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I am sure that there would not have been any repositioning simply for sighting but don't forget that not only was the Brighton line from Coulsdon to Brighton completely resignalled (with colour lights) but also significant track layout alterations were made as the "country" electrification spread east and west of the main line and these entailed major signalling alterations as well. One side issue that your comment inadvertently raises concerns the original colour light signal installations on the South Eastern where many of the signal posts were placed on the right hand side of the running line. I have always assumed that this was just expediency in areas where clearances were tight but, while I suspect that that remains the main reason, I now wonder whether it was considered more acceptable simply because most of the steam locos that would have to observe them would have been RHD. If so, that would have been a minor contributor to the Lewisham accident of December 1957 whose primary cause was the inability of the driver of a LHD steam loco to observe in thick fog c/l signals placed on the right hand side of the running line.

Because it placed the reversing lever by the driver's right hand perhaps?

High-pressure steam was always readily available at coal-, or oil-, fired power stations so using simpler fireless locos made good economic sense. What is surprising is that considerably more of them weren't used rather than traditional steam locos.

Which might just have had something to do with the impending main-line electrification schemes. Electric trains, of course, were all LHD and there would have been a desire to site the new signals in such a way as to optimise sighting from the new electrics. Even if management didn't immediately spot that that meant that was desirable for new build steam locos to also be LHD, ASLEF wouldn't have been slow to point it out.

Six decades ago when his name was sometimes mentioned by those who actually knew him, they always said "A-hern" with a soft A but neither syllable emphasised.

50+ years ago when we were building Bembridge, the first P4 layout to hit the exhibition circuit, we carried out experiments to see how far away the wire in prototype post and wire fencing could be seen in reality, given that it quickly gains a dull patina even though it is galvanised. The answer was that it was normally invisible when observed from more than 50 yards away. 50 yards is around two feet in 4mm scale and few layouts are ever going to be observed more closely than that so it is best (and certainly easiest) to omit the wire altogether. On the real railway, the wire was normally clipped to the posts (rather than passing through them) on the side furthest from the railway and these small clips are visible a rather greater distance away, they can be represented by tiny black/dark grey paint marks which are quite convincing. Note that wires were often much more closely spaced towards the bottom of the fencing.

And even most of these photos tend to record the unusual rather than everyday wagons in typical state. It isn't a dissimilar situation to the photos of passenger trains where, up to the late 1950s, the vast majority were taken on Saturday afternoons (or on the photographer's holiday), a day when, although the timetable was often similar to that for the rest of the week, the stock working wasn't. Both can lead to very wrong assumptions about what was normal on the railways. The camera couldn't lie (at least then) but it could seriously mislead.

China clay wagons were built specially for the traffic. Ordinary wagons could not be used, in particular because steel (bolt heads, etc) discolours any china clay it comes into contact with.

A couple of photographs that I took at Cromford Wharf in 1982 which might just be helpful even though the colour has gone off a bit.

Apologies for the crossed-through error in my previous post, somehow I was thinking that Llanfyllin was a LNWR terminus (in which case my comment would have been correct) but it was, of course, a Cambrian Railways branch which passed to the GWR in 1922 just before the grouping. The original signalling probably comprised no more than a home and (originally identical) distant, controlled by a pair of levers on the platform with lug locking between the home and distant and the only other "interlocking" detection of the points by the signal wire of the home. If the connection to the yard by the bridge existed then, the home would have been beyond it and the distant, of course, further out. The station, like much of the Cambrian, was resignalled in the early 1890s by Duttons of Worcester following the requirements imposed by the Regulation of Railways Act of 1889. It is probable that tablet working was introduced at the same time, most likely using Tyer's no.6 machines. The signalling layout shown in the diagram probably dates from this resignalling and would have remained unchanged until closure bar like-for-like replacement of worn out signals. The GWR did not adopt the yellow ground signal standard of 1930 and, although BR(W) did from the early 1950s and the line became an LMR responsibility from 1963, it is almost certain that ground signal 3 always remained red. Ground signal 7, though, may well have had its red glass replaced by clear glass by the GWR so that it exhibited a "white" light when on.

When off 3 permits movements over crossover 8 reversed, it is a mandatory ground signal as required by the BoT to control the exit from a siding onto a running line. The other exit from the sidings to the running line is exempt from that rule as it is controlled by a ground frame (released by the tablet train staff) situated adjacent to the point. Ground signal 3 should have had a yellow arm or disc from the 1930s onwards but it isn't marked with a "Y" so it may have just been left red and ignored when the route was set towards the sidings (which inevitably would have been the situation prior to 1930). - see further post below

You have missed the most obvious difference, the "standard" 350hp shunters had outside frames, that Tri-ang model, being mounted on their "Jinty" chassis had inside ones! What is more remarkable is that I am not convinced that the much later Hornby (and perhaps Bachmann) models match precise prototypes although their "generic" appearance is good.

