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Sorry, Chris, mislead by the door hangers! This other photo makes it clear what they were. I note that there is no TP visible in the original photo but since that has to be at least three years post-closure it may well have been removed in the interim. When I get time later, I will check the orientation of the goods shed on the 25" OS map and see how it relates to possible sun positions and elevations.

This website (hopefully I have already set it for a Sturminster Newton location and mid-summer 1970) enables you to play with the sun's position (using the time slider at the top of the page) including its elevation. This might help you to judge whether SN is a possible, a lot depends on the actual relative position of the tall building there. The sun's elevation was high though, note the angle of the shadows on the NCL lorry. The building itself seems nondescript and, as such, could be somewhere else entirely (ie not S&DJR), but it does appear to have three 'upright' windows in the end lit by the sun and that is an unusual feature for a goods shed where windows are normally minimised (say one for the office) to maximise security. You say it appears to be a typical Dorset Central goods shed - do they have such windows? David

The presence of the NCL lorry puts a definitive dateline on the photo of between 1969 (when NCL was created from the previous Sundries Division of British Rail) and c1982 (when the privatised company became Lynx Express). I don't know if that helps. The coal merchant's paraphernalia might suggest earlier rather than later within that timeline although a few existed in that form later.

Chris The fact that the photo was taken with the sun out provides a certain amount of information which might help to confirm or refute a location. Firstly the sun was high in the sky so the photo was taken within a few hours of midday and thus the highly illuminated end wall of the shed must be approximately the south end. Secondly we can see from the shadows that there must have been a tall (much taller than the goods shed) building just out of sight on the right hand side of the photo. You know S&DJR stations a hundred times better than me so I will leave to you to do the analysis. David

Guess, and then exhibit the wagons. You will soon find out where you went wrong! Either that, or a magazine will appear with a photo just after you made the wrong choice. Been there, done both.

The Hadrian Bar wouldn't have been green and, in Pullman livery, it formed part of the regular Tyne-Tees Pullman set until 1969. The green ex-Pullman buffet cars were the six vehicles that had provided Pullman accommodation in SR Eastern Section ordinary (ie non-boat train) services until WWII, and these were cars 180 (CAMILLA), 181 (LATONA), 182 (MADELEINE), 183 (POMONA), 184 (THEODORA) and 185 (BARBARA). After storage during WWII three cars 180, 181 and 184 were transferred to the Western Section for use as Pullman cars in Southampton Ocean Liner expresses, retaining their names, while cars 182, 183 and 185 were converted to act as buffet cars in London-Tunbridge Wells-Hastings services with the legend REFRESHMENT CAR replacing their names, all cars retaining Pullman livery at this stage. In 1958, the three Western Section cars were also rebuilt as buffet cars (but with detail difference to the other three), and all six were repainted green with the legend BUFFET on their sides. London-Hastings services were, at this stage, being replaced by DEMUs but the seven 6B units with buffet cars were the last to arrive and until this happened limited steam services with the now green ex-Pullman buffets were retained. With the arrival of the 6B units the three ex-Pullman buffet cars joined their three comrades on the Western section, mainly for Ocean Liner traffic but also for Race and other specials. All six became part of BR stock in 1961 with BR S------S numbers but soon became redundant. All six were short 57'-1½" and narrow 8'-1" to fit within SR restriction 0 to enable them to work on the Hastings route.

Well spotted that man! In the original photo the van appears to have a steam heating bag, and, since it is unlikely that it would ever be marshalled in a normal passenger formation, that would appear to confirm the provision of a steam heating boiler in the van.

It was a WWII conversion but late, 1944, which creates a bit of a puzzle as there really weren't many bombing raids by then but the V1s and V2s hadn't yet started to arrive. If the conversion was in early 1944 it is just possible that it was intended to provide power to one of the substantial but very temporary pre-D-Day encampments some of which had significant workshop capabilities (and therefore power requirements).

And Worsley Works do actually have quite a good reputation providing that you accept that they sell "what it says on the tin", ie scratch-building aids and not complete kits.

