Nick Holliday

When the class was introduced the first pair were painted in passenger livery and tried out on suburban services. Not very successful, so very much a goods loco thereafter, but they may have done some passenger work when absolutely necessary.

Surely this one was the basis for the more modern Hornby OO starter loco? Anyone know how accurate it is?

The LBSCR also sourced its sand from pits at Fittleworth on the Midhurst line, the pits being in existence before the station itself was opened. An old six wheeled tender was converted for this traffic, which presumably went to Brighton to be dried before further distribution to the sheds.

According to Tourret, in the 1902 regulations Class A tanks had to be painted light stone colour with a bright red band 6in wide horizontally along the centre, both sides and ends. These regulations remained in force for more than thirty years. Class B tanks should have been painted red oxide, but black was a more practical colour. In March 1939 the RCH agreed to relax some of the banding requirements and allowed the use of aluminium paint instead of stone, with red solebars and everything below black. The war required a rethink, and by January 1941 a new schedule had an all over dark grey livery with solebars and below black. After the war the aluminium colour was restored, but without the red bands, but red solebars.

I'd be inclined to investigate the Scalelink range of etchings. Their 2mm mini-fret MINI07 has lengths of railings. Although the spacing may not be quite right, I think the uniformity of spacing would be the most important factor, combined with straightness.

Gordon Weddell was not at his most positive on these coaches. He said: It was probably around 1929 or 1930, when the decision was taken to abandon the three wire Push-Pull control system in favour of air control, that the driving brake ends were rebuilt by the Southern Railway to its standard Push-Pull design.

D&S used to do the L&YR cattle wagon which had vertical bars. They did an etching for the rods, altough it wasn't quite the correct length. This kit was available from 51L Models, but doesn't appear on their website at the moment.

Simon didn't mention that this charming view is of the Lambourn Valley saloon that was sold in 1904 to the Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway, hence the accompanying GWR coaches. I don't know how long it survived. The other three composite coaches went to the Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway.

The Selsey Tramway seems to have acquired some of the LVR stock, and they also bought around 1897 some bogie carriages with end platforms from Falcon and Hurst Nelson. There are photos on the internet that seem to show the former in bi-colour livery. The K&ESR had a steam railmotor that was definitely painted in two tone livery. A good website to see these and other light rail goodies is Steam and Things, in Australia. Many gems, including all the above, and various early IC railcars, Fords, Wolseley etc. and the WC&PR early Drewry, are available as etchings, and the website is full of background information as well. http://steamandthings.com/fpage2.htm Just check the exchange rate for the Australian dollar before commenting on the prices. The Garstang and Knott End Railway had some American style bogie coaches, as did the WC&P, which sound similar to your matchboarded item. I have tried to go down this route, but have stalled because the platform height, floor to ceiling, would have restricted travellers to the seven dwarfs, Snow White would have had to ride on the footplate of the loco, but I suppose a bit more modification, along the lines of your raised roof, would sort that out, with proper sized wheels to get the buffer height sorted. With the matchboarding I would be tempted to go for a varnished wood finish, rather than paint, but that's just my personal view.

Had a look for my photo of the Alexandra etc. railmotor and sadly failed. Will try again! There are several photos of No 2, with clerestory, and No 1, without and better looking for that, in John Lewis's book on GWR Railmotors (Wild Swan), but I don't want to infringe any copyright issues. I have to say that the KNVA example wins hands down in the ugliness stakes, although flicking through David Jenkinson's book, I couldn't help but observe that the Clayton examples on the LNER with their practical, but ugly, tender hung on the front(?) would give it a run for its money, as would the Southern's zeppelin shaped Sentinel of the thirties. (Just noticed that the French one is actually destined for Mali (I don't think it actually got to Niger), and metre gauge to boot - don't know whether that's a fair contest, as Britain produced some interesting vehicles which were sent to the colonies as well)

I prefer the Masokits screw couplings. As with all their range a bit fiddly to make, requiring a bit more soldering than the Roxey, and with the occasional failure, but with pins taking the load they are much more robust. I found that when I tried the Roxey version, the links tended to spread under load, and came off the prongs on the central etching. Perhaps I didn't fit them correctly, but it seemed a bit flimsy. I had the same problem with the old PC screw couplings, so perhaps it's me!

I think most railway companies had prize cattle vans, albeit in small numbers. Those on the LBSCR came as two slightly different concepts. Some were up-market normal cattle vans, with improved running gear and the normally open areas fitted with louvres, others were down-market horse boxes. Liveries and classification varied from time to time, sometimes they were considered goods stock, at others NPCC.

