bécasse

Other than at terminal points, "road" vans were normally loaded and unloaded at the station platform while an shunting required was taking place. Many stations possessed a lock-up shed (occasionally incorporated into the station building) to facilitate timely loading/unloading and the safe storage of delivered or to-be-collected items. Road vans carried items rated at goods tariffs, more urgent items travelled in the vans of passenger trains and were passenger tariff rated - handling at stations was similar though.

Not really many variants. The early "shaped" disc appears to have been produced enamelled white all round (apart, of course, from the red bar) which is quite logical. One presumes that it proved difficult to keep the back of the disc clean and so the lamp blinder was painted white instead and this became the new standard arrangement, carried forward on to round discs when they appeared (with back faces enamelled black). The white backs of the original discs would have been allowed to become grimy over time, other than in odd locations with keen S&T gangs who still cleaned them. All those gwr.org photos are consistent with that analysis.

A couple of general comments. Firstly, in most railway workshops (at Eastleigh, for example) drawings weren't used on the shop floor. The foreman was told what was required and what material would be provided and construction went on from there. The men on the shop floor would have their own trade practices (learnt when they were apprentices) and one of the most important of these was that the job was always done the easiest way. That probably explains, for example, the differences between the MR and SDJR luggage doors, at Highbridge, with only a few to build, it was probably easier to make two equal width doors, whereas at Derby, where large numbers of standard width doors would have been on hand, it was probably easier to take one standard width door and then make the second to the non-standard width. Secondly, it is important to remember that old photos don't necessarily show typical workings. Before (perhaps) 1960, most amateur railway photographs showing general working were taken on Saturday afternoons (or on Mondays by clergymen!), and while Saturday timetables were often very similar to those for Mondays to Fridays, the traffic working wasn't.

But the real railway only ever had one. Apparently it seemed like a really good idea at the time since there were (or would have been in time) a good number of "Bulleid" compartment trailers going spare and ripe for conversion, and the intention was to actually use them between two passenger units in service trains. (That really happened, incidentally, I remember seeing a 4CEP-deicer-4CEP formed service train depart towards London from Ashford one Sunday in early 1962.) However, fitting proper drawgear and buckeye couplings to both ends of a formerly close-coupled trailer proved problematic and expensive, and the intended scheme never went further than the prototype. I believe that at least one preserved line looked at ex-SR trailer vehicles as a potential source of "historic" rolling stock until they were told how difficult conversion would have been.

Electrification.

You seem to be able to route down trains into the up loop without any provision within the up loop for preventing them going any further. It would be a very unlikely provision during most of the semaphore era anyway - the most likely arrangement would be to have no facing crossover at the approach in the down direction and then a long trailing crossover on the up side so down terminating trains would offload in the down loop, continue empty in the down direction and then reverse back over the long trailing crossover into the up loop. There would probably have been a layover siding (with a run round loop for loco hauled trains) if terminating trains normally spent any great time before returning.

On the prototype it was the other way round. All the Class 24s and the earlier Class 25s had the three panels occupying the same (wide) arc of the roof so the beading was all in-line. However the later Class 25s had an extra line of ventilation panels installed along the cantrail both sides and this necessitated a reduction in the width of the central panel. The vast majority of manufacturers in both 2mm and 4mm scale have taken this later design as the starting point for their models, even without the cantrail ventilation grills. Getting the cab "brow" shape right has been an issue for model manufacturers, I am told because no detail drawings exist, and reviews of new models as they emerged were naturally drawn to that feature, so reviewers overlooked the width of the central panel issue. It is noteworthy that Brassmasters who produce(d) a wonderful range of detailing parts for Class 24/25s in 4mm scale overlooked the issue too - it could have been corrected by fitting a new two-part etched central panel. However, once the error is corrected it is amazing how "correct" the model suddenly looks.

I am made suspicious by the newly white-leaded (or whatever white sealant they were using in the early 1960s) roof. There really were very few in traffic by that date, mainly on freight-only branch line duties, and I suspect that this is an engineer's riding van attached to a train of empty open wagons which are ready to be filled with spoil come the next weekend.

The roof panel issue is an obvious glaring error (which affects more than one 4mm scale version too) - not least because the roof is the most visible part of most model diesel locos. Correcting it, using microstrip perhaps, will make a huge difference to the appearance of your model, especially considering all the other excellent work that you have done to improve its appearance.

They were banned from long-distance freights from 1957 because they didn't have duckets. Most probably disappeared from general traffic use fairly soon after that although there would have been exceptions. They continued to be used as barrier wagons on tank trains (fitted/piped examples only) and, of course, many found employment for a considerable period as engineers' riding vans (and not just on the WR).

I wouldn't assume that the ground frame was locked directly by the signal box. The LNWR were very keen on the use of Annett's Keys to lock/unlock ground frames, sometimes sequentially.

Wagon loads wouldn't necessarily have had to be handled on the non-platform road. Until freight traffic on the railways died away in the mid- to late-1950s, it was commonplace for wagons to be shunted without the use of locomotives. Capstans or railway or traders' horses were once the typical "motive power", but post-WWII pinch-bars probably became the most common tool.

