Dr.Glum

An update on the last two issues of the L&NWR Society quarterly Journal, downloadable for free for members, or can be purchased in the on-line shop in the L&NWRS website https://lnwrs.org.uk/shop. (Note non-members cannot purchase the most recent 4 issues.) Contents December 2023 Vol.10 No.11 “Stockport to Manchester London Road and Mayfield Local Services” p412 By Peter Spedding (6pp) Incl. 6 photos, 9 tables of services. “Hardwicke in use in the 1970s” p418 By Bob Williams (4pp) 10 colour photographs. “Addressing the ‘Bill Bailey’s’ reputation” p422 By Joseph Cliffe (2pp) Incl. 3 photos. “James Peel Richards — Authority on the LNWR” p412 By Peter Davis (4pp) Incl. 5 photos, 1 drawing, 2 sketches. “Passenger Brake Vans – Part 7: Five-Compartment Parcels Vans” p428 By Bob Williams (6pp) Incl. 7 photos, 1 table, 1 official drawing (2pp spread). “Early Carriage Trucks” p434 By Tom Nicholls (10pp) Incl. 18 photos (7 in colour) “LNWR train sets – an occasional series: LNWR D229 in Joint LNWR/GWR workings” p444 By Paul Howarth (2pp) Incl. 1 large photo, 2 carriage plans, 1 table of set workings. “Viaduct at Watford” p447 By Bob Williams (1p) Incl. 3 colour photos. Letters to the Editor p448 (2pp) Incl. 4 photos of Melton Mowbray (1 in colour) Contents March 2024 Vol.10 No.12 “The Knotty at Crewe” by Mike G Fell p456 (12pp) Incl. 13 photos, 7 tabels, 1 plan of NSR’s coal wharfs. “Recollections of Traces of the LNWR at Wolverhampton High Level Station” by John Bailey p468 (7pp) Incl. 11 photos )3 colour) , 1 colour RCH track diagram extract. “Prince of Wales, Tishy, Locomotives” By Joseph Cliff p475 (3pp) Incl. 5 photos. “LNWR train sets – an occasional series: LNWR train running on the Midland” by Paul Howarth p478 incl. 1 photo and 1 carriage plan. “Railway Employment by Charles H Grinling” p480 (7pp) Reprint from Windsor Magazine 1905, incl. 6 photos. “The State Visit of the Shah of Persia in 1873” by David Bond p487 (3pp) incl. 2 photos, 1 table of timings.

When I posted this image in the London & North Western Society Facebook while seeking additional caption information for next year's L&NWRS Calendar, among the first replies were comments that this would give good ideas for making a lovely small layout with both standard gauge (contractors work) and narrow gauge (Festiniog wagons at the right). The location is the south portal of the LNWR line to Blaenau Festiniog in July 1879. The little station (Pont yr afon) didn't last very long.

[Disclaimer: later Class 108 models may have different pickup arrangements.] During the years of the loft layout I had not experienced good running from new with either my 2 car set (32.900 bought 2007) nor 3 car set (32.911 bought 2008). Having got them out now for the first time in some years, it was time to find out the reason. The 3 car set was worst, only intermittently picking up properly. The photo shows the electrical arrangement of an unpowered bogie. The power car seemed to pick up reasonably, but this unpowered end was giving nothing. The wheels/axles transmit voltage via (over-large) holes in a brass strip behind the axle boxes. The strips extend through the bogie frame giving a prong each side with a bent over end. These ends are supposed to run on slightly sprung flat plates attached to the body. I burnished everything and bent the ends of the prongs to extend slightly (as they had never touched the plates: no marks) and slightly increased the shallow angle of the plates away from the body. This improved continuity a lot, but the outer wheel set was not making a circuit if the bogie was ever so slightly tipped by a high rail end at a joint, or a stretch of rail with a slight cant. To improve matters I swapped the non-driving bogie with the one from the other end car which was making better contact judging by the marks on the sprung plate. All the other (non-powered) bogies seemed to have better connections between the plates and prongs, so I just burnished them. All those bearing points were given a tiny drop of RailZip. I need to run in the dark with their lights on to see if there’s still a problem. Has anyone else had these problems and done something different?

