martinT

Well, if you'd followed the link to the NR article referenced from the BBC article you'd have found that the plans include two additional track loops to accommodate a four-platform station. The NR article is here: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/anglia/improving-the-railway-in-anglia/cambridge-south-station/

The Department for Transport has finally got around to approving NR's plans for this new station, see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-64110685 . Work can begin once the local planning authority approves the full details.

We've been here before - 13th July! This Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_196 suggests that new Class 196 DMUs are being considered for use on the line. Initially 6 2-car units will be allocated to the Oxford - MK service. It references an article '196s for East West Rail' in Modern Railways. Martin

... yes of course, a well known & oft-reported fact - I've done so myself! Having said that I have wondered about the Soole photos - the early ones would be from his time as a student so he would perhaps have plenty of free time during the vacations. The 2 volumes of Soole photos are a wonderful collection but one unfortunate failing is that dates are generally not given leaving David Geen & his fellow compilers to determine approximate dates by analysis of details. However dates are given for 27 of the c280 photos. (12 of these, all from Vol 1, are given in 'Additional Info & Corrections to Vol 1' at the end of Vol 2). Of these 27 one is from 1934, the other 26 from 1933. The 1933 photos are amongst the earliest Soole took (he would have been 20 & a student at Cambridge). So it seems he started off by recording dates but later gave up - unless the records have been lost. Of the 27 the days are: Monday 4, Tuesday 7, Wednesday 3, Thursday 3, Friday 2, Saturday 6, and Sunday 2 - so he obviously did have plenty of free time on weekdays in 1933! (lucky guy). One of these (no. 244) shews a Cardiff to Brighton train headed by a Mogul at Foxes Wood, on 17 June 1933 - a Saturday, & Soole recorded a time of 1.35pm. This suggests the train to be the 12.20pm departure from Cardiff (1.24pm ex-Stapleton Road). The train is made up of 4 GW + 4 SR + 1 GW which the compilers' analysis report as: C10, C23, C58, C30, 4-car ex-LSWR Ironclad set, C54. My 1932/1933 GWR timetable describes this as a Luncheon & Tea Car Train.

I've just scanned through the 2 volumes of Soole's photos - 'The GWR in the 1930s'. I've found 8 photos of trains reputed to be Cardiff to Brighton (or reverse). 5 are headed by Stars, 2 by Moguls, & 1 by a Saint. The preponderance of Stars surprised me. It might be argued that Soole overlooked lesser locos such as Bulldogs but on the evidence of the books I'm not sure that is true. Interestingly I think there's probably more SR stock shewn than GW tho' several of the photos shew trains of mixed stock. For the record the photos are nos. 32, 55, 83 (from Vol 1), 149, 157, 162, 244, 277 (Vol 2). If I've missed some I apologise. Martin

... it would have been akin to giving arsonists another box of matches.

... failing that how about Larry? He's had more experience of working in No.10 than most of the shower we've suffered & as far as I know has never put a paw wrong. Martin

I appreciate that Stephen asked about the source of a 4mm model but some of you may be interested in a 3 page article ‘GWR Loading Gauges’ by David Gardner in the latest Pannier (#47) – the journal of the Great Western Study Group. The main part is the reproduction of GW Circular 3277, entitled ‘Maximum Load Gauge’. This seems to be undated but it supersedes Circular 3062 of September 1928. The Circular specifies various dimensions & clearances & has drawings. The article also reproduces a drawing of a loading gauge from the August 1920 MRN. This is not an official GW drawing but the caption ends with ‘thanks to officials at Swindon for providing information …’ See the Pannier page of the GWSG’s website http://www.gwsg.org.uk/ for details of how to purchase a copy (£3 + £1p&p). The GWSG’s Publications Officer can be contacted at: publications@gwsg.org.uk Martin

ie through my village!

Through my letter box yesterday came a newsletter from my local MP, Andrew Browne (Tory obviously for this bit of the world - Cambs South constituency) announcing all the wonderful things he's achieved recently. There were too many to mention but one that caught my eye was that he'd 'Ensured the OxCam Arc project was ditched, & that it does not provide housebuilders with a charter for development in our area'! This was news to me - has anybody heard an official Government announcement (but I guess that's just too much to expect from the current lot). I've emailed Browne asking for what thinks the implications for the Bedford - Cambridge section might be. Martin

This Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_196 suggests that new Class 196 DMUs are being considered for use on the line. It references an article '196s for East West Rail' in Modern Railways. Martin

Try keith.ettle @ btinternet.com

Well spotted! And a signal man is leaning out of the same window in both photos! Actually it's not a photo for sale but a 35mm negative which perhaps explains the £4.99 starting price.

