Nick Holliday

Not quite sure what interesting substances the team producing this video had ingested before preparing Thomas's "LBSC" livery. A bright green, possibly one of the Southern ones and not the Stroudley olive goods green, with LBSCR and garish lining!!! Some of the first batch of E2's appeared in passenger umber with yellow/gold lining and lettering, as there was some intention of using them on passenger trains, but most, and I think all of those with the extended tanks, were in glossy black goods livery with discrete red lining.

Just a couple of nagging thoughts, although I cannot find anything to fully justify them, but.... As I have asserted many times before, coal bins next to the track are actually very rare, especially in the north. If there were any storage bins they would be away from the tracks, to let other users access any wagons on the siding, and, in this plan, to allow road vehicles to get to the coal easily. In mitigation, you have said it's a dedicated coal siding, but I suspect that if the traffic justified this, then the NER would have installed its beloved proper coal drops. In the absence of such levels of traffic, the dealers at the station would have unloaded directly from the wagon onto their coal carts, with any remains left when the wagon has to be sent away being dropped on the ground to be cleared the next day. Secondly, I feel the arrangement with the crane is not right. Firstly it is shown on the loading bank which would limit the use of the bank for other purposes, and I can't see how the load it lifts off the railway wagon can be put onto a road vehicle, as such cranes had a limited radius of operation, and would be unlikely to lift a heavy load over the intervening track. Secondly it is reached via the goods shed, which would probably require the use of a number of reach wagons as it is unlikely the loco would be allowed in the shed, and also would require the removal of any wagons being unloaded in the shed. This arrangement would also mean that any authorised out-of-gauge load would need a second mobile crane brought to the station to deal with it. I feel that the slightly hackneyed approach of having a ground based crane to the right of the goods shed would be the most practical and likely answer, although I am sure that there will be hundreds of contrary examples found to show I am talking total tommy-rot.

I don't want to get drawn into a war of words, but, according to Bradley, Westinghouse pumps were fitted to the batches of Terriers built from 1878, which included Brighton, and the earlier ones were retro-fitted by 1882. If you are looking at this early era, then consideration should be made regarding the balancing pipe that the first batch were fitted with, connecting the two side tanks over the boiler. Regarding the roof profile and other details, I got the distinct impression when I wrote to Dapol several years ago regarding some of the flaws in their 2mm version that they considered they had done enough research for the 4mm one, and nothing was going to shift them from merely reproducing the OO model to the smaller scale. At least they seem to have had another look at some of the different details this time round, but, it would appear, not all. I am intrigued by the "coupling hook pockets" - I am afraid I don't know what that means, and the sample photos are not clear enough to show me what they look like.

That blogspot is hopelessly out of date. I have been chivvying the current owner for some time to get a proper website up and running. A couple of years ago he said it was all in hand, but nothing has appeared. However, if you send him an email I think he is very prompt to respond, so try that.

Although you have developed the design in great detail I am not quite sure how your different levels will work out, particularly the 360 degree turn at bottom right on the blue level. I can't see how that will fit with a 1:50 gradient. I am assuming that the green level is roughly the same as the blue, and there does seem to be a lot of tracks to fit in, level wise, and a few cross sections through key points might reveal some clashes. I would also be worried about how you access the hidden sidings, especially the gren ones. I am not familiar with current Greek railway practices, but there is nowhere where locos can run around stock, so everything relies on the station pilots, which may be frustrating at times.

Just a small point, but, as you are in control of the artwork you could achieve what many kit / scratch builders miss. Tilers and roofers do not like to make the end of a row using anything smaller than a half tile. To achieve this the slate makers produced slates that were roughly 1 1/2 times the width of the regular slate. This allowed the roofer to trim this larger slate, to eliminate the joint that would run close to the eaves line. As you have prepared bespoke patterns to suit each building you can easily get these detail correct, as you are not just cutting the correct size out of a sheet of standard tiles or slates, which always creates the wrong, half-tile effect.

Try an email to Branchlines sales@branchlines.com or phone 01373 822231, but perhaps not this weekend as they are at Railwells. They sell the 1015 motor and have displayed various flywheels, so I suspect they would have something that would fit. Don't bother with their blogspot, as it is several years out of date, but there is the promise of a proper website in the "near" future.

