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Shepherdswell to Tilmanstone was BR(S), normally worked by an 08 (09?) shunter in later years if my memory serves me correctly (although 33s and presumably 73s could be used), and had once formed part of the East Kent Light Railway. I am not sure about the fitted toads without footboards, not least because fitted toads were rare and because SR guards usually refused to work any form of toad on safety grounds (if you have ever ridden one on an unfitted freight train you would understand why).

The Southern's standard carriage painting regime was revarnish after 3 years, repaint after 6. However, condition and usage was taken into account as well, and, as I remember well, there did seem to be a special effort in the early-mid-1950s to avoid repainting carriages which were still green unless it was absolutely necessary. Most, if not all, carriages which made it through in green would have been repainted in 1948/49 and I suspect received exactly the same green as the emus repainted at the same time (whether this was the same as the final Southern green is an interesting question given the "tinting" inevitably given by brake-block dust after a while in service), so paint for patch-repainting would have been readily available. What is unlikely is that set 391 made it through from 1948/49 to April 1958 without repainting, unless, of course, someone can show that it was only used on, say, summer Saturdays, and kept under cover at other times. It's photographic shyness might support such a hypothesis, although an April withdrawal date would be unusual for a set used only during the summer months (unless serious defects were uncovered when an overhaul was started).

Easy! You always seem to have people queueing up to bring guest locos to your layouts, so now you make it clear that you welcome guest controllers too, providing that they bring their own Pentroller (which would have the added benefit that a Pentroller owner is likely to know how to drive trains properly).

But you still have a very, very long way to go. They were almost as complex, and individualistic, as Britain's pre-grouping railways ...... and then, of course, there is the even more complex subject of private owner boat liveries.

Another issue to consider is how many of these coaches you are going to run together. One coach trains formed of Mk1 BR stock were pretty rare, the normal minimum was probably a 3-set (BTK,CK,BTK) and that was more common on the Southern than elsewhere. Getting a rake of similar scratch/kit-built carriages, especially flush-sided ones, to look good together is surprisingly difficult, even for very skilled modellers, whereas the task is much easier when you use good proprietary ones like the modern Farish vehicles.

Agreed. I also agree that all of Peter Kazer's layouts have been exemplary, although I always found that Blythburgh somehow lacked the atmosphere of the others, perhaps because Peter failed to crack the difficult presentational problems that the prototype site presented. One other narrow gauge "layout" from a half a century ago that really deserves mention is the OO12 "put-together" of the railways of the Isle of Man produced by a number of members of the Manchester Model Railway Society, exhibited at the Society's 1964 and 1965 shows at the Manchester Corn Exchange and featured over three issues of the Railway Modeller in late 1964. It incorporated enough of the Island's railways, including all the terminal stations, to be run as a system "just like the real thing".

One other bit of useful information. The loco turntables at Chirk and Glynceiriog were almost certainly standard gauge wagon turntables of nominal 12 foot diameter, boarded and with the narrow gauge rails mounted on top. They were supplied by Kerr, Stuart who were only agents at the time, but it is quite likely that they were manufactured by the California Works of Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning at Stoke which Kerr, Stuart went on to buy in 1893.

I notice that you have provided compensation. It isn't actually necessary on a small 4w loco like this which has no coupling rods. The trick is to have plenty of axle either side of the bearings, in this case using the High Level gearbox as the actual chassis would have been ideal, with just some sort of simple "platform" added at either end to allow it to be screwed into the the cast body. Spacers added to each axle outside the gearbox (where you have used the EM ones) would keep everything nicely in line. What happens is that there is inevitably a little play between each bearing and the axle passing through it. With the bearings well in from the wheels this play is magnified sufficiently to enable a short wheelbase 4w loco to sit firmly on the rails, the heavy cast body helping, of course. It is effectively a form of micro-compensation of both axles and, assuming your track isn't diabolical, works perfectly - it won't allow the loco to climb over Mike Sharman's infamous matchstick though! It would be particularly easy on this loco because the cast outside frames hide everything, but, if a loco has inside frames, I add them, spaced out as necessary, in dummy form using copper-covered paxolin - which then provides a very useful place to solder the pick-ups.

