The Stationmaster

Could this be construed as a political remark I wonder or does that only come into play when we get round to the choice of livery? (sorry no emojis but I'm sure you'll treat it in tthe spirit in which it was meant)

Absolutely spot on Ron. And nothing that lots of folk don't know is even BR had started leasing rolling stock. And in fact one of the original prime movers of the idea of leasing rolling stock later became Deputy Leader of the Labour Party andwas regarded by many as being a left-winger and was even sponsored by the NUR. Leased rolling stock and traction is very definitely an economically sensible way of running a railway - whoever owns that railway.

It didn't work for Network rail - which started as exactly that. But because Govt guaranteed its debt (how else could it have borrowed money?) that ultimately that it became a state owned company.

And a squadron of Gloucester Old Spots has just passed overhead. Under BR Footplate Staff were on an 'all line vacancy list' with the very simple effect that men (most were in those days) moved to unpopoular depots in order to get their grade and then waited their turn to for their seniority in the grade to get them where they really wanted to be (often for better or more interesting turns and very often for more money). Net result was that certain depots, especially SR inner suburban ones , were perpetually short of Drivers as even those who went there for a grade quite often went elsewhere before they had finished umpteen months worth of road learning. All privatisation did was re-frame the attractions of working in certain places or on certain types of work in a different way from what had gone before - and Drivers at last started to get a basic salary that more correctly matched the responsibilities of their job. As for telling people where to go in order to work NR has already faced a lot of industrial trouble over trying to to reorganise some staff to s do exactly that. In reality contractors can get away with it, nationalidsed industries usually can't Fares are of course already set by Govt (or rather DafT) and in most cases ticket revenue goes direct t them, not to the operating companies. The lack of commercial freedom fort operators is a net result of teh change for franchises and in places it has worked out to the disadvantage of passengers. But if n effect fares have always in many respects been state controlled so that won't change. The only change will be if politicos are prepared tp stand the costs of reducing rail fares and that goes straight back to one long standing question in any nationalised industry - would you rather have a new hospital or school etc or would you like 10% etc off train fares or your water bill? Guess which one will always win - and whatever they say all the politicos know that is the case. But worst of all further state ownership would put more into the control of DafT - who didn't get that additional letter 'a' in there for nothing. MPs don't like state controlled railways - it fills their post bags with moans and expectations of them 'doing something'; and, for what it's worth the person who said that was the then Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. So any 'bright new railway' hopes resulting from a Labour Govt are at best illusory and at worst unrealistic. But the oddest thing about Labour's stance is that it keeps on about nationalising NR - which was effectively nationalised by the Conservatives some years ago.

Yes, no, maybe. In some cases trains were starting from goods yards and sidings (various) long after marshalling yards had opened nearby. For example trains started from and terminated at Paddington Goods long after yards had been opened within a few miles of it - and that continued until it was closed. But it had suitable sidings to ffacilitate that sort of thing. And Paddington Goods wasn't unusual in that respect and neither was the GWR/WR. On the other hand Crimea Yard, Westbourne Park, was a domestic coal yard and handled no other traffic but for many years - long after marshalling yards were available within a couple of miles of it - a train of coal empties for South Wales started from there 9including first having to cross the Hammersmith & City Line. The train was also booked to call at Aberdare Sidings, Old Oak Common, in order to attach any coal empties which might be available there. So it all needs a bit of research into teh sort of things any particular modeller is looking to reproduce.

I'm pretty sure they have always doen exactly that by describing it as building up stock levels for ... etc. But while I agree that it is accounted for it is clearly not part of a massive heap of stuff piled up on pallets or whatever at considerable warehousing and balance sheet expense and which showed an almost continuous growth under the immediately previous management. That is where there's the really serious problem - previously tackled by 'fire sales' - that they must deal with (as, I'm sure. we're all agreed).