There were actually two of the Southsea joint railcars. One was in LSWR livery, the other in LBSCR originally, although the loco section was always in LSWR green. There was an article on them in British Railway Journal Issue 3, as well as in Bradley's work on LSWR locos, and Gordon Weddell's coaching history. The first one was lent to the GWR for trials, who were so impressed by the concept, if not the actual device, that they started their programme of railmotor building. These two ugly ducklings spawned the slightly better looking production series of LSWR railmotors, but also heavily influenced the Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks & Railway who had two built to a similar design, but which managed to look even more bizarre, with, IIRC, a clerestory roof added.

Whilst I have to agree that clothing styles might linger in the backwoods, isn't it also likely that the photographer may have been deliberately selective in the choice of subject matter. Just like I tended to ignore the more modern stuff when touring south England in the eighties photographing relics of the LBSCR, so might the photographer have been seeking out the quaint and photogenic specimens, and perhaps ignoring the more up to date dressed folk. The era suggested was just before Roye England was capturing the Vale of the White Horse, and he was unusual in not just concentrating on either the latest or the oldest idioms but the whole range, to get the complete picture. Most of us are guilty of thinking that the latest things are going to last, and then realising ten years later that much has been and gone without record, witness all those people bemoaning that they didn't take pictures of their favourite modelling period when they had the opportunity.

The Hornby/Dapol Terrier chassis, if made to scale, should come out the same, 6' + 6', so would be a good starter, but I haven't measured mine to check. The wheel diameter should be 4' or 3' 11" if you're being pedantic, so a little large for your needs. It would seem the axle diameter is 2.5mm, as Alan Gibson do a special re-wheeling set, but, unfortunately they don't list any smaller wheels with the same non-standard diameter axle, apart from the disc wheels for the L&YR Pug, although they might be able to supply something close if you ask nicely.

Just checked again, and the pictures are the same. Location given as Sussex, but not dated, although the book's title says 1844-1914. Also found a lovely painting by Joseph Crawhall of a very similar set up, on Wikipedia, under Governess Cart. As the artist died in 1913 that would suggest an earlier date, although the article suggests the Governess Cart design only appeared at the turn of the century - one for our Victorian modellers to beware of.

Not that it affects Kevin's cogent argument, but I think Mrs Comfortably-Off is actually Miss Nanny to the Comfortably-Offs. While she is smartly dressed and hatted, a la Norlands perhaps, she is upstaged sartorially by her young charges, and she does look a little too young to be their mother.Edit: Having looked through an early but excellent photo album by Penguin, A Country Camera by Gordon Winter, where there is an almost identical picture,I realise I should have called the lady in charge Miss Governess, which would account for the more formal uniform than might be expected of a rural nanny. Indeed, I suspect the horse drawn vehicle is a Governess Cart, with its entrance at the rear, giving her control of access.

Not sure about the rarity of photos of the Brighton steam railmotors, there are plenty in the various photo albums of the line, and they often appear on eBay, and even David Jenkinson managed to find one for his book on the topic, even if he couldn't find any information about it, despite the coverage in the RCTS book. There is a drawing in R W Rush's Oakwood Press book on steam railcars, but much more accessible there are drawings on the HMRS website, Nos. 2210 and 2211, that if you click on the right bits can be viewed at a reasonable level of detail, and you can buy prints if you want. The LBSCR examples are not virtually identical to the North Staffordshire ones, the loco section is, but the coach portion is completely different, and Brighton 1 and 2 are different from each other too. The Worsley etch is really only useful for the loco, and, without being able to find the one that is currently flat-packed in my loft under the other kits waiting to be assembled, I seem to recall that it is body only, and doesn't provide anything for the chassis or valvegear, although I would like to be proved wrong on that account.

If you go to the Mendip District planning website and look for application 2012/1531 that gives access to the submitted drawings for the refurb, which provides both existing and propose elevations and plans for the station building. I appreciate that that won't help with the signal box or the malthouse, but the former was presumably a variation of a GWR standard design, and a good photo,if there is one, should get you very close. If you go to the NLS site you can actually call up a 25" to the mile map of Frome, which shows in great detail all the building footprints, which will give you a pretty accurate starting point. There is a measurement facility on the page, but I wasn't able to get it to work properly for me. If all else fails a cut and paste into a suitable drawing package would allow you to take a few vital measurements. The OPC book on GWR Architecture has a couple of views of the main building taken in 1973 together with a nice closeup of a stone built weigh house.

Not really. The NB wagon has a very distinctive end door, with its heavy framing, and I don't think anything like that appeared on English lines, although maybe the NE might have copied its neighbour/rival. The brake gear is also very distinctive.