So thank you all, Gentlemen, both here in RMweb and on the L&NWRS FB site. The consensus is: 1st Caledonian D2 meat van 2nd LNWR D88 10T 3rd LNWR D88 10T 4th GW wooden Mink pre-1900 5th GW 4 plank open with Williams patent sheet supporter (lying towards us) 6th GW wooden Mink pre-1900 7th LNWR D88 10T The following wagons are all opens, liberally covered with tarpaulins, fading into obscurity with distance. Thank you again. Calendar "Aspects of the Old North-Western" should be on sale from the L&NWRS by June-ish.

I've been shown a page of Caledonian Wagons (author Mike Williams), and I'm now certain van 1 is a D2 meat van. Van 4 has also been suggested to be a GER D15 van, very similar to a wooden Mink. If it's any help, here's a blow-up.

This image is part of ECL0005 (in the L&NWR Society on-line archive, the DMS) which may be a candidate for the L&NWRS 2025 Calendar. I have been asked about the first van (which is non-LNWR) - I have no idea! Nos. 2,3 & 7 are obviously LNW D88s. Initially I thought 4 & 6 were Midland 8T & 10Ts, but the framing is wrong AFAIK. Any thoughts? Many thanks.

Footbridge construction continued The overhead view below shows the complication of one staircase (the left hand one) being at an angle which needed a landing extension. Otherwise the foot of the steps would have been almost at the platform edge. (The camera makes the right hand one also look skew, but partly its lens effect and partly the steps were not attached at this time.) I was reading “Scenes From The Past no.42 (Part Two) The Oldham Loop, New Hey, Milnrow and Rochdale to Manchester Victoria” by Jeffrey Wells and on page 94 there was a wonderful footbridge sign. I wasn’t going to try to exactly match it, but I was in love with the wording and the style. I created my text in Adobe InDesign to model size, made duplicates and exported as a PDF so that printing would preserve the size. The font I chose was Artifakt Element Black. I was concerned about how to make a sturdy model and considered soldering up a frame. In the end I found some bullhead rail left over from building track in 3mm finescale. The board is card and the idea was to slot it into the rails. However, it didn’t fit well enough, so as per the photo below I glued a backing piece to both the sign and the rails. Once glued, I could trim the edges flush. Below is my sign and the original at Newton Heath station. The 1956 photo in the book shows the whole footbridge with the two signs. Interestingly the RH one appears to be wooden letters, but the left hand one seems to be painted on and designed to match. [Below] the ‘finished’ footbridge. Some weathering to apply, sometime. Views in place on the layout, below: and and

I have mixed views on the stability of foamboard when it is used as a base and card (greyboard) is glued to it. I made a scenic roadway module years ago, two sheets 5mm foamboard about 20mm airspace with criss-cross of spacers and over the years it has bowed upwards slightly. I am careful to work on a flat surface and weight everything down when gluing, but some of my recent scenic modules do want to curl upwards (e.g. a lift of 5mm at the ends, over a length of 600mm) when cold (unheated conservatory), but will relax when its warmer. Matters are complicated by the fact that I suspect that gluing printed paper (e.g. platform tarmac surfaces and the dampness associated with that) is what is driving the process. On the success side, I have made and used for a year now, a big lightweight lift-out section that has a wood spine and foamboard box girder construction. The only snag is I forgot to allow for the thickness of cork under the track (so there isn't any) and the trains make more noise running over it. The details are:https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/172987-large-lift-out-section-made-of-wood-and-foam-board/

In reply a post a little way above, the history of Riverside Station is covered (with photos) in “Gateway to the West: A History of Riverside Station, Liverpool: MD & HB - LNWR” (L&NWRS Premier Portfolio) by Colin Reed, published 1992. Contact the Sales Officer via sales@lnwrs.org.uk to see if he can find you a copy.

Update on L&NWRS Journal contents: June 2023 Issue vol.10.9 "The LNWR in and around Nottingham" p332 By Simon Fountain "Lecture on Superheated Steam" p339 Transcribed by David Bond "The Premier Railway History – say the investment advisors" p346 By Neil Fraser "The Huddersfield Canals under early London and North Western Railway Ownership - Part One" p348 By Melvyn Smith "Passenger Brake Vans – Part 6 – 45ft 0in Clerestory Brake Vans" p357 By Bob Williams "How Welsh Newspapers reported on the LNWR in 1848" p364 Compiled by David Bond Letters to the Editor p366 Press Digest No 94 p367 September 2023 Issue vol10.10 "George Aitchison (1792—1861)" p373 By Tom Nicholls "The Huddersfield Canals under early London and North Western Railway Ownership - Part Two" p386 By Melvyn Smith "George Frederick Aveline" p394 By Paul Scott "Strange Prince of Wales liveries" p400 By Bob Williams "Foden Lorries by Train" p403 By David Brandreth and Bob Williams Letters to the Editor p405 Press Digest No 95 p406