Although I am always a bit wary about kit manufacturers who don't appear to have a great deal of information regarding the prototype they have chosen to reproduce, I can add a few more potentially useful references for photos, namely Mike King's pictorial follow up to the wagon drawing series, of which I would have thought Volume 2 was essential for this project, and Issues 18 and 20 of Southern Way, which carry a history of Southern brake vans, with a photo of each type, unfortunately for you, one in each issue.

Slightly off topic, but the low open GWR wagon in the foreground of the Huntley & Palmer photo has unusual axleguards, at least for the GWR, in that the springs are inside the guard, and very little of the axlebox protrudes in front. I cannot find one like it in GWR Goods Wagons.

With regard to the method of fixing the tank cladding panels, the original solution, at least, was neither rivets nor hexagonal nuts. The drawing is actually from a Stroudley tender, but the principles are the same, as the tender water was also heated using exhausted steam. The fixing consists of a threaded bolt, which is inserted into a captive nut within the tank. The head of the bolt includes an extended square shank, which allowed the bolt to be tightened with a spanner. When the assembly was complete the square head would be broken off, the necking making this easier to do, and the head of the dome dressed to match the rest of the head. To remove it for repairs the head would be drilled out, in exactly the same way that a rivet would be removed. This just demonstrates the lengths that railway engineers were prepared to go to for aesthetic reasons - just think of the additonal preparation required for flush rivets on smokeboxes - was it any wonder that in later days they eschewed such expensive items and went for coarse round-headed rivets instead. In the case of these fixings, no doubt cheaper and less labour intensive methods were adopted later, or when the specially made bolts were not available, including threaded studs with hexagonal nuts. A member of the Brighton Circle has examined over 200 Terrier photos and only found one that hinted at hexagonal nuts in pre-grouping days, so the standards were maintained as long as possible. The first restored Terrier "Boxhill" was given round headed slotted bolts and the slots filled before painting, which seems a very sensible compromise, but perhaps not durable enough for a working loco. How the Victorian engineers woudl have appreciated Allen sockets and keys! As for the sample Terrier, I am afraid I think it, as it stands, cannot exactly represent any Terrier, at least prior to preservation. The problem lies in the combination of the 10 cladding fixings and the early buffers. The latter can be detected because the centre line of the buffer stock is below the footplate level. Once they started working with the bogie autocars the buffers were raised by just over 2 inches, so they became the standard height of around 3' 6" from rail level, prior to that they had worked mainly with lightweight four wheeled coaches, which rapildy dropped on their springs as they filled with passengers. These raised buffers have their centreline at the footplate level, requiring enlarged housings above the footplate. The additional cladding fixings seem to have started being introduced around 1909, a few years later, so you could see low buffers with 6 fixings, high buffers with 6 fixings and high buffers with 10 fixings, but not low buffers and 10 fixings as per the sample. Although various Terriers were sold out of LBSC service over the years, their new owners did not make any changes themselves to these particular details, and I haven't found evidence that the Southern bothered to bring any into line either. Although several of these strays were rebuilt with the A1X boiler, the other changes the LBSC made to the sanding arrangements, including removing the splasher-mounted boxes above the footplate, were not carried out. All the Brighton A1X would have raised buffers and 10 cladding fixings, the mongrels could have any of the 3 combinations listed above, depending on their configuration at the time of purchase. The Edgehill example noted in another post is an un-rebuilt A1 with 10 cladding fixings, but with the raised buffers, as it was a relatively late purchase (1920) although I think it left Brighton during the Great War for military work.

Have I missed something? Looking at the Backwoods Miniatures website the crane tank is boldly described as a 4mm model, suitable for OO, EM and P4, although I do note that the British HO society list it as an HO kit! It seems a very small prototype to be daring enough to try in HO.