"W2W (EX GWR 1113) at Swindon 25/05/1957" 25 May 1957 perhaps ??

I have had a go at producing a locking table and, since it has been linked to several times already, I have included John Hinson's diagram to assist comprehension - please remember that this is copyright and shouldn't be reproduced elsewhere. This locking table was only a quick draft so there may well be some errors in it and I am quite happy to amend it in response to comments. Alsop-en-le-DaleLNWR.pdf

I suspect that the two home signals will be released by the levers for their adjacent FPLs standing normal, rather than the points themselves (although 24 will require 8N as well, on the assumption that 8R releases 11 and 15R releases 14). As I indicated above, the LNWR tended to be very parsimonious in its signalling equipment and chose the cheapest ways to implement locking. It was by no means unknown for LNWR distant signals to be locked by bars fixed to the levers which overlapped the home and starter levers, physically preventing them from being pulled unless both stop signal levers had already been pulled - however, given the date of the installation, it is probably unlikely here. One other issue that you have missed is that 2R will lock 24N and 24R will lock 2N so that trains can't enter the station from both directions at the same time. I think that Keith has had a lot more experience with LNWR locking than I have and is probably in a better position to comment further.

That is almost the signalling understatement of the year! The LNWR were distinctly parsimonious with signalling generally, including the provision of box structures and the avoidance of traditional lever interlocking (particularly by clever use of sequential Annett's Keys - for which the LNWR had purchased a generic licence).

Diagrams my no means always indicate the type of shunting signal on the ground, but anyway yellow versions of the LNWR type existed from c1930.

Former Rhymney Railway 76-seat third no.42, built 1920 by the Gloucester Carriage & Wagon Company and condemned September 1957. Fitted with auto-train gear by the GWR. It is interesting that, although it carries a painted legend identifying it as a vehicle for staff conveyance (almost certainly, as already noted, as part of the Caerphilly Works train), it is still part of revenue and not service stock.

I have been through my post changing the dimensions to millimetres - and I would at least start with the wider (14 mm at the top, 10,5 mm at the bottom) strips. Incidentally, you will save yourself a lot of marking out and cutting if, in the flat prior to cutting them out, you lay the strips out alternate ways up.

The circumference of a circle is π x the diameter. Therefore the circumferences of both the top (notional) and bottom (actual) of a bucket will be proportional to their diameters, in this case 40 cm and 30 cm, so the top of each strip needs to be 1/3 wider (4/3 - 3/3) than its base, the extra width being split equally between left and right. The circumference of the base of the bucket is approximately 94,5 cm (including a small allowance for the thickness of the card). It is up to you how wide you make each strip at the base but convenient widths would be 10,5 cm (requiring 9 strips) or 5,25 cm (requiring 18 strips). In the first case the extra width at the top would be 3,5 cm (split 1,75 cm either side) , in the second 1,75 cm (split 0,83 cm either side). There are some approximations in this calculation which will be more apparent with the wider strips than the narrower ones, so the strips should be cut slightly over length and finally trimmed once they are all fitted, and it is probably wise to cut the final strip marginally wide, trimming it to fit as necessary.

OK, Tim, I didn't realise that there was a main entrance elsewhere and was somewhat mislead by the presence of the gatekeeper's cabin. I would obviously have expected the ramp to be wider if there were regular two-way traffic through the gate but assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the narrow width resulted from your necessary "adjustment" of the local geography. It still looks great!

It looks very nice, Tim. One minor point, assuming that the scene is intended to be normally set during the working day, the gates at the top of the ramp would almost certainly have been open. No gatekeeper would give himself the extra work of having to keep going out and opening and shutting them. A realistic little cameo could be set up here of a horse and wagon stopped at the top of the ramp with the driver standing in front of the guichet.