It didn’t take much testing of the four couplings (that I list above) to find that the 647 has been located far too far in towards the bogie pivot, i.e. it doesn’t stick out far enough. See last photo above. The others also had problems. In daylight I found that two of them were happily travelling with a 1mm gap between magnet faces with a further five carriages in tow. Gosh! The buffer faces were together on the straight, which is fine for carriages with springs on the coupling carrier, but these are rigid. On a 30 inch radius curve there were prototypical graunching noises (from the buffers) such as you might hear on preserved lines when carriages or loco tenders negotiate small radius points. All very amusing, but not conducive to reliable running. I did comparative running with the original rake which had the T-bar couplings glued on (see head of this thread). This gave me the dimension on the straight for the gap between the buffers: nominal 3mm. Previous attempts had shown me I was not able to install the couplings in a consistent manner. I took the time to build a jig, as I have 12 carriages to deal with. The white card is just under 1.5mm thick and the buffers rest against it. The carriage above is one that has its coupling set back too far – see the gap between the magnet face and the brown card cradle. My plan is mark any holes for drilling with the coupling lying on the bogie while in the cradle. I will report back.

Now back to the old Bachman Mk1 suburbans. I’m trying two solutions. Now they are done I will put them into traffic and check if there are any issues under tension in a train or propelling, how they behave through curves and pointwork, and coupling with a variety of other types. Will report back in due course. In both cases I remove the nearest wheel set so I can saw off the ‘tab’ to which the original screwed coupling was fitted. Part of the upstanding end of the bogie is removed (saw cuts, paring off with sharp knife, then final filing to polish). The plastic is very tough. I have used 8BA bolts (normal or screw-headed) and make a tight fit hole so that the bolt of screw can self-tap. I had spare UltraClose Hunt couplings which call for the hole to be 11.5mm from the bogie edge, which puts it half under the axle. That’s where I use a screw head without a washer. With the 647 Clip fit coupling, the hole is 3.5mm from the edge and a bolt (with the bigger head) can be used. In both cases, for safety I do fit a nut, part off the spare length of the bolt with a slitting disk (to clear the carriage body) and secure with a blob of Bostik. If I had spare standard close Hunts I’d use them as it puts the hole back clear of the axle. The 647 coupling needs a ~2mm height spacer, for which 80thou plasticard is fine. The photos below show the two ends of Crimson Compo M41006. Dunno where the buffer went! 1 bolted NEM102 + Ultra (11.5mm) 1 647 bolted 8BA (3.5mm from edge), , white plasticard spacer visible That 647 above is a bit far back maybe, but so far it has worked OK. (I was a bit slack measuring up for the pilot hole, maybe 4.5mm.) [Later edit: not OK, see later post.] I’ve also done Maroon Brk 2nd M43257 (not shown) with one fixed NEM102 + Ultra (which is less work) and the other end 1 bolted NEM102 + Ultra 8BA (11.5mm).

You’d think I’d have removed the scenery for safety, wouldn’t you. Doh! They strike again! More extensive, but should be easier to repair. Faint trail down the wall went past my bait trap, which I have now moved over to straddle the trail. Below is damage along the platform. Next they/it went past the station building and had a further wander/graze. I am now (belatedly) removing all card structures into the house, while carefully checking for no hiding passengers of the nibbly sort. Below, I found the underside of the canopy has had some attention last night. I’ve now laid out new paper/glue/card bait and pellets on the baseboard.