Since I am not aware of any other photographs showing it, I have appended a b/w photograph that I took in the late 1970s of the now-demolished coal office at Pandy, scale drawing in previous post. The Woolpack Inn, mentioned by George Borrow and then still in business, can be seen in the background.

In view of the current interest in the Glyn Valley Tramway, I have appended several of my drawings of the infrastructure created from measurements of the prototype taken in the 1970s. Note that the bricks used, from Dennis's brickworks at Ruabon, are fatter than those used in SE England, 4 courses building around 13½ inches rather than 12. I retain the copyright to these drawings but copies may be made freely for modelling purposes. Incidentally, I understand that the publication of the second part of John Milner's epic work on the GVT is anticipated in May 2015. Pontfadog station building which still stands today in the care of the Glyn Valley Tramway Group. Dolywern station building which, I believe, also still stands and which is in much the same style as the larger buildings at Chirk (demolished in the 1960s) and Glynceiriog (still standing but much altered). The GVT bridge over the Ceiriog at Pandy, the bridge at Dolywern is identical, both, I believe, still stand. There was also another similar bridge at Pont Bell on the Chirk side of Glynceiriog but that was removed many decades ago. The coal office which stood by the coal siding in the hamlet of Pandy south of Glynceiriog and beyond the normal limit of passenger working on the GVT. It has since been demolished.

Regular passenger work was restricted to the Golden Arrow and Night Ferry, at least post-1962. During the electrically-worked steam railway TT of the preceding twelve months they worked certain other passenger services which were unsuitable for emu operation - the 7.12 Holborn Viaduct/ 7.24 London Bridge - Ramsgate SO/Margate SX was one of them. They worked a lot of parcels/mail/newspaper trains. They worked block trains of continental ferry vans between Dover Ferry Berth and Hither Green Continental Freight Depot. They also worked certain freight services and, as has been mentioned, some sidings were wired to facilitate this, examples that come quickly to mind include reception roads at Hither Green Sidings, Hoo Junction, Shepherdswell and Mr. Angerstein's Railway.

Can I suggest a tall load of hay with just a tarpaulin stretched over the very top. While I can't remember seeing a photo of such a load on any of Stephen's lines, it is just the sort of thing that could have happened once the railcars were introduced and sparks from a steam loco were no longer a serious hazard.

I seem to remember a few people working to 13.5 when TT3 first appeared, after all there was nothing better than EM (or EMF) in 4mm scale then. I suspect that it was the arrival of P4 as a workable scale/gauge combination in 4mm scale that encouraged migration to 14 or 14.2 in 3mm scale and that was a good decade later.

If it were incorporated into a model layout, the electrical design would be quite interesting, even (perhaps particularly) using DCC.

There was a working to Eastbourne on Sundays, known colloquially as the Eastbourne Sunday Pullman. I am not certain about the start and finish dates, but it was certainly running during part of the 1950s. There were odd occasions when engineering works or other problems meant that London Bridge was used as the London terminal instead of Victoria. Also there would have been diversions via Redhill instead of the Quarry Line, in the suburban area via West Norwood and via the low level instead of high level lines between Clapham Junction and Victoria. It is possible that there may have been a very occasional diversion via West Norwood or Streatham, Tulse Hill and Herne Hill, and an outside possibility in the event of an emergency occurring would have been via Sutton, Dorking and Horsham and then either via Three Bridges (double reversal) or Ford/Littlehampton, Hove and (probably) Preston Park. The train crews would have known all these routes except Tulse Hill-Herne Hill-Victoria.

Amazing! Fifty years ago when I was taught how to use a hook switch (I can't really use the term trained because I was only a schoolboy at the time), you had to know how to pull them with full current passing through the switch. The main problem with that is that, unless you get it right, you set up an impressive (and blinding) arc as the switch opens.

