coline33

KW Trams have now been able to insert the ABS tram parts into their mainstream website so can now take orders directly.

Yes, Paul has confirmed to me that he has now injected the ABS tram parts into the main stream KW Trams website so can now take direct orders.

No, Gary, the mechs in my cars do not protrude above the lower deck waist panels. In fact some of my cars have passengers in the lower deck saloon in the manner that other tram modellers have done. If at any time you think of motorising then have a look at the range offered by KW Trams of the BEC mechs. Your comments on Tenshodo are well known but I have never experienced them on my non-London trams so fitted. I would certainly use Black Beetle on EMUs and not Tenshodos. The hammering my London trams took on the constant scheduled running of "West Croydon" over the 2001-2015 period of exhibiting only resulted in mech problems with the bespoke system used on the Felthams in which the seating of the lower saloon was included! The BEC mechs have proved very robust ever since we stopped using the K's motors back in the 1960s! Colin.

On the East London Line aspect, for the latter part of 1957 I commuted from New Cross Gate to Surrey Docks. The stock then was the Owls - Type F - quite a contrast in ride from the 4-SUBs that I used from Norbury to New Cross Gate. So what was the ELL stock in 1940? Regarding all the buildings on "West Croydon", John Clarke produced them all from photography of individual buildings and their parts, including from aerials from his researching in Croydon Central Library - so no kits, etc. Most of the photography had to be done in the winter months when the trees were bare. He then developed his own programmes and printing. Backgrounds again were produced by him. The buildings are mostly individual and I and dismantling took considerable time because of the unpacking and placing and then repacking for storage!!! John was a professional in that art so used his past livelihood in retirement.

There are always other options but this has the weight and right size to take a works car body and give the correct 4mm, scale wheel base to match the truck sides.

An opportunity? I note there is interest in using RTR four wheel mechs to power plastic and card constructed bogie trams. Probably the cheapest such mech is by Tenshodo. Following the demise of ABS Models, I have a need of the white metal adaptor floor for Tenshodo WB26 that ABS introduced for the Anbrico tram kits. This has a good weight factor and can also be used as the basis of building the 6'6" wheel base London works cars. Please contact me direct if interested. Colin.

Steve, follow me and take a day's footplate experience. I was lucky and drove "Bodiam". Colin.

An opportunity? I note the interest in using RTR four wheel mechs to power plastic and card constructed bogie trams. Probably the cheapest such mech is by Tenshodo. Following the demise of ABS Models, I have a need of the white metal adaptor floor for WB26 that ABS introduced for the Anbrico tram kits. This has a good weight factor and can also be used as the basis of building the 6'6"wheel base London works cars. Please contact me direct for more detail if interested. Colin.

An interlude! A 2-NOL stands in the bay platform at "West Croydon" for Wimbledon. In the days of oil lamps the 2-SLs, 2-WIMs as well as the 2-NOL kept their headcodes in place at both ends. Yes, 2-NOLs have been photographed on the number 2. But have 2-NOLs ever had to stand in on the South London Line? Also did the units on the SL Line in oil lamp days keep their number 2s up at both ends all the time? By the way that is a coal empties train returning to Norwood yard from Waddon Marsh. Enjoy, Colin.

