Miss Prism

3 hours ago, seaber said:

I think the depot name would be on the side in 5" letters and up until 1943 would have worn a white 'S' below this name. Can anyone confirm this? 

Yes. (Some AA20s also carried the 'S'.)

3 hours ago, seaber said:

It seems in 1942 if a van was repainted the GW and running number would have been reduced to 3" high. 

I've never seen a picture of such reduced size lettering.

Photos of tank tops are like hens' teeth, and to be honest, I'd never noticed the joint in the boiler feed pipe before. I've no idea whether the orginals were round or rectangular. (The pic on the right is a preserved loco.)

B

Many WWII-black panniers would have missed the brief post-war green 'interval' of 1945-7.

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

57xx/8750s, 56xx, 42xx, some absorbed South Wales classes, and probably others carried the livery

I don't know of any evidence of a 57xx/8750 carrying Grotesque font insignia.

Spring-operated plungers are ok if the spring is of the right type. Short-travel coil springs are far from ideal.

When we say 'mixed traffic', is that our modern perspective being applied to something historic?  Or, putting the question another way, when did the prototype first start adopting the term?

I'm trying to contact Dave Deane of Loco Yard without success at the moment. Has anyone got an e-mail address?  (Via PM, preferably.)

1 hour ago, RCP said:

Is this black door thing a regional hangover from the various absorbed companies?

Not as far as I know. The black door advocates cite works grey portraits, which show cab doors darker than general bodywork. That however may be a works grey convention, in the same way that brakes, frames and wheel centres are differentiated colourwise.

It's the preserved large prairies that show the most evidence of black doors. I really don't know if it is correct. Accurascale is currently showing black doors on its panniers. Must be flavour of the month...

12 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

and the GWS restoration of 4144 in the same livery also has green doors.

Those Urie 4-6-0s were fine machines.

3 hours ago, 88D said:

I’ve read somewhere that the cab doors were painted black, but I’m not certain on this.

Most preserved GWR tanks have green cab doors.

Given that branch lines (generally) did not need 4-6-0s, and leaving the Cambrian aside, I can't see any cross-country/secondary lines in desparate need of a 4-6-0. The Taunton/Exeter lines to Barnstaple, ostensibly yellow, ran the heavier blue-RA Bulldogs and the blue-RA Moguls, so presumably had allowances for such engines, which were more than capable for the freight and passenger demands on those lines.

38 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Wasn't the Hornby version going to be the type with lever brakes as opposed to DC type though?

That was my understanding at the time.

Yep.

I probably shouldn't have used the term 'old stagers' - at that (Churchward) time, those classes I mentioned were in the prime of life.

But what would have been the operating dept need for a Churchward Manor? There were, in that era, plenty of old stagers (Dukes, Dean Goods, saddle tanks etc) that were well suited for the lighter lines.

Jim Champ sketched some Churchward imaginery 4-6-0s here.

14 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

The big loss for me is the Macaw although I do wonder if Hronby got wind of someone else being in the hunt for that and decided to cut their losses before things got too far?

The J21 was introduced by Mainline (in 1980 I think), taken over by Bachmann, and still an excellent model.

Hornby's plan to duplicate it was either a bit of Kohler pigheadedness, or Hornby just didn't check what was out there.

24 minutes ago, Jack P said:

A shame these appear to have been cancelled in the 2024 catalogue, is there a decent kit out there instead?

The Bachmann one is available.

Having been involved in the development stage of the Genesis range, the Hattons news today is very sad.

42 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Because it's a very bad idea to mix secure and insecure content in the same page, especially with dynamic content (such as a forum page...), as it opens up all kinds of opportunities for attackers to intercept requests and inject malicious code.

Thanks, and I think it explains why a coherent RMweb hotlinking position is now out of Andy Y's hands, because it is, in effect, being dictated by the forum software.

35 minutes ago, Nick C said:

You don't need to pay for a certificate, they can be had for free from https://letsencrypt.org/, so there's no reason NOT to have one.

Classic diy geekery, and a steep learning curve, but my web host (Ionos) doesn't support it, at least the last time I checked.

Some web hosts are now offering free SSLs in their hosting packages. This is a fairly recent development, and an indication of how competitive the hosting situation is,

39 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

I don't know either but we are a decade on from that discussion and things have changed a lot since then!

I'm not sure things have changed in substance since then. It's up to Andy to review and update RMweb's hotlinking policy.

39 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

On the more general point: Having a secure connection to a website is what people expect these days. They've been told that secure is good and unsecure is bad and browsers reinforce that in their address bar displays and their response to http addresses.

I get the impression it is widely acknowledged that the 'not secure' text on the view site information graphic is a misnomer. Lots of 'secure' sites can be  unsafe. Paying for an SSL for gwr.org.uk would produce no significant benefit.