Cwmtwrch

I have only seen one photo of a loco being turned with extenders involved [5325 at Minehead] and that was also under the tender. I think it's because of the axle loadings involved and where the centre of gravity of the lcoco + tender is; for a Manor the bogie carries 18T 10cwt, and the driving axles 17T 5cwt, 17T 1cwt and 16T 2cwt front to back, with the tender axles carrying 13T 10cwt, 13T 4cwt and 13T 6cwt front to back. Even on a bigger turntable the loco will probably be unbalanced, depending on where it is stopped. With the front end on extenders that CoG will be futher from the pivot than with the tender on them. There may also be issues with lifting wheels off the rails as the loco wb is longer.

They also had M5/M9, some of which were still being used by the engineers in the late 1950s for front line vehicle repair duties.

The Boplate B was rated at 30T, and Tatlow gives the total bought by the NER/LNER as 247, so they are from the 39201-450 batch. Curiously, the few 1950s photos I have show 32T on the wagons, even though it's still 30T in the 12/1958 listing,

Thanks for this, it's a photo I wasn't aware of, and, yes, it does appear to be a 1/241 with yellow spot ☹️. I'm trying to get a scan of it from ColourRail, but their website is being very uncooperative. I hate having to register on a site to buy anything. Hopefully I will eventually succeed and will be able to comment further idc.

Try and find out how they got your bank details; are they are they on your phone? [I'm not suggesting this is your fault, but if it happened without your agreement it could happen again, so you may need to take action asap on this]. You may need to get your phone checked for viruses. Check who your account shows as recipient of the money. If they are legitimate they may be willing to provide a refund. Anti-virus software is usually on subscription. Does the account show it as a Direct Debit or Standing Order or anything which might repeat? You may need to take action on this, again asap. AS Jason says, you should discuss with your bank, and I would add your phone company as well, to see if they can help establish what happened. You may be right that nothing can be done, but there may be solutions if the process used can be identified.

This is the minimum distance required to a semaphore signal's clearing point. Signalling rules required the signalman not to accept a train, even with the home signal at danger, unless there was no obstruction within, and no conflicting moves set up which might intrude within, the clearing point, and then not to permit any such obstruction until the train has arrived and stopped. Multiple homes under his control could allow a signalman to accept a train up to the last one whose clearing point was clear, allowing for possible obstructions or other moves beyond the next signal.

Distants on the same post as a home were always slotted to keep them 'on' when the home was 'on' and diagrams seemed to ignore this as there was no other permitted option. The symbol for the one under 15 is of a distant for the next box slotted by the box beyond that as an outer distant I think, but I don't know about GC practice, Just curiosity; it's of no significance in this context.

I think that all 1/241 were probably narrow planked; they were built in 1951 and were photographically rather elusive, so I can't be sure. They also had LNER 8-shoe VB. The first lot of 1/242 is a bit of a mystery to me. The top two photographs in https://erickemp.smugmug.com/BR-8Ton-and-12T-Banana-Vans show vans from the first lot, one all narrow plank, one a mixture. Given the late date of the photos, my guess is that the mixed one is the result of repairs, rather than the way it was built, but I don't know, hence my uncertainty about the one in the Geest photo. The likely date makes me think 1/242, though. I agree with your comment about the Ratio kit. I think that this is likely, and is why I think that 1/241 were probably all narrow plank. There was a shortage of decent timber during WW2, so they may still have been using up old stockpiled material. Those converted were SR 1478 and 1479, LNER 140, and BR 1/242. All had 10ft wb steel underframe and were XP rated. So far as I know all surviving vehicles of these designs were converted, but no 9ft wb were, so this was definitely a factor. No idea, I'm afraid. Just to add to the complexity I have seen a 1960s photo of a B or BD container with a banana importers label on it, but I'm not sure where now.

Sorry, I missed this bit earlier. The maximum load for a 16ft container was 4 tons, and its Tare [empty weight] was less than 2 tons, so under 6 tons fully laden. They commonly travelled on single axle 16ft to 20ft semi-trailers, although suitable four-wheel flatbeds were also used. Tractor units could be four-wheeled or the 6T capacity versions of the Scammell Mechanical Horse or Scarab.

It is; the narrow planks suggest it's a 1/241 or a first lot 1/242. The short hinges make me think it's a converted ex-LNER D140. Another 1/246. More likely, I believe, to be for traffic to the Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, or Channel Islands.

Not to mention all the different colours...

16 ft over the body [excluding fenders] was the standard size agreed between the four grouped companies in the mid-1930s for B/BC/BD/BK containers, which was continued by BR. Earlier containers had been more variable in size and generally smaller. Containers with corrugated ends, however, were an innovation by BR, produced from 1949; they would normally only be seen on road vehicles owned by BR. The Bachmann ones are BR type BD, and have some flaws, including the "gaps" between planks [the prototypes looked almost flush sided at any distance] but there aren't a lot of other options available. As Philj W says, the Merit one is undersized for 1/76.

Both are Machynlleth, I believe. 3201 was allocated there from before 8/1950 to 7/1955 and 1465 from before 8/1950 to 10/1956. I think the wagon is probably not the same one, or it has moved between the shots. With 3201 it appears to be loaded above the level of the sides, but nothing can be seen in it in the other one, where it also appears to have the door on the far side dropped, which would imply it's empty.