Welcome Gary to the world of tramway modelling and that for London especially. Yes, both first and second generations can be catered for!!!. I strongly recommend you go to the Kingsway Models website and see John's Kingsway Subway and Dog Kennel Hill layouts for inspiration and hints. Do not hesitate to combine the pre and post WW2 eras of LPTB/LTE but you will be limited to Class HR/2 bogie cars with just a few moths in the autumn of 1933 for Class M four wheelers. The Tower E/1 kits are based on Classes that did not use DKH as they were not fitted with the required screw down track brakes as were Classes HR/1 (one car), HR/2 and M.. But do not despair, John will show you how to turn an E/1 into a reasonable looking HR/2. The services passing under the Lordship Lane bridge were 56, 58, 60, 62, and 84 and I recommend the KW Trams and Kingsway websites for the transfers. Conduit track sections are available from the Recreation21 outlet on the Shapeways site but if you want to bury, say Peco Streamline, track in plaster or with balsa wood roadways then cover with printed sections from Street Level and Kingsway. But first have a good read of how John Howe built his layouts and do not hesitate to revert if you need more answers. Regarding Trundleys Road, I assume you are referring to the LCC's Evelyn Street depot which became redundant when the horse tramway gave way to the electric service 68 and 70 as there was no need to rebuild it for conduit operation as New Cross depot now handled these services. In 1913 this depot was re-equipped with twin (trolleybus style) wiring for a twin wire trolley/conduit fitted Class M car to be able to shunt the new trailer cars to be hauled on the Deptford services. Also the LCC could use their petrol-electric trams to shunt the trailers as well as hiring a horse! With the cessation of trailer operation in 1924 the LCC disposed of the depot. By that date there were some second series Class E/1 cars fitted for twin overhead working as well as the conduit. There is a plan of the depot in Robert Harley's "Southwark & Deptford Tramways" in the Middleton Press series. Let us know how you get on and we will see what more we can help on. All the best, Colin.

You must accurately model what comes naturally!!! After you can buy the appropriate RTP models to put in the windows and doorways of properties when modelling Amsterdam's tramways.

The pretty one, Steve!!! K&ESR. I loved it when Harold took the DMU out and back for the first run of the day to Bodiam and we could chat through the open cab door. I was brought up being behind the driver of a tram and seeing the road and the vista ahead. I was in my element in the days of the Derby Lightweights and spent a fortnight one summer just sitting behind those huge windscreens and partition windows from Keswick out to and along the Cumbrian coast. For 11 years a friend of mine drove the Melbourne trams and he loved taking out an early morning car to return down to the city as the day was breaking. Colin.

Would anyone be interested in a 2-SL or 2-WIM EMU? I loved travelling on the 2-WIMs and helping the Beddington Lane signalman on Saturday mornings with the gates and exchanging the staffs. Years ago I started on a 2-WIM for "West Croydon" so to make a change to the Bachmann 2-EPB that I 'redressed' for the number 2. At the time a 3D print producer offered to take my plans and do a kit but pressure of my time then just 'kicked it into the rough' for sometime in the future. Colin.

Thanks, Steve, trust the nearby railway was a Colonel Stephens' one with permission!!! I am a member of your nearest one! Keep safe, Colin.

Steve, back on the PLA theme, Hardy Hobbies have a 3D print kit for a PLA Hudswell Clarke steamer to fit on an Electrotren outside cylinder 0-6-0T mech. Details, price and instructions on their website. Colin.

I take it that it is on a narrow flight path?????

Best history of the horse tramways of south London will be found in Ted Oakley's "London County Council Tramways - part 1" and ought to be available in south London reference libraries if you did not want to purchase. Part 2 gives the horse and steam companies in north London. Naturally the electric and cable cars are fully covered up to 1933 in both books.

Have you trawled through RMweb and Google on model traverser articles?

Steve, is your garden shed wholly corrugated? The sides look timber planked for staining with only the roof being corrugated sheeting for which you are good at 'rusting'. Colin.

Yes, Ray, you are quite right about why the RNR service 90 did not connect over at Canal Bridge. So that is why I used the vacant land nearby for my proposed depot to give a reason for existence of this line after WW1. Both services 88 and 90 ceased with the start of WW1, the horses being required for military service and the returns from the 'ha'penny bumper' did not warrant electrification. The LCC kept the Grove Road horse line in East London going until its electrification and extension in 1924 because of its importance of getting the dockers to the India & Millwall Docks; becoming service 77. Alas for services 88 and 90 not enough dockers used them to get to Surrey Commercial Docks - probably it was more comfortable to walk!!! Certainly services 68 and 70 were closer at hand to take them. Colin.

