bécasse

Whilst I don't have personal experience of travelling via Bournemouth West, I have seen photos of the Bulleid set arriving at Portishead with the caption stating that they had originated at London Waterloo and the Portishead branch closed before Bournemouth West. Furthermore, it was my understanding that at the time of the "temporary" closure of Bournemouth West (which I vaguely remember as taking effect in the middle of August 1965 with virtually no public notice), the carriage workings weren't altered although they worked to/from stabling sidings rather than BW itself (propelled from/to Branksome?). That would have made great sense as suddenly changing very involved carriage working diagrams, which were sometimes 3 days long, in the middle of the busy period would have involved a huge amount of work for which the resources were probably not available. Although I think that these trains ran six days a week, I am not sure that the carriage workings would have been the same on Saturdays, at least during the summer timetable.

The Terriers are likely to have been in Marsh umber livery (which was a pretty plain brown) by the time that the Great War erupted. I too think it unlikely that they would have been repainted beyond having their numbers and L B S C tank side lettering painted out (which could well have been done at Brighton before they were handed over).

The Hornby model was redimensioned in almost every respect to enable it to fit a chassis. Altering it is possible but a huge amount of work, even though there is quite a reasonable replacement chassis kit available from Branchlines. The Judith Edge kit is, as near as I can tell, accurate and not too difficult to build. Mike Edge, the kit designer, has a good reputation.

Those "red" carriages are exactly as I remember ones on the Southern. I have long had a suspicion that appearance of the red colour was highly dependent on the undercoat under it, particularly after a year or two in service. It was notable (and obvious in contemporary photos) that vehicles painted by the WR, presumably at Swindon, weathered to a much lighter colour in service - and I doubt whether the difference was due to the colour of the top coat.

I still remember the advice given to me by the bobby in Hampton Court box back in 1963 - "when you are turning the gate wheel, never, ever, look at the road, the gates will do far more damage to an errant car than the car will do to them and the word (that once the gates start closing they carry on until they are closed) soon gets around."

Perhaps the layout should have been built mirror image, that really would have caused confusion among the more learned! I do actually know of one past layout, admittedly not 2FS, that, although it was generally a scale model of a prototype, was built mirror image because it looked better - and remarkably few people spotted it; its exhibition appearances included IMREX.

Yup, some bloke on rmweb seems to be collaring the lot.

I am fairly certain that there weren't any Banbury-GC line locals by the mid-1960s. I was an Oxford undergraduate 1964-67 and I spent a long time puzzling out how it would be possible to travel over the line. Eventually I caught the northbound through train from Oxford and got of it at Rugby Central, I then caught a lovely traditional Midland Red single decker bus to Leamington and a train back to Oxford from there. I presume that from the "north" it was possible to do a day return trip using the SB and NB through trains, but this wasn't possible from the south.

Yes, I knew that, which is why I said inter-alia. However, locos were regularly allocated to sub-sheds and, given that Ns seem to have been the preferred traction on the North Cornwall line (and certainly regularly worked that train) it is quite likely that a 72A N would have been regularly outstationed at Okehampton. There were probably cyclic diagrams that ensured that oustationed locos regularly visited the parent shed for any servicing that Okehampton couldn't do itself (although it was a fair size for a sub-shed).

Er, 72A was the code for Okehampton shed (inter alia), a shed that might well have provided the loco to work the 5.51 pm starter from there to Padstow.

Note that there were quite a lot of fine details which differed on early members of what became the 08 class and Bachmann didn't incorporate them in the model, although it is by no means impossible to make the changes oneself. The earliest examples were vacuum fitted but it was quickly realised that this was a waste of time and money for those locos which would spend all their lives shunting yards (but not, for example, for station pilots) so a substantial batch were delivered unfitted. Working out exactly what a particular example looked like in the plain black era can be quite a minefield, particularly given the dearth of contemporary photos - nobody wasted valuable film on diesel shunters!

I don't possess anything like a full North Cornwall line TT for 1960 but among the few records that I have I note that (at least on Saturdays) there was a departure from Okehampton at 5.51 pm for Padstow and Bude connecting out of the 1.00 pm from London Waterloo - this would have been at Halwill at 6.20 pm which is exactly the time suggested by the shadows of the sun. Photos suggest that this train was normally formed of a pair of Maunsell BSK-BCK 2-sets as far as Halwill where it split.

W4320S was among the small number of diagram 2123 semi-open third (later second) brakes that was passed to the WR in 1963/64 so it seems likely that it was the vehicle depicted. It had been one of the earliest vehicles of what became quite a numerous type, having entered service in the last few months of the Southern Railway and may, therefore, have always been green.

Declining the STJ-Acton coal traffic may have been, but when I was an Oxford undergraduate 1964-67 the best description that could be applied to the Brush 4 hauled coal trains that I happened to see on the mainline was bouncing, especially going west empty. My only surprise was that derailments were as infrequent as they were!