One thing which has changed over the years is the time of payment. in many cases in the apast payment was not made ion Chinese produced model railway items until they had been received at the UK shipping agent's port premises. But. certain behaviours by various -but particularly one person - in the UK market has meant that final payment is now often raised at factory gate. Thus although the goods are not taken into stock at that point money is being paid out. However Hornby's mountain of unsold stuff has, I'm sure, very little to do with that change of payment arrangement and is largely, if not entirely, down to past mismanagement and very poor to non-existent marketing decisions. For years a retailer friend f mine was loud in his complaint that if Hornby repeted a model in many cases they couldn't even be bothered to offer a different running number. If you don't make what folk will buy then you aren't going to sell it. Factory payment arrangements also vary with some folk repotedly still being able to get end-loaded payment where various stages of work aren't paid for until tooling starts or - I have heard in one case, -until end production starts. The time of paying out during development thus varies although hopefully it will all be ciming out of a development budgeting process which takes account of the way payments are invoiced by the factory. But whatever happens, and presumably exacerbated by the Red Sea shipping route debacle, money is now usually having to be paid out a much longer time before it can begin to be recovered as sales revenue. But budgeting and cash flow management should, I hope, recognise that problem

The difference is that the Lanarkshire models version hasn't got the section cut out of the beam to avoid excessively damaging Dellner couplings in the event of a stop block collision

Not quite as a lot of their railway design and operational requirements exactly reflect UIC requirements - i.e. they are set by an international, rather than a national, body. Although BR, and its successors have been/are UIC members we have until recent years rigorously avoided paying any attention at all to UIC requirements except in respect of traction units and rolling stock operating internationally. Somethings - such as advanced notice of Bank Holiday and engineering work train alterations would be a darned sight improved if the UK were to apply UIC requirements. Signed past member of timetable conferences, and certain other meetings relating to train operation, organised in accordance with UIC procedures.

The latter contains some errors. For example the notes in respect of 'Grove' implying it was originaly an SR code are incorrect it was a national code issued by the REC. The word was directly derived from the name of the wartime LMS headquarters at The Grove, a country house near Watford and in later years a BR training Centre (various of us on RMweb attended courses there - a long while after the war!!).

GWR trains to Warrington via Hereford and Chester were originally planned (the plan drawn up in 1911) to be worked to Warrington by 28XX. What happened under the pressures of wartime might well have resulted in other engines working some of the trains.

Some did, many didn't. Attaching and detaching, especially up to the 1960s also took place at just about every station and in soem cases remarshalling of freights took place at location with no more than a couple of sidings (e.g. Broom Junction). Quite a few stations had track layouts which allowed the work to be carried out by trains travelling in either direction and through trains would call to attach (and sometimes detach) traffic in the goods yard itself. Traffic being attached to through trains often had to be segregated (i.e sorted into correct order) to mi mise the time taken to make the attaching moves. The war saw a huge increase in the number of places where some sort of sorting sidings or marshalling yard - often in rural locations - were created out of almost nothing, or were increased in size, to handle the massive increase in freight traffic. Many of these changes hunk on through the period of freight traffic decline which steepened after the 1955 ASLEF strike which caused the loss of much Goods Rated traffic to road transport. A lot depends on the period - you've got that, and the volume of traffic being handled but also the type of traffic created, or used, by local industry and other activities such as farming or fisheries. So you need to consider lots of basic things before you decide on your track layout and what it will be meant to do.

Quite agree. But I reckon it's daft duplicating something when you haven't spent any big money on the project and even your initial research isn't complete but the opposition are obviously (to me at any rate) way ahead. Far better to dump what little time and money you have spent and go find something else otherwise you're just turning it into a w*lly waving exercise.

And don't overlook the fact that the 'retailers' being talked about here were almost certainly not the model railway trade but the big multiples and mail order houses where the big Christmas market lies. One look at the sort of 'toy trains' they were selling and you can instantly see just how far off the market some of the Hornby stuff would have been - massively higher priced for less play value in many cases.

But was it down to them or someone at the factory producing an Ep who thought it would be a good idea or maybe thought that was how the English do such things? It did at least show that all the lamp brackets were there!

Not so much Margate's perception as SK's perception. He is a self declared ECML pacific 'fan' so you get a new range that starts based on that because it suits him and - maybe - he also knows/believes it will sell. Plus 'big engines' are more suitable early subjects for a new smaller scale.

