LBRJ

I have a vague memory that as a rule you need 2.3 people to cover each job. Though that is with the shorter modern working week, Hidden regulations etc.

The top picture here looks rather like it is re-gauged former broad gauge track.

Most of those in the middle row in the staff photo look like they are footplate men, shunters or guards to me. Add in the station master, a few ticket clerks, goods clerks, station porters and goods porters, signalmen and maybe some gangers and you would soon be up to 30 odd people.

I never had a copy of the April 83 issue, which could well be because there was no article on Bringewood to get me to part with some spending money... I know the series was left unfinished when the new editor (Ken Jones?) took over from CJF though.

To paraphrase twenty odd year old conversations with the man himself, many of Iain's designs should be considered as being " Ideas and plans, not blueprints", so easing some of the tighter curves and the switches and crossing on the points would maybe not be the worst idea ever.

If those concrete blocks are not meant for the foundations for some sort of decked seating area, then they should be!

The copy I drew at the top of the thread is pretty close to what Iain created in the initial article, its not exact, but how close would one want? ;)

On the matter of "early Christmas advertising" the pub down the road from me start to advertise Christmas Dinner from early September. People laugh and say "Bit early arn't you? Can I still get a booking (haha)?" Only to find out that Dinner on the actual 25th is generally sold out before October 1st....

I don't think the overall plan looks to have lost much in having the curves eased, but I do wonder about the look of the goods yard area.... Surely A5 is acceptable for the sidings on a light railway?

I was thinking it could be the supply for the station lamps. is that not a classic GWR corrugated iron lamp hut ?

Is that a small milk churn or is it possibly a paraffin can?

Not since I mentioned it earlier today no.... touches wood.

I too have noticed this happen once or thrice this afternoon.

Sullivans Diner takes me back... Used to just about have time to get a sausage butty before departing on the Up Portsmouth!

Or just to balance workings. Two 50s on the Up from Penzance wasn't uncommon.

That is the one, the earlier pre-swoosh livery was more squared off, looked even worse than the swoosh one... If they ever do one in the Devon & Cornwall livery I reckon I would have to get one of those just for old times sake, I already have them in 4mm and N scale so why not complete the set? ;)

It was originally built as standard OO but with SMP track etc as a more finescale "first attempt" type of project. I think Iain used it as a test bed in later experiments with new track standards.

The track plan was rather like Butley Mills, but bigger overall... This is fairly accurate*, at least in the major dimensions if not spot on 😉 *for a ten minute sketch on Anyrail, anyway....

I believe that the series may have got the chop when MR turned into Your Model Railway, it was regarded as being a bit above the new required standard. The first instalment was in the Feb 83 edition of Model Railways (which I regard as still possibly the best single issue of a magazine ever!!) My dad was even half keen to read about the railway that was being superimposed on the village his mother was born in!

I assume the pictures are enlargements from a fairly well known ECC archive picture of Nanpean? If so the wagon is definitely one belonging to Candy and Co, used for terracotta bricks. Whether it is there delivering tiles for laying a linhay floor or similar, or carrying something else altogether is the question... The GW wagons are just coal for the driers.

Adjacant to where the mail sacks are, at the front of a picture, looks like a veiled reference to Bedknobs & Broomsticks ;)

It used to get brought down in the late evening from Laira by a class 08, and then waited time in platform 8. I know the above, 'cos I have seen it often, the next bit is just assumption, me normally having gone back homeward in a taxi by the time the up sleeper arrived at Plymouth. The Sleeper pulled into platform 7 and the 08 shunted the coach out of the west end of the station and onto the rear of the train..

If it has been, it must be fairly recent an addition. The signal box is listed though.

This is very true. I recall using one of them in lieu of the more usual 158 on a Transpennine service from Piccadilly at the afternoon rush hour (booked to stop at Chinley and such places). That really did raise a few eyebrows; but as was pointed out there were other trains available later.....

Despite their many shortcomings I quite liked the Pacers, with the class 142 variety being marginally less crap than the 143/144 version. I have probably been on every single one of the 142s at some point and most of the 144s; three years service with 142 Squadron - Sheffield Midland gave me enough idea of what they were like. None of those short half hour commutes for me, I was on them all day every day (or so it seemed!) I have even been in one at quite a way over 80mph, it was hung onto the back of a 158 at the time - trust me they really do bounce about a bit at that speed! Used as intended they were certainly better than the alternative option, unless you liked to walk places or stand around at bus stops waiting to see what may happen....