VIA185

Staines West had a 'Toad' body as a bothy outside the engine shed. It survived long after the loco shed had fallen down. (CJL)

I first saw it and travelled (Shawnigan Lake-Victoria) in 1976. Caught this view at Duncan during the same holiday, when it was still Esquimalt & Nanaimo trains No. 1 and 2 operated by Canadian Pacific. This was the southbound working which called at Duncan in the late afternoon. Duncan station is now a museum. (CJL)

If only it had been a train SERVICE, instead of one train a day in the wrong direction. A wonderful ride - I did it several times over a 30-year period, but always with very few other passengers. (CJL)

I suspect it was a tip-off while I was working for Ian Allan. Coxes Lock wouldn't have been far if I was based at Coombelands in Addlestone at the time. We used to get tip-offs from drivers, including Colin Marsden and also, on occasions from Chris Green (notably when the Black Five came to Shepperton for turning before the Windsor NSE Gala. We were just told to be at Shepperton station at 2am - it was in the days when steam wasn't allowed on tracks with 3rd rail electrification. (CJL)

Last one, I promise. This is about ten years later, after the conversion to flats. I was fascinated by this place when it was a working mill but the timing of my visits was pot-luck, hence I never saw grain wagons on the move or a grain barge moving.(CJL)

Coxes Lock Mill - probably around 1980 - when still operating. Two of the barges are moored up. As I understand it, these delivered grain. Presumably some grain also came in by rail. I think the cottage between the mill and the railway bridge may have been demolished when the mill was converted into flats. (CJL)

This would have been late 1980s or very early 1990s, passing Coxes Lock in the down direction and shot from a footbridge over the line, which MAY have replaced the foot crossing. The 485 is about to cross the Wey Navigation. Coxes Lock was served by self-propelled barges which had a collapsible wheelhouse to get under this very low bridge. (CJL)

I've re-scanned and reposted this as it seems to have gone astray. Bulk grain wagons in Coxes Lock Mill siding some time in the late 1960s, I think. (CJL)

No disputing that BR didn't bull up locomotives unnecessarily but BR were not trying to sell 1:76 scale models. Put two identical models in a shop display - one in Hornby 'bling' and another in weathered condition and I don't need to tell you which one will sell first. You might be accustomed to seeing your Landrover covered in mud but would you buy it from the showroom in that state?

Models have to sell themselves to the general public and that means being presented in 'showroom condition'. I have one of those 'American abominations' - It had a red boiler, a bright green tender and its DCC chip played Christmas carols! It's by Broadway Limited - a manufacturer of 'serious' well-detailed models. Some masking tape, a matt black aerosol, and some new decals and I have a White Pass & Yukon 'mogul' which, with repainted Bachmann coaches, makes a very nice White Pass souvenir - even if it does come out once a year to circle round a Christmas tree! It's much easier for a good modeller to put something into 'workaday' condition than it is for a mediocre modeller to make a work-stained model look pristine. (CJL)

What makes you thin k he's the only one who buys his review models?

Yes, I believe that there was health issue which brought things to an end. I find that in this hobby websites often outlast the businesses.

MARC Models made the Night Ferry CIWL sleeping car kit at my behest when I was Editor of Model Rail and it was sold for a time as a Model Rail 'special'. MARC also produced the SNCF 'Forgon' for us (a rare European model in 4mm:1ft scale), and the distinctive SECR van with the raised cupola. I'm not sure any of these items are still available from MARC Models, or indeed if MARC is still functioning. (CJL)

Why do you think the shape is wrong?

My girlfriend (later my wife) flew to Switzerland from Luton with them on a staff outing from the MAFF at Weybridge soon after she started work. They had orange, pink and mauve aeroplanes and the crew dressed to match whatever coloured plane they were on that day. Bizarre. Very 1960s. (CJL)

Interesting. Geoff Kichenside interviewed me for my job. I took along a Met-Cam Mk1 Pullman that I had built, unaware that I would be interviewed by a carriage expert. (CJL)

£2 bus fare - but first I've got a two mile walk to the bus stop. The X4 which replaced the Peterborough-Northampton Railway now goes to Corby and not near any of the places which the railway served. opposite my home is a bus shelter with a plaque saying it was built for the Coronation in 1953. It hasn't seen a bus in the 30 years I've lived in the area. It's a convenient camping place for vagrants and drunks. I'll be keeping my environmentally unfriendly diesel car for as long as I can. (CJL)

The same stories - fixing potholes etc - repeated over and over again to try and make them sound more significant. But fundamentally this is about roads - improving the one thing that we need to reduce the use of, whether or not we have electric cars. I never liked the idea of HS2 but once it was started, the damage was done. A swaith of England was trashed to create the stump between OOC and Curzon Street which isn't going to be much use to anyone but if we'd had the whole thing and stopped internal air traffic between London/Birmingham/Manchester it might have been worthwhile. Still, it's really all about Sunak proving he can make a decision - even if it's a wrong one. (I like that that the spell-checker turns Sunak into Sunk or Skunk.)

Have checked my back copies and I don't have 1964 to hand. I suspect it may be in the loft and I'll need to wait until someone younger and more agile is available to go up there. (CJL)

It is. I'll get it corrected. (CJL)

Precedent was the primary driver of choices for many years - If it sold well before, you repeated it (LNER Pacifics) if it didn't sell well, you didn't go near it again (Networker - hence a long time before there was another SR EMU (VEP) and the process repeats itself. Whether that's still the case, I don't know but it certainly used to be.

No sheds or turntables at Torrington, Bude or Okehampton (a shed for a shunter at Meldon quarry). Padstow had a 70ft turntable specifically for the Bulleids but even so, the North Cornwall line was famous for the Pacifics running tender-first with one coach. (CJL)

TTBOMK = To the best of my knowledge. I was once told, by the top man in a model railway manufacturing organisation that had all its manufacturing done in China, that it was essential for a senior member of staff to go out to China once every three months in order to spot errors and potential issues and have them rectified during production. Of course, Covid put a stop to that and TTBOMK it has never resumed with any manufacturer. (CJL)

Yes, from the pictures above the Baldwin switcher and one or two cranes may be new but the rest has been there when I've been in the past (2018 was my most recent visit). The 4803 is starting to look tatty (it was very smart five years ago) but the big steamer looks to have been repainted and reunited with its tender. It's a decent little collection which, I think relies on the support and goodwill of a very small number of people. (CJL)

I think that's the CP boxcar that was originally mounted high up on a plinth alongside one of the new buildings. I assume it got taken down as it represented an unnecessary risk in the event of the 1-in-100 years earthquake which Victoria is expecting. (CJL)