What have you got against tea drinkers?

... that & the fact that buses have to traipse around other villages rather than take the shortest route from one's own village. In my case cycling the 6 miles into Cambridge is usually as quick as catching the bus (& I can choose my own deparature time).

Just a correction/clarification. In spite of the cover illustration of WT 3 the Dulverton article will be in WT4 due out in August. See: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/165383-western-times/page/4/

Ah, that explains it!

why the delay?

You're right about the lack of photos of this train I'm afraid - it is one of my 'holy grail' Barnstaple line photos that I've been hoping to discover for decades! In 2009 I wrote to Roger Venning, the doyen of Taunton photographers of the 1940s, asking if he had ever photographed it. Sadly he hadn't - in the 1940s he was a teenager & had to be home by 7pm to do his homework! He actually asserts that 'seeing anything of the South Molton rabbit traffic was far & few between & no photos of the train were ever taken by any of us spotters at that time'. He did send me a photo by his friend the late Pursey Short (whose photos he'd inherited) of a parcels van (something like a K40 I think) being loaded with crates of rabbits at Temple Meads on 5th November 1950. It was taken at 5.40pm so is an evening shot. The caption on the back reads: 'Loading rabbits into a luggage van, bound for London market'. Roger said that Pursey surmised that they had arrived from Taunton on the train he had travelled on - he was on his way back to Portsmouth (where he worked) after a w/e with his parents in Taunton. 5/11/1950 was a Sunday so they couldn't have come from a Barnstaple line train.

The 'Rabbiter' does appear in the 1943 summer WTT (dated May 3rd UFN). It is indeed marked RR & runs empty: Taunton dep 3.20pm, arr South Molton 4.40. Dep SM 5.45, arr Taunton 8.05. It stops at all stations, typically for about 8 mins except Dulverton where 19 mins are allowed, & East Anstey where 20 mins are allowed - but this does not I think indicate massive quantities of rabbits to be loaded at EA but more the need to wait the arrival of the 5.35 from Taunton!

I can understand that but the E W Consortium does want to approach Cambridge from the south, & so serving the proposed new station of Cambridge South. This will serve Addenbrookes & Papworth Hospitals & the new bio-medical campus that includes Astra-Zeneca's HQ. On arrival at Cambridge (main) station trains will then be able to proceed to Ely & perhaps beyond without reversal. The northern route would join the Ely line north of the relatively new Cambridge North station. Thus times to Cambridge South would be considerably longer. Extending to/from Ely would require reversal. Reversal would be even more of an operating problem for freight trains from Felixstowe, unless a triangular junction was put in somewhere near Cambridge North - but consideration for freight trains is (as I understand it) beyond the remit of EWC.

May be, but don't forget that the unions representing the road haulage workers, the bus company employees, the civil engineering workers, & the car & lorry factory workers had far more clout in the Labour Party than those representing the railway workers. Indeed Frank Cousins, Gen Sec of the TGWU, was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister of Technology by Wilson in 1964 without even being an MP. (He did subsequently win Nuneaton in a by-election & was briefly an MP).

I hope to live long enough to travel from Cambridge to Didcot - but I fear it might be touch & go! The southern approach to Cambridge is the favoured one (at least by the E W Consortium). If the decision is revoked (as the southern route inhabitants are pressing for) & the northern approach chosen it means the line will pass thro' my village with all the disruption that implies & without the consolation of a station. By comparison the few years of disruption that the A14 ugrade has caused us will seem as nothing!

Well, as I understand it Kevin Robertson asked Freddie Huxtable to write such an article - so he obviously thought it to be useful! Not everyone will have Freddie's books in any case. That's an interesting suggestion. I'm no SB expert but is there any evidence that the GWR built brick-based SBs & then clad them in wood? Why would they have done so?

I'm sure that's the best decision! Removing sidings immediately dates the layout to the last couple of years of the station's life, after the closure of the Exe Valley branch. With the sidings it will be the brick-base on the signal box that dates the model. The all-wooden SB was rebuilt with a brick base some time in the early/mid-1950s. No exact date has been found but there is a photo by R M Casserley dated 25th September 1956 in the Middleton Press book which shews a brick base. That's the earliest I've come across - if anyone has an earlier photo shewing a brick base I'd be interested to see it. Freddie Huxtable tells me that he has written an article on Dulverton for a forthcoming edition of 'Western Times' - the new journal by Transport Treasury Publishing, see: https://ttpublishing.co.uk/product/western-times-issue-3/ . There will be some new photos but the text will essentially consolidate the information spread across his 3 volumes.