Artless Bodger

C3127 - has made me realise the LTS emus had proper tail lights, whereas the SR emus of similar appearance used red blanks in the headcode blinds. I wonder why the SR stock didn't have installed tail lights?

That's one possible source. I seem to remember Southern CIGs at Victoria running on the older style bogies (not what they had been built with) notably the motor bogies. I think I read there were bogie swaps to put the newer type bogies under SWT CEPS upgraded to greyhound status, or some such. Memory is a bit flaky here though.

J1638, Monsal Dale viaduct - is this about the location the LD&ECR would have crossed the dale at much greater height? From what I have read the viaduct would have been c. 300' tall, similar to Kinzua in Pennsylvania. Though it would have impacted sorely on the view, it would have been an impressive structure.

Guilty on many counts above. Church over a tunnel 4 track - well not a tunnel but an overline structure / bridge Short terminus platforms, 4 carriages, but an inordinately large engine shed to serve them No people - except the driver of the pelican Mixed periods - pregroup to BR blue Busses on bridges No signals Inaccurate wagon lengths / underframes No head or tail lamps No ballast on much of it I could go on but it's already too depressing, and as I was already despondent about the layout trainset, it has prompted me to start the big dig. First remove the church plateau and overline structure - that leaves me with the more prototypical 90 degree cardboard cutting, at least I dont have to dismantle half the scenery to clean the track or recover wayward stock. The terminus will go - it's only a parade ground for my stock to get dusty. It will give us more storage space. That will leave the roundy-roundy, then it will really be JATS - just a train set and no longer (if it ever was) fit to show its face on here (or anywhere else for that matter). Hey-ho, such is life. PS, I enjoyed it - mostly - while it lasted.

St Mary Redcliffe too - the harbour branch did run under the churchyard.

Thank you David, I've seen references to the Eric Tonks books before, so I should buy a few. I've seen some video of stripping shovels at work in US open cast coal - impressive machines. I believe Marion were responsible for the Saturn V transporter too - with multiple caterpillar bogies.

Last time I passed by (pre Covid) the up loop at Ruscombe was still partly intact though disconnected, just gaps cut into one rail to install the OHL posts, seemed odd that the track hadn't been completely lifted. Rather surprised too that the metal fairies hadn't helped themselves to the bits left between.

Some tantalising glimpses of cranes behind the trains in your photos - the big white object a walking dragline perhaps?

I don't know how much remains now since Clevedon Pier was restored, but it was originally built using a lot of redundant Barlow rail.

The Medway bridge at Maidstone East (locally aka 'high level bridge') is now a truss, it was a bowstring until upgraded (for boat train traffic in the 20s I think - pictures in Maidstone museum show the bowstring with SECR tank engine). It has ballasted track, but this is to accomodate the pointwork on the bridge - prior to the changes for Eurostar diversions there was a trailing crossover, incorporating a double slip in the down line leading into the down bay and goods yard. This bridge was my 'prototype for everything' for occasions at club where the question of ballast on girder bridges was raised.

The first photo at Acton Bridge, an interesting comparison of the weathering on the platform building rooves, moss and debris on the down side under the trees, the up side looks comparatively clean.

J3979, the sheeted opens near the front look as though they may be china clay for the papermills near Aberdeen - Stoneywood (now closed).

Interesting to see palbrick wagons in one of the trains. Thanks for the link.

My first trip to Scotland, with my wife to be, staying with her aunt in Perth. One trip we did on a brilliant sunny day like your photo, was a circular ticket; train to Pitlochry, post buses via lochs Tummel and Rannoch to Rannoch station, then train back to Queen Street and finally class 40 hauled back to Perth. A perfect day out and the best possible introduction to Scotland I could imagine. The other memory from that trip was standing on Kinnoul Hill by the watchtower and watching the 26/27s on the Dundee trains with the river Tay as backdrop.

Perhaps due to the infill being panels?

Thank you Wickham Green too for these photos. East Farleigh was a delightful place with the Egyptian style waterworks building adjacent and overlooking the mediaeval bridge and lock on the Medway Navigation. There was a nice pub too on the bank above the railway, overlooking the station, though as I was underage, the family had to go into the garden round the back. The goods shed was extant then. New Hythe box is now closed, since the level crossing was replaced by an overbridge (set of photos of its construction somewhere else on RMweb). Just after 5 with two passenger trains due and also sometimes our oil train arriving late, the staff driving out of east mill would chance it as the lights began to flash for the barriers - one or two colleagues got fined for it. Never bothered me as I couldn't drive and caught the train. If the oil train arrived even better - it had to cross the crossing to the advance starter before backing upgrade to enter Brookgate siding - a 73 with diesel on full power, restarting 1000T was something to behold and hear!

I too recall that someone was injured by an impatient motorist. Having the single lane Medway bridge just round the bend didn't help with motorists' attitudes either.

I wouldn't want the job of replacing light bulbs on those yard lamps. It looks like step irons on the upper parts, like telephone poles had along our road when I was a child*, but it's a long reach out from the pole to the lamp. *We used to watch fascinated when the GPO telephone engineer turned up in his green Morris 1000 van, took the ladder off the top to use to climb as far as the step irons, then use a belt round his waist and the pole to climb up to the cross bars. Nowadays it is either a mobile EWP, or as at the mill, get the scaffolders in - for a floodlight bulb change.

Ok, thanks for putting me right - I missed those. One of my managers had worked at British Cellophane in Bridgewater, they used the viscose process using CS2 hence my error.

Thank you Tom, I was wondering if my memory played tricks. Thanks for the links to the Tenterden Terrier too, very interesting especially the photos of Tovil station which I had not seen before. The photo of the contractors loco on the temporary bridge just by Allnut's entrance is very evocative and modellable. East Farleigh had some elements refered to above - the road crossed the railway at an angle, the gaps filled with tarmac in later years, with cattle grids too. Single gates and iirc hand operated. Staggered platforms typical of SER stations, with the starting signals just before the gates in both directions. Footbridge also in later years. The road was on a quite steep gradient counter to the superelevation of the curved track through the station which led to an bumpy ride when driven over. New Hythe station further north on the same line had a 4 gate crossing, wheel operated from the adjacent box. I have a vague recollection there were grids here too but cannot find photographic evidence. There was a story that after the gates were replaced by lifting barriers, some phosphor bronze table rolls in transit fell off the mill engineer's solid tyred truck, rolled onto the track and became welded to it, with ensuing chaos.

Some still went by water, and through populated areas, e.g. the explosion of a barge carrying gunpowder on the Regent's Canal in 1874.

Would that have been carbon disuphide? I've a vague recollection from student days that it is shock sensitive (as well as flammable, toxic etc).

Probably irrelevant to this thread's dates, can anyone confirm that during the great war, men of military age in reserved occupations, such as railwaymen, were given arm brassards to wear indicating this, to avoid white feathers etc?

Interesting. My recollection was that the footbridge was over the main line to Paddock Wood and only a foot crossing on the goods branch. As a child Mum used to take us for a walk, down Bower Lane, over the footbridge then the branch crossing, to the river footbridge, to see either Grandad in Allnut's paper mill, or relatives in Beaconsfield Road. I thought the footbridge originally served Tovil station too. I've not travelled the Paddock Wood route for several years but the Google map view shows now a ramped, accessible, footbridge.

Thanks for that information Donnington Road, I'd wondered what the linkage to the lamp was for.