Regularity

The GER livery is very late, circa 1919 onwards. Might be worth noting. Prior to that, unlined teak, or simple brown paint on lesser stock and as the teak started to get shabby. Frying tonight?

I have a 1967 reprint of the book about Henry. In the story about Henry’s “sneeze”, current versions say the boys ran home as black as soot. Not so in the original, nor in the reprint. They ran home “as black as n1ggers”. Now, I am in no way claiming that the late reverend was intentionally racist, as in the 1940s/early 50s, this was a term in general use within large parts of white culture, but surely an educated man of the cloth would (or should?) have been aware that the term was offensive to those it described? Or maybe the Church of England really was the religion of Empire? That said, my mother has an old “Tiger Tim” annual from the late 1940s, which includes a cartoon strip called “Policeman Pete”. So far, so ok, but the subtitle is “de Calypso Copper”, and there follows a series of drawings of what can only be described as upright chimpanzees with thick lips, saying things like, “Dat am kind”! I have never seen any evidence that this had a detrimental effect on my mother, who is just about the least judgemental person I have ever known, but it is hardly a surprise that her generation and those soon after grew up to make “monkey chants” and throw bananas on the pitch at football matches, something I first encountered in my pre-teen years in the 1970s. I didn’t get it: we had a black winger who was the star of the team, yet a phalanx of our fans would do this whenever a visiting team’s black player got the ball. That must have been a real strain on Derrick Christie, but they carried on. I think that any racism, classism, etc, in children’s books reflects the standards of the era, much as many x-rated films of the time would now attract a PG rating, and are shown on daytime TV. In the case of the Rev. Awdry, I am slightly disappointed, though. There is a moralistic tone in many of the stories - my children find them patronising - which is perhaps not surprising from a churchman, but he did not at the same time extend this preachiness to treating all people with equal respect, which as far as I can see, if you remove the references to God, is what Jesus was all about. Edit: Alex, if you would like copies of these pages in support of your essay, let me know. Feel free to pinch anything above, too.

Apparently they also had several designs of 4-6-0s, too. Who knew?

Have a look at this review: http://mrr.trains.com/news-reviews/staff-reviews/2016/09/review-atlas-ho-scale-gp38-diesel-locomotive

Or anywhere else, for that matter! Well, he’s not the messiah, that’s for sure.

Montagu.

Single units. 2-Car units. 3-Car units. 4-Car units. 5-Car units. 6-Car units. 8-Car units (Pullmans). Not sure about a 7-Car unit. 9- and 10- Car units, such as HSTs, came later. See, plenty of variety, and we haven’t even got to coupling them together in various combinations.

Apologies for ascribing a quote to you!In terms of more than one actor on stage at a time, you can do that, as outlined above, without a bay platform, in fact it is more interesting without the platform. Beyond that, you can only operate one train at a time anyway! St. Ives, like Seaton on the Southern, was interesting in that the bay platform also served as a goods road when the station was less busy. Two passenger trains present at once is most likely to occur on summer Saturdays, for which goods wagons would be put onto a single siding or even taken away to be stored at another station. That provides another thought for you, and an alternative plan. A bit like Woodstowe (RM May 2012), but with the goods shed road having access to the platform rather than it being fenced off.

Phil, At the risk of sounding like a broken record, whether or not you have a bay is up to you, and you alone. There are examples of bay platforms at many GWR termini, but these are busier stations with regular heavy passenger traffic. If you wish to create the impression of a busy station, then go ahead. Most GWR branchline termini did not have a bay, but that doesn’t stop you having two trains, and two engines, in the station at once. You keep referring to “intensive” operation, but haven’t made it clear what you mean. You may not realise it, but there are two (at least) interpretations of this. Firstly, and what I think you mean, many trains in the station at the same time; Secondly, and what we usually see on model railways, a regular service without the long pauses between trains that happened on the real railway. If you keep asking questions you will get many responses, but they will fall into two camps: the Model Railway point of view (it’s your layout, many people do include a bay platform, go ahead) or the Model of a Railway (GWR Branch termini nor this size were unlikely to have a bay platform. As I said, you take the advice and make your choice, but it seems to me that you have decided to have a bay platform, but feel slightly ill-at-ease with the decision because you are aware that the “justification” with reference to a prototype is weak. Which will make you happiest and what are you trying to achieve? How far down the path of realism do you want to go? How important to you is it to create a layout plan with the highest possible degree of plausibility, compared to the operational capacity (aka “play value”) of deviating slightly against the most typical arrangement on the prototype? They were left in the platform road, blocking the engine release crossover.