A few moments thought about what the locking does, even for just two or three levers, should be sufficient to tell you whether columns 2 and 4 are "released by" and "releases" (most likely) or "releases" and "released by".

No, but the Southern Railway did, in fact, have very strict rules about how its sets were formed. Generally numbered sets were made up using carriages numbered in sequence (bearing in mind that different types of carriage were in different number series) and there were even rules about which way round the composite vehicle was marshalled in the sets. The Southern Region carried on with the custom even up to the late fifties.

Except that it isn't if you wish to operate it as the prototype was. The kick-back siding that serves the maltings (and provides standage for coal wagons, etc) isn't easy to work with a loco - and so it wasn't, wagons were normally worked in and out of it by a borrowed trader's horse or, in later days, pinchbars. It may also have been a place where rope-working remained specially authorised when the practice was generally outlawed in the early years of the 20th century, but I don't have a copy of the appropriate GW appendix to check. A "working" horse in 2FS would be quite something - and as for two men with pinchbars! (Although the current issue of the Belgian ​Trains Miniature Magazine/Modelspoor includes an article by someone who has built a working windlass operated foot ferry in 1:160 scale complete with operator.)

I rather suspect that bright liveries on milk tanks were quickly "dulled" during the war once bombing and straffing raids started, they weren't all at night, especially initially.

This first entered the Carr's range when it was owned by Brian Lewis. Brian used to have a set up demonstrating it on his exhibition stand and this was powered by a battery, hence the battery holder in the pack. In fact if you set up the operation so that the memory wire is normally not energised (eg signal "on", point "normal") battery life is quite long and this can be the most convenient way of providing power to the memory wire. I would sell it on E-bay describing it exactly as it is described on the pack and with a photo of the pack. I can't remember how much Brian charged for them but it can't have been a huge amount as I bought one against future possible need - and it is still in its sealed pack.

It is more likely to have been provided because it facilitated the handling of parcels and mail (or, perhaps even more likely, milk churn) traffic.

The layout looks like a reasonably standard (ex-)GWR single passing loop station. If that is in fact what is intended then you should look at a handful of erstwhile prototype locations and copy what was installed there - particularly useful for getting the lever numbering right.

The easiest way to access Pendon by public transport is to do what I did regularly half-a-century ago. Take a local train to Appleford (Appleford Halt then!), walk east through Appleford village and then by field paths to Long Wittenham which come out on to the street within a very short distance of the Museum. A very pleasant 20-25 minutes walk - I even did it on occasion in deep snow, and I regularly returned to Appleford in winter that way after dark with the aid of a torch.

Actually there is a fourth (or perhaps third plus) option and that is to put them (eventually) in a glass case before they wear out but take them out occasionally for a Guy Williams memorial running day, it would probably be sensible to have several a year just to keep the models "sweet". [somewhat akin to the Madder Valley running days in fact].

I would suggest that the problem is not so much that Pendon no longer attracts the skilled modellers to undertake such tasks, but that, increasingly, they no longer exist. As one of the very first modellers to exhibit a P4 layout, I used to think of that as a young person's game but I remember thinking the last time I attended Scaleforum in 2010 before moving abroad that there were no longer any visitors under 40 (and that was being generous). One would have to be very certain of one's skills and abilities to tackle one of Guy's locos, because of its historical relevance (and the need to ascertain the right technique, Guy's writings won't tell you everything), thus building a new loco from a quality kit would actually be easier in practice and less worrying, if one makes a mistake one can get help and replacement parts from the supplier. And it is still possible to get quality kits built by a professional modeller at a reasonable price, perhaps helped by donations.

I met Guy on a number of occasions, both at Pendon and elsewhere, he was above all a practical man who hand built the locos he did because it was the only way then of getting locos of the standard, in terms of realism, fidelity to prototype and running ability, that he wanted - and which Roye and the other trustees wanted for Pendon. Times have changed, the excellent Martin Finney kits would seem to have survived (unsurprisingly) their acquisition by Brassmasters and would form an excellent basis for replacements for at least some of those of Guy's locos which should really be looking for an honourable semi-retirement. Furthermore, there are indeed now proprietary models which are so good that they might form the basis for everyday locos for Pendon, particularly for the Vale scene where trains aren't seen close up. However, providing them with chassis that would meet the exacting Pendon standards (and necessarily so) might prove just too much work. Fifty-plus years ago, Roye was much concerned with building scenic models which wouldn't age and we had a number of discussions on the subject. I think that time has proved that his theories were right and the scenic models have survived long term and will continue to do so with relatively little maintenance. It is ironic, therefore, that we should now be talking about the ageing of Guy's models which, apart from tasks like motor, gear and wheel replacement, Roye thought would last forever.