ronstrutt

Sadly, the Southern was as guilty of doing for the Somerset & Dorset as anyone else and it was the LM Region that asked for the Pines Express to be rerouted, as the attached document shows (found while looking for Westerham papers at the National Archives). WR panniers also replaced the Beattie Well Tanks at Wadebridge. Incidentally, the Kentish Heights Railtour of 10th November 1957 was originally intended to bring City Of Truro to Westerham but it failed on the day and O1 no 31064 covered all or most of the route. (Photograph needs a lot of TLC - note the branch train at the far end of the loop.) http://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/50s/571110_1.html

Yes. The pull-push set was left at Westerham overnight and the engine, rather than working back light, took the branch freight. In the morning the arriving engine picked up the branch freight from Dunton Green yard. I haven't been able to work out how the branch wagons were left at Dunton Green. The only disadvantage of this arrangement was that a guard was needed for the morning trip, riding back from Westerham on the cushions, presumably, and another for the evening trip, going down on the last pull-push service.

His friend Bill Stickers is often threatened with prosecution.

And to think that there were those people who complained when we moved from proper teaspoons to coffee stirrers!

Well done! Excellent news.

My main complaint about your work is that you make it look far, far too easy so that it tempts me to have a go myself. I can see mespending endless hours trying to build something of similar quality and becoming very frustrated at my failure to do so.

Glad they're useful. I think that a good few may be heading for my book! I particularly liked the one of N Class 2-6-0 no 31828 with freight train 'borrowing' the branch. http://www.bluebell-railway-museum.co.uk/archive/photos/ap/b01/272.htm

I've just dug out More Odd Corners and it's got several branch pictures in it, including the wooden platelayers' hut at Brasted - a great project there for you Adrian. Incidentally, the Bluebell Museum seems to have Alan Postlethwaite's collection of pictures now; it's not clear from their write-up whether he's still with us: http://www.bluebell-railway-museum.co.uk/archive/photos/ap/index.htm

I haven't looked at Odd Corners for ages (btw, there's a More Odd Corners too). Packed full of useful stuff. In the Intro the author says that he mapped and photographed every inch of Brasted Yard, counted every sleeper.

I suppose one plausible explanation is that they had some wagons and a crane standing on the running line in order to take away the lever frame for scrap or re-use along with all the demolition debris - and the barrow crossing was underneath them. After they'd departed, everyone must have thought "they must have left the crossing there for some good reason, better leave it alone". I wonder how many times it was repaired or reinstated after track renewals? NB: for those who thought the idea of a footpath crossing over the the M25 amusing, there is one such crossing over the near-motorway standard six-lane A3 not far from Guildford, complete with signs for motorists to beware of pedestrians crossing! https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2730554,-0.5261089,3a,75y,51.2h,78.5t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sMfoTK0iLacNNFQvO1Pnnog!2e0

Seriously, I assume it was to give access to the signal box, which was situated on the north side of the line almost opposite the points to the goods yard, so pretty well by the barrow crossing. The BOT inspection report of 1881 says that: The new stations are Brasted and Westerham, and Dunton Green has been enlarged on the upside. These stations are provided with all necessary accommodations and the signal arrangements have been properly carried out in 3 new raised cabins, in which there are the necessary block telegraph and speaking instruments. The use of the word 'raised' makes it clear that this was a proper signal box - Gould had lots of difficulty with the writing in the report and among other things misread 'raised' as 'signal'. I have yet to come across any reference in the archives to its removal - it is shown on the 1907 OS map but absent (along with the signals) on the 1936 one. Gould said that it had gone by 1920. It seems strange, though, that they demolished the signal box very thoroughly but left the barrow crossing that led to it?

Perhaps there's a footpath that crosses the M25 there.

Anyone wanting modelling pictures of Westerham, there are some good ones with plenty of detail for sale on Ebay at the moment. Edit: I have removed the link because there is some doubt as to whether the seller has any right to be selling copies of these pictures. There is a suspicion that they may simply have been scanned from an old magazine.

