Nick Holliday

There are more choices within the Branchlines range, although you need to contact him by email, as there is no useful website, and some items aren't always available. His list includes a number of SER four and six wheelers, as well as suitable NPCS to add to a passenger train. There is also a suite of LCDR bogie coaches, and a couple of bogie SECR items, an invalid salon and a 44ft bogie composite. Roxey also have a number of SER and LCDR NPCS kits to liven up the mix.

It would be useful to know whether you want some sort of design link between these locos. The Loch has a Crewe front end, Stroudley type cab and, perhaps, yellow livery. Were the last two features the ones that suggested a Gladstone? Otherwise the B1 is almost the antithesis of the Loch design, which has a bogie for flexibility on convoluted tracks, and small wheels to cope with gradients, whereas Gladstone was designed primarily for express duties on a relatively straight and level system. If you want to keep the family likeness of the cab, you could go for Gladstone's little brother, the mixed traffic D2 or Lyons class, (see some of Burgundy's entries or the Kemilway web site) which is similar in size to the later LSW Jubilee class. The earlier batch, with Craven type tenders, avoids the too distinctive Brighton inside framed tender design. However, the 0-4-2 tender arrangement was rather rare in Britain, with odd examples on a few lines, with only the southern lines, the GNR and the CR and GSWR in Scotland having reasonable fleets of them. The alternative might be a 2-4-0, which, as either inside or outside framed, ran on almost every railway in Britain, and the LBSC had several examples, including Stroudley's Belgravia class, which again had his cab design to maintain the thread.

I would tend to disagree. Most branch lines were constructed with optimistic views of potential passenger traffic, at least to get the original finance, and constructing the platforms themselves was one of the cheapest elements of the costs. This wasn't true in the very early days, 1830s, when passengers were almost ignored in the planning, but once the amount of traffic that was generated was seen, promoters tended to feel the sky was the limit. It was only really around the turn of the century when Light Railways became fashionable, that minimalist provision was made - by that time there was a more realistic, usually, view of how much traffic would be generated, although there were still some grandiose schemes.Looking at a selection of archetypal southern branchlines, they commonly were provided with platforms between 250 and 400 feet long, and so could accommodate 7-10 coach trains of six wheeled stock, or, later 5-8 bogie coaches. In 4mm this would equate to platforms around 3' 6" to 5' long, but the trains would generally not be that long, just two or three coaches in length. However, you have to consider special occasions, such as market days or excursions, when it wasn't unknown for the trains to exceed the length of the platforms, in some locations. When this occurred regularly, it was, often, fairly easy to extend the platforms to suit - this happened at Hayling Island and, I believe, Swanage. As for goods yards, these can be as big or small as you like. In some instances the yard might be remote from the passenger station, as at Belmont on the Epsom Downs branch, or, occasionally, the next station's yard was sufficiently close to make a separate one uneconomic, such as Bramber on the line between Shoreham and Horsham.

There is a complete run of precast concrete fencing along the Brighton Road south of Belmont Station https://mapstreetview.com/#ukfrr_-49y2_3q.9_-ne46 As Nearholmer says, the panels remain horizontal, stepping down to match the gradient.

You don't mention which scale you are working in, so it is difficult to resolve your problem. However I would point out that there is going to be little or no space inside a continuous layout, making exhibition operation very difficult, as would be getting access to anything in the centre of the layout. Also, with a round layout with reasonably generous curves, there will be only a short "straight" section between the two ends, although I am not sure how your L-shaped layout was going to work if you are modelling in 4mm, either.

I seem to recall that the platform canopies at Horsted Keynes were roofed with zinc sheeting, probably galvanised steel rather than pure zinc sheets, and they were erected circa 1881.

Zinc sheeting would be a cheaper and lighter alternative.

There were plenty of tram networks in the south which ventured outside the built up areas. The most rural of all probably was the Portsmouth and Horndean Tramway (or Light Railway). Google came up with some useful pictures.

I agree the Harworth picture, apparently actually Bentley Colliery is later, and that Bentley only opened in 1908 and Harworth perhaps seven or more years later. However, BW&C stands for Barber and Walker and Co. and they dated back to the 1880s and owned collieries on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire borders, such as Brinsley, High Park, Moorgreen, Selston and Watnall. Turton's Fifth Collection, page 176, shows that they owned a number of older style wagons, and often omitted the colliery name. These would have easy access to the MR.Even more enlightening is a picture in his Thirteenth Collection, page 150. This is a magnificent panorama of Buxton yard in pre-grouping days, but sadly undated. The caption notes a number of Private Trader wagons, such as BLF (Buxton Lime Firms), Barber & Walker, Beattie of Manchester, Brentnall and Cleland, Lea and Co, London, Pollards of Burnley and a mystery D&F, possibly Day and Ferguson of Buxton. Elsewhere in this volume is the story of S Taylor, Frith, originally a quarry owner at Peak Forest.

