Nick Holliday

This charming and well produced leaflet has three suggestions regarding the name. https://www.testvalley.gov.uk/assets/attach/3788/Sprat-and-Winkle-Line-leaflet-web-180313-.pdf I think we can reject the idea that it was named after “a type of railway couplings between wagons”!

West Grimstead is on the LSWR Salisbury to Eastleigh line, it’s West Grinstead with an N which is on the LBSC Steyning line.

Looking at the coal wagon I noticed that the brake lever was left handed and the white diagonal stripe denoting the end door had been recently added. Were there any instructions to replace the brake lever, or did those so fitted carry them to their graves? I was aware the white stripe predated the start of WW2, but I don’t know when the practice started.

In response to @Compound2632's request, this is the initial post, from the Brighton Circle, compiled by Jonathan Abson abson sheffield park.pdf although Stephen provided a full commentary on it at The LNWR information from Talbot is below: Hope that helps

A recent episode of the new Channel 5 series of All Creatures Great and Small featured several scenes at Keighley railway station, regrettably referred to as the “train station “. A lot of effort seemed to have been made to get the 1939 feeling right, although I am no expert in the era, with plenty of varied activity, as the scenes were supposed to be spread over several hours, with nice vignettes of light engine movements as well as the inevitable trains, although a BR (I think) van in the background was unfortunate, as most of it appeared to be pretty accurate. However the final scene was a bit of a mess, as, for some reason, some Eastern Region Mk 1’s hauled by an LMS 4-6-0 in later BR livery had been added to the set of LMS coaches in LMS livery used in the other scenes, presumably to create a more impressive train for the finale. What was odd was that the smokebox number plate had been substituted with a decent LMS style four figure one! Presumably someone on the K&W team had been allowed to get that bit right. My apology for not noticing that there was a separate topic on ACG&S, which has pointed out all the dreadful errors perpetrated by the production team, although I thought it was a much better effort than many other similar programmes.

There’s a lot of information on the www and the best of all! IMHO, is this site https://imageleicestershire.org.uk/view-item?i=11959&WINID=1664177121996&key=QnsiUCI6eyJpdGVtX2lkIjpbMTE5NTldfSwiRiI6ImV5SnpJanBiTVN3eUxEUXNNMTE5In0&pg=1 A Leicestershire photographer S W A Newton captured the construction of the GCR London Extension in great depth, and the Leicester County Council has made them available. There are nearly a thousand images of infrastructure and people, with over a hundred views of the contractors’ locomotives, mainly a fine collection of Manning Wardles. Selections of these photos have been published in a number of formats, but obviously this online collection is the most comprehensive.

Back in the sixties, my father was a member of the AA and received their handbook, which listed thousands of towns and villages. I could spend many hours looking through it, as, apart from listing garages, it contained details, as I recall, of population and Early Closing days, very useful to know the latter if visiting a strange town, at least in those days. Where I lived it was normally Wednesday, so as a youngster I was amazed to see that elsewhere it might be Tuesday or Thursday, and sometimes even Monday or Friday. I wish I’d hung on to one, by I imagine they were binned a long time ago.

Try Nigel Lawton http://www.nigellawton009.com/DriveComponents.html

As we seem to have established that the vanguard was a young lad who attended to the rear of the horse-drawn van when on its rounds - a vital bit of security bearing in mind the slow speed of the van and the vulnerability of the canvas tilt (Fell off the back of a lorry!) - it would seem that as they were on the same pay grade, the scotcher was someone of similar age or skill. I don't think he would be responsible for scotching furniture vans and the like on railway wagons, as that would have been above his skill set, and not really a full-time job anyway. I wonder if the clue is in the wording of the instructions: This seems to suggests that the roads around Brighton were quite hilly, and perhaps there was a small sub-set of van-lads whose job it was to ensure the safety of company wagons out on the road, attending to the application and removal of the skids or scotches. Alternatively he might have been the lad who accompanied the horse-shunter and applied the brakes as necessary - I don't know how easy it would have been for the handler to control the horse and apply the brakes safely. Just a thought.

If it’s @Gwiwer ‘s post, (It would have made things much easier if you’d quoted and edited his post) I think you are referring to Lords and Ladies, also known as Cuckoo Pint.

Interesting usage of apostrophes! Are we supposed to guess the missing word? Is it ‘paw’? But I’m not sure about feeding or barking paws.

If it’s a joke, it is perpetuated on-line https://www.healthylondon.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/ENGLISH-patient-information-Leaflet-for-FIT-for-symptomatic-patients.pdf I received it as a poorly photocopied B&W photocopy, sealed inside the testing pack from my GP.

I received this wonderful leaflet from the NHS to show me how to take a stool sample. Although there could be a valid reason for suggesting the cling film option, I cannot think of anything sensible, and it looks to me as if the graphics department are having a laugh. Knowing that the 'powers that be' who will check their work are only interested in making sure the NHS logo is the correct size, colour, typeface and position, and can't be bothered to actually check the wording, I think they have thrown in a couple on dubious suggestions and they have got past the checkers, even though they are not mentioned anywhere else in the leaflet. It is nice that they have helpfully added "remember to leave a dip", but did anyone notice that grape cartons usually have drainage holes?

