wagonman

The safety valve cover looks a bit Gooch-like...

The Broad Gauge Society do/did a 9-leaf wagon spring that might be suitable.

Must be a Norfolkism! I was certainly taught 'roofs' at my schools (I went to several) in the 1950s

The contract for that traffic flow was held by Renwick Wilton & Co for many years prior to the GWR taking over.

There are a couple more on the way: Ian Pope is doing the PO wagons of Berks, Bucks and Oxon, and I'm doing Wiltshire. Start saving up...

Thomas Burnett & Co were indeed builders as well as repairers. I think I have a photo or two somewhere...

Tut! Shoscombe was famous. Well, maybe not famous but it did have its own colliery once (never rail connected)...

Karhedron's photos are indeed of the Marlow mixed train – the upper photo shows it having just arrived at Marlow, the loco chimney to driving end of the trailer. It is presumably about to run round and shunt the wagons. The lower phot is presumably of the return journey with the loco coupled bunker to non-driving end, though I doubt the auto-gear was connected until after the train was shunted at Bourne End. I have seen autotrains on shed. The Ashburton unit, for one, was often to be found thus. At the other extreme, the Watlington branch trailer was usually hauled by non-auto fitted locos so it was no problem to store it overnight in its little carriage shed.

The use of the word 'lake' implies a different paint source – as Wikipedia says "A lake pigment is a pigment manufactured by precipitating a dye with an inert binder, or "mordant", usually a metallic salt." The standard coach brown, known as Windsor Brown (not to be confused with Brown Windsor!), is, I believe, an umber earth pigment. The 1908 brown has been described in some sources (refs not to hand) as chocolate lake in which case it would not have been the same. This is where my limited knowledge peters out. We desperately need Tony East who is a paint chemistry expert, now in the States...

Ah, yes I should have checked the publication date! It is available as a download at https://ia600308.us.archive.org/34/items/ourhomerailways00gordgoog/ourhomerailways00gordgoog.pdf and on my, uncalibrated laptop, screen the colour is indeterminate – could be either. Frontline coaches were revarnished more often than they were repainted. Michael Harris in his 'Great Western Coaches 1890-1954' states, with reference to this period, that "...paint surface was expected to last nine or ten years before return to Swindon for burning off and subsequent repainting." So, are we looking at an artist's impression of no.7672? The mystery deepens...

If you're thinking of the 'reconstructed' Iceni village at Cockley Cley, I'm afraid History has caught up with it. It's closed.

I'm afraid there is another error in the brake gear! You have a cross bar between the two sides but the brakes are independent. Either the crossbar shouldn't be there or, more likely as the van was probably fitted with Morton brakes, one side should have the push rods reversed and a reversing clutch fitted to the lever. Just try to follow the action of the brakes – as set up at present, applying the brakes one side would take them off on the other!

The carriage is an E80 brake/compo 'concertina' type built in April 1907 (lot 1121) and so outshopped in chocolate and cream with the old number 672. The illustration has it as repainted and renumbered which is unlikely to have happened before 1912 given the usual shopping interval for front-line coaches in those days, therefore it could well be in the newly introduced crimson lake livery. As Mikkel points out, the source does say "circa 1910".

While it's true no one has yet turned up a Board Minutes decreeing the change in 1912, it is recorded in MacDermott which is as near to a semi-official contemporary account as we can get, so I remain slightly sceptical of the new theory.

The style is reminiscent of the PO salt wagons – which makes no sense whatsoever in the context. Could just be in use as covered goods wagons as there are side doors and what looks like a roof hatch. No idea of makers though.

It was done to make the numbers more visible as the loco number was a key part of the Midland's traffic control system, so not daft...but expensive

One thing to bear in mind – you can be sure carriage shunters did – is that GWR and LMS coaches used the British Standard gangway connectors whereas the LNER and BR Mk 1s (and SR too) used the Pullman type. These were dissimilar and needed special adapters to join them, hence mixing was avoided as much as possible. That's not to say it didn't happen...

On reflection, I still go with red (not oxide but something like London Red) or purple brown for the P&P wagon. While orthochromatic film, Introduced from 1873, was technically only sensitive to the blue and green parts of the RBG spectrum, it wasn't totally blind to the red end – 95% maybe – as over long exposure even to the red safelight in the darkroom can induce a bit of fogging. Found that out the hard way. Richard

Wonderful photo, Mark. I can't tell you much about it other than that it had its dumb buffers replaced by sprung ones and was re-registered by the GWR in August 1909. The lettering is shaded so I would presume it's painted red or some other darkish colour. I don't recognise that strange shaped plate on the solebar... Ah, just noticed an earlier post! The plate is Bute Works Supply Co. Richard

To the best of my knowledge no wagon interiors were ever painted – neck stuck firmly out there. This includes cattle trucks which were originally lime washed on the inside. This was banned from the mid '20s when a liquid disinfectant was substituted. Richard

Ah well, you can't blame an editor for trying...

I forget who, but one of the leading lights in off-shore power boat racing did indeed liken it to standing under a cold shower tearing up £50 notes... On the subject of other people's yachts, an old and alas now departed friend of mine used to keep a 36 footer in the marina at Gosport. He invited us down for a weekend sail round the Isle of Wight, but the weather was against us. We hit a massive fog bank neat Hurst Castle, spent the night at anchor in Yarmouth harbour and limped back home the next morning. We did make use of the harbour taxi to go ashore for a very nice dinner. No trace of the FY&NR station though (blatant attempt to get back on to some sort of rail topic...) Richard

Great photo! The GWR wagon on the far right is indeed one of those hired form the Birmingham Co. It has been converted to spring buffers too – some of the hired wagons were converted while on hire, others were converted just before the hire period and were then registered as Freighters Wagons by the GWR! The wagon 3rd from the left looks to belong to Candy & Co of the brick etc works at Heathfield. I have seen one of their wagons at Box, Wiltshire, so they got around a bit. Richard

Marc The CMR bought two* batches of iron-bodied wagons from the Swansea Wagon Co, 50 in December 1873 and 46 "iron-bodied wagons as before" in March 1874. The only other deal with Swansea that I have found was for two 'stone wagons' in April 1874. As it was a Mineral Railway, built to carry clay from the dries to the docks, I doubt they would have needed much else – coal could/would have been carried in coal company wagons, presumably. *The Swansea records do have an enigmatic reference to "150 wagons ex buffer springs Cornwall Minerals Railway Co." in August 1873 which may have referred to more of the same – I don't have the stock total at GWR take-over. Does anyone know, please? Richard

Totally off topic but I'm always slightly amused that the Overground station at Whitechapel is under the Underground station. Little things...