Don't worry about cheating with the mechs!!! John Howe of Kingsway Models has always used four wheel mechs under his LT bogie cars! He found that they could easy climb the ramp out of the Holborn end of his Kingsway Subway layout and has continued this with his latest layout - see his website for links to both his layouts. His KS ramp was too steep for my two mech bogie Feltham to climb which in reality they could!!! Secondhand tram kits are available on the KW Trams website. Agree about the Corgi diecasts but the OOC Felthams are 1:76th and the MET one is the best casting for correct detail. Now I do have a unique ex-LCC E/1 for you in wartime livery that is, after the ex-Croydon E/1s, the next easiest car you can make from the open fronted Tower E/1 so please contact me direct. Alas it did not survive the war. Colin.

Don't make it 1940!!! Trams were then still running in East London, some were to come south the following year, but the still open fronted ones went into store at Hampstead as the war reserve. By 1941 the first design of headlamp shield was being replaced by one that combined clear and red glass. In the process the electrical circuits were changed in every car and the front side and platform service number stencil holders were being removed for the war effort so that by 1942 a stencil holder was inserted in the bottom right hand corner of the lower saloon window next to the platform. Then of course you have white paint in appropriate places but the hardest aspect of wartime that I found to model was the anti-shatter mesh to the windows. I spent hours scoring window glazing for modelling a wartime service 2 E/1 to go in BEC Models shop at Tooting Bec when the second version of the E/1 white metal kit come out in the 1960s. Beware the Tower enclosed E/1 kit, it makes a perfect 2054 or one of its sister cars 2054-2061 and that is all! These 9 cars were nicknamed "Rockets" because of their acceleration and speed hence in going south in 1939 they inter-worked with Felthams. In 1940, 2054 was allocated to Streatham depot but the ex-Walthamstow E/1s were the first cars to be loaned to any other depot during the war. Hard to maintain they soon became the noisiest trams in London and crews preferred anything else but these! Prior to 1948 the legal lettering was black with LPTB in full and the trucks, life guards/trays, plough carrier and platform floor/step grey. The 'side' fleet number was carried on the toolbox under the stairs. When LTE came in the legal lettering was white and the grey parts became black. The 'side' fleet number now in white and carried on the waist panel by the platform. Again best to have photos! It is the Tower open fronted one that is best to modify to make a Croydon E/1 or change the upper deck end central window to suit the majority of E/1s. The 'metal' windscreen of the enclosed kit is unique to the second series Walthamstow E/1s, so best to scratch-build the windscreens to the LPTB wooden design. David Boyle made the same misreading of the Roche drawing as Frank Vescoe did with his first E/1 kit. The best E/1 kit is BEC-Kits No.12 (white metal and has the best weight factor) available secondhand although a recent change in ownership is causing me to review what changes are needed to permit construction in the manner that I originally wanted way back in the 60s/70s as in the change a perfect E/3 upper deck has become available as carried by some E/1s. The E/3s lower deck will have to be restructured to meet my standards before the whole E/3 kit can be considered for release. A series of books I do also recommend are Robert Harley's London tramways in the Middleton Press range. Robert's other London tramways books are very good but OK if you can spare the expense on books! Even on "West Croydon" where the first and second generation trams shared where appropriate the same Croydon tracks, LPTB and LTE liveried cars were scheduled together on the same service. Even open-top four wheeler 349 in LPTB livery returned from Bexleyheath to Thornton Heath to make up the number of cars available to work the 42s! It was this mix of pre and post WW2 that appealed to the public at exhibitions. Hope all this helps but to me I have always avoided modelling the war years. Colin.

Seriously, I think my "East Quay" 009 is o/t here but thanks for the thought. Colin.

"Lost Voices of the London Trams" is a book for which I could not give a good review, As usual with this author there are howlers and even the references to me and John Gent were not joined up for which the author could have given the full historical background to how Croydon Tramlink and the DLR came to see the light of day between 1949 and 1990. If my 1990 requirement for the San Francisco Auto Control be fitted on approach to Sandilands Junction from the tunnel had been put in then six people would not have died and some 50 would not have been injured. Despite all that has been done with signage since, the risk has not been removed. Whilst signage has also been put up at the Lloyd Park bend, it has not on the approach to the Addington Park bend. The risk is still high on the outbound tracks at both these bends as it still is on the inbound track at Sandilands Jnc.

Thanks, Ray, as you will see I have reacted and left the link to this thread. Colin.