I wondered if it was Hither Green Sorting Sidings, I lived the first thirty years of my life adjacent to them, but came to the conclusion that the background didn't match. I also considered Hoo Junction yard but eventually ruled that out too. It is definitely somewhere on the Southern though and those clocks were commonplace.

I remember the late R.C.Ormiston-Chant ("Robbo"), who had served his time as an apprentice at Swindon Works, saying perhaps forty years ago that, contrary to traditional opinion, the GWR always took the easy route when painting locos. IIRC the precise example that he was quoting was the vertical lining on the cladding of belpaire fireboxes which was not carried over the top of the firebox because it couldn't be seen there from the ground, but by the same principle the covers would have been painted the same colour as the surrounding bodywork, painting them black on a green loco would have been extra unnecessary work. Once exchangeable covers existed in both colours there would always be the opportunity for the wrong colour cover to be fitted in extremis but it can only have happened rarely, if at all.

I have potentially identified two different designs of ground signal as installed by the LSWR in the early years of the 20th century. The company had started to use lattice rather than wooden posts in the mid-1890s as the North Cornwall line was being completed, so the first change in ground signal design (from Stevens' flaps to a miniature semaphore) may be contemporary with that and certainly the new design was installed on the Meon Valley line. The photo below, unfortunately not very clear, of West Meon in 1906 shows two which are obviously miniature semaphores mounted on wooden posts which finish in a ^ shape, one post just seems to be painted white but the other has the lower part black(?) coming to a point on each side. That latter style of painting can be seen on photos of similar ground signals at other LSWR locations in the Edwardian era. These may well be the type of ground signal for which Nock provides a drawing of the arm - "F" above. There are also photos of other LSWR locations during the same period which appear to show ground signals of a similar style to the L&YR RSC ones marketed by Wizard. Unfortunately again the photos aren't that clear and every one that I have seen shows the signal from the back leaving confirmation of the arm shape uncertain. However what is certain is that their posts finish with a shaped cap and could well be cast-iron. As I said before, both these styles of ground signals seem to have been replaced in their entirety in the early 1930s and that is why Pryer failed to mention them.

None of these were converted to standard discs, they were replaced by new Westinghouse "SR style" disc or miniature arm ground signals in the early 1930s. Ironically a few of the earlier Stevens flap signals (not shown) outlived them. One of the results of their relatively early replacement is that almost no clear photographs of them exist although they appear in quite a few more general views. Most, if not all, closely resemble ground signals being installed on the L&YR during the same period suggesting that they may have been a proprietary product of either the Railway Signal Company or the British Power/Pneumatic Railway Signal Company, both of whom were contemporary suppliers to both railways.

And, of course, you only need them at all if the line you are modelling has third-rail electrification ........ and if you are modelling an electrified line the fencing arrangements are usually different.

I would have included these drawings, which apparently originated from O.S.Nock, earlier but I was having problems with my scanner. Beal's book was published in 1955 and he states that the drawings first appeared in The Model Engineer "long ago", so one can safely assume that they are out of copyright. The vertical lattice displacement on the signal post is (most unusually) precisely correct so one may assume that the other drawings are correct even without stated dimensions. To avoid any confusion I will add that these are specifically drawings of LSWR signals - "A" is a running signal, either a stop arm (without the Collingly-Welch reflector) or a notched distant arm (with it), both painted red with a white stripe/chevron, "B" is a siding signal, painted red with a black ring and white dot, "C" is a calling on signal painted red (including the diamond) with a white stripe, "D" is a shunt-ahead signal painted red with a black S, "E" is a wrong road signal painted red, "F" is a (later pattern, c1900 onwards) ground signal.

There is a small drawing in Beal's "Modelling the Old Time Railways".

In theory there is this 25" OS map which is stated to have be revised in 1919. In practice OS map revisions between the two wars rarely meant a resurvey and just incorporated a few known changes. If you can't find anything else it would definitely form a basis, especially if you can find contemporary signalling diagrams. It may also be worth overlaying it on what is there today as recorded on Google Earth. Inkscape has a convenient overlay tool if you have nothing else.

I suppose that the Bethesda (or another) rail motor might have been tried on the Nantlle branch at some time, but it is unlikely that one worked to Afonwen which wasn't really a terminus in LNWR days as most trains worked through to Portmadoc or Pwllheli or both. Because it was grouped into the GWR it is easy to forget that the Cambrian Railways had very much been within the LNWR's "sphere of influence".

More a case of just doing things differently to everyone else perhaps. Now which railway company was it that always seemed to do things differently, seemingly just to be perverse? Ah yes, I remember now ..................

There are probably a few old goods sheds around fenced-off from the operational area and leased (or, more likely perhaps, sold) to a private business for the purpose of carrying on their trade (which has no railway links).

For most of the BR era they were brake-block dust brown - whatever colour they left the works in.

Thanks Jim, I rather suspected that that was how it was done because, from the shear numbers and consistent results, it had to have been a mechanical process.