Not Jeremy

And going back to Limpley Stoke, the view from the box was (unlike Bradford Junction) also very picturesque, looking across the valley to the river Avon and Kennet and Avon canal above it. This shot has never been seen or published before, it didn't make the book as the quality isn't brilliant, but it was taken by Mervyn and shows a "Dean Goods" which looks to be shunting the exchange sidings(?) O for a time machine... Simon

Great pictures Keith, thank you for sharing them. Two years later, we went on a two week holiday in Kilifi, up the coast from Mombasa, travelling down through Tsavo and stopping at Voi where the Arusha line diverged. I took some shots inside the shed there, here is one of them. Either on the way down or possibly on the way back up, we also stopped at Bachuma, just south of Voi, where I photographed the tablet exchange on a Mombasa bound freight running through hauled by one of the fabulous 59 Garretts. And it wasn't a 23 I saw on a ballast train, it was a Class 24 - not the Sulzer version(!!) I think that apart from anything else (like the passage of fifty years) the new standard gauge line has made a big difference to the metre gauge line through Tsavo. I will find my other photographs and slides and get them properly scanned.

Mike, I did get your message, thank you very much and I will get back to you. In the meantime I have found a picture that I took of Mervyn outside Bradford Junction box which you might like. I think this was on the trip with Tim that evening, or perhaps we returned a second time(?) Those GW boxes were handsome structures.... Simon

I have found a few images, they are not very good and I ought to rescan the original slides, but as that isn't imminent I will post some here - apologies for the quality. As I recall, Geoffrey and I would walk down to the line every evening to watch what we called the "5 o'clock goods", this was about a mile south of Nakuru station across the road from the school where he taught. This train frequently included a withdrawn Garrett that was being returned to Nairobi, as diesels were increasingly coming in to use. They were certainly hauling all of the passenger trains I saw, in their smart green and yellow livery. One evening we drove down to Gilgil, the next station south of Nakuru to see the evening freight, and I took this picture, no Garrett on this one. I think that might be Uncle Geoffrey's Cortina estate at the right edge of the picture(!) I think this might be another of these evening freights, photographed at Nakuru, or it might be somewhere else. Nearly a great picture, if only there had been a decent photographer present! It was a fantastic landscape and the skies and light were amazing. I am sure they still are. Simon

Yes they have, thank you. And I still haven't really "plugged" either book yet....

An antipodean doppelgänger?

Great idea for a thread. I was lucky enough to spend summer of 1972 in Kenya with my sister. We stayed with our uncle and aunt in Nakuru up the Rift Valley, luckily Uncle Geoffrey was an enthusiast and I went around Nakuru, Nairobi and Voi sheds. The railway was truly fabulous, semaphores and a great maroon livery with brass cut out numbers on the steam engines. I loved the "tribal" class, 29/30/31 and the 59 Garrretts going through Tsavo were something else. Stopping off at Voi on the way to Mombasa I photographed one of those really lovely 23 class on a ballast working. We saw lots of other things too, loads of game, Thompsons Falls, the white sand of Malindi beach, Jomo Kenyatta and soldier ants. Geoffrey sadly went some years ago, but I have a letter from him to CIE and its reply, dictated by none other than OVB himself! All of it never to be forgotten, I'll dig some pictures out, they are on an older computer and as slides.

Ah yes, a great evening in Mervyn’s company “inside the triangle”, and then there were the chickens, or at least the smell of them…..

Another partial view of a large project, testing some new motive power earlier this evening.

Dear Nick Thank you so very much, your comments mean a great deal to me, as the author. You are absolutely right about Steve Phillips, without his significant input (which I say a bit more about in the acknowledgments) the book would not have been half as good as it has turned out to be. I am very happy and lucky to be working with him on other projects too. The book is the culmination of years of interest in the subject, numerous conversations and also the great generosity of many individuals in making information and images available to me. It feels good to have finally got it finished and sort of "out of my system" - now I can bore people to death about something else!! One of the many generous individuals was the late Mervyn Halbrook, seen here looking out from his box at Limpley Stoke at around the time of the filming. This picture did not make it into the book, but is a great reminder of Mervyn and the way that things were. Simon

The poor driver's been knocked out by that bloody great chunk of perspex that has just fallen in from the side window!!

A very partial view of a quite large unfinished project, I like to think my sky back scene is pretty effective🍌

Re Arnold Ridley, I cannot recommend highly enough the really brilliant (and moving) book written about him by his son Nicolas: Godfrey's Ghost One of my favourite observations from this lovely book was that Arnold was a huge and active supporter of Bath Rugby Club. This was in the days before they were well known, Nicolas says that he would never have coped with all of their success!! And then there was "The Wrong Arm of the Law"..... Quite a lot of railway material in films.... Simon

Shameless plug time, Phil very kindly let me use several of his Dad's wonderful photographs in Bob Bunyar's "Somerset and Dorset Swansong" from Wild Swan They include both of those photographs, that terrific brake van shot is over a full page - a truly wonderful photograph on so many levels. The way in which the cement mixer is roped on to the plate wagon is great, plus three "shunt with care" stickers applied along the body side. Nerd alert - of course the brake van is a late LNER model with split handrails and no concrete💤 I wondered about the "WH" - "Westhouses"? Great modeling too Callum, you have got a very good "eye" for all this stuff! Simon

All of David's corrections (and very much more information besides) is all included in to the new edition of Jack's book written by John Lewis. It is in the final stages of editing and will be published this year by Wild Swan Books. It is very pictorial and illustrates well the detail differences between the successive diagrams from the beginning to the end. Simon

