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Please forgive the haste, but readers might also be interested in: https://museum.maidstone.gov.uk/our-museums/carriage-museum/ I will try and dig out some photographs I took there years ago. Well worth a visit and support, if rather under-lit.

That was it. Many thanks for jogging my memory. Incidentally, there was an issue of 'Traction' featuring 73-hauled Boat trains, I think, a few years ago, without wishing to reopen the '71 vs 73 debate'. I did not read it, but I think the issue description said something like the photographer had 'gone in search of them' (73-hauled trains, that is).

Knew I had the photostat somewhere: India Mail Murray 1891.pdf Sorry, do not know how to get P.D.F. files to 'display' in a post. Strangely, it does not name the train as the 'India Mail'.

Relating to this topic, one should mention the Fridays-only 'India Mail' (I am not sure which ports were used for England/France) that ran from London to Brindisi, for connections to Bombay/Mumbai. From my beloved Newhaven Marine, there was a sleeper service to meet the ferry that ran to Scotland. Cited on RMWeb in other posts, I regret I can not remember the details of this either. Perhaps someone can fill in the details. Sorry if too O.T.

I have seen a couple of photographs of this working - one in the Middleton Press book, I think - that show 73's. Perhaps they ousted the 71's?

Thanks to @peach james and @brossard for your suggestions. When I did my first sample trial of brick-work painting, I got better results doing the mortar colour first, and then applying the main brick colour gently with a sponge, with three or four diagonal 'passes' (and then individual bricks and patches in slight tonal variations). Interesting that Iain Rice does it the other way (bricks first, then, I assume, wiping off the mortar as a final coat). My father reported better results this way round as well. I will read the Gill Head thread with interest. Thank you both for giving this post your consideration, and the advice/hints. Best wishes to you.

It is funny that the demography of France - low population density - acts against wagon-load/'Speedlink'-style freight, I think, yet Britain's opposite also killed it off with it helping road haulage more. I admit I do not quite understand the arguments, but am perplexed by this paradox. As for not having an hourly shuttle, I feel this is the minimum to make a service attractive and what the usually-car-driving passenger will expect, and the article says there will be no buffet facilities on board. Mon Dieu! I just hope the French traveller follows my example, and packs a large and weighty feast when spending lunch-time on a train journey. This is making me thirst for a glass of Cotes du Rhone...

Sounds too good to be true, especially about returning freight, but I wish it well. Let us hope the French traveller is more of an 'aesthete' than the British.

Plate 2 looks pretty good to me! Nice composition, and a beautiful blue sky. 'Glare' but not 'flare' on the loco side, and the colours and front still discernable. Lovely; wish I had been there. Splendid work.

As one who mourns the repeated losses of old goods yards, I wonder if there is a document by Network Rail specifying what, and how many, of these whizzy new terminals will be planned. Sorry to drift this off-topic, but if anyone knows, I would be grateful. Many thanks.

Please do not forget Dr Shannon's later 'Speedlink' (2014) and Rhodes and Shannon's 'Freight only' series (3 v.). There is also 'Rail Freight Today' (Rogers and Anthony, 1989). Hope these might give some background to the changeover.

Thanks as always for everyone's comments. You will have guessed this is another technology that makes me envious at being born ten years too late. Was there use of any teleprinters with the two-colour ribbons (red for incoming (RX) messages and black for out-going (TX))? How did one tell which was which with one colour?

Any reminiscences of telex machines and teleprinters greatly appreciated! I managed to operate one only once (and that a modern dot-matrix 'Cheetah'), before they were replaced by 'fax' machines. Telexes have always seemed so romantic a method of communication to me (if very noisy, I am told).

Perhaps one style of base-board to use would be that of an '8' or an 'O', the hole(s) being where one could stick one's head through, with the scenery, etc., orientated around the vantage point. You could also model, as the edge of the viewing side, the internal wall of a building (preferably one with many large doors for loading to look through) to simulate your 'standing' on the loading dock and looking across a fan of sidings, platforms, etc. I considered briefly having a loading dock for parcels right on the nearest edge of my layout, with part of a canopy above, but rejected it because one would have to look through a 'comb' of pillars every 40mm. (for 10' spacing) over the rest of the layout, which would spoil any photographs. However, this would give one an increased sense of being 'in' the layout, I think.

May I just add something else to the discussion (and apologies in advance for drifting further off topic) - electric vehicles I believe are rather heavier than internal-combustion, so will damage roads more, requiring more repairs. I also mention again the fact that the energy they consume still will have to be paid for (in every sense of the term); I do not think E.V.s are going to be the 'white knight' motorists think. Again, it will require a change of personal paradigm to want to catch that train/'bus/ride a bike, etc.

Please forgive me if I have misunderstood you, but I think this illustrates the points (if I understand correctly) made by some previous posters - (1) It does not have to be like this, because (2) If people change their mind-set, they could vote for a decent public transport network and wish to pay for it. I am old enough to remember Southdown's rather good rural 'bus service, which was destroyed by the Tory Government's 1985 Transport Act. Alternatives are available. There are economic systems (and transport policies) possible other than 'market forces'.

Mea culpa ; you are quite correct. Thanks for giving me a kick out of my own 'era/setting'. I was thinking of late-B.R. wagon-load yards being shunted 'off the running line'.

Please may I just add a point I forgot in my previous contribution, and a 'bete noir' : if operating a goods yard, I think one-half to two-thirds of your available siding length should be devoted to arrivals and departure tracks. I mused in a blog post ages ago about seeing all sidings full of wagons in magazine photographs of model layouts, when some should be clear for an arriving train (unless the daily freight has just arrived, and is doing the shunting, etc.). Hope this helps.

I agree with this as well, for what it is worth. Having grown up with a 'tail-chaser' in my parents' loft, I miss not having the space to run prototypical-length trains of which I have 'emotional attachment' from years past (e.g., last Manchester Picc. - Newhaven Marine, 33-hauled West Coastway services). However, watching a simple stretch of double-track main line at an exhibition becomes tedious to me if one does not know what trains are going to be exhibited, and turns thoughts to admiring the scenic work and contemplating what cake to choose soon from the refreshment hall...

While most has been said above far more eloquently than can I, if "operational interest" is another phrase for 'variety' or 'complexity', I would suggest some sort of shunting is involved. Whether this is passenger and/or N.P.C.C.S. and/or wagon-load/Speedlink goods trains is then down to your interest and space available. Post a draft layout on the web-site of what you considering, and you will not be short of ideas for amendments. Let us know a little more detail, and we may all pitch in. Good luck! It is always of interest to see a layout being created.

As a Cross-Country commuter, my thanks to you all for your contributions to this thread. All details gratefully received. I will get drafting a letter to the local M.P.

Just to alert anyone to Andy Gibbs's wonderful web-site devoted to these services www.1s76.com W.T.T.s, photos, and all one could want to know about them.

Quite inspiring. I hope to find time a.s.a.p. to trawl through your previous posts. Wonderful work.

I was not going to open the 'can of worms' of 'unions - good or bad' ...

I regret I do not quite understand what the M.U. glass panels are to which you refer, but I am reminded of a possible 'urban myth' I know - a trade union (A.S.L.E.F.?) demanded extra pay for drivers to change the roller-blind head-codes, so these were stopped on 1st Jan. 1978. Is this true?