Tom Burnham

I've just had a quick look at T B Peacock's "Great Western London Suburban Services" which doesn't mention 56-foot carriages. It does say "New rolling-stock for the City service was introduced on 12th December 1921. It comprised six sets of six steel-pannelled bogie coaches each 48 feet long, with fire-proof doors. Each train seated 100 First and 320 Third Class passengers. The new coaches embodied the latest in electric lighting." It also mentions that the GWR provided the stock for the Middle Circle service (Faringdon to Mansion House via theHammersmith & City and Kensington Addison Road), but doesn't give details.

SER stock was generally built to Hastings line loading gauge. There were more stringent restrictions on the Canterbury and Whitstable line with Tyler Hill tunnel and special stock was allocated for that service. In terms of the GWR carriages, I wonder if the shorter ones might have been intended for the through workings East of Paddington over the Metropolitan Widened Lines? Length restrictions persisted there until electrification and Thameslinkisation.

He was born in 1909 so his observations of pre WW1 railways weren't as extensive as you might imagine from his writing.

As I recall in the late 60s the Ashford line semi-fasts had an Orpington stop but the Hastings diesels were non-stop from Waterloo East to Sevenoaks. Presumably as the diesels had slower acceleration on the climb to Knockholt.

The detective novel "Death of a Train " by Freeman Wills Croft is set in WW2 and starts with the planning involved in a special train of radio valves for shipment from Plymouth.

Arthur Burr was the financier behind the Kent Coalfield, and the financial structure was of Byzantine complexity, with various holding companies, intra-group shareholdings and such like. The EKLR was created by the associated companies as part of the projected industrial development of East Kent, which - fortunately in many ways - never came up to the promoters' hopes. After the Burr empire unravelled in the early 1920s, the EKLR became essentially independent, although the Southern Railway came to have a sizable holding. The SE&CR/Southern and the Stephens light railways attempted to use Kent coal at various times but I believe it was never very satisfactory for loco use.

All good points. And I think a long drawn out war of attrition wasn't expected by anyone, including Germany.

I recall reading in the official history of inland transport that other factors in the wagon shortage were that coal traffic from the North East to London and SE England had to be switched from coastal shipping to rail, and merchant ships were directed from East Coast to West Coast ports, increasing the average length of rail haulage. The official history is actually rather critical of the railway companies as (apart from carrying out air raid precautions) they expected that they would be able to use their pre-War surplus capacity to handle increased wartime traffic so wouldn't need additional facilities.

Having been used originally by Joseph Firbank, the contractor for the Lewes & East Grinstead Railway, hence the name (after the tunnel still used by the present Bluebell Railway near West Hoathly).

We had a holiday cottage in Heddon on the Wall in 2001 which actually had the Wall (or the foundations at least) running through the back garden. It was an interesting week or so as the foot and mouth outbreak was still going on, and we frequently had the wheels of our car sprayed with disinfectant.

I see there's a milk machine outside the Express restaurant. Used to be one like that outside the Express Dairy at The Oval, Sidcup, circa 1960. But I digress...

Trying to remember the Express Dairy arrangements in Eltham without success. In Sidcup our milk was delivered by Express Dairy electric milk floats, presumably from Eltham (3 miles). United Dairies (orange milk floats) had a depot on the A20 Eltham bypass. I have a vague recollection of the Express siding at Mottingham - the set of 6 sidings on the down side, London end were more apparent.

It's good to hear that the company's enterprise in providing increased facilities for passengers to and from the west has been rewarded by an increase in traffic. And traffic of a good class as well !

Photo at Chesterfield circa 1910, including the back of a Midland goods train (and a LD&ECR passenger at the top level, but who's counting?).

Nothing new - one of the perennial complaints of farmers in the late 19th and early 20th century was that wheat grown in Canada (say) could be railed to a port, shipped across the Atlantic and sent on by rail to a mill in England for less than it cost to send it 50 or 100 miles to the mill from a farm in England.

This is the entry for the SE&CR 1910 Appendix. Mentions the cabin and signals - It's listed (as Murston (Smeed Dean) - controlled by Sykes key from Sittingbourne "B" - in the 1922 Appendix, but don't seem to be any special instructions.

As here -

I'll see if there's anything relevant on the SECSoc website (later). The key of the gate across the siding was kept at the GF, so I guess a hut would have provided somewhere to hang it in the dry!

Indeed there was. Incidentally the buckeye couplers used within that one batch of suburban units were US MCB couplers rather than the Laycock take on the buckeye coupler used with Pullman gangways (or the buffing plates shaped like the lower part of a Pullman gangway faceplate). I'll have to look out old photos to see if EPB units had retractable side buffers as on Mark 1 loco hauled corridor carriages.

All EPB units (SR and BR design) had buckeye couplers and buffing plates at the end of units - so could be coupled to any other EPB/HAP/*EP unit, at least mechanically. 4-SUB units still had screw couplers between units.

If anyone happens to be at Kew, there's this reference from 1907 in the National Archives catalogue that may or may not be relevant: South Eastern & Chatham Railway: Murston. Top File No: R13720 Reference: MT 6/1651/2 Description: South Eastern & Chatham Railway: Murston. Top File No: R13720 Date:1907 Held by:The National Archives, Kew Former reference in its original department:Top File No R13720 Legal status:Public Record(s) Closure status:Open Document, Open Description (The MT6 files are mostly inspecting officers' reports on new or altered signalling and other works.)

As a matter of interest, Murston Siding was still listed in the 1960 BR(S) SED Appendix. Similar entry, but the line had been resignalled in Phase 1 of the Kent Coast electrification: "The points are operated from a ground frame controlled from Sittingbourne signal box and the working is in accordance with electrical release lever control arrangements."

The Southern Railway 1934 Appendix lists it as: "Murston (Portland Cement Manufacturers) Down side between Sittingbourne and Teynham [Gradient at point of connection] Level {Catch points provided in sidings, at] 45 yards from main line {Points of siding worked by or controlled from] Ground frame. Sykes' key from Sittingbourne "B" box [If gates provided across siding Key to be obtained from/Returned to] Ground frame [Worked by] Various goods services" There's a special working instruction under Sittingbourne: "Murston siding. - The siding is constructed on a gradient of 1 in 56 falling away from the running line, and the utmost care must be exercised in carrying out shunting operations, loose shunting of wagons into the siding being strictly prohibited. "Guards must, whenever practicable, shunt the rear portion of the train clear of the main line before commencing shunting operations." Smeed Dean became part of the APCM combine in the 1920s. When I worked for APCM/Blue Circle in the 1970s and 1980s they still had a brickworks at Sittingbourne making "SD Stocks". The previous comment about restrictions on coastal trade during WW1 sounds right - when I was researching the industrial connections off the North Kent line many years ago (for Roger Kidner's Oakwood Press history) many of the sidings were created during WW1 for the benefit of industries that would have relied on sailing barges or coastal shipping. Hope this is useful.

Excellent traction engine sounds! The bus stops look like the late lamented London Transport Country Area, by the way.

I was always quite emotional when reading "Duke the Lost Engine" aloud...