rear of tenders. It seems probable, then, that the practice varied between different works unless it resulted from some tenders being unallocated (to a specific loco) at the precise moment of repainting. One other point, the lining as applied was indeed white (in both this early Bulleid and previous liveries) but in use it very quickly turned a pale buff, probably from being wiped over with oily rags. There are contemporary reports of this (but don't ask me to find them now) and Havenstreet have exactly the same experience with their Southern-livered locos.

Waiting to run light engine (probably coupled with one or more others) to Nine Elms shed. It is interesting that not only is there no plate on the back of the tender, there is no painted number either.

The 1889 Regulation of Railways Act was brief because a brief Act was all that could be agreed to in the short time available for its enactment, indeed a rather longer Act was initially proposed but had to be withdrawn when it became clear that it wouldn't pass in the very limited Parliamentary time available. The speed of enactment was quite remarkable. It is universally accepted that the trigger for it was the Armagh (in Ireland) accident on 12 June 1889 which killed 80 and injured nearly 300 others, many children being among the victims. Parliament that year was already short of time to pass all the committed legislation before the summer recess and yet time was found to introduce and pass the Act with such rapidity that it came into force on 30 August, barely eleven weeks after the accident. I believe that the L&SWR's Netley-Fareham line was the first to open, on 1 September 1889, under the auspices of the new Act.

The Requirements only cover facing points (eg for the entry to the passing loop), trailing points can be further away particularly if the rodding run is more or less straight.

Don't worry, John. A few months after you have completed modelling and painting these buildings, a photo (or a series of photos) will emerge showing that you guessed wrong. Been there, done it - and more than once!

Given that some locos did receive a belpaire firebox, the modeller may well have incorporated one in this model in order to be able to fit the motor in, something that could be a significant problem in times past. He may well have not had an accurate drawing either and made the model based on photographs and a few known dimensions. An informed guess suggests that the model dates from around 1960, quite a few modellers were experimenting with the use of plastikard to build locos by then, me included.

LSWRcrossinggate.pdf A pair of drawings, drawn a long time ago but only recently scanned, which may prove useful to others. The lamps were SR standard for level crossing gates. The Sutton Road Crossing gates are of the LSWR rodded pattern which was considered secure without the addition of mesh and hence are reasonably easy to model. I don't know when they were installed, Sutton Road Crossing (in Plymouth on the goods line down to Sutton Harbour) was opened in October 1879 but I strongly suspect that it wasn't gated until much later, possibly after the Great War, even though a "signal" box was provided. When the gates were put in they were (surprisingly) mechanically worked. The drawings show the two overlapping gates on the box side of the crossing, there were gates the other side of the road too but these had gone (and the track lifted) when I measured them up in 1966. There was a photo on page 193 of the August 1961 issue of Railway Modeller, there are others around on the internet which show the derelict site but don't add anything useful.

Here is a drawing of the crossing gates at Sutton Road. There was a photo in the August 1961 Railway Modeller, page 193. SuttonRoadCrossingGate.pdf

No. The requirement was merely to provide two platforms, they didn't both have to accept arrivals. I would foresee two possibilities at the time of conversion to a terminus. Firstly, if the box was tight on levers, almost no alterations would have been made, so the train would arrive, be run round using the loop, and then shunted to the other platform ready for departure. Alternatively, turn back facilities would have been provided from the arrival platform which would have required a new fpl on the crossover (which was facing to a train departing from the arrival platform) and a running signal to cover the move - thus requiring two new levers. My suspicion is that the former is more likely to have been the solution at the time and that any later (and probable) "economies" would have singled the whole branch. Retaining the former would certainly make operation of the model more interesting and your historical background isn't that far-fetched.

By the time that the station became a terminus it was a Board of Trade requirement that two platforms were provided at termini of double-track branches - so both platforms would have had to be retained and signalled even if turn back facilities were provided from the arrival platform.