Nick Holliday

I agree with Flying Pig. The use of radial axleboxes instead of a Bissel pony truck was obviously sufficiently unusual for it became noted as part of the class name. Hence the Adams' LSWR radial 4-4-2, the Brighton radial 0-6-2, such as Bachmann's E4, and the L&YR radial 2-4-2 (again Bachmann) classes come to mind, and Wikipedia cites an LNWR class, perhaps their 0-4-2ST; their Coal Tanks etc having normal pony truck arrangements.

As an eleven year old, this plan was my Holy Grail for a number of years, until reality kicked in!

The website front page was last updated in 2014! In a recent LBSC Modellers Digest http://www.lbscr.org/Models/Journal/LBSCR-Modellers-Digest-5.pdf#page120 Chris has given his latest price list, which would suggest that he is still very much in business, and I believe others on RMweb have recently been able to get things from him, after I posted similar advice.

I've been intrigued how this design has evolved and developed over the eighty posts. It's now looking very similar to Ruxley, one of the Epsom and Ewell MRC's OO layouts. This is quite an iconic layout, originally dating from the sixties, although kept up to date so that it is still on the exhibition circuit, whilst retaining its sixties style. With signalling professionals in the club, it is full signalled and operated in a prototypical way, albeit with a rather unprototypical frequency. The main difference is that Ruxley is much longer than Hampton Malstead, although much of that is the landscaped area giving a bit of distance from the station itself and the hidden fiddle yard. There are few photos of it on the net, but if it is erected at the next club night, a photo session might ensue.

Although probably true for the F1, some O1s were paired up with ex LCDR tenders, which had their sprIngs below the footplate. This was due, mainly, to the old SER tenders developing leaks. However this was only a short term measure, mainly for a few years in the twenties, although one did run until 1947, as sound ones became available as O's were scrapped.

Having been re-directed from the Castle Aching thread, I can add this to the discussion of stock on the Tonbridge to Hastings line. In Railways South East, Summer 1993 edition, there is an article by H P White on this line. Entitled 1066 and All That, he says, "In Southern days the tunnel restrictions began to bear heavily. South of Tunbridge Wells all stock had to be 'Restriction 0'. This precluded in effect anything but the Wainwright Birdcage stock and the Maunsell flat sided vestibule sets. There were also special Pullman cars. The passenger trains were mainly powered by the Wainwright 4-4-0s, rebuilt or in their original form. Freight trains in the thirties were powered mainly by C Class 0-6-0s, with help from the aged O1s, but the N and N1 Moguls were also allowed."

S & D Models have some nice 7mm detailing castings that might be of interest. http://www.sanddmodels.co.uk/products_43_accessories.htm

Another bridge was demolished fairly recently, that carrying the main road from Wallington to Mitcham over the platforms at the Sutton end of the station.Hackbridge was No 484, a Billinton E4 radial tank. The history of Carshalton station is very muddled and stories abound. Part of the problem is that Wallington station on the West Croydon to Epsom line was opened as "Carshalton" and only renamed when the Peckham Rye to Sutton line opened some years later. The OS map of the times actually captures this line under construction, with the earthworks basically complete, but only single track in place. It is clear that the current location for Carshalton station was in place right from the start, but there is an oddity that one of the side roads, some distance away, with no access to the tracks on the embankment, is called Station Road! To add to the confusion Howard Turner noted that the station moved in 1902. The original station building was a timber structure, similar to the first station at Uckfiled, replaced by the current structure in 1902. Photos of the first building clearly show it in the same location, which is very distinctive to those familiar with it.

This talk of a D2 makes me think we are talking of Stroudley's mixed traffic tender loco, a rare beast, although two kit manufacturers have had a go at it. I think the loco in question is actually a D1!