Welcome on board! There was something special about Southern branch lines. They were all readily identifiable as Southern but all had their differences and idiosyncrasies, in a way that the identikit GW branches never did. GER branches seemed to have that special feel too. Others have pointed out some good sites. I would heartily recommend the SEMG site. Join up - it's free - and you get access to more. It's all good stuff and you can rely on it for accuracy. As for locomotive classes, unlike the LNER, the Southern never reworked its locomotive classification. It simply continued with the pre-grouping class systems, so it can sometimes seem a bit confusing to a newcomer, but that was part of the Southern's charm. As this is a South Eastern model... Both the South Eastern, in the form of James Stirling, and the London, Chatham & Dover, in the form of William Kirtley, kept the number of classes to a minimum. Stirling designed only six - three main line passenger, and one each of goods, passenger tank, and shunter. Both companies simply seemed to take any handy and unused letter of the alphabet for class designations. When a design was rebuilt or a significant variation was introduced, a '1' was stuck on the class name so that, for example, the reboilered Q class became Q1s. The Chatham A and B classes got fiddled with so much that there were A2s and B2s. Needless to say, when the two railways 'fused' as the South Eastern & Chatham in 1899, there was some overlap but nobody worried too much. There was a Stirling R class (0-6-0Ts, famed for their work - three or four on a train - on the steep Folkestone Harbour branch) and there was a Kirtley R class (0-4-4T passenger tanks). After 1899, Wainwright rebuilt both and called them R1s. People just knew which was which. Sorry, but both the 'SER/LCDR/SECR' and the London & South Western Railway (maybe the LBSCR too, for all I know) had no immediately-obvious locomotive numbering policy. The shareholders of many Victorian/Edwardian railways had an enormous fear of railway companies making loose and free with their money. Building too many engines was one of their greatest fears. The solution was that any new engine had to take the number of the withdrawn engine that it was replacing. If additional engines were built, they had to take numbers on the end of the existing range. That way it was very obvious when extra engines were being built - the numbers began to creep up. As a result of this, the numbering of the P Class, to give one example, was 753, 754, 27, 178, 323, 325, 555 and 558. Numbers 753 and 754 were additional engines, but no. 27 replaced a Q class tank withdrawn in 1910, and was designed to handle similar duties. NB: That is the reason for the so-called 'duplicate lists' too. These consisted of engines that needed to be replaced but still had some life left in them. They were moved to the duplicate list, freeing up their numbers in the main list, and acquired a zero on the front of their numbers. Occasionally, too, older engines were renumbered to free up a convenient batch of numbers for a new build. Here endeth the first lesson. I hope I haven't put you off.

I love the way that the driver of the train engine is leaning out, obviously trying to see why, when his engine seems to be working very hard, the pilot engine only has a lazy trail of exhaust coming from its chimney. Mind you, the pilot engine seems to have a tenderful of dust, so perhaps he's on go slow! Note also how the footbridge stairs go in different directions, because of the partially staggered platforms. This is, by the way, Grove Park in 1903 before the line was quadrupled there, the widening being the reason why the footbridge became redundant there and got moved to DG.

As I had a spare Saturday afternoon, I thought I'd knock up a quick model of the Dunton Green footbridge in its original location. Realistic, isn't it? I do like the DCC smoke effects. Clever things these microchips.

I just hope the 9.55 Flyer won't get too crowded on Wednesday. Where do you think the local populace will head for? Canterbury, Ramsgate, Broadstairs or Margate, or will they wait until Sunday and go to Hastings?

Thanks, Adrian. I just wish I could model half as well as you. Little skill is needed to read through pages and pages of musty old documents. One day, though, we must club together and get you an H Class. Just to add a further comment re the branch working, when electrification was authorised in 1961, it was on the basis of a 2 EPB shuttle on the branch alone. Just a thought, though, if the line had been built as first planned (ie as an extension of the Swanley to Bat & Ball line), we might now be looking forward to through trains from Westerham to Bedford, Peterborough or Cambridge in a couple of years time.

