roythebus1

Maybe using it as a buffer zone? :)

I'm still thinking of grafting a Blue Pullman front on an HST power car as a "what if" model. with Mk3 trailers.

Spoorvervangende busdienst is what you want. :)

Yes that's right. I suspect the platforms 16 and 17 were widened as the 6 foot way seems to be at "normal" centres thees days, unlike the Hammersmith & City line where they are to broad gauge centres! Just beyond the bridge at CJ was the GW goods yard. Whether this was BG or not I don't know. I'm reasonably certain the SW side was always standard gauge.

There's a few examples where the DB meets NS. I can't remember the name of the border station which was on the Dutch side on the line from Moenchengladbach. My good frien, a retired DB driver, used to work there regularly. The DB loco would have to drop the pan and coast into the station with train. A small NS shunter would take the DB loco onto the other end of the station whee there was a switchable section when the DB loco could raise pan and get ready to take the next train back out. The little shunter would take the NS loco off and leave it at the other end of the station. My friend couldn't speak Dutch so they all used hand signals! I had to look on the map, Venlo was the border station. It's a long time since I've been there. Aachen was/is switchable . I understand there's 3 systems there, DB, NS and SNCB.

More from the ribbing in the mess room than from official sources in those days. :)

As a producer of cast metal kits during the 1970s I know all too well about the production of white metal kits. A lot of it is down to the skill of the pattern maker, the quality of information that goes into the research and the thought a to how the kit "should" fit together. Aluminium has advantages and disadvantages, the main problem being you can't easily solder it. It's easy to work with, maybe a bit too soft for model making, but won't stay together for too long no matter what adhesive is used. Luckily I had some of the top pattern makers for my kits, Adrian Swain, Mike Shepard and a chap called Ian whose other name I forget. My bus kits didn't need much fiddling to make them fit properly as my pattern men made allowances for expansion and shrinkage during the casting process. My Met Railway F class kit was one of the first to use etched brass overlays for things like take sides. The MTK etchings were ok on some of them, but on the proposed 1938 tube stock it was the worst I've ever seen. As I mentioned elsewhere on here I was given his entire stock of 38 stock etches, they were only fit for scrap. Sadly I never kept one to show how awful they were.

That's a nicely finished model. Meanwhile I've recently had delivery of a box of Black Beetle motor bogies, including one for my MTK Cravens parcel unit. I've stripped everything back to bare metal, cut holes for the recess under the guards doors, holes for the fuel and water fillers both sides and started fitting steps. I'be drilled 0.5mm holes which will take elongated brass wire poked through the solebars to support nickel silver steps made from scrap etch. I've also made a new underframe from .040 plasticard supported with some square plastic section along the sides. Inside the body shell are matching square sections so the underframe which wlll slide in from one end. I'm trying to work out the best way to do a removable section over the motor bogie in case that will ever need taking out for maintenance. Some pics below. The MTK cast engine detail should provide more than enough weight for the BB motor bogie! I'm undecided whether to use Lima sideframes or the MTK cast ones.

Would a photo of my Q38 drawing be of any help in the future? It's dining table size! Probably 1:12 scale

I'm certain there's a photo of broad gauge in what is nowJplatform 16 at Clapham junction, and there's been a recent photo on here of a broad gauge train at Victoria.

One of the highlights on the after-film Q&A session was that of nicknames. The first that came to the minds of all the locomen there was Angry Silence. the late Jim Allen. top link driver, every secondman dreaded going with him. He never said a word on the loco and never let the secondman have a go. The only thing he'd say is "make the tea" and any necessary instruction. Another was "Codsmouth", who, in steam days, forgot to secure the "cod's mouth" smokebox door of an A4 backing down to the station from Top Shed. It lifted by itself and scraped the tunnel roof! Another was "the man from C&A", Owen Daynes, one of the foremen who is still with us and must be in his late 80s by now. He was always smartly dressed in a suit.

Hornby Dublo and Peco patents prevented others copying the coupling. that's how Mr.Pritchard of Peco made his fortune. Airfix used the American version!

Sounds about right, the broad gauge only got as far as Clapham Junction and into Victoria south eastern side. Presumably traffic for "the south" used the Ladbroke Grove-Addison Road link, closed during WW2.

There was indeed a glut of breakdown packing vans at Wrenn. they were getting rid of them at a ridiculously cheap price. I took advantage of that at the time and painted the bodies brown. I have several mounted on Airfix meat van chassis..

