Broadway Clive

Not quite right Brian, the mercury tubes here were at East Finchley and cut power to signals so they all 'failed' safe to red with train stops raised. You couldnt stop even an electric train by turning off traction current as drivers were taught to coast to the next station if power was lost. Below is from London's Underground by H F Howson. Of course BR locos were meant to have trip cocks fitted to work over LT, and there were trip cock testers at the various entry points to ensure it was down and to gauge. However, I've read a number of accounts from steam loco crew that it was often left isolated and non operative, oweing to the difficulty for firemen of going onto the track to reset it inside tunnels. Of course, drivers of LT trains were provided with a trip reset cord which came right up near the front door. Still in practise the red signals should suffice with two men in the cab!

My good friend Jim Buckland worked for a while as a signal "cabin boy" at Finchley Central in 1962 and remembers freight to Mill Hill East and Edgware (BR) sometimes containing one or two Fyffes bannana vans and wagons carrying military vehicles as well as the usual coal wagons that were the main traffic for both the Edgware and High Barnet branches. BR steam as well as diesel were used, and the coal trains, lasted a bit longer than planned due to winter snow lying in the coal yards till the spring of 1963.

I must say I'm not too convinced about the prevelance of grey roofs other than on D8400 when it was brand new. I'd also take issue with the leaflet that comes with the model when it claims they were all delivered to Devons Road Bow. According to Irwell's "Diesel Depots - the early years" that depot's diesel conversion commenced in 1957 and was to include 25 type 1 locos of which ten would be 800hp (ie class 15 or 16 in TOPs language). However, D8400 (the first class 16) was not built till July 1958 and would still be on test in Scotland in August 1958 when Devon Road's last steam loco had departed, so they were obviously not involved at that time. My understanding is that class 15 locos D8200-9 were the ten 800hp locos at the depot, and the December 1959 allocation list actually shows them in the process of being replaced by more of the 1000hp class 20s that would eventually become the sole type 1 loco at the depot.

I've never thought the Bachmann 10ft WB wagons masquerading as London Transport were very convincing when compared to the real thing (See the LT museum example pictured earlier in this thread). I believe a better and cheaper alternative lies in the Hornby 9ft WB wooden framed private owner wagons. The two on the left I bought several years ago at swapmeets and have just finally removed the lettering as I want to convert them to LT match wagons. It was a quick job with acetone (nail varnish remover), which will attack plastic, but of course these are protected by the original Hornby paint finish. The wagon on the right is a white metal Wills Finecast track cleaning wagon - appropriately designed to use cigarette fliter tips wetted with cleaning fluid from above. I bought it at a swapmeet about 20 years ago and soon gave up on cleaning track with it, but had always been puzzled as to its prototype origins. Now I'm wondering if its related to their LT ballast wagon kit, but I havent seen one of those. Incidentally, I dont think many of these small wagons went far in the post war years, all the regular engineering works I recall used the 50ft Flat/ballast F3xx series wagons, the RW rail wagons (like Robert Thompson is producing soon), or the HW4XX series hopper ballast wagons as Cambrian has said.

Thanks Gordon A, thats brilliant, and the familiar looking price list too. Thats made my day! Clive

Can you reveal their contact details please? All I can find via Google is their blog page from several years ago. I'm hoping they still sell SPUDs.

There's an enthusiast who has produced an interesting new range of 1/43 scale model lorry kits that might be worth trying. All made by 3D printing I believe. I'd never heard of them before but the pictures look good. http://www.shapeways.com/shops/shapeways.com/shops/1.43transportmodels?s=0