Page 241 of LNER Wagons 4B gives details of the four altered for train ferry use; the alterations were the fitting of a Westinghouse through pipe and the addition continental lettering [i.e. capacity and so on]. It also states that they were not allowed beyond Zeebrugge. Page 242 gives a clearer version of the drawing of 139643 than that in http://www.railalbum.co.uk/railway-wagons/military/ww1-war-department-poll-wagons-1.htm, which I presume you are already aware of, although some of the text has been cropped. Page 257 shows photographs of 139659 as a Flat S at Farnborough, carrying two different loads of small tanks; the date is described as "during WW2" [if so it's very early in WW2].

Curiously, there are also two police forces, the Metropolitan and the City of London.

Use of power brakes on bogie flats/bolsters/etc. was not usual in Britain at that time, and comparable wagons, such as the [also ex-WD] NER/LNER Boplate B were not so fitted, although they also had what I assume to be lashing rings, two each side. Air brake equipment or through pipes may be a possibility, I don't know, but would presumably have been removed on repatriation. Flat ES is the BR code for what the LNER called Flat S. The same diagram page [50] is also shown for the Flat EU in BR booklet BR87209 of 31/12/49. Not impossible, as they would have been over 40 years old, and BR would have had a lot of more modern bogie Bolsters, Borails and Flats by then. It is also possible that they were still in existence in 9/1959 but in sidings awaiting scrapping. The contemporary Boplate B still appears in BR 87209 of December 1958, as do the Flat ES and Flat EU, but also seems to have become extinct about the same time.

The LNER and LMS used multiple small semaphore arms stacked on a normal post in certain circumstances.

One of the Rapido options has a DW prefixed number, but the body seems to be the same colour as the GW versions. I would also have expected black, but this could be another example of lettering being updated before the colour changed. The colour changed to light grey quite early in the 1950s, as I understand it, and the large "LOCO" changed to a small version above the capacity as Rapido show. Loco coal wagons were presumably built because, before nationalisation, most coal travelled in PO wagons which the grouped railways didn't own and couldn't use without paying the owner, and separately identified because, not being revenue earners, they were treated differently by the accountants. It seems that early in the 1950s it was decided that, now BR owned everything, there was no need to identify them separately and any coal wagon could be used for any load irrespective of the end user of the contents. They also seem to have eventually lost their "LOCO" branding. Thereafter photos of coal stages commonly show anything but loco coal wagons. In "Western Steam in Colour", p7, there is photo of Kingsbridge taken in 1961, which shows a somewhat rusty N30 full of loco ash and cinders; it is in grey, with the small "LOCO" above the load. It also shows five 13T traffic opens full of coal, two unfitted, three VB. These could be domestic coal rather than loco coal, but there is no indication of domestic coal traffic where they are parked, and one is between the N30 and the buffer stop.

A "Limit of shunt", however marked, is the furthest point a shunt is allowed to reach; it is not a point all shunts have to reach. If the shunt only has a small number of wagons, then its driver will stop once it is all clear of the points concerned, without reference to the LoS, and can then reverse when the road is set for the next move and any relevant signal is cleared.

This firm was set up in 1927, and was still in existence in 1938 with a depot in Liverpool. It seems to have been a fairly small scale operation and may not have survived WW2, at least under that name; I am not aware of any post-war reference to it. Tourret states that aluminium with a red line around the tank was agreed [as an alternative to stone, not as a replacement for it] in March 1939, just before WW2. However, the timing is such that it is probable that only a very small number of tank wagons, if any, were so painted before the war. It would have disappeared during the war as a result of tanks being painted grey to minimise visibility, and would not have reappeared, as the post-war class A livery was silver/aluminium tanks, with red solebars but no red line on the tank. It seems that Hornby probably got the base colour wrong and it should have been stone.

These appear to be intended to represent wagons from 1948-9, painted in GWR grey [as BR did not announce their liveries until 1949], but with BR lettering. This would gone out of use once BR decided on pale grey. However, it would have been some years before such wagons were repainted or withdrawn, and there is limited evidence of non-GWR wagons appearing in a dark grey without black patches in the same era, possibly because of paint shortages.

They are on the Rapido website - £32.95 each, in a variety of liveries.

Racing pigeons were always passenger rated traffic, with a quick transit required, hence the assorted full brakes, although other passenger vans were used as well.

Which shows a tank wagon with a wooden underframe. WW2 period class A tanks carried either higher octane aviation fuel or motor vehicle "Pool" petrol. Pre-war livery was stone with a red band around the tank, and immediately pre-war tanks in silver with a red band were agreed. Both being too easy to identify from the air, the tank colour was changed to plain grey fairly early in the war, with a red solebar. The tanks carried the wagon number, with a two letter prefix showing the owner: AA - Anglo American, (Esso), AM - Air Ministry, BP, SM - Shell Mex, plus the usual "No naked light, etc." wording.

I don't disagree, but the S15s and H15s, like the N15s, built on the work of another now largely overlooked CME, Robert Urie, who had already put in a significant amount of effort to sort out the consequences of Dugald Drummond's inability to design a useful 4-6-0, and also to update DD's smaller locos during a period when the LSWR wasn't really in a position to scrap and replace.