Not Jeremy

Oh I don't know, I mean look at your wiring.... Apologies for that cheap shot, and as I recall Doug and I worked it all out without you that time in Folkestone, towards the end of the last Century. Happy days!

Excellent, cardboard, paper and PVA, what more does any boy need? Especially the son of a woodwork teacher.... Outside I have found steel, concrete and dirt to be excellent substitutes. But my "grass" is anything but static(!) Happy New Year to all and here's to building more trains! Simon

It doesn't have any lighting, but I find my "Optivisor" a near essential part of modelling these days. Must dig it out one of these days...

Yes!

Gosh, washing up… My first ever non paper round job was washing up at Pratt’s Hotel, 50p per hour. I didn’t wash up any trains but went off the place when I had to persuade them to pay me - wallies. Going back to Whitemans, I can report that Mr Tim Graham, who really built the business up over twenty years, (and employed CK and later on me) is still alive and well as I saw him and his wife Margaret when I dropped off a Christmas card this morning. For anyone silly enough to visit Bath, it is worth seeking out the Julian House charity shop in Walcot Street as downstairs is a wonderful bookshop, which Tim sort of presides over. Well organised, no rubbish and humanely priced, and with a transport section. He is not as “Basil Fawlty” as he used to sometimes be, in Whitemans(!)

Thank you very much Mike, also for your recent(ish) email with the GER coach list, much appreciated. Have a good Christmas! I do have other obsessions too, you know..... Simon

What a great thought Jerry, he’d certainly enjoy the periodic loops of correction and denial over grammar, not to mention obsessing over livery detail, getting the exactly correct shade of grey and “scale colour”, of course. Which railway company would he most like I wonder, probably something Edwardian? I guess he’d mostly be an armchair modeller given his “peripatetic” lifestyle. His son Jake probably inherited Ed’s loft layout when he was chucked out by Mrs Ed, it was all N gauge and he still can’t get those Farish locos to run properly…. Perhaps Ed is already with us??

Hmm, good idea. I already do that with digital radios - they are everywhere! Radio 4 extra is my favourite, tonight at 11.30 "Old Harry's Game", and so much more besides, "Ed Reardons Week" ticks most of my boxes.... And they don't broadcast any news either - Ignorance is bliss, maybe(?)

Now there's a fine idea idea Tim, but sadly I'm not sure there are any more revelations or fabulous new pics to do that. I'll bear it mind though and would just say that the reprint has got a different ISBN - so for all you completists out there..... Confession time, I am a bit embarrassed to say that I own several copies of the David and Charles "Somerset and Dorset Railway" by Robin Atthilll: 1st print, 1967, signed by author 2nd print, 1968 3rd print, 1980, slightly amended introduction 2nd edition 1985 hardback 2nd edition 1985 softback. This is my "field" copy(!) I did also have the Pan paperback edition but let that go a while ago as it deteriorated quite badly. All a bit "sad puppy" - ish, but in my defence I really love the book and the railway it describes. And, for those of a certain age, they mostly all came from Whitemans bookshop in Orange Grove. Them were t' days.... Seasons greetings to all. Simon PS Captain Kernow was the "Saturday boy" in Whitemans before I was, and so all of this is mostly his fault.

I am happy to report that the first print run of the book has sold through and a reprint is currently in production. Stock should be available from the middle of January. It has a number of (very minor) corrections and some small grammatical "improvements", and also a new picture showing the late Gordon Dando looking very dashing with his bike outside Monkton Combe (Titfield) Station during a lull in filming. For purchasers of the first print, here is the additional picture. It has been very kindly made available to me by Gordon Dando's family, to whom I am very grateful. It has already appeared on a Titfield Facebook page, but if anyone wishes to share it from here then please credit the source to the family of the late Gordon Dando. It appears on the bottom of page 71 in the reprinted book. Simon

Forgive me Neil, for I have sinned. This may understate your gradient a bit... I think the bent step looks real, I'd be tempted to leave it. I like a bit of verticality myself, although had a bit of a mishap here this evening, shades of Gordon(?) I really need to re-think my end of the line arrangements... Guard irons intact, apologies for thread drift. Simon

As others have already said, this is a really great issue - congratulations to Paul Karau and all the magazine's contributors, past, present and future. My further thoughts on it are here Wonderful!

Also why you never saw a 9F in Gloucester Docks! Not everything will run round this...

Short radius points, and sharply curved track actually requires gauge widening, which would appear to make some sort of mockery of any slavish adherence to a specified gauge in all instances. I do understand the point of the gauge tightening in OO SF, before I am given any lectures, but sharp curves, including those through point work will require a more nuanced and flexible approach. That’s what the prototype does and the suggestion that EM or even P4 “won’t work” at sharper radii is plain wrong.

I know why it was done etc, but the idea of further reducing an already hideously narrow gauge is complete anathema to my way of thinking. Goodness knows who or what seduced CK into dabbling with it. What with him being such a good constructor of track and all over so many years!

Very sensible, that’s exactly how I view “Spitfire”, a locomotive on the Butleigh Light Railway and Robert Neville Grenville’s favourite piece of machinery…..

Rear cover artwork sorted, thank you GWR57XX. Currently putting the index together now that the book is otherwise finished. Simon

Yes it does, both photographically and in the narrative. John also comments on quite late developments for individual vehicles in the tables attached to the text. The small colour section in the liveries chapter shows later BR liveries.

So am I Gerry. It is a really interesting subject and I hope we have done it justice with this book. I'm not really a die hard fan of the GWR, but as with so many other aspects of the old company, when you start looking at what they did and how they did it you can not help being deeply impressed by it all. Simon

Oh Gawd, thank you very much, being sorted! Simon

Okehampton?

This significant new book is now days away from being sent to the printers. A printed proof will be produced and checked, before "pressing the button", which means that the book should be printed in January and be available for sale by late February. It is a dust jacketed, cloth bound and gold blocked hardback, designed to be uniform with John's earlier books on Auto Trailers and Steam Rail Motors for Wild Swan. 288 pages, printed on to high quality art paper, priced at £54.95. The book is extensively illustrated with photographs from numerous sources, including Rail Archive Stephenson, the extensive collection of the late David Hyde, colour views from Paul Bartlett and many others besides. It has been produced with the full knowledge and support of the HMRS, the publishers of Jack Slinn's original book, who also kindly sourced and made available original drawings from the NRM. I am very grateful and appreciative of all the help that the HMRS and its members have provided me in the preparation of this book, especially Jonathan David for his support throughout and extensive checking of the text. The book has been designed laid out and prepared for print by the very talented Steve Phillips, who has made the best of all of John Lewis's hard work in writing the text and drawing everything together. Thank you very much to all of you. Simon Front cover: Rear cover: Inside Jacket And a "teaser" for Wild Swan's next book....

It is Bulldog number 3345, at the head of an empty milk working, at Royal Oak in 1928, as others have said. This image appears in the forthcoming Siphons book from Wild Swan, and is a Great Western official image that came from David Hyde's collection. The book is now days away from being sent to the printers. I am having a printed proof produced first that we will also check before "pressing the button", as it is a complex book and I want there to be as few mistakes in it as is possible.

I read it too and thought it very good. Currently reading Graham Greene’s “Travels With My Aunt” in which the Orient Express is depicted as being a pretty rubbish experience circa 1969!!

Sounds really good, little shows are cool and it was great that they allowed CK and Re6/6 in too. Can't beat a bit of Draggery...... Peep peep!