ronstrutt

I was just about to say that I've never seen a photograph of an engine in the yard at Brasted but that, of course, is because it was dark most of the year when the freight ran. Incidentally, the last day photographs shown some wagons in the yard at Brasted. There must have been a trip after the official 'last day' to collect them but I've never seen it mentioned.

It must be that time of year. Mine decided to do likewise on Saturday, refusing to spring into life. It may just have been the on-off button but it's been giving too many signs of age over recent months so I decided to take the plunge. I've been putting it off because of all the hassle of migrating software and licences, and data files. The unfortunate thing was that I haven't been as scrupulous at doing back ups over the last month as I should have been - but luckily the local PC shop was able to extract my old hard disk and turn it into an external drive with nothing lost. The only real downside is that I am now having to grapple with the inadequacies of Windows 8.1.

Special evening service of steam trains?

Give it a few years and the HSE will have something to say about that door opening onto a sheer drop. You'd better start thinking about an interlocking system that will prevent the door opening unless there's a wagon parked outside.

Be careful, the Southern Railway signalling diagram was for a scheme that never happened. It was based on moving the lever frame onto the platform so that one man could sell tickets and handle the signalling, as was carried out at many other small Southern stations (eg Sheffield Park). I have yet to discover when this scheme was proposed or why it was abandoned, as it would seem to have been a very sensible one. PS: as is common with Google image searches, many of the results thrown up are not of the Westerham branch.

Thanks, Glynn, that's very informative and useful. Please pass on my thanks to Peter.

It seems that the gault clay wasn't to blame for this one. We have that one yet to come. It appears that this was caused by concrete which didn't set properly. I came across this article about quick-setting concrete on the M25. Looks like their boasting was a tad premature. Incidentally, on the next section between junctions 9 and 8, where the M25 crosses the North Downs, just after it opened and the cutting sides were naked chalk, you could see sinkholes in profile. Now if there were sinkholes in the sides of the motorway... I can't wait till the gault exacts its revenge. The Sevenoaks Bypass had already had problems. I like to think that the ghost of the Ancient Railwayman was at work getting his own back for the filling in of Chevening cutting for the bypass.

Surely a tame spider would be cheaper and more in keeping with the d-i-y policies of this thread, provided you could train it. Knowing how persistent the little blighters can be, the odd broken line would soon be fixed.

I fear they'll get more use by the train crew while they sit in the sun waiting for a passenger to turn up.

You may jest but I remember seeing one South Eastern Railway PW hut that was built of heavily-tarred timbers. It went up a treat as a lineside grass fire spread!

It's about time the P Way gang got that long grass under control. It's an absolute fire risk. Westerham had a Ganger, a Sub-Ganger and three lengthmen. No wonder questions were asked as to how they spent their time when the locals could hardly see out of the carriage windows for all the foliage. Never mind, nothing a good coat of tarmac won't cure.

I take your point, though sometimes with model railways it's a little difficult to decide where the dividing line comes. These days, given the wonderful choice of highly-accurate and detailed r-t-r locomotives available, I wouldn't bother to build one either from scratch or in kit form, even if I had the skill to do so. Buildings are a slightly different matter, though, especially if you're trying to reproduce a real location and given that creating a building from scratch is vastly cheaper than paying out for a ready-made one. In particular, I would not want someone looking at a layout of mine and saying, 'Oh yes, that's the Skaledale model, I've got one of those on my layout' just as in the past, no serious modeller wanted to have the Airfix church or the Superquick inn on their model. However, there are people who perhaps because of lack of time or perhaps because of infirmity (failing eyesight, arthritis, general crumbliness, etc) cannot build their own. Many years ago, with a view to the layout that was often thought about but never progressed, I built a signal box based on that at Worgret Junction with individual bricks, window bars, sliding window, and the like. I very much doubt that I could do so again now.

http://www.Hornby.com/shop/skaledale/lineside-lamp-huts-2-pack.html £9.99 for a couple of bits of cornetto wrapping and few coffee stirrers!

I forget to say, don't take this map too literally. The line of the South Orbital Road, marked 8, shows it going right through the Palladian mansion which was then (and is still) Combe Bank School, cutting through the front lawn and lake of Chevening House (then the seat of the Earls Stanhope and today the shared official residence of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary), demolishing Shoreham Court, and slicing right along the boundary of the church there. I think that the route is more indicative than precise. We can say with a fair degree of certainty that it wouldn't have been built on that line.

Oops! Meant to post this map - it shows the Westerham area more clearly.

The first positive plans for a South Orbital Road were in 1937 but the local authorities had been talking about an East-West road from Reigate to Maidstone since the 1920s. It was then intended to be 80 feet wide, with the building line set back 40 feet on each side. The 1937 proposal was for a 'parkway' road which was designed for a pleasant motor through the countryside. The Westerham section finally opened in 1979-80. You can't hurry these things, I'll have you know. For the full story of the South Orbital Road, see my forthcoming and much-vaunted book. It'll be Chapter 85 or so, the way things are going.

With all the experience you've gained in modelling techniques, you should find this a doddle, Adrian. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jidenco-Models-SECR-SR-BR-Wainwright-H-Class-0-4-4T-kit-/181577181652?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item2a46d7e9d4

By no means a stupid question. The way that Brasted yard was worked, with a morning trip out from Westerham, was decidedly odd. It was obviously felt to be necessary enough for special instructions to be issued for it. I, too, am mystified by it, which is why I'm hoping that we can find the real explanation from someone who actually worked on the line.

