dibber25

I thought that I might be wrong about the fish but when I searched for the original description of the artwork, I could not find it. I love the native art. I was last on the island in 2018 but my sister with whom I usually stayed, was in a care home by then. I stayed in a hotel in Victoria. There were serious forest fires and the air smelled of smoke. The Johnson Street bridge has gone and there are new condos going up around the roundhouse. A few bits of rolling stock were scattered around but it was the first time I had been to the island and not seen a moving train of any sort. So glad I did the Englewood when I did (twice) and that I caught the Port turn at Cameron Lake some years ago. I have a niece and nephew on the island but I'm not sure I'll be going back, either. (CJL)

Yes, now I see the date again, 1983, it can't be the Staines West train as the line closed south of Colnbrook in 1981 and after that the central heating oil went via the SR. It all seems a very long time ago now. (CJL)

If they ever do return, passenger trains are not likely to run again on Vancouver Island in my lifetime, so I decided to produce a 'what-if' passenger train for my layout. Railway operators always like to have an image and a livery long before they have a railway or a train, so a couple of years ago the Island Corridor Foundation selected a design by native artist Darrel Thorne to decorate any new trains they might eventually have. The salmon family motif was shown on a Stadtler 'Flirt' DMU drawing. There's no suitable model so I used this Piko Desiro unit as the basis for a VIA/ICF livery. As it is a very scenic railway I decided not to have the salmon across the windows as in the original drawing but repositioned them on the lower bodysides. At the other end, Microscale VIA decals cover the American 'Sprinter' logos of a California operator. The Piko model is a lovely runner, fitted with an 8-pin decoder. I haven't yet ventured to try installing sound. (CJL)

Featured in the article on the Fairford branch in the March 2022 Steam World. (CJL)

Can't see the picture, of course, but the Ripple Lane-Staines West central heating fuel? (CJL)

....but we 'retired pot-bellied collectors' don't buy on line. We like to go into a shop and buy from a nice helpful, local shopkeeper whom we've probably known for many years. And my executors will dispose of my stuff through the same local shop because today's young folk don't have the time or inclination to post up stuff that they don't understand on Ebay, nor to deal with checking it works, packaging it up, sorting returns, complaints etc. Interesting, too, that the newcomers - Cavalier, Accurascale, Rapido etc are finding it useful - or maybe even necessary - to get their products into retail shops. (CJL)

The curved roof shed was at least as common as the Joseph Ash 'pagoda' (for shelters, cycle sheds, lamp huts and numerous other purposes) but, I suspect, was considerably cheaper. It would also have been a lot easier to keep water-tight than the complex roof of the pagoda - it just wasn't as pretty! CJL

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on this when I should be working on the June Steam World, but I'm finally prepared to put forward a suggestion. Wootton Rivers Halt, between Savernake and Pewsey. The following features fit: Approached round a curve Arch stone bridge with dark (brick?) parapet wall Concrete (frame) platform Hut with correct shape to roof RiB with inset posts It DID have a signal box Smack in David Hyde's stamping ground What doesn't seem to fit: Why would DH not recognise it? WRH had Tilley lamp gibbets (one per platform) but I can't see the lamp-post top in your picture. Photo I have is looking the other way so can't see the wrong-sided signal. There was a similar halt at Manningford, the other side of Pewsey but that appears to be on straighter track. I leave it to others to decide if I'm correct - I'm not 100% on this but can't find anything better. Irony is, I once walked from Savernake Low Level to Wootton Rivers Halt but took no photographs there. (CJL)

I, too, wondered about Finstock halt and had just been to check my own photos but I'm not convinced that it is. Finstock is in a cutting and was reached by a footpath entrance at the far side of the hut. There is no such entrance in the picture. Also, Finstock was not fenced at the rear of the platform. There was no need as the cutting formed a barrier. Finally, although the bridge is similar, I'm not convinced that the curved arch is the same - Finstock appears to be a greater curve. Of course we have no proof that this is a halt - there could be a full-fledged station building on the other platform, which is hidden, although I think that is unlikely. (CJL)

It's a puzzle because, although the signal is clearly regular GWR product, the halt does not look 'right'. The platform and fencing are not typically GWR, nor is the RiB, and the halt shelter is neither of the two regular patterns - note the curve of the roof , the back being higher than the front. I'm thinking one of the Welsh lines but no clue which one. (CJL)

Not offended, just disappointed that we've lost a subscriber. (CJL)