I wonder why the Crystal Palace loop at Westbourne Park was so-called? Access to Crimea Yard was across the Hammersmith & City line at the west end of Westbourne Park Met platforms. there was a signal box there to control the movements. On the LT side the automatic signals either side were X-signals, which mean tif the signal remained at danger it had to be treated as a controlled signal, the driver must not pass at danger without authority. I think it was still in use in 1973 when I learnt the Met Line.

Not forgetting that we used to run a lot of goods trains that only had handbrakes. they relied purely on the loco air brake (or steam brake) and the guard in his van at the back of the train giving braking assistance by turning the big wheel in his brake van. The first time I was let loose driving a BR train was a class 25 and about 600 tons of coal on the Southam branch from Rugby. Having been a guard on the underground previously I was used to driving electric trains with brakes. So doing 20 along the branch I braked for dropping wagons off at Bilton Cement Works. I'd say it took a very long way to stop 600 tons using the loco brake. It was the ideal place to teach someone what an unfitted train was like to drive. It was 'our" bit of railway to do what we liked on. One-engine-in-steam and all that.

Thanks, I've amended my post.

The TC units had the standard SR EP brake and triple valve air brake. On a train with triple valves the driver only had 3 brake applications before he ran out of air. To quote "Steadfast" from above, "If you're setting back at 3 mph and the speed is creeping up slightly, a quick rub with a couple of bar on the straight air will keep it in check. Applying the train brake you'd probably grind to a halt and have to get moving again. This use of the straight air allows very fine control of the speed when shunting, to the point of allow a heavy freight to be stopped very precisely. One train I've done using this method is stopped with accuracy of half a metre for discharge." Amateur!! :) On the Waterloo& City with the old Bulleid stock it only had the Westinghouse brake. A good driver on there could stop at Bank with the centre buffer plate bouncing forward, kissing the buffer stop, bouncing back, and not tripping the "sleeping policeman" warning that the train hit the block. I was doing a film job there one Sunday, Dempsey and Makepeace, and the director wanted the train to stop at a white line on the platform (our S mark). I backed out of the station, ran in and stopped by the line. He asked if I could do it again, I asked what side of the line he wanted me to stop at. Having done it 16 times a day, I think I'd mastered the Westinghouse brake. The Isle of Wight, Ravenglass & Eskdale and a few other narrow gauge lines use the Westinghouse brake. LT Railways used to run Westinghouse at 65 psi, the mainline used 70psi, but that changed in 1978 to the European standard of 72.5 psi or 5 bar.

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to the premier of the documentary film "The Train at Platform 5". It's all about Kings Cross railway workers and its surrounds, lots of interview clips from railway workers including drivers, signalmen, station staff. Lots of interesting stuff there. the film was co-ordinated by a couple of KX stalwarts, Gary Cannel and Steve Forey, a former ASLEF union man who, like me, had to leave railway employment in the late 1980s. Go to www.kinsgscrossrailworkers.org.uk and follow the link. I understand it's also on youTube.

You might want to watch the recently premiered film "The train at Platform 5" at kingscrossrailwayworkers.org.uk.

There was 6 KX goods pilots until the late 1970s.

Yes, somewhere on the Battersea Power station/Stewarts Lane complex. there was nothing on the south Western apart from Tolworth and Chessington. South Eastern had Angerstein Wharf, Bricklayers Arms until about 1980, and the oil tank depot at Sanderstead. That's about the lot. KX Goods is still alive and well with aggregate and cement traffic. There was Ashburton Sidings at Drayton Park with the "Ashburton Belle" aka the BinLiner which took rubbish to somewhere on the GC (Calvert?) or the Bletchley-Bedford line.

I like the 3rd rail on this layout, but a glaring mistake has been made on the pointwork. The 3rd rail as shown would, on the prototype, if laid like this would ruin the shoes of any train that went over it! The 3rd rail must end before the switches or be provided with a run-up ramp. Having spent 8 years driving on the Southern, it loks right but isn't right. Nice layout though.

I scratch, built a 73 in the early 1980s and ir appeared on the MRC's New Anningon layout. 2 years later, the Lima one appeared!

Talking of etched chassis, I'm also doing what I think is the Branchlines kit for the Hornby "cheapo" 0-4-0T. That needs an awful lot of fiddling to get it to work as I've noted in another thread on here. For such a small loco to take such a long time...