Pteremy

In my experience these tank liveries (like other PO liveries) are usually based on a photograph - and sure enough 5049 appears in this livery in plate 544 of Tourret's Petroleum Rail Tank Wagons of Britain, described as 'possibly ex Air Ministry'. Whilst the livery on the model is not freelance the wording is much too large and the BP badges are not in quite the right position. The model is a hybrid - or generic if you prefer (as are Bachmann's) - used as the basis for both Class A and Class B vehicles. 5049 was saddle mounted whereas the model has a cradle; I also doubt that the tank diameter is correct (which may contribute to the lettering/badge issues). None of this will stop you making a decent 'representation' of a tank wagon. I am hoping that Accurascale might turn their attention 'Air Ministry' tank wagons at some point, as it is a major gap in the RTR market.

The Accurascale announcements today are no use to me - as a modeller interested in the Western region, 1958-66. But they do suggest that maybe a new business model is emerging in which knowledgeable 'enthusiasts' drive the products produced, to a high degree of accuracy. So I wish that a similar enterprise focused on GWR/WR would emerge. One that would systematically address the interests (and 'wishlists') of GWR/WR modellers. And of course the same business model could apply to any field of interest - LMS/NE/Scotland - the only limitation being the likely market.

My starting point would be eBay - but there are also retailers with stocks of the more recent numbers - Titfield Thunderbolt bookshop for example (from a quick google)

Worth noting that the scalefour link contains a helpful reminder that there are articles on post and wire fencing in #13 and 56 of GWJ.

I think that the theory behind the base layer is that it corresponds to the main growing (often clump) part of the grass as opposed to the taller flower/seed spikes. The colour contrast will vary throughout the year. So in June/July as the the taller seed spikes develop, they will change from unripe green, often developing a purple tinge as they ripen, through to golden when fully ripe. By Autumn (which I think is what you want) the contrast is 'living green' and the yellow/straw of the taller by now dead seed heads.

Just noticed - by chance - that there is a job lot of Lego on eBay at £18,000.......... Certainly looks like a method worth trying.

I thought it was a good read as well - useful scenic tips which could be used on any size layout.

A slight tangent, but could the 57ft underframe be used for the 57ft Flat Ended coaches that followed not long after?

Removeable loads - is that magnetic?

What in 1978 will surprise us? Go on, tell us! BTW have you given any further thought as to where the research you have done will reside - I think you posed that question near the beginning of this thread? It definitely deserves something, sweeping up other folks contributions. A publication 'special' of some sort or other. Otherwise it may just get lost in the fog of online material.

What a lot of steam! There is a fortune to be made if someone could successfully scale that!

Yes - and for taking on complicated prototypes at a reasonable price. Which makes you wonder why they can do it but Bachmann can't?

According to 'Harris' Diags D98 and E131 were 58ft 2ins long - does that equate to '57ft' without the Bow end being taken into account?

Looks good - have you seen the article on rusting mineral wagons in MRJ 267?

I don't know if anything can be done about this but my bookmark for the David Geen website now takes me to a site selling shoes. It still purports to be 'David Geen', so I suspect that it is a scam.

I don't think that WTTs were always 100% accurate? Some of the verbal information (i.e. not the timings) clearly remained 'in print' long after it was relevant - maybe it was just 'left' because in practice no one thought it worthy of a formal change/correction? Back to Toads the list I was thinking of was probably the one in MRJ 18 (p288), which has numbers as well as home locations. But it dates from 1940 and is based on observations (at three specific localities). These are clearly included in the gwr.org list (the '1940' entries), which is far more comprehensive. There is a list of the restricted wartime allocation in 'GWR Goods Train Working' Vol 1, p122, but this just shows how the 129 vans which retained a branding were allocated, that is the number of branded vans for a location, without specifying the actual vehicles allocated themselves. But what we don't seem to have is an accurate list for post war allocations. The relatively recent 'Acquired Wagons of British Rail (Vol 1)' provides a record of the wagons that were still in use in BR days, but unfortunately no allocations. (Some nice pictures of branded vehicles though.)

I am sure that I have seen a list somewhere. But this is a slippery slope. Photographers tended to focus on locos, so there is good contemporaneous evidence to back up 'paper' records of loco allocations. With coaches you can often see enough to identify the specific Diagram, but far less often the actual vehicles concerned. Similarly for freight stock. You have to draw a line somewhere, and if the number is wrong, who, frankly is going to know?

There is a clear difference in the greys (on screen anyway). So which grey is more accurate? Or are they both correct, for different periods?

Yes. And I noted that the Model Rail obituary article for Allan Downes identified one of his 7 rules for success as 'ensure consistency across the entire layout' (or words to that effect).

I wonder if some trick painting - trompe l'oeil pockets - would work, for normal viewing anyway??

Much though I enjoy the Rathbone films so far as story telling is concerned the definitive Sherlock Holmes is the radio version, with Clive Merrison & Michael Williams.

Have yet to watch programme but even the positive reviews suggest that, in terms of the way it has been adapted, you have to suspend disbelief given the wholesale deviations from the original story. And the same would seem to apply to the railway content.

The same thing happened on the Exe Valley - a general shortage of auto trailers (partly as a result of withdrawal of the most elderly ones) meant that from 1958 ex main line corridor stock was used instead/as well - auto trailers didn't disappear completely, but for a while were in the the minority. Then as more modern auto trailers became available (as other lines were closed or turned over to DMUs) their use increased from 1960 onwards until by the winter 1962 timetable services were predominantly auto trailers again.

For completeness, a few more comments on Hymek window surround colour. In ‘Heyday of the Hydraulics’ Hugh Dady describes the original window surrounds (p39) as ‘…pale grey (looking almost white)’ and when applied to the later corporate blue livery as ‘off-white’. There is a similar contemporaneous description in the March 1962 ‘Modern Railways’: in the article ‘Design in 1961 – a Retrospect’, Brian Haresnape describes the colour (p192) as ‘greyish-white’. And in the context of the use with corporate blue a short note in the February 1967 ‘Modern Railways’ (p107) describes the colour as ‘rail grey’. (Perhaps I should also mention that the Wikipedia entry for Hymeks describes the colour as ‘Ivory white’ (which would be white with a hint of yellow), but it is not clear what the primary source for this is.) The most convincing photograph that I have found is on p12 of ‘Heyday of the Hymeks’. This is taken inside Cardiff Canton in May 1962, and the surrounds are clearly ‘greyer’ than the white of the overhead warning stickers. Using that comparison as a guide it is possible to see a colour contrast - to some degree or other - in other photographs. But given the variation in other colour tones in the pictures, different lighting conditions, and different degrees of weathering, I would be reluctant to attribute a specific colour tint to it. Unfortunately under normal viewing conditions and distances there are just as many photographs where the contrast is very subtle or non-existent. This includes early ex-works and publicity photographs, where the combination fresh gloss paint and strong lighting appears to produce a photographic ‘white out’. So it seems to me that the true colour must have been very difficult to capture. And as a result I have every sympathy with those authors/caption writers who, perhaps without the benefit of Chris and Stationmasters first hand experience, have emphasised different shades of ‘whiteness’ – rather than a specific colour tint. I note that the original design advice by Wilkes and Ashmore is in the national archives, so perhaps that contains a formal colour specification.

Yes, books have their uses too! On a different point, anyone interested in formal Diagrams should note that the ones in this book are tiny, less than the width of the half page columns containing the lists. I like the fact that they are included as they should help with recognition in a photo. But I don't think that they are going to be the basis for detailed modelling purposes on their own.