Sabato

They're fascinating, huh? I wonder what the comment "ER Steel Carriers - may be rough" means under the 8E05 Toton to Tees Yard service means! - Rivercider. Doesn't that mean the wagons won't have been martialled in destination order, and will require further attention at some point on the way?

LT had a works alongside of the District at Parsons Green. I had been told they made their enamel bus stop "flags" there. It was also suggested the station name boards were made there. Or was someone adding 2 & 2 and making seven?

I believe it's the main valve for the steam manifold. You can just see the delivery pipe to the cab on the top of the firebox. The manifold, usually across the top of the back plate, supplied steam to any bit that required steam to operate, such as brake ejector, injectors, steam operated firebox doors and so on. The manifold has separate valves for each item supplied.

Posted 3 hours ago What I couldn't find out was a) whether English booze in this period (1930s) was exported much b) what else might be shifted in barrels c) whether people bothered to import British barrels anywhere else or just made their own. Any barrel-o-logists are welcome to chip in as it would be nice to have a rationale for barrels in/out and maybe even try to hustle together something like that crane attachment: Of course, it's quite possible this is imported booze, Madeira, brandy or port as examples. Later used for maturing single malts. Hmmm, luvverly.

I was in touch with Bob Clarke at the weekend and he told me that delivery of the books (I presume from Poland) was expected in a few days, with distribution following immediately if the printing was up to scratch. It's odd that the website hasn't been updated yet but perhaps the delivery has been delayed slightly. Bill Still trying to find an artic driver?

Chard Town - run round release and second access to the goods shed.

Not necessarily. A handful of black paniers had MT lining, some 15xx amongst them, and seemed to work in and out of Paddington on ECS IIRC. Someone has written a short magazine article listing those so adorned, but I can't remember how long ago, or which journal.

Has the term fly come from the canal? Regular, timetabled passenger boats where known as "Flys" (The Shropshire Fly being one, commemorated in at least one canal side pub name). So called, allegedly, because they flew by the other boats, especially at locks.

"-but no two stones on a beach are alike either, and we don't try to give then personalities." Rodent279 So you never had a pet rock (when they were fashionable?)

Not quite waffle. The new Blue trains had a number of problems with transformers catching fire (as did some other modernisation electrification stock elsewhere IIR). The change over from steam to electrics had only just happened so, on a railway yet to be rationalised, there was plenty of siding space to store stock locally before scrapping. Trouble was, the local "lads" couldn't resist the non-ferrous fittings on the coaches braking and heating systems.... There was a bit of a scramble to find replacements, which delayed things a bit.

The Drawings in the A Pictorial Record... are the same as in the RCTS volumes, simple weight diagrams, but presented in larger size. For actual drawings, I think that for most classes, if not all of them, have been published in various magazines over the years. Given a bit of time I can list some, if required.

An article on 3 wheelers by Ian Morgan. Nominative determinism?

I have a 40ft to the inch plan of Guildford (Dated 1954) which covers the area you've shown. It is 306cm long by 77cm wide. Now the maths (probably a bit dodgy): the plan is roughly 0.45mm to the foot, so in four mill you're looking at around 40ft by 9ft10in just for the visible area, plus some for fiddle yards. I can imagine some compression is needed and and some simplification might be useful.

Well that makes more sense, but not an ECS turn into Waterloo. A touch of "send 2/4, we're going to advance" , or was it "send reinforcements, umm?

Very unlikely, I'd say. Three link couplings and, at best, steam brake only, would have made it a hairy journey, never mind adhesion issues.

I spent a lot of my "spotting time" in the late 50's thru' to '67 on the SWML and it seemed to me that nearly all the steam hauled trans had a van, bogied and/or long WB 4 wheelers in the consist. Given, at the time,. the overall line speed west of New Malden was 80mph I doubt the 75mph restriction on PMVs/CCTs was much of an issue. I also recall the Railway Magazine and Trains illustrated announcing yet another (one!) train being timed at 60mph average with a lot of the seasonal timetable changes. Even into the sixties they were still catching up with WW2 neglect. I don't think steam trains were timed as fast as some people think or dream about. Very high speeds tended to be exceptional rather than an everyday event

Sadly, Colin Cook passed away on 28 November last. Much missed by the 3mm community.

Well, I've just worked out the loco's a Western, so that's a start.

I'm impressed by the strength of the barrier. Still attached to the operating mechanism and it levered the whole of the mech and "wig-wag" post around.

I sat up in surprise when I saw you were building Fielden House. I worked there for about eighteen months in the early seventies. With what was then PO Telephones, I transferred from London Centre Area to ETE15, and the newly formed International Operator Services. At that time we hadn't got a permanent office building, so we lead a nomadic life for about four years. We had two floors for the personnel groups, processing telephonist wages amongst other things. As far as I can recall the rest of the building was occupied by the London Emergency Beds Centre. Telephone House were the offices of the City Area Telephone Manager, and I don't think it contained a public exchange; maybe the DDI PABX for City Area. Other than going to the staff restaurant, I had no need to visit the building. As an aside, practically all the offices of Area Telephone Managers across the country were called Telephone House