I have notified the Editors of both titles and the matter is being investigated. I am always happy to assist with subscriptions problems if I am able. However, I prefer to do so by personal contact, rather than as the result of a public complaint on a rival publication's forum. (CJL)

Roundhouse - Lillooet yard looks so neat and organised in your pictures. It all looked so 'random' when I was there - even my most recent visit which, I guess, have been 1991. Here's a view from, I think, 1981, with 561 and Budd Wiser, the school train for indigenous kids from Seton Portage (replaced by the silver-coloured speeder seen in your picture). (CJL)

From the time I took my first trip to Squamish with 2860 I was captivated by the British Columbia Railway and couldn't wait to ride the Cariboo Dayliner. I took it twice but only as far as Lillooet, so I could get out and back in a day. The first time was when it was still the great 'dogwood' livery and the original Lillooet station. Here's the southbound at Lillooet where the cars from the morning northbound would be combined with the cars that had gone through to Prince George the previous day, for the run back to North Vancouver. Several BC Rail Budd cars survive, though at least one was destroyed by fire after hitting a rockslide and another was burned for a movie sequence. (CJL)

Apologies for the poor quality, due to a cheap home slide scanner but this is one my first colour pictures taken in Canada, in 1976. The Lincoln Grain hopper was 'parked' in the street in downtown Victoria, BC, in what I now guess to have been Store Street, where several businesses had their own spurs off a track that ran down the centre of the street. Back home I managed to find a decal sheet and I did up an Athearn car to match. (CJL)

Some shots from that 2816 trip back in 2006. 'Looped' with a unit coal train to allow another to pass. Two of the several run-bys, the second was at the crack of dawn at Lethbridge on the run to Calgary. (CJL)

Yes, I saw Rocky Mountain Express on the IMAX screen in Victoria some years back. I was on the train when they filmed it - Vancouver (the station used by West Coast commuter trains) and I was on the footplate from Golden through to Windermere. They used a $4million IMAX camera mounted on the front of a hili-ski helicopter from Whistler. It stopped periodically, putting down in supermarket car parks to clean bugs off the lens. (CJL)

Just re-watched (for the umpteenth time) Narrow Margin with Gene Hackman. It was shot on the British Columbia Railway with SD40-2 No, 757 painted in bogus VIA Rail livery with a rake of borrowed stainless steel cars also in bogus VIA markings. Squamish station is recognisable and I believe the station Lac Des Arcs was built for the movie (at Britannia Beach?). Not sure where the night-time sequence was shot. Some good scenic views of a railway that no longer has passenger trains (except for the tourist Rocky Mountaineer - which doesn't count, as far as I'm concerned) Also watched ( on Prime) a Hallmark romance called Love on Ice which clearly must have had a railfan on the production team. The skaters 'jog' through an underpass with 'HC' (Huron Central) boxcars above. There's a spectacular aerial view of rail yards (North Bay, Ontario according to credits) and there's a shot of Rail America 4096 and a Geneses & Wyoming HC locomotive passing. What other movies are worth a watch for Canadian rail interest? (CJL)

It ran down to Staines West a few days ago and performed very nicely. (CJL)

Victoria in 2018. More condos are being built in this area, leaving only the main track and the turntable. The shed on the left and the roundhouse have appeared in Hallmark movies the interiors used as 'factory' premises.. (CJL)

I seem to recall that they did (or one of them did) carry BR numbers, but by then they were were working on the Tollesbury branch, not with J70s. (CJL)

Chased the 'Port turn' one afternoon from the park with the waterfall (Englishman River?). I was shooting video but my wife got this still shot across Cameron Lake. From memory, there were 17 cars with half a dozen ECC cars on the rear. The tank cars carried china clay slurry and the hoppers would have carried powder. Locos were Rail America GP38-2s and a GP20 still in Railink dark blue. (CJL)

Thanks, really interesting to know. Somewhere, I have a re-livery job that I did to create the Crofton switcher. In that Google shot of Port Mellon, there appears to be 17 white tank cars. As it's a paper mill, would they be these - as seen some years ago at the paper mill in Port Alberni? I was thrilled to see English China Clays name so far from Cornwall. (CJL)

Is the isolated pulp mill the one at Crofton? If so, the only moving trains on the island apart from the propane cars just to the north of Nanaimo? (CJL)

Here they are, earlier in the morning crossing over to Annacis Island where the SRofBC has barge loading facilities and - presumably - an interchange with other railroads. (CJL)