I think the $64,000 questions about the stockpile boil down to two things - firstly what is in it and secondly will it cost more to keep on financing it instead of dumping what can be dumped (back to what's there)? I know, from a very reliable source that something that is in the pile is something which has steady sales over an extended term but was simply ordered., for whatever reason, in a huge quantity. So in theory it will continue to sell at a fairly steady rate and if it was bought in at bargain price for the bulk buy it will gradually offer an improving return due to inflation if nothing else. But in value terms I would think it is something that isn't a large contributor to the total value - and all it might need is a push to get more of it out to retailers (at the normal price). From what the previous management said - if it is to be believed? - a large element of the stockpile was goods ordered for the Christmas market but which retailers wouldn't take on price grounds. Clearly an attempt to shift some of that appears to have happened before the more recent Christmas. But what else - railway or non-railway - is in that huge pile and could it be shelled out at significant reductions without harming the brands? Judging by past comments and what has gone out to retailers at reduced prices there are also over-ordered and some Year 2 models which simply didn't sell in the first place - mosy likely either because the market was sated or what was being offered simply didn't offer much variety on earlier liveries etc. Here a more selective attack would probably be needed but some of it could be unlikely to ever sell because if the market was not there for it in the first place would it go for it now? Hornby might well benefit - as in the past couple of years - from finding 'helpful' retailers who are prepared to acceptstuff at reduced prices on sale or return terms to see if that can get shot of it. But some stuff will hang around for ever and whatever the reps, sorry Sakes Executives as they now are, try to do it simply won't shift. Will it better to sell it unboxed for component stripping by specialists at a giveaway price or put it in landfill and get the continuing financial drain off the books, albeit in one bad hit? The stockpile clearly needs to be carefully examined for what it contains rather than what it is costing and then be tackled in a variety of ways to suit whatever markets might exist

Look mate just because the side my ancestors were on in 1066 happened to win near Hastings (historical fact believe or not) there's not need to get touchy about the French. And at least their existence helped to keep those cuddly little R1s in some work until the disciples of Mr Collett sent some replacements over thereby giving you a chance in later years to produce yet another variant with too many lamp irons (the wrong way round) I wonder if you've already thought of that little latter temptation?

You appear not to have heard of Penrikyber Navigation Colliery, sunk in 1872 by a Mr Thomas of Cwmbach and a group of associates. Later owned by Cory brothers and then Powell Duffruyn before passing into state ownership; finally closed in 1985. The pit was at Penrhiwceiber but presumably he original owners hose the strange anglicisation of the name for commercial reasons (and maybe concerned that potential English customers probably wouldn't be able to pronounce the place name?)

If we go back well over a century people were regularly killed or injured where roads crossed railways on the level. So Parliament - in some of the earliest railway legislation made stipulations for such a situation. Those stipulations inconvenienced some people using the roads but they saved a lot of lives - probaby running into many hundreds or more over time. Now numerous people complain about being delayed at level crossings so if we apply your logic public opinion among those people would suggest that all those safety features where a railway crosses a road on the level should be removed and that all level crossing legislation is 'bad'. CDL has saved lives - there are people walking around today who would be underground in a wooden box if it had not been introduced. Presumably - by your argument - it too is 'bad' and we should let people kill themselves, and others, through their own stupidity and ignorance (plenty of that about when it comes to slam doors on railway rolling stock)? That is what you are in effect arguing for - the rule of the unknowing led by the unseeing. Surely if something which comes at a pretty low price over its working life saves even the serious injury of just one person then it is worth doing" And WCRC has millions more than even the most pessimistic figures suggest it would cost them to install that very basic safety feature on its rolling stock. If others are doing it what is so special about that bunch - apart from its very loud, parsimonious, rabble rousing, voice?.

The answer to your questions depends very much on the era to which you are referring and that is very much the case with your first question. However the answer to the second one was fairly consistent over the years because intermediate yards where trains called to attach/detach would assemble vehicles in the optimum way to suit the order in which they had to be shunted into the train. This was covered by what were known as 'Marshalling instructions' and they definitely existed by the 1890s, if not earlier, on some Companies. And they basically lasted until freight etc trains conveying traffic for a variety if destinations etc and attaching/detaching enroute ceased to run on BR. There are still some about albeit usually conveying specialist traffic in a trainload to a destination yard where they are broken up into smaller sections for various destinations so not taking on any traffic intermediately during their journey.