This isn't quite the true picture. The Brighton was a very conservative line with regards to its coaching stock, and unlike other railways where there were considerable style and design changes at various times, the principles features of the majority of the carriages can be traced back to Stroudley's designs from around 1870. Fairly late to adopt bogie coaches, Robert Billinton managed to build around 500 such vehicles up until 1904, mainly based on 48' underframes. Following changes in management, there was the brief flowering period, of only two or three years, circa 1905, when the magnificent balloon coaches, built to the maximum of the generous LBSC loading gauge, were constructed. However, there were only about 125 of them made, including the earliest motor train trailers. The final wave of construction reverted to the archaic arc roof design, mainly because half the stock was formed by placing old 6 wheeler bodies on new 54' underframes. Some 250 rebuilds, and a similar number of new builds to similar designs, appeared before grouping, whilst apart from the original units for the South London line electrification, which were to a different style, the stock for the overhead electrification was similar to the loco hauled items. So, at grouping, there would have been around 1,200 bogie coaches on the Brighton's books, only around 10% of them being balloon stock, and half of the rest were around 25 years old, as were the bodies of a quarter of the rest. Given their age, and the fact that over 300 were rebuilt, perhaps for a second time, on new underframes, to create a hundred emu's, it is not surprising that few survived unaltered beyond the thirties. Some of the balloon coaches were formed into pull-push sets, which would have stayed in the Central district, but given the relative early electrification of the Brighton main line and the coastal lines, there wasn't much other work they could usefully do, and at thirty years old, they had probably earned their keep, and were sent to scrap, although quite a few ended up as service stock. The majority of the pull-push units were of the lower roof style, and they survived in BR days, and once the Westinghouse operating system was available elsewhere, a few gravitated outside the Central area onto the old LSWR and SECR lines, in addition to those coaches, none of them balloons, that had escaped to Vectis.

I have to agree with these sentiments. My comments were based on the prices I have paid for items from Shapeways, around £90 for an E2 tank in FUD and nearly £80 for an LYR rail-motor in WSF. A quick look on their website showed a wide disparity for various tender locos, from £40 - £90, presumably again depending on material chosen. If you can get decent quality prints for the prices mentioned I would be very interested, quoting HO versions might be misleading.I would also like to know where all these drawings are coming from, as there are some distinctly iffy plans around, and buyers have to take a leap of faith when making a purchase based on a computer generated image, with no reviews of the actual product to be a guide. BTW SEFinecast already produce a kit for the LCDR R1 http://www.sefinecast.co.uk/Locomotives/New%20and%20Revised%20Loco%20Kits%20Page%206.htm

Whilst I appreciate that 3D printed locos appeal to a slightly different market from etched brass and white metal kits, I feel that, since there can be almost as much work required to complete each type, and the costs are currently comparable, it would make sense generally to avoid those prototypes that are already available in other materials, although I accept that if they can be made to accurately fit an easily available RTR chassis, along the lines of Golden Arrow resin kits, then there is potential. (Langley have long had a WM L Class kit designed to fit on an A3 chassis) I would therefore suggest going slightly off-piste, as with the SER F Class on your list, whilst perhaps leaving the preserved types, such as the NLR tank, to the big boys who now seem to be polishing them off, albeit slowly. What about the LCDR M classes of 4-4-0, or their 0-6-0s which formed the basis of the later C Class, and the T class 0-6-0, which I suspect was what you meant when you said R, which is the 0-4-4 tank which is now available from SEFinecast. The 0-6-0 tank and tender classes were also the basis for the Hull and Barnsley Railway's first locos, so further potential there. As a Brighton modeller, I would have to admit that a 3D print of one of the smaller 4-4-2 tanks, I1, I2 or I4 would fill a gap, as would a B2 or B2X 4-4-0, and perhaps an E5X or E6X 0-6-2 tank, these last two surviving into BR days, and could use SEF etched chassis kits. A K class 2-6-0, one of the best looking goods locos ever, IMHO, might be nice, as the previous kits for this loco have long disappeared.

The L&YR had an extensive network of third rail electrification, using two different systems around Liverpool and Manchester. It did have a small amount of overhead - the three and a half mile long single track Holcombe Brook branch and a few hundred yards at Aintree sidings. There were only a couple of powered units and their trailers for the branch. There was only one proper electric loco, which could hardly be described as handsome, which ran experimentally as a shunter around Aintree, using the overhead in the sidings, and picking up from the third rail on the mainline.The L&YR also had a battery loco, so the LMS inherited just three of this type, with one each from the Midland and North Staffordshire Railways, the last two becoming BEL 1 & 2 in BR days. All three had limited operational ranges being confined to specific locations for most of their working lives. In addition to the NER freight only and the LBSCR passenger only overhead installations, mention should be made of the Midland's work on the Morecambe branch, as featured elsewhere in RMweb. There were at least three hospital railways that were electrified, at Hellingley, Cheddleton and High Royds. A number of industrial lines were also provided with OH, most notably Harton Colliery as modelled by the Carshalton and Sutton MRC. The Mersey Railway has been mentioned, but Liverpool had another line, the Liverpool Overhead Railway, for which Judith Edge do two versions of the multiple units used, whilst in London, apart from the tube railways, the Metropolitan and the District Railways had locos as well as multiple units, and some mainline companies invested in the underground, with the GWR, the GNR and the LNWR getting involved, the latter also going alone with its Watford line, as running on the Twickenham club's Addison Road layout.