Cyril Freezer was making that point whilst Iain was still painting “GWR in yard-high letters” on his Triang “jinty”.

Two prototype GWR examples come to mind. Ashburton. During the day, the goods train would be at the terminus, and the autotrain would pay a visit. Despite lacking a signal box, and with it the full panoply of interlocking not just between points and signals, but also with the block instruments (housed in the station building), procedures were correctly followed: once a train had been offered by Buckfastleigh, the goods train engine paused its shunting and stayed in the run round loop: any shunting moves would have involved passing the home signal, and entering the section between the two stations. The auto arrived, disgorged its passengers, acquired some more and returned to Totnes via Buckfastleigh. Cardigan. Single platform face, hone signal but no calling-on arm, yet during the day, a passenger train arrived whilst the daily goods was being made up in the platform road. Once the passenger train had been offered, it was accepted as soon as the goods train engine (typically a 4500 prairie in BR days) was out of the way - loop, yard, shed road or carriage siding - and the passenger train drew up to the home signal, which was at danger, and once the signalman could see that the passenger train was under the full control of the driver, the home was dropped and the passenger train proceeded into the platform, trapping the passenger train engine. Don’t know if the signalman held out a flag: there may have been a note in the appendix to the working timetable explaining what was required, as this was a daily feature. The goods engine dropped onto the coach(es), and pulled them into the carriage siding road (facing access to departing, up, trains) to release the pannier for servicing and turning (turntable was small, but could be used by pannier tanks but not prairies) and the prairie put the coach(es) back in the platform, and made itself scarce again. The passenger train engine returned to the platform, coupled up, and departed, at which point the shunting was resumed. There: two examples of fairly simple stations where two trains could be present at the same time.

Aha, a prototype conversion from very sloppily gauged 00 to P4!

Or just into the goods yard: any siding would do.

Usually, yes. Plenty of time in the timetables to allow for the goods to arrive in the main platform road. If that road is occupied, then the goods can arrive in the loop, but running round has to wait for platform road to be vacated. Not that there weren’t exceptions, of course. As you say, intensively operated model layouts are not ideal for this, hence a preponderance of bay platforms, etc.

Recent discussions on couplings reminded me that the old Jackson-Evans screw link couplings tend to drag along the ballast in 4mm scale, but are perfectly suitable for S, even if still slightly long - as indeed are many “4mm scale” items of that era. (ERG buffers, for example.) Unlike the Romford screw link couplings, there was some play in the Jackson-Evans couplings, and they did not require disassembling, adjusting and reassembly. If anyone has any spare, could they please PM me and we can arrange an exchange of couplings for beer tokens/pictures of Winston Churchill, etc. Even better, if anyone has any of the “Britrail” lost wax castings, could they let me know? They really were spot on for S, but unfortunately I have only ever seen one pair.

Oh, that is just lovely. I have always loved Berks (as our US cousins call them, not realising the rhyming slang - short for “Berkeley Hunt”, work the rest out...* ) and also some of the Stanards, and that combination is lovely. * Calling someone a “Charlie” is also related to this. Charlie Smirke (rhymes with berk) was a flat-race jockey. This is a rare example of double-rhyming slang. Also, when used, you are referring to someone as one of the most taboo words in the English language. I once made this observation - I make no value judgement on the word itself, although of course taboo is just that - on a thread about the Southern Q1s, as they had acquired this soubriquet, and the OP said he had been told not use the word “Charlie” because it was rude! Doh!

Given that there is a minimum of 0 trains during the night, then there must be a finite limit (based on line capacity), so a number somewhere between these limits must be the Lagrange multiplier...

I thought it was his house.

Or maybe he is really Jedward Ian...

If nobody else does know, at least you won’t be told that you have got it wrong...

Shorten the boiler by one ring (assuming the bands match), replace leading bogie with a pony truck, drive third axle, two-cylinder Walshaerts, plus a small+big trailing truck, and you would have a cracking Berkshire. 98000? Edit: Britain’s answer to this:

That’s what I would build! Apart from the bay, of course… You will see from Branch Line Modelling that the number of GWR Branch termini with a bay was outnumbered by those without. Also, from your general reading up, that there is no such thing as a “typical” GWR Branch Line terminus!

Just be careful that no one drops a depth charge...

I think you were being niaive, and I was trying hard not to be lewd.

I wondered about that, but for once - surprisingly, but inerringly wrong - decided against lowering the tone. Still, there are plenty of place names which are perfectly reasonable to the inhabitants and those in the locality, but which cause a snigger from everyone else because of rudery due to changes in language use and meaning.