Each evening in the dark I've been on wee beastie patrol with a torch and am pleased to report no further incursions by the aliens. I think (from traces of very faint trail) they or it came from the top of the wall where the roof of the conservatory meets the house. I have made this appetising bait trap, using oddments (hence the odd shape) of the same card stock, same ink cartridge print sample and same pritstick. Come ye intruders: down the wall, creep over the edge onto the card, munch the paper and glue yum yum, then for dessert, slug pellets. Next I need one of those motion cameras (like my chum has now, having had to buy one to see if it was a badger digging up his lawn) with the threshold set to the setting marked 'tediously slow'. 😀

Before doing anything more with the old Bachmann suburbans, here’s the results of two purchases at the Stafford Exhibition (a very good show). Firstly I’m trialling ‘Close couplings for Clip Socket’ (serial 647) following a suggestion by teeinox. I needed a Hunt coupling on my R2231 Duchess of Rutland (bought in 2002) and this was right for it. The first image shows the underneath. Out of sight under the bar of the coupling should be a screw holding the end of the tender’s base plate, but it is impossible to re-fit, being covered by the bar of the coupling. Seems held rigidly enough regardless. The second point is I had to take a scalpel to the moulding that the missing screw would go into, as there was a ‘roughness’ that hindered the sideways free swing of the coupling. In the image below, the gap is at least 1mm wider than it needs to be, so I should have bought serial 651 which is 15mm rather than 16mm of the 647 (magnet face to hole c/l). The other new fitting is ‘Close Coupling Stepped for NEM socket’ (on the packet, but confusingly described on the receipt as ‘Close Step NEM 00’ code HCNSSCLC). Anyway, you’ll need code 649 for Bachman Mk1 with minimum 30” radius curves. Above, with no tension on the coupling. Below, under load, with the standard weak Bachmann springs extended. Still, that is only visible on a sight line at right angles, and overall a vast improvement.

Interesting concept, the waterproof spray. Yes, it should give some protection. I just plain have never seen a need, with the previous layout in the loft and now this one in a conservatory, which although without an insulated roof, is in theory sealed and like an unheated indoor room. But you've made me think. What was your original motivation and where do your buildings live? For the record, I had a search, and my spray (against UV fade) is Daler-Rowney Perfix Colourless Fixative (for Pastels).

Yesterday evening I was mortified to spot this damage in the railway room (conservatory). Bio hazard. Rotten little mollusc! Slug or snail? How dare you touch my building, you blankety-blank expletive laden little S**t. In the dark with a torch I checked around but could not find the culprit, and strangely there are no tracks on the brickwork that the item was against. Nothing else has been nibbled. This is not the last card structure to be placed on the layout so fresh glue may not be the attraction. The item had not been sprayed with my usual fixative - significant? Needless to say I shall pay attention to anything that is brought in from the garden, i.e. seat cushions, gardening shoes, etc. This morning I have deployed slug bait on and under the layout. The laborious construction of this low relief item and its location on other structures is described in

Hello again, teeinox. Looking at the image of the 647 coupling that you illustrate above, the hole looks to be a similar size to the width of the magnet, so nearly 3mm. What sort of screw or bolt do you use? The BA or metric bolts that I have with a similar width also have a relatively big head, and I have limited clearance either to the axle or to the carriage underside. Cheers

Thankyou teeinox, I had wondered about that type in my musing for the bogies of the suburbans. I shall buy a pack at Stafford Show on 23rd September. The 16mm spacing to the hole may prove problematic on the old Dapol vans as the edge of the hole in the van floor left by sawing off the unwanted block is a bit near that position. However, any I don't use for the carriages will fit nicely on old Bachmann vans made in Hong Kong.

