Pacific231G

I've just zoomed in on it and the car IS right hand drive with the Reg plate the right way round as is the Low Bridge Sign so it's only the BR logo that is wrong. I'm guessing that it's been painted up to conceal its current ownership but the picutre was sharp enough to enable the loco's number to be made out. The disjunction in StreetView is odd unless the camera was too high to go under the bridge. There's no indication that the streets around lower West End are residents only if accessed from Central Road via the low bridge- though the StreeView vehice obviously didn't go down them (local hostility to it ?) but the access from Harbour Way is residents only - presumably to stop it from being a rat run?

And how many ever do? I've recently acquired some very nice all steel coaches for a layout set in about 1960. They're marked for 1st, 2nd and 3rd classes but third class was abolished in June 1956 so of course I'm going to re-letter them (maybe, one day, when I get around to !)

Curious. I've been through the 25 inch maps in the NLS and there's no sign of it but they only go up to 1930. Smaller scale maps go to about 1960 and, though I wouldn't expect them to show the railway, there is no sign of any development (like a yacht club or boatyard) before the present houses were built. The rails are embedded in a roadway so I'd hazard a guess that, unless it was something left over from the war, it was probably for launching smallish boats at high tide with a winch and cradle. I've detected the rails on Google Earth and where they are is roughly where a sand pit is marked just inland in the 1886 25 inch map but it had gone by the 1906 map and, with nothing else marked there ,I doubt if it was associated with any railway. UPDATE I found this note in the local weekly paper's website. "In the late 1920’s stone and rock arriving by rail for building the South Esplanade was transferred into narrow gauge trucks and pushed on rail lines laid down onto the beach and sand dunes." https://www.burnhamandhighbridgeweeklynews.co.uk/news/16178030.looking-back-50-facts-burnham-on-sea-railway/ There is no sign of this in the OS maps from that period so the track must have been very temporary but this could be vestige of that.

A few years ago I was at IBC (the International Broadcasting Convention- a giant toy show for the television and radio industry - at the RAI exhibition halls in Amsterdam a few years ago, and staying in a hotel in the city, They'd laid on a vintage tram to provide a special service to RAI from the city centre and it was good fun to travel on it.

You've not been to Boston (Mass.) then where the MBTA subway lines are named by their colours on the map, MBTA map Red, blue, Orange, Silver, and Green. I don't know what it's like now but I spent a summer there in the 1970s and it was like a museum of urban transport with almost very colour an example of a different technology. The Blue Line was a typical fairly modern metro with sections above and below ground, The red (though actually built later than the bluie) had rather older metro type trains though it includes a surface "interurban" type line with PCC streetcars , the Orange line was , except in the city centre, a traditional steel viadut "El" which I had the misfortune to stay next to for a week before moving to Brookline where the Green Line was a tramway with a "pre-metro" section in tunnels nearer the centre. The Silver Line is supposedly a "rapid transit bus" running in part in dedicated tunnels but not really enough to be truly rapid. The catch is that passengers would then assume that the line ran from Hammersmith and terminated the first time it reached Edgeware Road without also going round the circle. If you were being logical you might call the former circle line the Hammersmith and Circle, and the Hammersmith and City the Hammersmith and Barking or the Hammersmith and East End line.

Not according to my GP who says that we're now regarded as middle aged until we're 75 so you've still got a way to go. It's interesting how much later we do now (on average) become elderly. I've just been going through a load of MRNs from the the 1950s and 1960s and came upon their tribute in August 1960 to the magazine's former long serving (1936-1957) editor JNM (John) Maskelyne. Looking at the accompanying images I saw someone who definitely looked Edwardian if not Victorian and I assumed he must have been in his late 70s or 80s He was in fact 68 when he died and that was the average male life expectancy in the early 1960s (though a "middle class" white collar worker like JNM might have expected a few more years) . I can remember my own grandparents also looking very elderly in their late 60s. My own father died at the age of 76 but, though he'd suffered ill health for some time, he was never elderly. I believe that when a universal OAP was introduced in 1908 at age 70, few people actually lived long enough to ever receive it.

