Brake Compo

Absolutely correct - this is a repro map, and yes it looks like an ex 4-SUB view frame - I have an absolutely identical one. I believe that these were published by the Southern Coach Group at the Bluebell Railway in the late 1970s, reproduced from originals, to raise funds for purchase of ex-SR coaches in departmental service. I bought this, the SECR one, and the LBSCR one from the Bluebell Railway shop, c1980. Separately, and at the same time, I purchased a couple of ex 4-SUB view frames from a member of the group in the carriage shed at Horsted Keynes, from one of several enormous piles of them for I think £1(!) each. There was also an SR map reproduced by them, to a slightly smaller format, to suit the smaller view frames in Bulleid loco hauled stock. One often sees these for sale on eBay advertised as originals by the unscrupulous, for ridiculous prices.

It is an ex-LBSC Balloon push-pull trailer surely - these were commonly used on the Dyke Branch

Both had Fox's pressed steel bogies, but I believe that the bolster springing differed between the SEC, LSW, & LBSC applications - although would need to check. Think the greatest difference was on the LBSC applications though.

See Service Stock of the Southern Railway, Kinder R.W, The Oakwood Press, 1980, pages 53 & 54. This discusses the formation of the Lancing Belle at various points in its history, although not comprehensively. The change from a polyglot collection of four wheeled coaches is reported to have taken place in 1934. An extract covering the period that we seem to be interested in is as follows: "From 1934, thirteen short-bodied ex-LSW bogie carriages were use, as follows: 401S cpo bk 6418 402S 3rd 351 403S cpo 4752 404S cpo 4786 405S 3rd 331 406S 3rd 420 407S 3rd 425 408S 3rd 269 409S 3rd 211 410S 3rd 435 411S 3rd 368 412S 3rd 347 413S 3rd bk 2646" Cross referencing to LSWR Carriages Volume One 1838 - 1900, by Weddell G.R, Wild Swan Publications, 1992, reveals the BC to have been a d400A 45' vehicle built in 1893 (follow ref 5.9 in the book), the thirds were all d722/944 48' vehicles built between 1894 and 1899 (ref 5.13), the composites d650 48' vehicles built in 1896-7 (ref 5.16), and the BT to have been d110 rebuild of a d511 42' third, built in 1894 (ref 5.6). The majority of these could be modelled (expensively) by de-converting the new Hornby coaches back to 48' stock, as these were the very vehicles that were lengthened by the SR. But as these would need new underframes & running gear and would need the mouldings at the lower bodyside altered (the SR inserted bulky triangular mouldings to take the body width out to match the wider SR underframes), scratch building might be a better bet. Hope this helps!

The Bournemouth to York/Newcastle/Bradford/Leeds workings were of course Pullman gangwayed, and thus one could use proprietary coaches. Indeed the preserved BCK 6575 on the Bluebell was built for the Bournemouth to Bradford service & can be seen to have Pullman gangways at either end.

Thanks for this very useful info; however, I would not treat it as gospel. If one regards the Precision Paints as being a close match - I tried Vauxhall Brazil Brown for Marsh Umber and found it very considerably and noticably too dark in comparison to the Precision colour to the extent that the 6w luggage van that I sprayed it with is in the respray queue, without ever getting as far as lining & lettering. I did, however, find that it looked OK, to my eyes, as the dark brown edging to the tanks on my I3.

My SR liveried version arrived this morning - lovely loco, rather better than my super-detailed Bec build that has been progressing for the past 35 years (which cycles across my workbench every decade!)

In reply to Colin's post, I believe that Kit passed away a few years ago (although I cannot remember offhand where I read the obituary) - one of life's gentlemen and a beacon of common sense.

Drew the short straw today and had to the children into the centre of Gloucester, where I rarely venture, for the marathon morning session of music lessons, group singing, and junior orchestra, and so took the opportunity to visit Smiths and found another poor lonely N Class sitting in a large bin, pure compassion motivated me to reunite it with its classmates at home. This is one of the best assembled GBL locos that I have yet encountered, everything that should be vertical (including the cab) is vertical, there is no gap between the firebox and cab and everything appears to be stuck on squarely. Naturally nothing in life is perfect so there is a small splodge of red paint on the running plate. But is shows you that there are some decent examples out there. Oh well back to my Saturday chores...

A foray into Gloucester this morning, disappointingly, only produced two examples, both of which were taken into protective custody. Both have very slightly wonky cabs, but much better than Smiffy2's example. On initial examination the most noticeable feature is the malnourished rear safety valve, but then surely we will all be replacing these after 5 minutes with a piece of thick brass wire, an electric drill and a needle file held in a vice? The other thing that I noticed immediately is that 31874 is depicted with a late style BR totem, but with the original cylinders - 31874 was one of the members of the class to receive replacement cylinders late in its BR life and I would question whether it ever ran in the form depicted, but would need to do more research to verify. Once again one wonders how they do it for the price.

Not according to Ford, who gives the Summer '47 formation of 3051 as 88 & 89, pulling Doris, Hazel, Gwen & Mona. Don't forget that this was before the official resumption of the Belle that Autumn, and at a time when shortages in the economy were rife and may have simply reflected what the Pullman Car Co was able to get running at the time, given that they had be laid up for five years (coated all over with grey paint from one report that I have read) and 3052 was badly damaged.