There's a much better drawing of Fittleworth station building in an early British Railway Journal which has an extensive feature on the station, but can't remember which issue off the top of my head. That's the one I used to build my P4 version of the station for the Scalefour Challenge. The signal box there is full of character, being built on the side of the embankment, but there isn't a drawing for it, just a very good Wallis front elevation photo. In the 1880's the LBSC was in the grip of a Myers' building frenzy, a la Midhurst, Sheffield Park etc., so beware anything from that era if you want to remain different,

Whilst the Woodham Wagon Works did produce an interesting variety of Victorian wagons and coaches, his virtual successor, 5&9 Models, has extended the range considerably, and the various examples can be seen on the 5&9 website. He is currently operating at a low key level, with occasional forays on eBay, but if you approach him nicely, and cross his palm with abundant pieces of silver, he may be able to oblige by supplying some fascinating goodies, many of which are sufficiently arcane to be as acceptable in Norfolk as they are in Sussex.

Kevin Thanks for the GNR photo, one I haven't seen before. However, it isn't identical with the first LBSCR one. That was No. 3 and it looked very different. The next to be delivered, No. 4, was a bit closer in appearance, but there is a fundamental difference between the central passenger entrance and the GNR's end entrances, not to mention that originally both the LBSC cars had half open ends and gangways, quickly closed in. Just for comparison here is the GNR vehicle in stationary mode. The Brighton car that resembled the GNR one was actually the Electrical Engineering Department No 1, supplied in May1908, and I have a theory that this vehicle is actually the GNR one, which slipped off their radar in the second half of 1908. The most familiar photo of the Electrical Department cars is this, which shows No 1 and the converted No 4 (although it has a closer resemblance at first glance to No 3 there are a number of key identifiers that confirm its number, which actually clearly visible on the print I have.) At the angle of this view it is clear that the accumulator boxes are hanging outside the solebars, and thus would not interfere with the existing transmission arrangements if they were retained, and, to my mind they are not large enough to provide sufficient power to move the car for a long period, but more than enough to power the lighting required for working at night. In addition, the radiators, which were hung under the front of the cars, are clearly visible, and surely these would have been removed if they had been converted to battery only power.

This is the first time that I have heard any suggestion that the Brighton petrol railmotors had electric motors, whether as originally built, or later for service duties. I cannot find my copy of Bradley's RCTS volume, but I seem to recall suggestions that they occasionally were bump started with a steam loco, something not possible with electric transmission. I find it strange that Kidner did not bother to mention his battery electric idea in his later Oakwood book, Service Stock of the Southern Railway, 1993, as he was an author who liked to drop such snippets into his writings. However I can imagine that they were fitted with larger batteries than previously needed just for interior lighting, as their work was done mainly at night, and the roof platform would have been well equipped with floodlights. Groves, in the RCTS GNR Loco series, details the transmission on their one railmotor as: Two standard 4-cylinder Daimler engines each capable of developing 36 h.p. were supplied by the Daimler Motor Co. of Coventry who also made the greater part of the transmission. The engines did not drive directly on to the axles but to a common longitudinal shaft connected to the axles by bevelled gearing. A special form of differential gear which incorporated the reversing mechanism was provided. The engines were connected through independent clutches to a common change gearbox from which power was transmitted via the shaft into gearboxes suspended from each axle. These gearboxes governed speed by means of single reduction gearing similar to that used in electric tram motors. I am not quite sure if I understand all these details, as he seems to repeat himself with subtle variations. OS Bulleid was responsible for the running trials and reported that its dual engines gave little trouble, but the gearboxes were a constant anxiety and the pawls broke with monotonous regularity. Another difficulty was that the engines had to be started by hand - needing a strong one to do the job. Groves raises doubts as to whether the car was ever actually used in public service, and it could hardly have been considered a success, and by April 1905 the GNR effectively gave up on the idea and turned to steam railmotors instead, having only tried the petrol motor on the Hertford branch in February of that year. I don't think the Brighton were swayed by the GNR reports, rather Douglas Earle Marsh had only just joined the LBSCR from the GNR where his position would have involved him in the scheme, so he would have been familiar with the arguments for the motor, and the order to Dick, Kerr would have been in train if not actually placed before the failings became apparent. After all, after delivery to Doncaster Works in September 1904, the car made a successful run of 156 miles to take it to London.

Any chance of a link to that timetable? I knew the SECR had an extensive service north of the river over the GNR lines, but I wasn't aware of the LBSCR doing something similar, apart from a short lived service to Paddington, via the West London Extension, and to Liverpool Street via the East London line.