Artless Bodger

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.

Try googling youtube class 37 nuclear train - several videos there. One on the Dungeness branch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eYoa2I3gBo

Thank you. Still OT, presumably the 33s also lasted so long as their engines were not intercooled? If I understand it correctly their engines were an 8 cylinder version of the 6 in the 26s.

Probably my first railway memory - one of those at West station, must have been on the Paddock Wood service. Very nice.

OT I realise, but I have seen this reason given for the derating of the 12SVT. However I've also read, not least here on RMweb, that some of the original Mirrlees engined locos were uprated to 1600HP and 2000HP, so how was the extra electrical load handled on these?

While nowhere near a fine modeller, I'm content (not quite proud) to call myself a bodger. I do what I can within the constraints of time, money, skill and especially patience. Ultimately (though I've put up some of my efforts on RMWeb) I do it for my own satisfaction and don't really care what others think. I'm even satisfied with the appearance of N and OO because I don't really notice scale / gauge compromises, as it is a representation, not the real thing. I look at some really fine layouts, what impresses me is the overall effect - a work of art. Equally I can look at 'train set' layouts and admire them for the operational opportunities and care and love put into making them. I've been dipping into the TT120 threads as it intrigued me that UK TT was making a comeback - I always envied my school friends' Triang TT. Looking at the comparisons, I'm happy to stay with N (have too much money wrapped up in mine). Having dabbled in US and mainly German N I would find the German TT120 a nice alternative if starting from scratch again. Personally pacific locos don't appeal so I'd not jump at Hornby's current offerings. A Hall or N would be more my liking. With age as N becomes more frustrating, I shall return to OO as TT120 for me does not give the step up from N my eyes and fat fingers need! PS I can remember adverts for P4, a Hornby Castle fitted with P4 wheels, lovely wheels but the rest of the loco comparable? No. No offence intended to anyone, modelling is a spectrum, we all fit somewhere on it.

An interesting hodgepodge of architectural styles in that granary in Cambridge, looks almost as if an Italian church has been placed on top. An ideal prototype for using up every odd bit of building kit in your bits box.

I have read that when the NER electrified the north Tyneside routes the women taking the catch from Cullercoats to Newcastle were banned from the new electric stock. Presumably because it was open saloon stock, compared to compartment stock previously?

Sorry, in a world of my own here - Head Gardener is my forum term for my wife - I dont think swmbo etc would go down too well - but she is definitely the head gardener here, I'm just the odd job person. Agreed about the staff, and family saloons, but I doubt if there were family saloons from Victoria to Maidstone in the 1950s / 60s. I think the uncle (who was said to have been a naval surgeon at the battle of Jutland) had a female house keeper and a male servant (valet?). The man travelled down from Scotland - apparently had to find his own lunch in Maidstone while Uncle was entertained at the house, Head Gardener's family definitely did not have servants, he was a bit unaquainted with the realities of family life.

The servants probably travelled 3rd if not required en-route. Head Gardener remembers a Scottish relative, a well to do, batchelor, surgeon, who occasionally came south to visit, he travelled first but his man-servant / valet or whatever his role was travelled 3rd / 2nd. That was in the late 50s, early 60s.

If the Fleischmann models are to be believed, Prussian (KPEV) had 4, carriage bodies coloured differently, so composites were 2 colours. Iirc, first blue, second green, third brown, fourth grey. The blue / green distinction lasted into DB days and catering vehicles were wine red - colourful trains!

Fish and Chip van? Serving hatch on the nearside? (Or burgers). Reminds me of the 'Chuck Wagon' that parked occasionally adjacent to one of our sites - allegedly so named because after eating the produce you'd chuck up.

Head Gardener used it a few times to visit relatives in Perth, iirc she arrived back in Reading just as I was waiting for a train to work in MHD on one occasion.

Maybe sufficient though for a heritage line using 0-6-0 tank engines? Has the advantage of not needing any expensive instruments (requiring calibration standards etc), and would presumably be enough ensure no wheel or axle was carrying significantly more or less weight?

Wood laminate in 2HAP 2nds under the windows, I can remember the dark vertical staining and dampness from condensation on the windows in winter as a child (it would overflow the channel in the metal window frame, the drain hole either blocked or inadequate). (Production CEPs however had formica panelling, remembered from changing to them from a 2HAP from Maidstone at Ashford late 60s on trips to Folkestone). In the smoking saloons, 2HAP ceilings were distinctly yellow! (You had to travel in a smoker if you wanted access to the toilet). I'm sure I remember green upholstery in a compartment on the Ashford - Hastings line once BUT, we may have been in either a 2H first downgraded for Saturday traffic from the holiday camps, or in a Hastings unit used for the same camp capacity reasons. I do remember itchy seat upholstery as a child wearing shorts!

I'd got to the point of being a bit frustrated with the smallness of N gauge and the fiddly nature of it, so took a bit of a holiday by buying a Dapol 15T diesel crane kit - I remember saving up to by the original Airfix version, 3/- or 3/6 iirc, at 6d a week pocket money. Every week we had to go into Woolworths to check it was still there. Dad actually made it for me. The kit looks a bit careworn but I had some fun building it and have got the bits to work. I've since built a Parkside plate wagon and adapted it as a crane runner. I look upon this dabble with OO as preparation for a future time when I can no longer cope with N. Having detoured into a bit of OO kit building, I got my N gauge modelling interest back and decided to have a go at finishing the E1, last seen as a rather filed down WIP. New plastic sheet cab sides - wider than the splashers, cab handrails, taken a sliver out of the chimney after all, and remodelled the cab spectacles to look more like a SR loco. Painted black, some very old Cavendish transfers and final satin varnish. As hinted above it has taken nearly a year before getting on with this project. Continuing the N bodging, I've got on with a bit more of the scenic development - coal yard, bund walls around the chlorine tanker siding (it has got an access platform now too) and mill yard fencing. Mostly fun doing the building / bodging, not so much fun painting it though. So far this is the furthest I've ever got with building a layout, and eventually I might 'complete' it, it has only taken about 4 years so far from deciding to scrap the previous N gauge and down size to this. However I hardly ever run anything, the terminus in particular acts as a sort of parade ground on which I can arrange my stock so it can collect dust. On a visit to Head Gardener's sister last autumn, when aksed how my model making was getting on I mentioned that I was considering a return to OO - fat fingers and eyesight being factors. BIL goes out and returns with two big boxes from the garage full of OO stuff (in fact a lot of it originally mine, passed on to the nephews when I went N again). Fairly old stuff, Hornby and Lima mainly. Not wanting to seem too greedy I came home with a 2721 pannier and 3 wagons. Bought an oval of OO track around Christmas and got some of my residual bits out of the display case (2 terriers etc) so had a short play. Now I'm tinkering with plans for a small OO layout in what space remains in the box room - probably about 8' x 1'. Thinking of the terminus of a small independent railway - Colonel Stephens-ish. So, I think I'll terminate this thread. If anything else develops maybe start a new one - "A New Beginning" or something like that. Thanks for looking, cheers.

Currently in the Postscript Books catalogue at £22.50.