bécasse

Continental Modeller is even remarkable. It isn't far off its fiftieth anniversary (although it only appeared occasionally in its early years) and has, I believe, only had two permanent editors in that time - David Lloyd until his untimely death and Andrew Burnham since.

Cab ventilator cover removed for some reason?

Columns headed RC in the Southern Region public timetable for the London-South West England routes (table 35?) almost certainly indicate that the train was booked to convey a Bulleid 2-car restaurant set between Waterloo and Exeter. These were the ex-Tavern car sets and may just have still been so in 1960.

Actually the LSWR Exeter-Chagford road motor service operated during the summer of 1904, ceased for that winter but restarted for summer 1905 and continued until withdrawn by the Southern Railway in 1924. http://www.lthlibrary.org.uk/library/PDF-169-1.pdf My suspicion is that, although it is housed in what appears to be a genuine case, it is a "modern" reproduction. I remember that in 1957/58, at least one of the reformed ex-LBSCR 4-SUBs in the 45xx series had some early Southern Railway London area route maps which showed electrified lines in red and which dated from c1930, and they definitely showed their age, the deterioration of the thin board on which they were printed being obvious.

Tarpaulins didn't stay with wagons other than for the one specific journey where they would have been provided by the Railway on whose metals the wagon started that journey. So if the wagon belonged to the LNER but the journey concerned had started at, say, Stoke-on-Trent, it would have been sheeted with an LMS tarpaulin (which the Southern Railway would subsequently have returned to the LMS).

Significant fertiliser traffic on the railways had started in the early 1930s with many goods yards having "suitable" stores newly provided for the storage of the bagged fertiliser (and often signed accordingly) until it was collected by local farmers (although I don't remember either Westerham or Brasted having such stores). The traffic resulted from new formal agreements between the fertiliser manufacturers and the grouped railways (although I have it in the back of my mind that the LNER wasn't a party to the agreement but still carried the traffic). Prior to that time most agricultural fertiliser would have been rotted and/or liquid manure - and still is in the area where I live.

The two photographs concerned are credited to the author's (ie Ian Futers) collection. Ian obviously didn't know who the original photographer was as otherwise that person would have been acknowledged, as required by law, in the article.

Yes, a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous 2024 to all.

Series/parallel will probably depend on the resistance of the coils and the applied voltage but I suspect that series wiring was the norm. The coils will lie N/S-S/N to enable the yoke to complete the magnetic circuit - it is easy to remember, just think of a commonplace horseshoe permanent magnet which necessarily has one pole S and one pole N alongside each other.

Actually Santa Claus has just swept past my house this evening - only one reindeer though and running over a week late (Saint Nicolas normally brings the children's presents on December 6).

Actually I might suggest that your real problem is that the others look too alike! Look at almost any colour photo of a train conveying "bauxite" coloured wagons and it will quickly strike you that the extent of variation in the bauxite colour in everyday use would qualify for a Heinz 57 varieties label.

Remembering the real things, there was something very atmospheric about those Thompson-era shortie non-corridor carriages and they looked good in BR steam-era livery whether it was crimson or maroon. Somehow the BR suburban carriages just didn't have the same atmosphere, even the rather esoteric versions that prowled around the southern parts of the Eastern Region.

Silver was often mined alongside lead and I believe that was the case for the mine whose wagon is depicted - silver, rather then lead, may be the reason for the padlocks.

I rather wondered whether that right-hand arm in the photo concerned has a white ring centred on it and that is what we can see (with the rest lost in the white stripe and the background). Don't ask me what a ring would signify because I don't know but it would certainly make good sense to centre any ring around the central pivot on a somersault arm. There is a well-established and productive Welsh Railways Research Circle and IIRC Derek Mundy is/was a member so I would expect signalling matters for all the Valleys' companies to have been researched and reported on.

The booster function was useless to get the locos to a third rail, its purpose was to allow the locos to coast over gaps in the third rail, emus overcoming such gaps by normally always having at least one pick-up in contact because of their length. (There were exceptions to that though, it was discovered, very embarrassingly and with considerable disruption to traffic, one evening rush hour that it was possible to gap a 16-car emu at Herne Hill routed Victoria down, down loop, towards Tulse Hill. Having gapped a Holborn-Wimbledon train leaving the down loop, a Victoria-Orpington was brought up behind it to assist, which it did until the whole "train" found gaps in the third rail.)

G6s were yard/depot shunting engines, they would have been finished in the plainest livery applicable at the period concerned. The base colour would have been dark holly green (almost black) in LSWR days and black subsequently.

Whilst that is indeed true, it wouldn't have prevented EMUs being used on Newhaven boat trains any more than the Southern Railway (and later Southern Region) were prevented from operating all 1st class EMUs on Waterloo-Ascot race day specials, the procedures for which were covered in the Sectional Appendix. Relief boat trains were rarely required between London Victoria and Newhaven but, as relief boat trains didn't convey RL, I suspect that EMUs were used on the very rare occasions that they did run.

Registered Luggage under Customs' seal which had to be conveyed in a separate vehicle and thus not in an emu - hence the MLVs introduced with the Kent Coast electrification for use on boat trains.

The crucial point is that they can only be used where speeds are low. IIRC (and the rule hasn't changed) Theatre Light indicators in c/l areas require an imposed speed limit of 40 mph or less and the limit for mechanical indicators was probably even less - 25 mph?

While the model and the station as built are obviously different, it would be surprising if two different designers came up with the identical concept of those two corner pavilions separated by a three section entrance screen. I knew I had seen similar pavilions somewhere but it wasn't until I had read Nearholmer's comment that I remembered that it was on Holden's CWGC work. Given that it would seem too much of a coincidence for the model to represent designs by anyone other than Holden (or his team - he hardly did all that work by himself), unless the pavilions and three part entrance screen were specified in the original Underground Group spec for the station, which, given the high quality of LT archives, I assume still exists.

The answer is to site the signal and surrounding items in such a way that the actual route indication (which is pretty small in 4mm scale) can't be seen clearly by spectators and then just have a single semi-illegible indication which pops up whenever the signal is cleared - still fiddly but possible. I seem to recollect that the indications for routes to platform roads* included a very abbreviated word for "platform" in a condensed font so it was only the actual platform number that varied anyway. * Although, as has been mentioned, these were rare at the approach to platforms, being used more regularly for departures from platforms where sighting wasn't an issue.

I suppose there isn't any link between the name of D60 and the fact that the Premium Bond office was (still is?) located in Lytham St Annes? Premium Bonds were first issued in 1956.

There was a superb 2FS L&SWR layout which was exhibited at The Model Railway Club's 1956 Central Hall show in a "bedroom setting" intended to emphasise what could be achieved in a small space in that scale. The model station was actually called Losschester but was clearly substantially based on Winchester. The exhibitor was a Major Provo but I believe the layout was actually built by a small informal south-west London based group.

It's very unlikely to be blue and grey which in the earliest applications were all but matt - and the reflections show that this vehicle certainly wasn't. It can't be wet either since the loco tender side isn't. I would say that it is a maroon-liveried BSK, certainly not a TSO, which would suggest that we are looking at the Manchester portion.

One thing that strikes me is that, with the exception of the "TRANSPORTATION CORPS / U S ARMY" legend, all the lettering has the look of being hand painted. Given that the locos were produced by three manufacturers over a period of time - and in wartime - it perhaps isn't surprising that there would have been considerable variations in hand-painted finishes, and the US Army's own specifications may well have varied over time too (which might just explain the use of "WD" on some locos - or perhaps these were the subject of the lease-lend arrangements).