I, too, had once assumed that it was the IRSE committee that was, in effect, responsible for the recommendations that led to the changes in running signals (including, inter alia, both the standardisation of some equipment and the use of yellow for distant signals) which came about in the late-1920s once the new grouped companies had had time to "get their feet under the table". That was until I saw extracts from documentation issued by the Railway Executive Committee Standardisation Subcommittee on the subject of recommendations for signalling which had clearly been newly prepared in 1924. The title of that sub-committee tells us a lot because the Railway Executive Committee was the committee set up to oversee the operation of Britain's railways during the Great War, continuing after the war until 1921, latterly under the aegis of the newly-founded (1919) Ministry of Transport. The standardisation sub-committee must have been set up well prior to the abolition of the REC itself to have been given that title, most probably before the founding of the MoT and quite possibly even before the end of hostilities. Once the REC itself was abolished, the sub-committee clearly continued, flourished even since its recommendations were significantly acted on, under the wing of the MoT. Quite what the relationship was between this subcommittee and the IRSE and the RCH is, without a lot of digging in archives, difficult to establish but, as I suggested before, the limited number of suitable committee members will inevitably have resulted in overlap and consequent effective dialogue. It shouldn't be a surprise that the IRSE weren't left to sort things out for themselves. The position of Chief Signal Engineers in pregrouping company hierarchy varied considerably from company to company, with some, even in the larger companies, being a long way down the pecking order, with signalling being seen as a unavoidable cost rather than a benefit in most. Given all the machinations that went on as to who would take what post in the new grouped companies, nobody was going to leave humble signal engineers to determine future standards which might well benefit themselves rather more than their employers. In practice though, the recommendations that emerged, and which were to some considerable extent (even on the GWR) acted on, were to prove sensible and both traffic and cost effective.

I reckon that at the precise date of that photo, just about all 03s were liveried like that, ie they had all (bar possibly an odd one stored out of service) acquired wasp stripes and the serif style numbers, and hardly any (and perhaps none) had yet acquired the new blue livery. As for New Street itself, it would just another 11 months before it went electric.

Wasp stripes were applied to locos built or overhauled from mid-1960. It is, unfortunately, difficult to ascertain when locos built before mid-1960 were first overhauled after it, thus acquiring wasp stripes. Electrification flashes were also applied from mid-1960 but in this case at depots so most locos acquired them quickly without waiting for an overhaul. Condensed style painted numbers had been introduced c1959 so it was possible to see locos with condensed style painted numbers but without wasp stripes.

Immediately post the Great War, and perhaps to some extent even before hostilities ended, there were at least three different series of committees looking at how the railways might move forward and, to some extent at least, reap the benefits of at least limited standardisation. The three series were allied to the RCH (obviously), the MoT once it was formed a little after the end of the war, and the various professional institutions. It isn't that clear now how closely these different committees worked together when covering much the same subjects (eg signalling) but given the limited number of relevant officers working within the railway industry even pre-grouping there must have been some overlap. Certainly they do seem to have come to very similar conclusions, although, perhaps inevitably, some of the newly grouped companies took them to heart more than others - the GWR stands out, of course, as the odd ball but even they adopted yellow distant signal arms.

I doubt whether there was a general ban, the Isle of Wight Steam Railway currently operates 4-wheelers, for example. What is more likely is that an Inspecting Officer hinted (in my experience they rarely gave an explicit view, other than "no", but were quite happy to suggest what might prove acceptable given the right conditions) that bogie stock was more likely to meet the requirements. While there were plenty of 4 (and possibly 6) wheelers still around at the start of the preservation era, they were almost exclusively withdrawn service vehicles (or grounded bodies but that is another story), usually without working continuous brake equipment), and they would have been unacceptable without vast amounts of work (and IOs would probably have taken a lot of persuasion to pass wooden underframes even for occasional use - most if not all current day 4 wheelers are on steel underframes). There was a lot of redundant bogie stock around, much of it in fair condition, and that was a far better proposition for the limited funds that most preservation schemes had available in those days.

Ken Ashberry produced a number of versions of Ashdown and Midport over the years, all a bit similar in context (probably to fit his home circumstances) but different in detail. Most if not all were exhibited, often at The Model Railway Club's annual Easter show.