I have had the privilege of helping to operate Ian White's superb model of East Grinstead on the LBSCR at a number of exhibitions. His operating sequence began with early locos hauling open carriages, gradually advancing through about years to the start of the Edwardian era, with the locos and rolling stock gradually changing throughout. In addition the usage of the station changed, as it was originally built as a terminus, which was subsequently made redundant when a new through station, on a different alignment, was opened. Obviously both stations had to be modelled, but the later station was behind and at a lower level, so the exhibition viewer wouldn't have been aware of it until trains started running. As with the real thing the original terminus remained in use but only for goods traffic. A further degree of transition was shown by the way the signalling hardware and usage changed. There was another Brighton layout (Selsey on Sea, by Alan Sibley, if I have the names correct) that was on the exhibition circuit back in the seventies that also worked on the same principles, although starting with the Stroudley era working through to grouping, taking advantage of the distinctive changes in loco and coach liveries to show the passage of time. Although quite a time range was involved wth East Grinstead, it was easy to accomplish as there was very little change on the scenery side of things from the start to the end of Victoria's reign, whereas a similar five decade span In the latter half of the twentieth century would be much harder to carry out convincingly with all the changes in infrastructure and road vehicles.

Four people may think your childish, uninformed and insulting comment is funny, but I don't believe RMweb is the place for it.

Don't know about a doggie cemetery, but there was the famous quarantine kennels located on the up side, at the Sutton end of the station. More recently a factory estate and now a developing housing project.

Thanks for sorting that out. Saves me dragging the long suffering, and old, bearded collie around Hackbridge, as she doesn't like the thistles along the path!The gradient along this section was a relatively shallow 1:300, the real climb to Sutton, at around 1:90, began after Hackbridge station, with only a brief section at 1:200 to afford relief, at Carshalton station.

Semgonline gives the 1934 headcode as being to Portsmouth via Mitcham Junction, and I certainly don't think it's on the West Croydon to autonomy line. Not sure what you mean by Hackbridge being all curves, as the line to Mitcham Junction is as straight as a die for some distance, with a number of overbridges, whose form I cannot currently recall. I also don't think any of the bridges wer associated with the mineral line, assuming you are referring to the Surrey Iron Railway, which ran to the west of the mainline.

What about Triang's singles, GWR Dean and the Caledonian unique example? Hornby then produced the GWR 4-4-0 County, that succumbed to the cutters' torch in the thirties. How could one forget the ubiquitous GWR 0-4-0T, one of the most useful prototypes ever!

As you said, perhaps tongue in cheek, never say never. Page 114 of the Big Four in Colour book is the answer. I leave it to experts to decide whether they are dark grey or black, but you even get two different lettering styles.

As far as I know, they would have carried them almost from new. I can't find any particularly good images on Google, but two recent books on the topic, by English and Baldwin respectively have plenty of examples, including a fine front view of 39 itself, as La France, on page 105 of the Pen and Sword book, with a couple of less clear images of 39 around grouping, on page 56 of the Ian Allan book. The fitting looks pretty flimsy, as one might expect of a temporary arrangement, and the fitters were no doubt adept at making good the holes when the pipe was removed in the spring.

Bradley seems to indicate that, sadly, no E4 had vacuum brakes before grouping. A handful of its larger cousin, the E5, were, and they were allocated to sheds where interchange traffic from the SECR or LSWR might be expected, St Leonards, Horsham and Fratton.I wonder whether any SECR carriage stock was dual braked, to allow it to run on foreign lines. Unfortunately, the only reference I have, Coutanche's book on bogie stock, makes no mention of braking, even though some of the stock described was designed specifically for use on through trains, and must have had some provision for working with air-braked stock from other lines.

The Atlantics were fitted with steam heating, and pipework, very similar to vacuum brake equipment, would be installed for the season on the front buffer beam. This was located on the left side of the coupling hook, and it is difficult to see, from the only photo of it so far, just which side the standpipe is fixed on the model.

1 in 5 is 11 degrees. I think you've confused this with %age slope figures, 1 in 5 is a 20% grade.

I would remove the coal bins alongside the siding. GWR branch stations in the West Country just didn't have them, as they would have tied up too much of the siding space, preventing other traders having access. None of the traditional BLT's had them, the coal was generally unloaded directly onto the road vehicle for delivery. This would give a better sense of spaciousness, reducing the rather crowded feel a bit.