The photo taken at Eythorne shows the EKR Hudswell Clark No. 2. See http://www.hfstephens-museum.org.uk/locomotives/locomotives-of-the-ekr?showall=&limitstart= The loco was bought originally for the WC&P but was too heavy, moving to Kent in a year. It then moved freely around Colonel Stephens' lines as traffic demands on the EKR peaked and troughed. It expired on 23rd August 1943 and was bought by Thomas Ward but instead of being turned into scrap, or a tank, it somehow reappeared still in one piece in Essex and later acquired the superstructure of an ex-brewery 0-4-0ST and survived as "Churchill" until 1957.

At the always excellent Epsom & Ewell show I picked up a second-hand Midland Record, and there was an article on Tom King's reminiscences as a driver around 1923, and he says: "I remember a small gentleman called Tidman Masters, who carried the nickname 'The Mighty Atom'. There were many small drivers on the L&NWR, apparently because the company preferred to take on as cleaners people who would be able to climb inside locomotive water tanks and clean them out. I remember that Tidman always carried a large wooden block around with him which he would place in the corner of the cab to enable him to look out of the spectacle glass. This practice was quite common at Ryecroft shed, not just so that small drivers could see out, but also to enable them to reach the steam brake handle on goods engines, or the vacuum brake on passenger locomotives. Often they used old wooden brake blocks, which were, apparently, fitted to many L&NWR engines so that the steel tyres on the wheels would not wear out or become flat." Perhaps Ken could provide 4mm castings of brake blocks to convert the drivers from HO to OO?

The GWR had several travelling cranes to deal with such eventualities, when the receiving goods yard didn't have the equipment. Cambrian do an excellent kit for one, which might solve your problem.

The Wantage Tramway did start off with skirted locos. Its original services were run using a Grantham self contained steam tram and Hughes, Merryweather and Matthews steam tram locos, which were fully enclosed and consumed their own smoke. (Scrap aid etchings for the Hughes and Matthews locos are available from Worsley Works) This no doubt satisfied the initial inspections, but shortly after opening they acquired a rather more orthodox 0-4-0 well tank from the LNWR for the goods workings, and nobody seemed to notice, having briefly used horses to haul the wagons the two miles to and from Wantage.

I'm not sure, not having worked with real wood, but I think the problem with the carrier film is because the surface is a bit rough. The normal advice is that the transfers should be applied on gloss varnish, and then a matt finish given to seal them. As for your painting the headstock the same colour as the body - the way you did the Dursley wagon is correct - the buffer beam itself woudl be the body colour, as well as any wooden bases to the buffers, and only the buffer stocks, the coupling plate and the vertical ironwork would be painted black.

Just a small point - the majority of wooden solebar PO wagons had their solebars painted the same colour as the body, with the ironwork picked out in black. There was also a tendency to leave the diagonal strapping in the body colour, although there are several examples where they were black, but it might interfere with the layout of your lettering.

Colin As a callow teenager I'm afraid I probably took no notice of the "old fogeys" running the layouts, although I was very impressed (envious) that an MRC like that could have such roomy, dedicated premises, including the garden for an outdoor track. Pete The metal bridge is still there, or at least it was this morning when I walked my dog, although since it was substantially reinforced with extra concrete it is nowhere near as musical, although it can vibrate alarmingly if anyone heavy chooses to run across it. But do you remember the timber trestle bridge that it replaced? It didn't span the whole way across the lake, instead going to the island where there was a little viewing platform looking across the lake and the island seemed to be covered with bamboo.

As another Old Walcountian, perhaps we should have our own sub-forum! Born in St Helier Hospital and brought up near Waddon station I used to cycle to Waddon Park, before we moved to Carshalton Beeches, and occasionally was rewarded when one of the coal trains clanked its way round the curve from West Croydon. Childhood memories seem to include seeing an H16 4-6-2T and W 2-6-4T as well as, probably, BR standard tanks, although I cannot recall any tender locos during that period (end of the fifties) although I watched N class 2-6-0's shunting at Wallington station from a friend's back garden which overlooked the goods yard. I, too, although aware of its existence, never joined the C&SMRC, although I did go to some of their exhibitions/open days at their Manor Road premises.

I think you are being a bit harsh on Metr0land's recommendation. The product he has suggested is called Redutex, available from Model Textures, and is, I understand, a fully textured sheet costing around £6 a go, True Textures comes from a completely different supplier and is described as a "Photo-realistic" building paper printed on self-adhesive paper at £1.50 a sheet, or as a transfer, at £6 each. Hence the difference!