I started off by using pokey finger control on my small H0 layout but, when I scenicced it, added caboose industry point switches arranged along the front of the layout and connected to the tie bars by short wire in tube. I don't know why but it feels far better operating them from "off-stage"even though only just so. Like an idiot though I failed to allow room in the track plan for dummy standard type J point levers (the sort where swinging a weighted arm pulls the lever over) invariably to be found in small French termini. They do need some space beside the point to operate and act as point indicators as well as levers.

This rather reminds me of Gilbert Thomas' Paddington to Seagood layout which occupied an 18 x 25 ft billiard room in his South Devon House. This was of course in 0 gauge (with spring drive locos) so would be roughly equivalent to 13 x 9 ft in 00 or H0 - the typical size of a bedroom in a 1930s semi (though you'd need wider aisles). I note that, like Minories, "Paddington" has just three platforms and the outer terminus two. Readig his 1947 book "Paddington to Seagood" again, I rather liked his approach to the hobby "...the pleasure of model railroading consists.., not in the slavish imitation of the real thing, but in essential fidelity to actual working conditions...It is from carrying out representative railway operations that the interest springs, and this may be done quite satifactorily on a diminutive scale"

No doubt at all in my mind. I've been going through a lot of MRNs and MRCs from the late 1940s to 1960 recently and found a good number of articles by L E Carroll Apart from the four or five articles in MRN about his Link Section Control system and the out and return from Victoria layout, already listed by Dunnyrail yesterday, there are articles in MRC about his first layout which used HD 3 rail locos converted for stud-contact along with others in both magazines covering a range of topics including, among others, fine scale point construction, transition curves, avoiding buffer-locking and scratchbuilt coach construction. His first layout "as a complete beginner" was quite interesting in concept. It was described in the first of three articles "Horny Dublo and Stud Contact" in March 1952. and, from his articles, would have been built in 1948. There were two termini and a continuous run which was mostly double track but with the two termini fed from a single line section to make for simplet pointwork (it was based on simple turnouts) making operation of trains in both directions "challenging" Unfortunately, there are no photos of the layout I assume that the operating plan was for trains to leave each terminus and then run round the continuous section for several circuits before arriving at the other terminus. The trick of sharing the turntable, which Carroll describes as "heinously unrailwaylike" but highly convenient with the locoshed making a good camouflage, is one I've seen on a few American plans and quite useful given how much space they need. I can't make out any sign of stud contact on his later (but not that much later) Victoria out and back layout first revealed in MRN in May 1955 (Train Exchange) so think he must have gone to two rail fairly quickly after describing how to adopt stud-cotact. Why L E Carroll was not named in the 1979 MRC annual article "South for Moonshine" isn't at all clear. Possibly he felt, wrongly, that having written up the layout for MRN he couldn't then offer an article about it to MRC but Stevens Stratton also described the layout very much in the past tense. I haven't as yet found anything written by Carroll after his New Victoria Line article about the enlarged Victoria Station in MRN in January 1969 and the photo that illustrates South for Moonshine also appears in that article.

As ridiculous as spending a fortune in the 1930s changing all the maps to that weird Beck circuit diagram thing when there were already perfectly good topographical maps that anyone with particularly good eyesight and ten minutes to spare could use. Why so many urban transport undertakings chose to adapt if for their own purposes I cannot imagine: just following fashion I suppose!

Except that it IS one line in the same way as the Central Line is one line and even more than the Northern Line is one line. If I'm looking to find it in a station, I want a sign pointing me to the Elizabeth Line, not a series of signs to the Heathrow, Reading, Abbey Wood and Shenfield lines. This is where I've always found the Paris Metro confusing (and I've used it enough to not need to be confused by it) because signage tends to refer to the end station in each direction somewhere in the nine hundredth arrondissement. It was useful that the Underground adopted the American convention of West, North. South and Eastbound. I was brought up in Oxford where there just 8 or 9 bus routes all of which went through the centre of the City. Nowadays, when I use the local buses in my part of London, I have to look up where any but the three or four that I don't use regularly are actually going- or more particularly what route they're using to get there.