Right, have been consulting Ford's recent Pullman Profile No. 4: The Brighton Belle & Southern Electric Pullmans. Page 93 gives details of 6 car formation that "ran on several inspection trips, including one over the Western Section to Portsmouth in readiness of a trip for the Sixth Imperial Press Conference on 28 June" (1947). He gives a date of 6 June for the commencement of the Eastbourne Pullman Limited - a week after that quoted by Kinder, and a service withdrawal date of 15 September 1957.

Kinder in Pullman Cars on the Southern 1875-1972 quotes a start date for the Eastbourne Pullman Limited of 31 May 1948. Will look in other sources to see if I can find an end date.

Will look forward to seeing that - will be a quite a tricky one, despite the close family relationship between an N and a U there are differences that make this quite a difficult conversion: the running plate differences are obvious, but the boiler is also pitched higher in a U, changing the cab front window layout amongst other things. The GBL loco should provide some useful parts, but I would suggest these are more likely to be of the nature of an aid to scratchbuilding than anything else. Certainly it is doable but a lot of work.

37 is Bachmann surely? (Good because I only have one of these).

Not sure about that - if they are sold new as models I believe that that they would then become subject to VAT at 20%. So £8.99 becomes £10.79 with VAT.

Father I have sinned, I have been led astray from worshipping at the altar of RMWeb by listening to false prophets (or indeed by extreme pressure from my wife to finish the new kitchen, which I am hand building from best quality Finnish plywood and English oak). But lo I have seen the light and have returned to the path of righteousness.... I have spent the past few evenings (after my servitude in the kitchen has finished) reading through this thread from beginning to end - thank you to you all for the useful information, particularly TheWeatheringMan. My interest was stimulated when I saw three K3s in boxes (no card backing or magazine) in a shop window in Gloucester last Saturday, marked "Special offer £9.99, usual price £19.99", I thought "that looks remarkable for the price", but could not do anything as I had the monkeys in tow and the LNER is not really my thing. A web search led here to the font of all knowledge. These were unquestionably the GBL ones, has anyone else seen this? Wonder if it is a way of disposing of surplus stock or the beginnings of an afterlife for the range? I had occasion to got into Gloucester today (my old router has given up the ghost) and thought that I would see if I could manage to pick up a C Class or five. Instead popping into the Gloucester Quays Sainsbury's I found a Class 4 mogul and another two in the Barnwood Branch, so I now have three. I am amazed at the quality for the price (the only thing that jarrs at a first glance are the peculiar square corners to the tender lining - looks like a case for heavy weathering to me) - if one thinks about the supply chain and profit margins they must be being made for under two quid a pop - how do they do it for the price? I now have up to two Class 4s available for swapping with C Classes if anybody would like to.

Literally dug up during the Northfleet project on the site of the old cripple sidings. ID anyone? (I wonder if it might not be the remains of one of the old quarry wagons - solebars look too unsubstantial for anything main line).

I only found this inspiring thread recently - one of the most uplifting and inventive articles that I have seen in a long while. The idea of £100 2013 challenge is exciting - I for one am keen to prove that it can also be done in 7mm scale for £100!

Somehow had missed this completely up to now & have just read it from beginning to end - lovely layout - well done & keep it up!

How about this http://www.nrm.org.uk/ResearchAndArchive/drawings?works=southern nagivate about halfway down to Drawing E17077, there are other related drawings around it, and if you then go through the drawing register there all the drawings that you could ever want!

Lovely paint job, unfortunate that the proportions of the cab on the kit are terrible.

Lovely modelling. As I understand it from my late father, who was brought up in the High Wycombe funiture trade, "proper" mahogony is Honduras mahogony, which is indeed a lovely deep reddish colour. This has been virtually unobtainable for several decades and was superceded by Brazillian mahogony, and then this in turn by so-called African "mahogany" and other mahogony substitutes.

Thought that the three winners of the SRA trials were the MPV trains, the MEGA3 pigyybacks and the Minimodal (10' containers) - I remember going to the launch of the Minimodal scheme at the NRM c2001 - was a really good knees-up, might even have some photos somewhere, but it was in my pre-digital photgraphy era, and I would need to find them in my chaotic photo "filing system". As you say all three schemes were doomed - indeed it was pretty obvious that all were hopelessly uneconomic from the outset - I remember being at a conference where the three winning schemes were launched by the SRA and each gave a presentation, I turned to the ops director of one of the FOCs who was sitting next to me and said "I don't see how any of these can possibly be viable", and he replied "They can't"! The fact that there was considerable competion (was it 17 entries?) for the pile of cash that was found under the doorstep and some quite good ideas, but the SRA chose these three says all that one needs to know about the SRA.

Wasn't one of the VoR 2-6-2Ts repainted into BR green while it was still in BR ownership? Thanks for the memories - I well recall seeing 40106 several times in the Birmingham area around 1987ish, including once to my surprise on a MGR train, bound (I presume) for Didcot at Tyseley one winter evening...