Jim Martin

Wavy Line takes me back! I grew up in High Wycombe and there was one in the shopping arcade near my school (Brindley Avenue shops, for those as know Wycombe). Long gone now, of course, as has the school itself. Jim

David If you're interested in the 1930s, you could have a look at The Great Central in LNER Days and The Great Central in LNER Days 2 by Jackson & Russell. They're collections of essays, rather than a continuous narrative, and neither of them is explicitly about the GC&GW line; but both contain relevant content. I'd say that the first book would be more useful to you, particularly the section on passenger workings. The second book has an intriguing article on milk trains, but unfortunately the main takeaway seems to be that almost all milk trains used the Met&GC route. Jim

2 is HMS Hermes 3 is a Hawkins-class cruiser, Frobisher or Hawkins. The other ship in the class, Effingham, was extensively rebuilt starting in 1937, so I guess it could possibly be her, depending on the exact date. Jim

The train service evidently outlasted the lake steamers. In 1955 there was a twice-weekly out and back mixed train starting at Revelstoke: Jim

Grahame Hedges is building an N gauge model of London Bridge and has produced a representation of the footbridge by resin casting the repeated panels. His main thread is here: I'm not sure how much coverage the footbridge gets in the thread, although Grahame wrote quite extensively about it in the NGS Journal. Jim

He probably would have been, but I don't recall. He'd probably have been more chuffed to have been played by Michael Nouri, who you still see on TV today and who still has a fine head of hair, which my dad did not.

My mother was a fairly successful novelist in the 1970s. One of her books was adapted into an American TV movie called "Between Two Women" (my mum always sold well in the USA). The book, for anyone familiar with our family, was a closely autobiographical story of my mum's fraught relationship with her mother-in-law, my grandmother. In the film: The setting moved from the Home Counties to Malibu; My dad switched from being a computer programmer to a sculptor; My grandma switched from being the widow of a mid-ranking civil servant to the widow of a billionaire; and my mum switched from being my mum to being Farrah Fawcett.

I don't think that's the case. The GCR was able to raise huge amounts of capital for the construction of Immingham Dock and the associated lines. Jim

Is that linked to the tremendous amount of arcing you can see in the film? Jim

Aren't the vans just VGAs? Most ferry vans have truss underframes and handwheel brakes. The ones in the film have fishbelly underframes and look to have a stubby little handbrake lever near the middle of the wagon. To me, that says VGA, as does the architecture of the wagon end immediately below the edge of the central portion of the roof. VGAs were standard BR types (the last BR covered vans, based on continental designs) and are available RTR in OO and N. Jim

Steve Banks has a photo (one that I think has been published elsewhere) on his website: https://www.steve-banks.org/gcr/344-gcr-carriages-matchboard. Might be worth looking around the site, there might be some more. Jim

I just put in for the kickstarter. I had to wait until the last minute because it clashed with a "round number" birthday for my wife, so there was some competition for my disposable income! Jim

Exciting news! The only problem with the arrival of more high quality container wagons is that they're going to highlight the relative naffness of the Dapol FEA

Thanks for posting this. Concrete-sleepered FB points are something I've been waiting for. Jim

Thanks very much. That's exactly what I needed to know. Jim

I know next to nothing about the GWR (despite growing up on the route of the GW&GC joint line: I was more drawn to the GCR side of things), but I was looking for examples of straight-sided, matchboarded stock recently and came across this drawing of auto-trailers 99-104 (converted from steam railmotors). Please could anyone give me some information about where these coaches were used and how long they remained in use? Thanks Jim

Didn't the Robinson 4-4-2Ts handle these services before the arrival of the 4-6-2Ts? Certainly they were allocated to Neasden when new. Jim

Well, well. I'd wondered what had happened to them. If you were stopped waiting for a platform at York coming down from Newcastle, you were right next to them and there were small trees growing up through the framework of the wagons and everything! Jim

Surely a carriage is whatever class the railway company says it is? They could fit out a mark 3 with half a dozen chaises longues and tables with bowls full of fresh fruit, and if they choose to call that a Standard Open, that's what it is.

FYI, if you're searching online for this WTT, the one you need for passenger and parcels services is "Section PC", which covers pretty much everywhere south-west of Bristol. Jim

Working timetables can be had, although getting the exact ones you want can be difficult. I wanted to research services on the WCML between Warrington and Preston in 2006, for pretty much the same reasons you do, and I've been able to pick up a 2007 passenger WTT, a copy of the 2006 network timetable (the huge book: 2006 was the last year it was published in this form, I think) and just recently an Autumn 2006 edition of Freight master. All these came from eBay, but I've also used https://britishrailwaybooks.co.uk/wtt/railtrack/railtrackindex.php in the past. Jim

My copy arrived this morning. Looks like an interesting mix of content (not that I've read any of it yet). I've been a fan of Grahame's stewardship of the Journal and I'm sorry to see him leave, although I appreciate that he's had a lot going on. Thanks, Grahame! Jim

While I share your revulsion about what's happened, I wouldn't dismiss the school's own needs quite so lightly. As has been pointed out above, students - my daughter among them - are sitting A-levels at the moment (I'm not sure whether GCSE exams have started yet). They need disruption right now like they need a hole in the head. If that space is used as an examination hall, then the kids whose exams are disrupted because of the unavailability of the room are additional victims of this appalling bit of destruction. Jim

The "good" news is that a copy of Volume 1 has come up on eBay. I regret not buying the copy that sold about a year ago (a "buy it now" at about £36, as I recall) but I think I'll be passing on this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LNER-Passenger-Trains-and-Formations-1923-67-by-Clive-S-Carter-Steve-Banks/133047311640?epid=138535792&hash=item1efa3cdd18:m:mGgg2mjSPpy49HRwKSiYidA&redirect=mobile Jim

That's a great photograph. Is it from "Britain From Above"? Jim