I went to Farringdon on the Elizabeth Line a week or so ago and was very disappointed to find that I was nowhere near Oxfordshire. I think it probably makes sense to brand the services but feel that the chosen names are too reflective of a particular point in history and may well be meaningless in fifty years. I can't help thinking that they could be more geographical and neutral. I do quite like the way that many of the Underground lines reflect their own history as in the Central London Railway, Metropolitan Railway, District Railway etc. The oddity is the Circle Line which is now more like a P than an O

This is obviously a VHS copy (and VHS was introduced until three years after John Allen's death) so I wonder if the actual film (it looks like 16mm) still exists. It would be great for it to be properly telecined to HD video.

If you look at some of the layouts illustrated in Edward Beal's books, they show that a busy all-railway scene with good use of retaining walls etc. can be very effective without going beyond the railway fence. There are plenty of real places (especially around London) that look just like that. Looking at L.E.Carroll's articles, his trains seem never to have been longer than four coaches whether loco hauled or electric sets. That used to be quite common and even the celebrated pre-war Maybank model railway -the first MLT- storage sidings layout- was all railway and based on four coach trains. Carroll got round the problem of duckunders (and the need to store the car in the garage) by the use of "bascules" with counterweighted baseboards that hinged up against the walls of the garage. His main interest seems to have been in correct operation of trains through the various block-sections but, in that steam and pre-Beeching era, the argument was often made that if you just wanted to watch trains going through the countryside it was far easier to simply go out and watch the real thing than to build a model to do so. If you wanted to operate trains, well for that, unless your name was Howey, you did need a model railway.

Did you just build the terminus or the whole Southern Central layout following L.E.Carroll's plan ? I've been delving into the old MRNs and MRC's stored in my garage and I've found a short article by Carroll in MRC in 1951 (on home made corridor connections) and a series of four in MRC (of which I have all but the first) from 1952 on converting Hornby Dublo 3 rail to stud contact. That appears to have been on a layout that preceded Southern Central which I think was a spiralled terminus to terminus representing the WCML. He also had a series of 4 articles in MRN on his "linked section" control system (which is for 2 rail) in 1953/54 followed by an article in June 1958 "Linked Section in Action" describing its application to Southern Central complete with a full schematic diagram of the layout.

I think Bradfield Gloucester Road must have been influenced- perhaps unconsciously- by Ramsgate Sands. apart from being very compact, the main difference being not having the turntable at the end. The main line exiting the platforms and almost immediately going into a tunnel/overbridge and the carriage sidings running further to the right is very characteristic. The one not immediately obvious difference is that Ramsgate did have a very narrow two road goods yard between the up (departures) platform and the cliff behind it though the non goods shed road did have a habit of being used as an extra carriage siding at busy times.

Thanks for the reference. I thought I had that article somewhere and I've now found it. I'm not sure about the pseudonym, though it's possible, as L.E. Carroll had been contributing to MRN since far earlier with a series of four articles, starting in September 1953, on a system of control he'd devised called "Linked Section Control". This had an operator at each station and the signal levers also acting as section switches (I believe Peter Denny adopted something like that but Tony will know) . He mentioned that he'd been casting around for a simpler system of section control while planning a modification of his previous layout. There was an article in the May 1955 MRN "Train Exchage" describing an automated holding loop in the reverse curve to avoid the situation where "the down Brighton Belle disappeared into the tunnel at 3.30 and emerged on the up line five seconds later" - the major weakness of a balloon loop even though it avoided the situation of "hoofing down to Brighton to reverse every train. A schematic of the complete layout first saw the light of MRN day in June 1958 in an article titled "Linked-Section Control in Action" explaining how the system worked, with a couple of photos but no general description of the layout. A complete description appeared three years later in the August 1961 MRN in "Four minutes to Brighton" . However, he said that he'd decided to build the Southern Central as an out and return in 1952. His previous layout having been the point to point in which, for three months, "having despatched trains from Victoria, he had to "hoof it" down to "Brighton" to retrieve them". The reference to three months suggests that the earlier layout wasn't satisfactory and didn't last long. The "Victoria" in that layout had been "Brighton" in the previous and, as the plans posted earlier show, had three platforms and no releasing crossovers (like Minories) two stock sidings and a turntable. The new layout clearly did and in "New Victoria Line "in Jan 1959 the enlarged Victoria station has five platforms , extra sidings including a kickback parcels platform and a proper loco shed alongside the turntable. If there were any other changes to the rest of the layout, he didn't mention them. I've looked for any earlier articles by L.E. Carroll in MRN but so far haven't found any but there are references to the name associated with MRC in 1952 .

