phil_sutters

Is the blue section the harbour, with the ferry berth on the terminal side of the projecting quay and the cargo wharf on the side that you have your cranes? The idea of having more off-scene cargo facilities up-stream makes sense. Newhaven actually had cargo wharves, both to the north and south of the swing bridge and at an earlier period on the other side of the river. This photo, from the Our Newhaven site, shows the type of crane in use in the post WW2 era. http://www.ournewhaven.org.uk/page_id__1361.aspx?path=0p69p82p Newhaven was a busy port during the wars and the dock facilities were geared up to handle much greater traffic than before, especially towards the end of the war. The Newhaven - Dieppe route was the most direct to Paris.

A useful source of photos, including aerial shots, of Newhaven is the Our Newhaven website. http://www.ournewhaven.org.uk/category_id__69.aspx While I realise that you are using Newhaven as a starting point - a small ferry and cargo port with SR railway services, there are a couple of points. The ferry terminal is on the east bank of the river so the plan should be the other way round. The other thing that needs consideration is how the goods traffic connects with the cargo ships and what facilities it would need - cranes etc. I hope you can work out a good layout and have fun bringing it to life. Currently the site of Newhaven Marine is the access point for the aggregates terminal, visited by class 66s and passed by 377s on their way to and from Seaford. Happy New Year.

If they are of any interest there are photos of the Oldbury's under restoration in this album.

Happy 2024 all!

You can get a bit more exotic than a Collett 0-6-0. If City of Truro can use the route for running in, after restoration at Swindon, then anything under the appropriate weight restriction could visit! There's your three coaches as well.

Not quite sure if this is modelling. 7 year-old grandson saw a birthday cake I had decorated for an earlier grandson's 10th birthday and ordered a lifeboat cake. He has the misfortune to have his birthday on Christmas Eve. It is very, very loosely based on Newhaven's western 'arm', which used to have a railway line on it. So it's a non-railway model with railway history! My wife is the cake baker - according to her this is a diorama with a soft centre.

From Dad's albums - not the best shot, but the best there is!

Class R was a 4-4-0T. LNER classes Jxx were 0-6-0s. Those bogie wheels remind me of the pony truck wheels on the clockwork 00 Bing 2-4-0Ts I inherited from Dad and subsequently abused and chucked out. As we are on a Scottish theme - Happy Hogmany to all. The railway magazines often used to start the new year with Scots railway articles. E.g. January 1928 Railway Magazine - Notable Railway Stations..... Buchanan Street, Glasgow.

Could be loco coal! Frome shed doesn't look as if it would need more than a wagon load. https://www.facebook.com/fromemuseum/photos/pcb.2905380859710377/2905380463043750/?type=3&theater - may be that's the one wagon.

Would I be right in thinking that the MR shed at Bath also got its supplies from the same collieries? That would make sense practically and economically. I don't recall seeing any S&DJR wagons, including those being loaded with coal at Highbridge Wharf, marked Loco Coal, despite this being a major use of the imports from across the Channel - the Bristol variety that is. .

Well there's one loco coal wagon that made it to Barrow Road and will have a job making it back to the colliery!. Don't forget to leave your fire irons on top of the nearest handy shed.

1/43rd scale is not common for plastic kits. The nearest is 1/35th generally speaking. 1/43rd is more of a diecast scale. As far as the marque of half-track you could reasonably use, bear in mind that the majority of US supplied equipment used in western Europe, until well after the D-Day landings allowed French ports to be safe, would have been shipped through British ports. So whoever the end user was, their US vehicles may well have come in via west coast ports like Liverpool.

A couple of thoughts - if you stay with the level crossing, it might be more appropriate for the signal box to be nearer it, so that it can control the gates. If you are talking about Holcombe growing into a large market town you might want a larger cattle dock. Highbridge S&D's was 80ft long and the GWR had one as well. Is your coal traffic just for local consumption? I imagine that your area's main colliery and quarry output joins the branch further down, off-scene. So small merchant's office and some bins could be along the back of the goods yard alongside the store.

They are a bit grainy. I also have a project that has been stalled for a while! Since at least 2017! There is now a kit of the SP gun unit. The cabs are the worst section of these to get right.

I once made a Foden artillery tractor from the KeilKraft Foden tipper.

Highbridge's concrete bridge from the S&D to the B&E/GWR platforms had lights on similar hoops. At the S&D's closure they were probably electric, earlier they would have been gas. You can see two of them in this photo. There would have been a third as the tracks crossed the GWR lines. The lights at the foot of the S&D stairs were single post, rather than arched.

If anyone thinks that the garden walls look a bit chunky, take a look at this Google street view in Highbury. I used to live in Coleford and remember how thick our garden walls were. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.2428227,-2.4486132,3a,75y,52.53h,85.89t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sn3fsAO9V93XXSCpdryg3sw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&entry=ttu

There were situations where one needed to change platforms - for example where your branch line arrived at the junction and your onward train was across on the other side of the mainline. Not only were numerous stations not accessible to wheelchair users, but many carriages were not accessible either, even if a ramp was available to get to the doorway. If one could get aboard a non-corridor carriage you would take up about half the compartment, facing across the train, with the seats on either side of you inaccessible. Think of corridor carriages with fairly narrow doors into the compartments. The corridors themselves were often not very wide, so manoeuvring from the vestibule, into the corridor could be difficult and into a compartment virtually impossible. Toilets were totally inaccessible. In some cases people in wheelchairs had to be 'entrained' into the guards van through the double luggage doors and then sit in the luggage compartment for the journey. Their companions might find that there was nowhere in there to sit, unless there was a spare seat in the guard's section. The design of wheelchairs was also a factor. They could be far more rigid and cumbersome than modern designs.

My immediate thought was Spencer Colliery, but when I searched on that most references came up with Frederick Spencer and his connections to the Somerset coalfield and quarries. So a bit too far away.

Not such a busy line - only a couple of hundred yards to the buffers, where the line then ended, just before the promenade.

This rather grainy photo shows a barrow crossing a barrow crossing at Hereford, a moderately large station by the look of the track layout. If, on an exhibition layout, you have a dodgy connection and some paths through your station don't work, just park a trolley across the track. It looks as this one has got stuck.

With the choice of settings on some washing machines you need several degrees to work out which one would be best for your mixed load of clobber, towels and bedding.

A couple of shots taken passing Day's Aggregates earlier in the year.