Light is dawning. I downloaded the PDF from the WHWW site (highly recommended for understanding the range, and recently updated including information not on the product pages of the website) and found the following (extract) which explains my puzzlement over what WHWW had sold me – different bogies on my carriages! The PDF file is: Hunt Couplings Guide v3 - 4 Nov 2022.pdf I shall return to the subject of fitting to my Bachmann suburbans later, but have been continuing the development of my parcels traffic. Testing of the two old Bachmann ex-LMS BGs (see previous post) shows a slight bias towards the lower position (T bar coupling glued under tab on bogie). Next image shows potential problem when coupled to my ‘standard’ of Stepped Close Coupling fitted to Mk1 stock. In practice the screw head holding the bogie to the BG underside limits such movement, but there have been a couple of derailments for no apparent explanation, depending on the height of coupling on the adjacent vehicle. The other line of development has been trial fitting to vans and brakevans so that I can add 4 wheel fitted vans into my parcel trains. Tests so far: Vehicles fitted with NEM sockets such as Bachmann vans and BR 20ton brake, and Dapol Fruit D. The height ends up as ‘standard’; the vans take Ultras and the Fruit D Extra Close. These will go through Peco medium radius points. (I don’t have any medium cross-overs, only long.) They run in trains with the bogie stock OK. A couple of the Ultras pulled out when separating vehicles and had to be glued in place. (One way of using any with a broken leg.) The brake van is a problem with that low coupling. The vehicle has one Hunt fitted as it is to be a barrier wagon between non-Hunt locos and fitted heads (parcels and/or vans) and so will take the full drag of the train. So far it has proved problematic, so surgery will be needed (to come). The image from the Hunt PDF (see above) using the 4WH0300102 NEM socket spurred me to deal with a Dapol 4w van. Despite being basic models they run well and I used them a lot on the old layout, even though I didn’t like the large couplings. I have now fitted Ultra Hunts to a banana van and it behaves perfectly. The photo below shows the underside. The plastic box holding the original coupling is sawn off (carefully, so as not to cut into the spring hangars) and the remaining surface made absolutely smooth, paring with a very sharp knife. When the NEM pocket has been screwed on it must be able to move (swing sideways) without catching on any ‘lumps’. Experience (limited I grant you) suggests that in a mixed environment of vans and bogie vehicles with sprung or fixed couplings, the 4 wheelers need the face of the magnet to end up slightly proud of the buffer faces, about ½mm. This implies a notional distance from the front (outside) of the buffer beam to the screw hole of about 18mm or 19mm. Why ‘or’ ? Because the body and frame of this moulding is not symmetrical! The body only fits on snugly one way round! I considered self tapping screws to hold the NEM pocket on, but in the end found some 10BA bolts. At the moment there is no nut on the inside, but I’ll fit them when trials are finished. I broke an Ultra coupling trying to get it in the first pocket. Looking at 16 pockets most of them had a ‘growth’ inside that required some careful work with a small square file. Bit tedious. I did wonder about the pivot points (and hence points of drag) being relatively close together but it seems to run alright under load, or without fishtailing when there’s little drag. Coincidently while going through old copies of ‘Model Rail’ prior to passing them on, I found some articles by Steve Banks on Parcels Traffic. Extremely interesting reading. It gave me an insight into the role of fitted 4 and 6 wheel vans (‘vanfits’) in mixed trains. e.g. Issue no.110 November 2007 pp22-28 “Masterclass: Parcels Trains in the steam era”.

Thank you Mike Harvey for your input. Working on other vehicles since I wrote the first post, has altered my thinking about maybe not using the T bar version. Luckily with the rake of 7 carriages I have not had any problems of disconnection. In 00 the magnet size and the force is such that two free running vehicles will pull themselves together from about an inch apart. The contact face you mention does not open out, or at least not with my minimum track radius.