HIgh Level already do a kit for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Battery Loco and they are working on the next one - the NSR one I think - or at least they were at the last Scaleforum.

Oops, sorry about the lapse in direction - post edited - thanks Ian! Although going rather off-topic, I have to say that, apart from being contemporaneous, there is nothing that links the buildings of Carshalton and Christ's Hospital apart from the fancy ridge tiles. The latter building was one of the finest examples of poly-chromatic brickwork, with fantastic detailing over the pairs of arched windows, and an almost symmetrical two storey layout. (A Google Images search for Christ's Hospital Station should come up with a result.) Carshalton, on the other hand, is built of a rather harsh red brick, with areas of render at high level, a projecting bay window and single enormous windows, and in layout it has a two storey building at one end, a single storey structure at the other, between which is the booking hall area, which has an unusual glazed dormer above. See http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/48/55/485539_6cecc8f7.jpg

Just a minor point, which doesn't affect anything else that has been said, but the original posting says: "The Original station, served the line which continued to the Eastbourne and Brighton junction. Built in 1868, the building was typical of the line, almost identical to others along the branch, ......" The actual history of the line and main building is not quite so straight-forward. Uckfield first opened as the terminus of a single line from Lewes in October 1858. There were stations at Isfield and Barcombe Mills and the line approached Lewes from the west, via the Lewes to Wivelsfield line. A single line was eventually built from Groombridge, opening in August 1868, with intermediate stations at Buxted and Crowborough (then called Rotherfield) and the line from Groombridge to Uckfield was doubled in 1894, ten years after the line from Oxted was opened and a direct route to London was possible. By this time Lewes station had been rebuilt and the line now approached the latter station from the east, offering a direct route to Brighton. Eridge was opened in 1880 when the Cuckoo line was built, and its building is an unique blend of styles. The station buildings at Isfield and Barcombe Mills were similar to each other, reflecting the then current style, similarly those at Buxted and Crowborough were to a later style then in use. Uckfield itself had a timber building, probably reflecting its temporary nature. This was not like the familiar LBSC timber buildings, but was very similar to the one provided at Carshalton on the Peckham Rye - Sutton line that opened in 1868, so perhaps this building was erected once the through route was open. Like Carshalton, this "temporary" building lasted over 40 years, and were replaced at the turn of the century, with Uckfield's new building dating from 1901. As a result, it is more typical of buildings of that era on the Brighton, such as Carshalton and some others in the London area. One particular dating feature is the loping canopy valance, seen on many of the suburban stations that were on the quadrupled main lines. Crowborough station was also rebuilt, but in 1905, when a rather more austere design had been adopted. So, by 1905, only Isfield and Barcombe Mills had the only two station buildings with common features.

The umber livery would be correct for the model as shown, although I cannot be sure that the large gauge pipework along the boiler is appropriate for a pre-grouping loco. If it is produced without any name, that would be correct for the LBSCR era. If it is named Birch Grove then that would only be correct for its preserved state, as, to the best of my knowledge, none of the E4's retained their name following the application of the umber livery, and certainly not with the extended smokebox. If Bachmann were to do a yellow version, that would require a different smokebox and a change of boiler fittings as well. Just for the record, a number of the E4 tanks first appeared in Stroudley's goods green livery, as they were intended as mixed traffic locos, although all were in yellow by the end of the century, and 12 of them were sent to France during the Great War and I believe some of them retained their WD grey livery for a while after they returned.

Sadly, the Bachmann version represents those fitted with an I1 boiler, with the extended smokebox. Not as drastic as the E4X rebuild, but quite a visual impact, nonetheless. This re-boilering took place after Marsh was in charge, and unfortunately all would have been turned out in umber with no name. It should be remembered that Birch Grove only carried a name and umber on the Bluebell. Perhaps Branchlines (the etched kit people) could be pursuaded to create a conversion kit from the Stenning/Weald Models E4 kit, but an enormous amount of care would be needed to preserve the yellow livery as the dome and possibly the safety valves would need changing as well as the smokebox, and all the extraneous pipework along the boiler should go too.