Without giving yet another reason not to buy my book when it finally appears, BR did consider this option. (To be fair to them, there were some on BR who did want to keep the line open and tried every which way to save it.) The argument against it was a circular one: there were passengers from Chelsfield, Knockholt, and Dunton Green who wanted to go to Sevenoaks (and vice-versa), who would not be able to do so under this plan, as all their stopping trains would go to Westerham. To solve that, the skip-stops would have to stop at Dunton Green, in which case it would have been pointless for the Westerham train to go on to Orpington and beyond. Crew costs would also have been doubled as it would not have been possible to operate Westerham to Orpington with one set of men per shift. The main problem was that a train that called at all stations from Dunton Green took far too long to get to London. For example, the 7.38am from Westerham arrived at Dunton Green at 7.49 and connected into the 7.51 all stations (except St Johns) to Charing Cross. It finally arrived at 8.43: 65 minutes for 26 miles. The next train, the 8.10 was better. It connected into the 8.23 from Dunton Green to Cannon Street, which was fast from Orpington to London Bridge but, with an arrival at 8.56, your office had to be very close to the station and you had to be a fast walker to get in for 9 o'clock. BR surmised, probably correctly, that with the growth in the use of cars and in the days before parking became a problem, Westerham passengers would, before long, find it quicker, cheaper and more convenient to drive to Croydon or Bromley and catch a train from there. From East Croydon or Bromley South to Victoria took only 20 minutes and from Bromley North to Charing Cross or Cannon Street only 30 minutes, and for less than half the price. The other alternative in steam days would have been to stop one or two expresses at Dunton Green but restarting a heavy up express at the bottom of Polhill was to be avoided at all costs in view of the gradient and the tunnel just ahead.

Specifically: Blue for regulator control Green for the main storage pipe Yellow for the back pressure pipe Oh, and there were electrical connections too. Ok, I know, I'm just showing off now. (I just happened to read that this morning!) With the mechanical/wire systems used on other railways it was a simple matter to detach the links to the regulator. The driver sat up front and worked the brake while the fireman worked the regulator on the footplate. All completely unofficial of course but the excuse was that the mechanical links were always giving problems. There were far fewer problems with the SR air system but sometimes the regulator just didn't seem to get connected up. .

All the benefits of first class without having to pay for it. By the way, Adrian,I have to apologise to you. I drove right over your neat "BRASTED" the other day. Sorry!

For interest, this is the detail of Duty 310 in Winter 1957: The pull-push set was left at Westerham overnight. The locomotive worked a passenger train from Tonbridge to Sevenoaks (I don't know what stock was used for that or what that stock was used for later in the day), running light from there to Dunton Green. It then took the morning freight to Westerham before picking up the pull-push set for the day's service. The branch train generally ran with the locomotive at the Westerham end - though that depended on which way round the set was. In latter years, seemingly invariably, the engine ran bunker to the stock, though how that was assured I don't know. After September 1955 the engine took the stock back to Tonbridge after the morning service. At lunchtime it worked a train to Maidstone and back but I don't know if the PP set was used for this - I don't have a 1957 public timetable but my 1954 timetable doesn't show the train around that time as 2nd Class only. The engine and stock returned to Dunton Green to work the evening service, leaving the set in the platform at the end of service before working the return freight. Here is the Westerham set at Tonbridge, presumably during the middle of the day break. Heaven knows what that headcode is supposed to represent. The only trains through Tonbridge that were supposed to carry that were those between Reading and Margate via Redhill!

For variety!

Looking at the front of the engine, the official Westerham headcode was one disc over the right-hand buffer. I say official, because almost all photographs show it over the left-hand buffer, occasionally in other positions, and when propelling, the engine would sometimes carry both headcode disc and red lamp. I don't suppose it really mattered when the train was on the branch or even en route to Dunton Green - everyone knew where an H Class with a push-pull set was going - but at Tonbridge a disc over the left-hand buffer was supposedly a Maidstone train. Maybe the crew, getting fed up with shuttling up and down the branch, liked to pretend they were heading the Golden Arrow, just as I have a few pictures of modern multiple units displaying strange destinations when the driver decided to have a fiddle. The duty numbers could change with every timetable and there were, of course, different ones on Saturdays and Sundays. Winter 1957 the Westerham duty was 310 on weekdays; other timetables seem to have used 302, 303, 304, 306, 309 and 311 and no doubt there were others. Up to 1955, of course, there were two locos at Westerham at one point on weekday evenings, so two duties were involved. I have seen 238 used on a Maunsell set (so must be 1960 or 61) but that was presumably a weekend. Saturday mornings on the final timetable (61-62 winter) was 239. Gould has a picture of the Saturday changeover on 14 May 1960 (I think that was still winter) showing 303 as the morning duty and 306 as the afternoon.

Useful stuff,maybe, but it appears to have been copied straight out of books, many of which are still in print. The entire site seems to be a blatant infringement of copyright. I'm amazed that no-one has done anything about it.