I can think of two reasons. One is that extra siding space was needed and, given the constrictions of the site, the only way of providing it was by removing the loop points and replacing them by plain track. In effect, this created two long sidings out of one short siding and an otherwise-unusable loop. The other reason is that, knowing how readily these things happen, someone ran an engine through the points and smashed the switches and it wasn't worth spending out on a new set, It shouldn't have been a problem. Most small goods yards didn't have a loop and were served by trains travelling in the appropriate direction to reverse into the yard, which in the case of Brasted would have been up freights. The evening up freight would have left Westerham with the Brasted wagon(s) at the rear. On arrival at Brasted, the guard's van is dropped off in the platform and the rest of the train proceeds over the yard points. It then reverses into the yard, drops off full wagons, picks up empties, and returns to the running line. After changing the yard points, the train reverses to pick up the guard's van and continues on its way to Dunton Green. Simples! None of this unnecessary propelling back to Westerham. Maybe there was no-one at Brasted in the evening to say where the incoming wagons were to be placed, maybe adding the Brasted drop-off to the evening freight would have made the late turn shift too long, or maybe there was some subtle reason that I've missed.

Not just bad grammar. On the Southern it was always Pull-Push Working.

What an amazing quote! Talk about Spin - squeezing every last ounce out of a thoroughly bad job. All-lane running is, of course, a total disaster - even the police have massive qualms about it and tried to get it stopped - but, apart from sticking with three congested lanes, there really was no alternative. The risk was that an added-on nearside lane of a widened motorway would have gone wandering off across the countryside on its own without a lot of expensive preventative measures or reconstructing most of that stretch. There's a very good reason why both the (so-called) Pilgrim's Way and the North Downs Trackway are where they are - on the chalk. Our medieval ancestors knew a thing or two. The M25 should have been built up there too, but there would probably have been an outcry Using the old railway formation (i) was expected to save a bit of money and (ii) only upset railway enthusiasts. And, of course, road civil engineers of the 1970s were invincible and could overcome any problems, even more so than their Victorian predecessors - anyone for a railway line along the South Devon shoreline? I came across this when researching for my book about the construction of the line and the problems they had. I already knew about the Gault Clay from my time on the railway - the Redhill-Guildford line crosses it in the Buckland area and is gradually sliding down the slope. As well as a curious leaning signal, there was a vicious kink where part of the track was held in place by a level crossing but the rest of it was free to move. You learned to hang on tightly on that stretch if you were standing up. That led me to wonder about the M25 and I sussed out what must have happened, but I couldn't find anything about it - nothing, not a whisper, nil, zilch. I began to think I was imagining things. Then, a few months ago, I met John Warde, the local Lord of the Manor and descendant of the Westerham Valley Railway promoter and director, Col. Charles Warde, and he confirmed my suspicions. I am almost tempted to do a Freedom of Information request just to embarrass the powers-that-be.

Gault Clay Don't forget, Adrian, that you are now building out across the gault clay*. Treacherous stuff, Wanders about all over the countryside of its own accord. Note the paucity of any buildings at foot of the Downs where the narrow band of clay runs. No-one who knew the ground built anything on it. So where did they put the railway? I suppose the land was cheap because no-one wanted it. It always caused problems with bank slips. Even when the line was built they had to buy extra land so that cutting and embankment sides could be made more gentle. Once you start building towards Chevening, Combe Bank cutting was especially bad. Photographs show quite a depth of ballast there to counteract the poor drainage. I don't know if any parts of the line were actually piled, but they held some sheet steel piling in reserve in case of emergency on the branch. If you look at late pictures of Chevening you'll notice substantial drains there. Now this may raise a question in your mind - after all, what did they do with the trackbed when the line closed? If you look at that section of the M25 you will see that it, too, has very gentle cutting and embankment sides, and none are particularly high. And when they came to widen it to four lanes, they couldn't just tack extra lanes onto the edges without upsetting the fragile geology, so they had to convert the hard shoulders into running lanes instead. But you try to find that reason admitted anywhere - it might have made the road builders look incompetent. I would love to know how many problems the gault does cause for the M25. It runs along it all the way from Junction 7 to Junction 5, and the whole length of the M26 is on it. *http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html and Go to Location "Brasted"

Another question for Peter, if you would Glynn. I've come across some costs for the Westerham line that talk about branch light engine mileage to and from Hither Green. What was that about? Was it to do with the branch freight? I'd have expected that to be dropped off at Dunton Green from a Sevenoaks line pick-up freight rather than having a dedicated working to/from Hither Green. Or is that the aroma of cooking books that assails my nostrils?

To add a couple of further questions to this, which maybe Peter Reed could answer if you see him, Glynn: The Westerham p-p train generally operated with the locomotive at the country end. This was, of course, because of the way the set was oriented - driving position at the London end - but why? This meant that when the stock was left at Westerham overnight, the engine had to run round before it could deal with the freight and again in the morning. On the odd occasions when the engine was at the London end, how did this arise? I've never seen any pictures showing the Westerham engine working bunker first - ie chimney first onto the stock. Did this ever happen? It seems curious that the freight did a shuttle from Westerham to Brasted and back, requiring a propelling move - why didn't they simply drop the Brasted wagon off and pick up any empties as part of the evening up working.

By the way, note the date of the Somerset & Dorset memo. This was almost a year before the Beeching report was published!