Tim, using Loctite to fix a flywheel is overkill. Pritt (the heavy duty version if you have a choice) will do the trick just as well, and it is much easier to get the flywheel off again if it ever becomes necessary. Push a cocktail stick into the Pritt so that the sharpened end of the stick gets a good loading of the adhesive, and then push the stick into the hole in the flywheel from the side that the motor/gear shaft will pushed into, then mount the flywheel. The Pritt will take the strain immediately but the joint will become stronger over the next few days as the Pritt dries out. Pritt isn't strong enough for gears, of course, because of the load they carry, but a flywheel is very different.

It is a combination of standard Exmouth Junction products to provide a safe base for something or someone to stand when the embankment (or cutting) isn't suitable on its own. Chris may well be right in suggesting that a fogman's hut stood on it, another possibility is that it provided a safe place for a lineman to stand while working on the electrical connections box for the distant signal.

Having seen the Buren watch that was for sale, I think that it is fairly safe to say that your grandfather's watch wasn't a railway issue one. The serial number is clearly Buren's and there is no marking to identify it as railway property which there would have been (although a railway company might well have used a manufacturer's serial number as its unique number - each railway kept a register of clocks and watches).

Definitely an "Exmouth Junction" ballast bin although it is possible that they were only produced post-WWII (effectively post-nationalisation - although the design work for the later period products seems to have started prior to nationalisation). Not only can't I find an example in Southern Nouveau but I can't find a dimensioned sketch in my contemporary notebooks - I must have measured up such a commonplace item, mustn't I?

Guards, responsible for the timekeeping of their trains, were issued with fob watches on a chain. I would have expected most, if not all, to be marked with the name of the owning company in some way plus a unique number, as guards would have been expected to hand them in with the rest of their uniform if they left the service.

Reusing the old post, literally moving the signal in fact, was much more likely in wartime when materials were short, and that possibly applies to the LQ arm too. The down distant would have had a LQ arm on that rail-built post in 1931.

I have never noted anything like it on the rest of the system and it doesn't look to me as if it is built from pre-cast concrete sections. It might have been built from pre-cast blocks and then rendered but my suspicion is that it might have been built by pouring concrete into shuttering. If it is, it is almost certainly a one-off experiment (probably LSWR rather than Southern). The granite dust which was, of course, a major constituent of LSWR/SR concrete structures originated from Meldon Quarry as a by product, so this would have been a convenient location to experiment with a poured concrete structure.

If it is 1930s LNER, I would definitely go for layout B either with two diamond crossings or with one diamond crossing plus one single slip allowing arriving branch trains access to the fast line platform. I would also add a trailing crossover at the left hand end of the layout as it would facilitate shunting a terminating branch train (even if most ran through). The other thing is that the branch should be double track in the vicinity of the station, even though it singles eventually, because the Board of Trade strongly disliked what it thought of as single line junctions. Ideally the double line would be long enough to hold a departing branch train while it was waiting for a late-running branch arrival to clear the single line, but even moving the diverging point off the single line back a couple of lengths would give the right impression.

And Mornsell is how it was pronounced half-a-century ago by the odd person that I met that had actually worked with the man in their (relatively) youthful years. Not that many people did actually get to meet him as he was one of the old school and kept himself very much to himself and his immediate deputies. Bulleid, apparently, was a total contrast and mixed regularly and happily with the staff, even though it took them some time to realise that even the opinions of the most junior were valued by the new boss.

It is most likely to a Saturday afternoon, unless the photographer was a Reverend gentleman (when a Monday would be more likely). It is easy to forget that, almost until the end of the steam era, most people who could afford to photograph trains worked a five and a half day week and only had a fortnight off each year. Although Saturday timetables were often not dissimilar to those that applied Mondays to Fridays, locomotive and carriage set working was often quite different.

The physical locking was probably remarkably simple. Lever 4, the FPL on point 5 (and originally point 6 as well) would have acted as a direction lever, facilitating movements in the down direction when normal and in the up direction when reversed. Once lever 1 became the FPL on point 6 it would effectively had mirrored the actions of lever 4 in this respect. Adjacent levers 2 and 3 and also 9 and 10 mutually lock against each other, another very simple locking action - and, of course, 7PULL and 7PUSH mutually lock against each other without needing any actual locking to do so.

The Southern used concrete posts (without any relieving holes) for "simple" signals during the mid-1920s. It seems to have decided fairly quickly that these weren't entirely satisfactory and posts built from old rails were in use for both new works and replacements by the end of the 1920s, initially with LQ arms. UQ arms were used from the mid-1930s. With a lot of analysis of photographs, particularly of new works with known dates, it should be possible to tighten up on these dates. Ironically, most "Southern" rail-post signals actually date from the mid-1950s!

It wasn't at all unusual (and may even have been normal practice) for LE workings not to be included in the WTT. There is also the possibility that the 5.30Q working replaced the 4.45 when required - usually, but not universally, there would have been a column note in the WTT to that effect for the 4.45 ("Does not run when 5.30 Q Bailey Gate to Templecombe runs").