dibber25

Thank you for the efforts to identify the train. I believe there may be other pictures of the Wessex Downsman in the box of Don's pictures that I have, but it may taken a while to find them. (CJL)

The top pic was just after closure. The signal box nameplate was bought and removed, on last day (27 March 1965) by a Member of Staines Model Railway Society (now Egham & Staines), whose name I can't now remember. He moved away from the area a while afterwards (possibly to Essex). I wonder where that nameplate is now? I believe some equipment from the box may have gone to GWS Didcot and to McAlpine's at Henley. (CJL)

Three here of Colnbrook. The railway was built for double track and had a double track level crossing but the second line was never laid and the standard timber GWR box was eventually built on the site of the 'up line'. Closed to passengers in March 1965, the box survived for occasional oil trains to Staines until eventually replaced by an open crossing with warning lights. It was latterly painted Rail blue and grey. Today Colnbrook station site comprises two sidings for unloading aviation fuel for Heathrow and the stop block for one of the sidings is roughly where the signal box stood. (CJL)

The BBC covers all manner of offences and crimes in both its news bulletins and its drama content. Does that mean it condones them? The movie 'The Railway Children' is frequently screened. It depicts three children walking on a railway line in several scenes. I have yet to see any warning posted before, after or during that film. Do we really need to have health and safety monitoring and warnings about everything?

The first EP of the Class 11 arrived from Heljan just before Christmas and is with Model Rail for testing etc. (CJL)

Flashback to 1976 and a fluke, grabbed shot. Canadian National GMD-1 No. 1000 sprints over the Island Highway and the Canadian Pacific (E&N) main line at Koksilah en route to Deerholme. We heard the horn sounding and were expecting a train on the CP line. The CP line is visible on the left of the picture just this side of the highway. All trace of the CN has now gone from this location and the CP line here is abandoned and derelict. (CJL)

But we've already been down the road of basic models with Railroad and Design-Clever and there were those who didn't want that, either. Manufacturers are never going to please all the people all the time. There are plenty of older models without firebox illumination for those who don't want it. (CJL)

Reviewing models is not about telling manufacturers that they shouldn't have put in a feature because I don't like it. It's about informing the reader and acknowledging the lengths to which the manufacturer has gone to provide extra features and extra value. There's always going to be someone who doesn't like it but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Firebox glow makes for some cracking night photos. I recall putting a grain of wheat bulb in a Tri-ang Winston Churchill to enhance the wintry night effect on a cover of Model Railway Constructor over 50 years ago. I did it again an a Model Rail cover a couple of years ago with the cab of a Mainline 2-6-0. At the time that I reviewed the Bachmann 94XX I also had a Model Rail 16XX and a Dapol 2-6-0. Both those also have firebox illumination. (CJL)

I wasn't suggesting lighting as in loco oil lamps for head codes as that would be nigh impossible, even with DCC. The 94XX has firebox illumination - even a flicker effect in DCC. The Dapol 63XX has firebox illumination, so does the Model Rail 16XX. The Hornby Ivatt, being a couple of years older, doesn't have anything similar and in that respect is not quite what I'd call state of the art. (Chris Leigh)

Thanks, folks. I was hoping Graham would take a look. I used to love those complete rakes of Bulleid coaches with the lovely uniform body profile and all the variations of window depths, ventilator depths and the skirted and unskirted solebars. If only someone would give us the models!! (CJL)

I've been loaned a box of photographs by the late Don Lovelock, resident of Calne in Wiltshire. I have found among them this small print of an SR express including Bulleid coaches taken at Seend, between Devizes and Bradford-on-Avon. Such stock on a minor Western Region route suggests that it is a rail tour rather than a diversion, though the presence of a full set of roof boards seems unusual for a rail tour. Don appears to have taken the shot specifically to show the two-car Bulleid restaurant set which I think may be one of the tavern car sets in its rebuilt form. Can someone who is more 'genned up' on SR coaches , please confirm or deny if this is a former tavern car set? Can anyone suggest what the train might be? Under a magnifier it appears almost certainly a Collett tender and the cylinders suggest, maybe, a 'Hall'. (CJL)

This is an impossible topic to judge. We, in Britain are far more sensitive to this issue than most other countries. We have railways which have to be fenced on every inch and there is a clear law of trespass which applies the wrong side of that fence. Nevertheless trespass and suicide remain the biggest killers on Britain's railways. I had this debate several years ago with a nephew who took a photo of himself and his kids walking a disused railway line near their home in Canada. Hi-rails and brush cutters were still in use on that line but I failed to convince him of any danger in what they were doing. True, due to the number of grade crossings there would be a lot of noise if a train was nearby and the speed limit was very low but even so, I could not convince him that posting such a photo might be tempting some other kids to go on a railway where trespass was much more unsafe. I'm afraid we can't graft our natural caution and risk aversion onto other cultures. (CJL)

If the illustrated model is a livery sample, it will be just that - a sample for the customer to check that the painting and printing are correct. Livery samples often don't have all the details, couplings etc and sometimes they don't have motors etc either. (CJL)

