wagonman

The rebuilt exMSWJR locos beat them to it, though, and with the same boiler.

Funnily enough John Lewis has an article on the brown & cream painted locos in the upcoming Pannier49 – due to hit members' doormats anytime soon. It was to match the new auto trailers and was applied, briefly, to 1160 in 1904-5, and to the two 517s mocked up as carriages. 1160 soon became brown all over, as did several other auto-fitted engines, and some time before the carriages became all-over brown. Does this help?

Now you're talking! Here's mine – in S7 and in company with wee Manning Wardle. "Dignity and Impudence".

Conversion potential to wider gauges could be an important factor – unless High Level do a replacement chassis kit!

A very belated reply – for which apologies Mike – but I have found this shot of a similar wagon in ECC livery. The one on the tippler still has grease boxes so must have been pretty ancient by BR days! The shape of the top plank at the non-door end is slightly different...

The old Peco 'Wonderful' Wagons attempted something similar, from memory. Only problem was it didn't work – too much friction, not enough weight.

I totally agree – except they were built by the Swansea Wagon Co. Slip of the finger?

As Gloucester were building over 60 of the things it may well have made sense for them to cast the axleboxes themselves using patterns sent from Gorton. I am not familiar enough with the conventions of such transactions to be more definitive.

I concede Bill's point about the axleboxes, and probably other fittings, which must have been supplied by Gorton. The most obvious connection is Sam Fay. He was, up to 1899, Secretary and General Manager of the MSWJR upon whose line Edward(e)s' stable was located. It is conceivable that the men knew each other, though at the time of the horse box order Fay was back at Nine Elms. He took up his position as General Manager of the GCR in 1902. The timeline is not quite perfect!

Another example is the Highland Castles built for the French Ouest.

That's my thinking too. They had just built a batch of these horse boxes for the GCR so had the drawings (and jigs?) to hand, so it was the obvious choice of design when they received the order from Edwards. And as you say, no involvement of the GCR at all. Richard

The Gloucester Agendas, notoriously terse, merely state "11 December 1901; new cash; George Edwards one horse box" which rather implies they built it though I suppose they could have been acting as intermediaries. It also implies ownership by Edwards rather than mere hire. The railway companies were forbidden from building locomotives for sale to other railways/operators – did this also apply to rolling stock? One assumes it did due to the lack of any known examples – a bit of a black swan argument. The MSWJR did own three horseboxes described as "ex-privately owned" – this one was not included in that trio. Richard

What Norfolk folk call "a lazy wind" – it doesn't go round you, it goes through you. I expect there are countless local variations. Still it does seem apposite standing on our beach looking north as there's nothing between you and the North Pole except the odd oil rig and what's left of the Polar icecap. But no snow.

That frequently happens – but in this case the modern business is called P H Futter. Futter is not an unusual name in that part of Norfolk: there are seven 'Futters' in the Great Yarmouth area phone book.

Henry's father, also Henry, started the business in the late 1870s. Henry Junior had a brother Arthur but he became a general carter. When he died in 1924, the executors of his estate were his widow and two sons, none of them in the coal business. The mystery deepens...

Possibly though Henry only had one son (sixth time lucky), Henry James, and he became a bus engineer, later working for LT at Hatfield. He had no children living at home in the 1939 register and when he died in 1954 his widow was the administrator of his estate.

All those new parts would have made a nonsense of Churchward's drive for maximum standardisation. Collett was less concerned about that of course.

Possibly the fact that the old stagers were ... old. The operating department might have wanted a more modern replacement, though perhaps one that could run on yellow routes, unlike the Manor. They got it with the Ivatt class 2 moguls, but that was after nationalisation.

Erm... Rowland Brotherhood was based in Chippenham, not Cheltenham!

Henry Futter died in 1934. His eldest daughter Mary Ann Elizabeth was recorded in the 1911 as a 'clerk to coal merchant' though whether she inherited the business I don't know. She married an electrician named George Kettle and settled in Norwich. If P H Futter is a direct descendant (s)he must have skipped a generation.

A couple of D299s in the yard at Yarmouth Beach thought to be c1920. Why there was a Mariarchi band passing is unknown. Photo in the M&GN Circle collection. Richard

A couple more 3-plankers, one with round ends and one with iron underfame. This is the GWR ballast quarry at Dulcote before Foster Yeoman moved in next door. The wagon has a five digit number starting with a '3' – better than that I cannot manage – so it was built as capital stock rather than as a renewal. Here we have 39521 at, I think, Keinton Mandeville station on the Castle Cary to Cogload Jcn line just before opening in 1906. No lettering visible on the side of the wagons – possibly an effect of the lighting rather than a total absence. Richard

I was under the impression that the term 'Dark Ages' was a conceit of historians born of the fact that none of them were around to record the period. There were a few monks like Nennius toiling in their scriptoria producing Easter Annals but that was about it.

3 hours ago, Chrisbr said: 29382 (BG 2002) described as an Iron Tilt. Converted in Feb 1876 and condemned in Sept 1896, so the date of the photo is somewhat suspect...... The date was my guess based on no hard information. Only 4 years out! If the photo was taken before withdrawal it may not have been in revenue service. Alternatively it could have been taken after withdrawal when it was eking out its last days as an internal user wagon, albeit without the X marking.

I couldn't find it in my files (not an uncommon event) but then I remembered it was being used as a bookmark in the Atkins/Beard/Tourrett 'bible'... Got it just in time! Happy New Year everyone!