Just a long shot, but, as a Southerner, my thoughts had jumped to Brentnall and Cleland, whose wagons were lettered B&C, albeit, latterly, in red, with the full name in white above. A Google search to check details came up with a view from Lightmoor Press archive, showing their wagons at Harworth Colliery in north Nottinghamshire. Prominent in this view were a large number of Harworth Colliery owned wagons, but they were all lettered B W & Co, with the ampersand smaller than the main capitals, and the name of the colliery written on the top plank. This latter livery seems to fit quite well with what can be made out in the photos. The capital B and C are reasonably clear, the W would have been on the door, not a number as some have suggested, and there is a faint indication of some lettering on the top plank, at least on the nearest wagon. The colliery' location is not too unreasonable either.

Fair comment; as I typed Oxford I was thinking most of their output is based on 1923 standards, but there are a few older designs in the other ranges that might suit. However, since, as I recall, all of the Slaters range is based on 1907 standards or later, and most, if not all, of the Cambrian range is likewise, also applicable to Parkside, both old and current ranges, you are a bit on a hiding to nothing with regard to finished wagons. The only suitable wagon kits I can think of are the various whitemetal ones from 5&9 Models and the S&C wagons from Roxey, all of which are dumb-buffered! As regards Lecorbusier's comments, I will agree that many of the examples in the books are post grouping, but there are plenty of early examples, particularly in Montague's book on the Gloucester company, although whether they are pertinent to the Monsal Dale area is debatable. Although modellers tend to think of only a handful of wagon builders, there were probably over a hundred scattered around the UK, as Chris Sambrook's massive tome from Lightmoor on the subject indicates. Len Tavender's book on coal trade wagons has his drawings of a wide variety of styles of older wagons which might be inspirational.

There is a third type of coal trader, the larger merchants or factors, such a Stephenson Clarke, who could cover large areas of the country, and often representing a group of collieries.There is a superb resource on the Lightmoor Press website, a complete index of published private traders wagons. Using this you can search for entries against the various stations along the line, which would give a good idea of local merchants. Finding suitable factors is a bit harder, but perhaps someone can point towards suitable candidates for your area. To a certain extent, selecting collieries that might have supplied directly is up to you, as often special types of coal meant that a distant supplier migh be preferred, such as anthracite from South Wales that almost always was delivered in colliery owned wagons (One of Turton's books is dedicated to this trade), or occasionally an unmissable bargain might be offered when a mine is trying to clear stocks. What you probably will have to do is look through appropriate photo albums to spot potential examples, with the Lightmoor index helping to identify the names. As far as models are concerned, at least in 4mm, don't ignore the RTR examples. The latest Bachmann, Hornby and Oxford offerings are often every bit as good as, or even better than, a kit built wagon. The only problem is that some of the older offerings are less accurate, but often they still look reasonable on a layout.

As I recall Colin Ashby produced 4mm plastic kits, back in the day, for the MR Sleeper wagons, of both varieties, I think. His kits were always fairly elusive, and I have only got a couple in my kit pile, and, as I could not really justify MR engineering wagons on an LBSC layout, I let the chance to buy the sleeper wagons pass, much to my later regret. Does anyone know the full range he produced? I was surprised to see an archived entry in RMweb that showed a GCR open - one that I would have acquired with alacrity at the time, if I had known of its existence, and I suspect there are more gems there.

You might be interested to know that Gramodels make a range of 4mm LSWR wagon bodies in cast resin. These include one and three plank wagons, with both steel and wooden underframes. I have bought a few, and they are nice castings, but I haven't got round to completing the work, so I can't vouch for the ease of construction.

It's Falconbrass Works who do the etched LSWR gate stock. Currently they are only listing the etches on their own. For some reason they only appear in the SR list, not LSWR. I can't say how accurate they are - they date, AFAIK, from early Jidenco days, and I don't know if they represent the original condition, or later variations.

I have just discovered that there is a 3mm scale drawing of a converted TVR railmotor as a trailer in Jenkinson and Lane's book on British Railcars. It also has extensive coverage of the TVR vehicles, including details of conversions to mainline service.