Before this goes any further down the route of conjecture, I should perhaps explain that Don was the son of the Station Master at Black Dog Halt (before anyone spouts about halts not having station masters, Black Dog was until 1952 the private station of the Landsdownes and their home Bowood House. The SM was appointed by the GWR and had to be approved by Lord Landsdowne). Don was brought up in the house beside the halt, was an avid enthusiast and recorded on camera all sorts of workings on the the branch. This particular shot is on the curve close to his home and I can assure you that if Don says it was a troop train (and he did say it was), that it IS a troop train and it is running bunker-first towards the camera. If the lamp is in the wrong place, in my experience (on the Staines branch) it was by no means unusual for crews to forget or not to bother moving lamps, especially once the branches were unstaffed, unsignalled and there were few, if any, staff to report the lapse. On page 79 of Colin Maggs' Calne branch book, there is a picture of 5566 waiting to depart Calne with the Saturdays-only 1.12pm to Weston-Super-Mare and the lamp is in the self-same position. Thank you, Blobrick. Don died several years ago and his family have loaned me a box-full of his pictures. (CJL)

Yes, but ready-to-run exists for people who find it more satisfactory for them than building kits. In a lifetime of modelling I've built very few kit chassis that worked to my satisfaction but I've had endless hours of pleasure running ready-to-run and very few duds. (CJL)

The Model Railway Constructor review was written by a guy who knew a thing or two about Southern locomotives and stock. The review of the West Country was kind compared to his review of Tri-ang's CIWL car which was just a shorty Pullman in CIWL livery. (CJL)

I have a photo of Charles and Diana alighting from it, taken by a BR official photographer. I'm not sure it was ever seen in print. That all seems such a very long time ago. It prompted me to order one of your models. Just been looking at odd-ball carriages - Bulleid's tavern cars (which I love, though I was too young to have ever seen one) and Budd's Silver Princess. Imagine what Rapido could do with that - based on their system for the HO Budd cars! (CJL)

A bit nondescript but I'm pretty certain this is also a 94XX. It's also on the Calne branch and its a troop train (another Don Lovelock picture). The previous shot was an engineers train, so maybe availability was an issue when extra trains were laid on and restrictions were 'more liberally interpreted '. The Calne branch had one bridge ( I think called Lord Carlisle's bridge) which seems to have been a little 'insubstantial' and might have been the limiting factor, although there was also an iron bridge (the Black Bridge) over the river just outside Chippenham. (CJL)

Wasn't it also used, together with the appropriately named Class 73, to take the Prince and Princess of Wales to Broadlands after their wedding? (CJL)

8433 at Black Dog Halt on the Calne branch, working an engineers train. The Calne branch was yellow restriction. I have another shot of a 94XX on troop train on the same branch. Both pictures are by Don Lovelock. As I have said in my review of the model, it does seem that the weight restrictions were quite frequently ignored or misinterpreted where these panniers were concerned. (CJL)

The Class 48 was given the green light and is being developed as part of Heljan's Class 47 project. (CJL)

Peach James says the track hasn't seen any 'real work' since 2011, but it was long before that. 2011 was when the VIA service was withdrawn because the poor state of the infrastructure meant speed restrictions extended the journey time to the point where the crew could not get out and back within their permitted working hours. I'm sure the occasional spot re-sleepering was done and there were a fair few gauge bars when I looked at various locations back in the first decade of this century. However, I'm not sure when the railway received its last serious maintenance - maybe 1885!. After taking this picture I walked on sleepers which were hanging from the rails with no ballast or any support underneath them, on others that were rotted right through. There was little or no ballast, plenty of weeds, and missing spikes. That was in 1976!! Passenger service would continue for another 35 years! In truth Vancouver Islanders mostly don't want it back or don't care. NIMBYs in Victoria made sure it could not come back into their city by taking out the Johnson Street bascule bridge and putting in a new wider highway bridge. The sound of the horn at grade crossings disturbed them. The roundhouse in Vic West survives because it is classified as a heritage building (recently seen in a Netflix movie 'A Rose for Christmas' as a factory where parade floats were built (purporting to be in Pasadena!) - still with rails in the floor. It is increasingly surrounded by high-rise apartment blocks. The Island Corridor Foundation now owns the right-of-way but is simply a vehicle for politicians to receive remuneration and to placate indigenous peoples who dream one day of getting back land that was taken from them. Canadian rail service closures make Beeching look like a railway benefactor. (CJL)

I thought we were discussing replacing old equipment with new? I can't download music on my record-player. (CJL)

It's a Gaugemaster Model D - probably pre-dates feedback and was, if I recall correctly, a review sample in its own right! (CJL)

In my experience only ONE manufacturer flies in samples for review ahead of the main batch arriving by ship. Different companies handle review samples in different ways and there are no blanket, hard and fast 'rules'. The company which does fly in samples does so because they like the publication of the review to coincide with the bulk delivery arriving in the shops. Years ago they used to supply pre-production samples for review but there were always conspiracy theorists who thought these models had been tweaked to be better than the ones that were sold in shops. In fact, they were usually a bit worn and knocked about having probably been mailed to several other publications first! Equally, we are very aware that it simply isn't economical for some of the newer, smaller companies to do that, or to do any more than loan samples for a short time. I'm sure I speak for all when I say the model press have always been hugely grateful for the generous treatment we receive with the supply of review samples, especially as we don't always heap glowing praise on them! (CJL).