Now in stock and available to order from my website here With a foreword by Steve Flint, a long time friend of Pete's, the book is a really attractive record of the scenes and buildings created by a great modeller, in addition to being a detailed guide of "how to do it" for the rest of us. "World's End" Knaresborough by Pete Goss. Picture courtesy and copyright of Steve Flint/Railway Modeller Copies went out to Bill Hudson Books in time for the excellent Railex show at the weekend, so James also has copies for sale (although at the time of typing it hasn't quite made it to his website yet). Stock will also be going out to other stockists from now on. Get building! Simon

Knee trembling delights shortly to be announced, not in too much detail though - don't want everybody turning up🍌

I don't know the ins and outs of this, but to complain that the author of a book has had a hand in promoting it appears to be bizarre in the extreme. If anyone, as the author of a book, is not then "supposed" to promote it, then who can or should? Why on earth shouldn't an author promote their own work? Good grief, if an author hasn't got any belief in their work after writing it all and getting it published, then there really would be something wrong And book promotion is not the same as a review is it? I agree that someone else would be writing that. As regards mistakes in books, I wouldn't want to defend anything indefensible, and some books are certainly better than others, but it is bloody hard not to make them, especially in a large and complex work which I would judge this particular book to be. I know this because I publish books, and they invariably have mistakes in, despite one's best efforts. I agree it would be better to produce perfect books, I am still trying..... And as observed above, no one else has produced an alternative book on this subject, let alone a superior one. To be fair, when it is one's own subject then these things probably irritate more than they would more general readers, which I guess is what is happening here?

Thank you Tony. The scale is 1/32 and "Winston Churchill" is an Aster live steam model, in fact the locomotive belonging to Andrew Pullen, who developed and brought to the UK market a great selection of highly regarded live steam locomotives in collaboration with Aster in Japan. Andrew very kindly let me have many of the components of one to produce my own electrically powered version with scale wheels - "project Watersmeet" as I have dubbed it. More years ago than I care to remember, I must get on with it! The brake van I scratch built in Plastikard, using Slaters wheels and buffers. Here is a brake van I made earlier, after I (eventually) weathered it. For myself, I aim to have everything weathered as in my mind I am trying to recreate a real railway scene, albeit a highly improbable one! A bit more akin to your own layout and approach, perhaps, is this youtube clip of Bob Hunter's converted Aster on my old garden line. Bideford at speed I love the differences in approach that we all take in enjoying what is a wonderful hobby, as is so well evidenced by this great thread. Simon

That is a wonderful photograph, did you take it yourself or do you know where it originated please? Simon

Hi Callum Thank you very much, you are very welcome and I am really ever so pleased that the book was helpful to you. You have created a terrific model and hopefully the super new kit from Peco and your article is going to result in multiple models of Titfield and the Camerton branch being created and enjoyed.. I built a model of Monkton Combe/Titfield inside Limpley Stoke station late in the last Century, my friend Dave made a beautiful job of the station building, modelled in its "Railway" state. I ran all sorts of things along the line, my favourite was my Lima 47 and a rake of Airfix Mk 2d coaches - brilliant!! Here is the station seen on its "last day" celebrations, with a last load of coal from Camerton colliery coming through behind Radstock's 47316. As someone here or on another thread observed, the roof on the actual building(s) was originally red, being diagonally laid with "Eternit" asbestos tiles, but Limpley Stoke for one was "Turnerised" some years after construction, which gave a grey to black plus weathering moss etc finish. This was a sort of pitch impregnated hessian type covering. Simon

Sorry, bit late on parade, too many nights spent in the "Grasshopper".... Now in stock and available to order from The Titfield Thunderbolt Bookshop here Nice to see progress on ex editor Gerry Beale's "Maiden Newton" layout, and although some of us have seen an awful lot of Jerry's new turntable, it nonetheless makes for a very fine article in this issue - I love the shot of No 45 on the table with Tucking Mill in the background(!) Bob Isgar's article on dis-respecting servos is really quite appealing, as is Cardiff's "Pencader" and the interesting and thoughtful recollection on the late Tony Reynalds. Best get out to the shed and make those dreams come true before its too late...

I wouldn't normally presume to add to this thread, but the "Toad E" is a great looking piece of wagonry, as evidenced by Tony and Rob. I have been slowly chipping away at my own interpretation in a bigger scale, and recently got it "into paint", which is kind of magic as it visually pulls the whole thing together. This is Ford Dove Grey, applied slightly too generously and in need of a bit of work, but a good match for the BR colour I think. I will be properly lettering it and them giving it a matt finish before weathering it down, but to be honest, at the moment I'm just basking in its "brake van-ness". Of course this is nowhere near the magnificent East Coast main line, I rather have it as one of those found lurking around Wenford Bridge some sixty years ago. I do like Pacifics though; Not weathered but unspeakably lovely in its own way... Sorry! Simon

Thank you Paul! Another load of books went out today, and I am nearly up to date with all the orders. Time for a break I think...

Thank you all so very much for your kind and positive comments, very much appreciated. As have been several emails from people who have received their copies. It is really nice when people enjoy something that one has had a hand in creating and it is also something of a relief to have finally got memories and photographs that have been so generously given or shared by many people over many years into print, and properly recorded for posterity. Tomorrow Charlie and I get stuck back in to sending out orders. Charlie took several copies up on the train to a family gathering over the weekend, It proved a bit of a hit with at least one family member, scene yesterday in Shropshire.... And the scene at the Junction on the day before.