Are we talking about the Lincs Autocoupler? Discussed on RMweb around seven years ago, but not mentioned since.

Sadly it appears to have been Photoshopped from a (sort of) 2-4-2 built in France on the Arnoux articulated principle. http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/arnoux/arnoux.htm The additional gear either side of the single’s driver is part of the guidance system.

I’m not sure how this works, but my father, when posted by the British Council to Greece for four years, back in the early sixties, bought his first car, a Ford Anglia, which was registered in the UK, YGY 379, but I think somehow he avoided paying certain taxes, as he was taking it abroad within a short period, driving it overland to Brindisi. When he drove it back to the UK for a brief visit after a couple of years, he was issued with a Q registration, QH 2420, which he had to relinquish when he returned to Greece, and the same thing occurred a couple of years later, with a different Q plate, QK something. When he finally returned to the UK after six years, he was able to keep the first, YGY, registration.

The LSWR Beyer-Peacocks only just managed to make it to grouping, 6 of them got to 1923/4. The Midland also had other double-framed locos apart from the 0-6-0's which made it to grouping, 0-4-4 well tanks and 2-4-0 tender locos, one of the latter making it through to around 1945. All three southern lines and the GNR, GCR, NER and NSR had reasonable quantities of double-framed locos, but on most lines they only survived to around 1910, if they were lucky. The GWR were the company that embraced the concept and ran with it for much longer, the singles were all double-framed, and there were several classes of 0-6-0 tender and tank locos, some of the tanks lasting into the forties. But you shouldn't forget the Aberdare class of 2-6-0, which were being built up until 1907 and which lasted into nationalisation - a prime, and different design for the manufacturers to consider. However, I would try to forget their progenitors, the "Crocodile" and Kruger 4-6-0's!

The consensus of opinion in the Brighton Circle eGroup is that it is purely a drawing convention, probably to denote a droplight sash, rather than a livery statement. It was noted that the solebar was coloured blue, denoting steel.

I suspect that the red colouring is a draughtsman’s nicety. I think it only applies to the droplight frames in the doors, which may have been varnished wood, but a different timber from the main panelling, although I can’t find any details in Ian White’s books.

I appreciate that in 6 years and 1,307 pages of discussion I have possibly missed something that would justify it, but one aspect of the layout design that puzzles me is the way Achingham station appears to have larger capacity than Castle Aching. Since, as I understand it, all trains from Achingham have to reverse at Castle Aching, it looks strange to me that the platforms at CA are about one coach shorter than the corresponding ones at A. I believe that, as modelled, this is not a problem, because it seems the cassettes proposed are shorter than the CA platform, but in real life, being able to assemble a train at A's platform that cannot fit into the arrival road at CA seems an operational problem that would have been quickly resolved. Although I presume that the population of CA would not justify greater goods or passenger facilities for their own use, I would have thought that there would also be additional traffic to and from Aching Constable and Birchoverham to deal with, rather than it being simply a reversing point for Achingham trains only, as per Lydham Heath on the Bishop's Castle Railway, and I would have expected CA to have more platform and siding space to accommodate this traffic.

There are a couple of photos of these tanks in one of the NBR Study Group’s excellent books on locos, and both show a degree of lining. Details of NBR liveries seem to be a bit scarce, perhaps because of the variations in the main colour, which no two observers could appear to agree as to what it was. It does seem that, until about 1912, there was no separate goods livery, until a lined black one was adopted. So it may not be impossible that the tanks would have been in lined passenger livery, the vaguely similar 0-4-0 tender locos certainly seemed to have carried it, but I wouldn’t put it past the company to have painted such locos, which were not often in the public eye, in some form of black. Other lines were known to have done this, even if the official liveries didn’t cater for it.

I can't find the Terry Gough articles so I am intrigued as to how he tackled the tri-composite. I've had a look and come to the conclusion that you have to make a lot of cuts to achieve a reasonable likeness, as you have to increase the width for the first class which means sacrificing a couple of the second class compartments, and probably add a couple of thirds from the GWR brake, as the end compartments are noticeably smaller. The lighter sections are taken from third class and the darker are the seconds. As I noted earlier, it would be a lot simpler to create the D61/86 50 foot first/second composite. Just(!) add four second class compartments to four third class and voila! Although built as part of the 48' close-coupled block trains, by around 1911 many had been provided with long buffers, and could appear in sets with the newer 54' stock.

This website might be of interest showing both Swindon and Rugby testing plants. http://www.traintesting.com/steam.htm

I’m afraid that I am not aware of any photos of No. 82 as a 2-4-0 in umber, or anything other than a Stroudley-esque livery.

I remember a science book from the period when metrication was introduced, which had a diagram showing the relationship between the earth and the moon, and the caption clearly stated that the moon was “approximately 240,000 miles from the earth” but a hapless editor had added, in parenthesis, “386,242.56 kilometres”!