I was going to suggest the John Lewis / Wild Swan books covering GWR railmotors etc., but the one covering steam railmotors, although covering the TVR ones in some detail, with drawings, does not mention the un-powered trailers. These are covered in the third in the series, Great Western Auto Trailers Part 2 - Post-grouping and Absorbed Trailers. However, although there is an ISBN quoted - 1 874103 25 9 - I cannot find any reference that suggests it has appeared yet. Edit Sorry, this crossed with Chris's entry, so please ignore!

There are at least two useful sources of drawings for locos of this early era - The Locomotives of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, by T R Pearce, published by the HMRS, and Bradley's LSWR Locomotives - Early Classes from Wild Swan. The former has GA drawings for a couple of Hawthorn locos of the same era, but, they are inside cylindered, and the drawings are not to a recognisable scale, and difficult to interpret. The Bradley book has a number of GA's, including some outside cylindered locos, and have been reproduced at 7mm to the foot. For example Clyde, a 2-4-0 class, has buffers at 6' 0" centres on a 7' 9" bufferbeam, with the cylinders being 7' 10" overall width, its cab being 7' 2" wide. The more familiar Beattie 2-4-0T well tank had a similar bufferbeam, but the width over cylinders was only 7' 6 1/2".

I quite liked the sinuous nature of the original plan. Could you have the sliding fiddle yard at a slight angle, rather than parallel to the back wall? That way you could keep the curve, rather than having to introduce that unnecessary s-bend. As another fan of Castle Rackrent, although I understand your need to access the yard, could you not move the loco shed etc. to the left slightly beyond the exit line? That way you could have a little more space for the yard, and it would help to break up the scenic break line, while still giving you some room to work the yard.

I don't know how accurate this is, or whether it meets your requirements but it's a starter https://cosmictigger.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/hamilton-potter.jpg

A possible solution to the actual arch problem may lie within the SE Finecast range of building sheets. These come with, if I recall correctly, a number of moulded arches, which may provide a suitable fit. It might be worth contacting them if you have some firm dimensions to offer, or getting to an exhibition they are attending so you can inspect their sheets for yourself. You may have to adjust your dimensions to get a best fit answer.

Since your link doesn't go to a particular type, I am not sure if this is the right one, but perhaps this will help. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaytilston/4263641324/in/pool-1074577@N22/

49395 has got it right. That book shows that Cowans and Sheldon supplied around 70% of the NER's turntables. The earliest ones were, indeed, mainly 42', but from around 1879 the normal size was 50'. Then, in 1900 and thereafter a few 55' ones were installed, mainly at Leeds Neville Hill shed, but from around 1905 the standard size was 60', which was the norm until after grouping. The book is not so illuminating regarding coaling, the coverage being far less comprehensive than other sections, such as water cranes and towers. There is a 1956 photo of Whitby, and a note that Bridlington did not have any coaling facilities, at least by 1929. There is, however, a useful suggestion that the North Eastern Railway Association can supply, at a modest price, facsimiles of LNER Loco Shed diagrams, which would appear to show the coaling arrangements.

It's interesting to hear about this sort of thing from first hand experience. What I would say is that having coal bins close to the tracks was not something that occurred at many locations, unlike the perception of railway modellers, judging by the pictures in the Google search mentioned by APOLLO. From photographic research of the real thing, not models, I believe that it was largely confined to the south-east, although there are isolated examples outside that area, and I would say Bedford was getting towards the outer limits. Another point is that, for genuine safety reasons, the propping of wagon doors was officially frowned upon, as there was considerable risk of severe damage to either the pens or the wagon if it was moved with the door down, perhaps by a rough shunt, or because someone forgot to close it before the wagon was moved. I have seen temporary arrangements using trestles or single poles, but they were only used when bagging the coal directly from the wagon, when the limited amount of coal that could be got from the wagon door opening was sufficient for a 1 cwt bag. A permanent set up would have required a Nelsonian "I see no ships" attitude from the stationmaster! I would like to know the technique used to unload by hand, as that is something I have not experienced, but I would have thought that the bulk of the load was shovelled over the top of the wagon, as trying to post all 16 tons of coal through a hole three feet square seems a rather tricky prospect.

In Great Britain standard sleepers were nominally 9' 0" long in pre-grouping days, shortened to 8' 6" subsequently. Hence the various calculations would result in slightly shorter sizes, if applicable.