Some stations used to boast signs which said 'You may send a telegram (or 'you may telephone') from this station. Sendinga telegram wiould have required a public counter separate from the working part of a telegraph office where somebody could write down and pay for their message. But generally this system was overtaken by the GPO's facility to send telegrams via a Post Office counter. 'You may telephone normally seems t ohave meant that a public call box of some sort was available - the railway 'phone system would not have been made available for members of the pi ub lic to make calls over it. all stations of any sort of size had a Telegraph Office but over the years what it did and how it did it changed. Originally they were, literally 'telegraph offices' using either single needle or multi needle telegraph instruments to send messages (in the Western we called what others might calla telegram a w'ire' so details of all sorts of things would be wired. This meant that you wrote your message , using code words to keep the message short, on a form which you took to the telegraph office for the Telegraph Clerk to send. In later years that would mainly be done using a voice call between telegram offices or using something akin to a simple version of what became a teleprinter which wrote the message on a strip of paper at the receiving end. Ultimately that system was replaced by teleprinters between the busier and more important offices. In many places the Telegraph Office also became the local railway telephone exchange which could rpute you onto different networks or even make a call; ob ver 'theNational' (i. the GPO) 'phone network. This finction was largely replaced by automatic exchanges and. from the late 1950s/early '60s ever increasing use of ETD (the BR equivalent of STD). At Reading in the mid 1960s a new telephone exchange was provided - one of the few parts of the major station rebuilding scheme of that era to be actually completed - and the new exchange was also the 'telegraph office' although it used teleprinters (or voice by 'phone) to send wires. And, believe it or not, single needle telegraph instruments remained in use on some parts of BR until the first half of the 1970s while at the same time BR also had some of the best data links in the country and could transmit data quicker than anyone else in Britain.

It all helps to explain why bullsh*t bingo became so popular!!

The only problem with 'society as a whole' is that almost invariably society as a whole is not sufficiently informed about all the relevant facts and how they inter-relate to be able to reach a properly informed and reasoned decision. Such decisions often just go with either gut reaction or some variant of pre-formed prejudice with only a small part of the whole actually bothering to look into the facts and the various conflicting points. CDL is a good example of this. Firstly we should ask just how many members of 'society as a whole;' have even travelled on a train in, say, the past 10 years? We could then take that down to more detailed levels such as how many of those have travelled in a Mk1 coach on either a preserved railway or some sort of mainline excursion and then how many have done both of those things and are therefore able to make some sort of comparisons between them. We are immediately coming down to some very small numbers compared with 'society as a whole' and I suspect that it is more than likely that far more. will have travelled in a Mk 1, or even older, coach on a preserved railway/preservation site than have travelled in one on a mainline excursion. Thus only a relatively small number of people can come to some sort of qualitative assessment drawing on their own experience. But even that group will not necessarily have the necessary quantitative data to put into a proper assessment comparing risks. So informed opinion. and objective professional inputs are needed in order to draw up Regulations etc and implement them. CDL was introduced for one very simple reason - it would remove an unregulated, irrational, decision process from the control of train doors, i.e. it would stop human beings doing something they shouldn't do and opening a door at the wrong time. In consequence it would reduce the number of deaths which occurred every year due to the lack of something to prevent human beings stupidly hurting or killing themselves and others. And somebody probably also put the usual method of costing such a step in improving safety against the cost of lives saved. I have picked up the personal possessions of someone who jumped off a loco travelling at less than 40 mph - his body had been removed before I got to site to do that but small parts of it remained. The 25mph decision speed for provision of CDL wasn't just conjured up by magic but has a lot of logic to it if you relate severity of consequences to speed. However some people have stepped out of a stationary train on the mainline and have either died or been killed as a result of doing so and CDL has helped reduce/eliminate that potential as well (it's far more likely on mainline railways). Looking at a recent photo in the Daily Telegraph of people leaning out of slam door droplights on a certain viaduct on the West Highland Extension reminded me of another good reason for CDL on The Jacobite. If a door happened to be only on the first catch leaning on it, especially with others crowding around to get a look as well, could result in the door coming open and somebody falling out. Falling out of a train is one thing, falling out when the train is on a viaduct 90 ft high is averry different thing. That too strikes me as a pretty good reason for having CDL on tourist trains using Mk1 coaches on the WHE.

A 47 was not exactly the ideal loco for working an unfitted freight - no sanders for a start was something which made them less than ideal for a lot of freight working in difficult areas. Plus they were always in demand for working fitted freights and passenger etc trains.