The Reading-Tonbridge line trains concerned inter-worked with the Brighton-Tonbridge service which passed through tunnels in the Tunbridge Wells area that required Restriction 1 stock. Withdrawals following a BRB edict about vehicles older than 40(?) years left a shortage of suitable Restriction 1 stock and the SR's answer was to split all the sets that were formed BSK-CK-CK-BSK and were thus suitable for splitting. So far as was possible the trains concerned were still formed of four carriages using two of the "new" sets and sometimes these formations had one or even both brake vans toward the centre of the train, for other trains though only one 2-car set was available and some overcrowding became inevitable.

While it is true that these weren't goods trains for various customers (outside LT), they had to be paid for by their various LT customers in exactly the same way as the movement over BR to get them to the interchange point at Olympia had to be paid for, and, therefore, they were technically goods trains. However, trains which carried stores between various rail locations (for example the daily stores train between New Cross Depot and Acton Works) were designated as stores, not goods, trains and the cost of operating them was no more separated out than the cost of running, say, an individual Upminster-Ealing Broadway District Line train.

Looking carefully at the layout, I suspect that the two routes leading off from the apparent left-right through route actually lead to some form of double-track terminal loop, probably the terminus of at least two busy routes which would work in opposite directions round the loop. If you imagine the tracks linked by a loop you will see that whichever way you go you always come back on to the opposite track on the left-right through route.

Thanks for that, Jerry, I have a drainage ditch to model (albeit in 4mm scale) which isn't so different from an out-of-use canal, and, although my first thought was to use a sheet of perspex, I am having difficulty sourcing a piece of the right size, so paint and varnish, my second choice, sound like the way to go. I have found that typical bridge openings on narrow canals allowed a 9 foot width of water and a 5 foot width of towpath but there seem to have been many variations, even on the same canal. There is a very useful photo collection of (a particular) canal in various states of dereliction and restoration at: http://www.montgomerycanal.me.uk/monthome.html where the dereliction photos in particular are probably typical of many a disappearing canal.

Presumably the towpath will be built out a little further under the bridge as the scenic work continues? What are you using to represent the canal water?

It is an interesting question whether mercury-filled tubes were provided at Finchley Central. I don't remember them there but that doesn't meant that they weren't provided. However, apart from advising the Electrical Control Room Supervisor that disaster was about to happen, I can't see that they would have been of any use there in keeping main-line loading gauge trains out of the tube tunnels since the "big" trains would have been steam, or later diesel, hauled. The provision of the mercury-filled tubes elsewhere, Barons Court for example, had the purpose of keeping LT surface-stock trains out of the tube tunnels and they did it by cutting off the traction supply if they were broken by the passage of an out-of-gauge train.

The "goods distants" were installed on the Northern Line at Finchley Central and north thereof, as well as on the Central Line.

Brake vans not marked "NOT IN COMMON USE" nor "RU" were common user in the BR era. The short-distance nature (yard-to-yard or out-and-back trip) of the majority of goods train workings meant that vans tended not to migrate too far from their "home" ground but, of course, odd ones did escape and, if to a design popular with guards, might well find a permanent "home" elsewhere. The ex-GWR toads were universally hated by guards from other regions because they were considered unsafe - if you have ever ridden in one you would understand why.

The DMUs that worked early morning services to Epping weren't just staff trains (although it is possible that the first departure each way was). I remember crossing the high-level walkway at Liverpool Street Station en route to Walthamstow Central to catch the very first Victoria Line train back in 1968 and there was a DMU sitting in one of the platforms with EPPING on both its blind and on the station departure indicator, so it was very definitely available for public use throughout. LT staff trains weren't even available to LT staff unless one was in possession of a special Staff Train Permit rather than just the usual "sticky" or Staff Pass, in general they ran just before and just after the public service on each line.