I have long been fed up with the toy-like gap between my passenger stock, so I bought two types of Hunt Elite magnetic couplings to try (at ModelRail Scotland in February): the standard flat close type and the T-piece screw on type to treat my Bachmann Mk1 suburbans. I show some results below, so it’s important that I state the conditions that my stock has to run under. My minimum radius is strictly 30 inches and no reverse curves of note. All points that passenger stock are expected to go through are Peco code 100 long. Apart from circulating on the layout through the minimum curves, my testing includes pulling and pushing through cross-overs. My first image shows several things. Firstly that packet is of ‘NEM sockets to fit Bachmann suburbans’, but my carriages (bought in year 2000) must be very different from what they’re designed for – I can see no way of using the Hunt sockets, because they would foul the axles. Secondly, some of the magnets were not square in the moulding (not a problem with later purchases). As the T unit will have no flexibility when attached, I had to correct the end profile with a file. I know that this (along with hammering or unnecessary pulling magnets apart) could potentially reduce the strength of the field, but testing in a train showed me that the magnet had to be presented to the next vehicle square on and centrally between the rails. If one magnet wasn’t, bogie derailments were possible, often coming off a curve onto the straight or through points. Top left is an original coupling and the pair lower down have the original screw through the Hunt T bar into the lip of the bogie. Look at the massive distance that results: not acceptable. Instead I removed any moulded bumps on the bogie lip and glued the T bar level with the back edge of the bogie lip. This resulted in the image below. Actually not a great spacing improvement, but a definite gain losing the horrible big coupling. The finished train looked very fine to my eye. (But see later experience.) It was while running this that I found what I said above: the importance of these fixed couplings lining up properly. I had glued one T bar not quite straight: the vehicle or the adjacent one was prone to derailment. Overall I could see the benefits and made a decision that I would fit Hunt couplings to a proportion of my carriage rolling stock, with especial priority to problem rakes. When I had a loft layout I was able to run long trains (11 plus), but found there were problems with some vehicles on plain track, usually coming off curves. The drag of the train seemed sufficient to stop the coupling hook sliding back to its straight position on the bar it was hooked on. Hornby Pullmans (bought 2005 and 2007) gave a lot of problems, and blow me much more recently with Hornby Gresley full brakes (which I want to run behind the engine as is shown in so many train photos) had the same problem. The Pullmans are why I bought some Buckeyes to try (see below). Since I’d started with Hunts, I had not been clear as to which way up they should be installed. The photos on the web site do not always clearly show. Now I had the Buckeyes I could see, and then I found that I had chosen the other way up on my suburbans! Bah! Oh well, learning curve and I do now have a new ‘standard’. I had glued them onto the suburbans with Bostik All-purpose Clear Glue and I’ve found it is possible to get them off as it doesn’t chemically bond with the Bachmann plastic. So much more recently I bought a pack of various other types from West Hill Wagon Works so I could do a lot of experimenting. Up till then I had only had the T-bar screw sort and what I at that time regarded as the standard close coupling (on the packet: Close coupling – Couplings for NEM sockets), the shank of which is straight. I now also had: Standard stepped (Mk1/Mk2/Pullman Stepped Close Coupling NEM sockets) Buckeye (** Buckeye ** Mk1/Mk2/Pullman Stepped Close Coupling NEM sockets) Extra Close (Hunt Couplings ELITE – Extra Close Couplings for NEM sockets) Ultra Close (Ultra Close Coupling - Couplings for NEM sockets) I’ll deal with them all in later posts on a variety of vehicles, but the proper solution for my old Mk1 suburbans is going to be what I’ve now found with the ex-LMS BG bogies, which have a very similar design. I glued Ultra close Hunts under the bogie lip (where the screwed coupling had been), but in testing I found it was too far off the standard height when coupled to stock with different Hunt couplings. I now treat the Stepped Close coupling which is perfect for Bachmann Mk1 ordinary carriages (but not to get minimum vehicle spacing possible with the Mk1 TPOs for example.) as my height standard. But it is a little more complicated than that as I wished to run parcels trains with a mixture of Bachman ex-LMS BGs, Bachmann Mk1 BGs, Hornby Gresley BGs, Hornby Hawksworth BGs, and a variety of 4 wheel vans. Shades of Red Bank Parcels. I’ll cover other vehicles in later posts, but for now I’ll illustrate two options with the T bar replacements, using the BG bogies as the test bed. [Above] The LH Mk1 has the standard stepped coupling, being dragged down by the T bar fitting on the right. The height mismatch is too great when part of a heavy test train. The solution was to glue the Ultra Close to the upper side of the bogie lip. Unfortunately some bogies of this vintage have a raised profile on the upper side (upper example) so I have had to saw/scrape a flat recess so the T bar can sit near enough to the axle (lower example). Note the X scratched on the coupling. Other couplings in the range have a moulded figure (C, XC or X) on the shank which should be upwards on the vehicle. (To avoid accidents of gluing anything on the wrong way up, I always keep a fitted vehicle on the workbench. The next shot shows the same Mk1 with the standard stepped coupling with the crimson and cream BG fitted with the coupling glued above the bogie tab. Compared with the previous image, the standard coupling is less out of place, although the two magnets do not line up perfectly. I should stress I have found no tendency for the magnets to part in any of my testing. I will keep the two BGs with the two different coupling positions, for now. Other vehicle types may end up coupled to them, as in the next two images. The van has Ultras as the stepped standards stick out way too much. The last two images show two BGs on the straight, and then on a 30 inch curve. Not so much a chance of buffer locking, more the corridor connections. (But it works; the vehicles do not tilt.) So I will run more test trains like the one below with both ex-LMS BGs in and see if I hit any problems. And sometime I’ll treat my suburbans with Ultras and show the results here.

It's not much help, but this image area is extracted from the original BMP file.

The lamp base is bolted to something between the two horizontal wooden bars supporting the RH doll, (Those bars are supported by a metal bracket between the bars.) I can see no other lamp post. Economically-minded LNWR!

The other locos are id'd as Precursor’ class (curved nameplate) waiting back to back with a 'George' (straight nameplate). Bigger extract from L&NWRS image ref. RB259 shown below. I don't know when the footbridge to Hoole Road was removed. [Edit: since seen a 1935 photo with it there]