No doubt at all Tony, especially as you can recognise the two of them in the later shot showing the MPD whose plan is the same as when it was high level. The very first shot with the inbound line coming out of the tunnel on a curve, suggests a return balloon loop and I assume they'd turned the layout into a dumb-bell. That would have enabled a continuous flow of trains and "keep something moving for visitors" and that appears to be what we're seeing them doing in that shot with expresses whizzing through Maybank station. I think the viaduct may also have been an extension to the right hand side as it looks like one of their GCR trains. I would have found it far less fascinating in that mode and their original way of showing it as a terminus was to set up the storage roads and run a twenty minute timetabled sequence every hour. I wonder what it would cost to licence the films at full resolution from Pathé

I had the same conversation with Tom Cunnington, possibly at the same show, and he said that it was mainly to enable goods trains to be used and that passenger trains would still terminate but whether that policy survived the pressures of exhibition running I couldn't say. Tom did let me have a go at operating the terminus end of Minories (GC) at a show a few years ago and, even with a second operator handling the fiddle yard, keeping the turnover sequence going without getting into knots would certainly require a great deal of concentration over the course of an exhibition day. Nevertheless, the continuous run version did little for me either. Strangely enough, I found a Pathé News film preview of the 1938 MRC show https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/45030/ and there was a layout with a through station that looked rather familiar. Eventually, the penny dropped and I realised it was the 0 gauge Maybank Layout. Railway company demo displays aside, this was the first published or exhibited main line terminus to fiddle yard layout. It was built by Bill Banwell and Frank Applegate and first exhibited in 1933. It was later described by Cyril Freezer, who was fascinated by it at one of the MRC shows, as "The first of the moderns" and was undoubtedly a major inspiration for Minories. This is the layout at the 1937 MRC show and it is clearly still a terminus. Maybank was a four platform terminus with a high level MPD hiding a motorised four road sector plate set of storage sidings. They seem to have added a return loop to that end at some stage but, in this screen grab, you can see that the two centre roads have been extended onto what I assume is another return loop. Another shot later in the newsreel seems to show that they had modified the MPD by bringing it down to ground level. Messrs. Banwell and Applegate were both members of the MRC - the Maybank was a regular feature at its Easter show from 1934 until the war (it didn't survive the Blitz) and, as the layout was an imaginary GCR terminus set somewhere on the east coast, I assume it was also an influence on Happisburgh.

It still is! It was exhibited in terminus mode at the MRC's "mini exhibition" during the Christmas period. and was just as good as ever (though I still think the retaining wall is too high as the bridge doesn't then break it so well into two separate scenes)

That reminds me of the enlarged version of E.R. Carrroll's Victoria.I recall it had the Terminus (Victoria) then a very long convoluted run with a couple of holding sidings that eventually brought trains back to Victoria (though there was a branch)

PM with of CJF's plan should be with you. That B&W photo really seems to capture the atmosphere of the lines around there and the widened lines. For my money, the best model railway to have captured that atmosphere was Geoff Ashdown's EM Tower Pier. Operationally a Minories (with a separate goods line) and all fitted into two metres of scenic and one of cassette fiddle yard. The longest loco hauled train it could handle was a Quad Art but good use of two overbridges and an overall canopy means you never reailised just how short it was . A SAD UPDATE While trying to find out a bit more about Geoff Ashdown and Tower Pier just now I discovered very sadly that he died on the 24th March last year. I wasn't sure if it was the same Geoff Ashdown but he was an officer n the Salvation Army and talking about his retirement in 2020 he mentioned exhibiiting Tower Pier 11 times. Geoff had invited me to one of his operating evenings near Southend but unfortunately circumstances and the Covid pandemic meant that I was never able to take him up on that.

He did! There's a complete plan for it in his 1993 book "Model Railway Operation" ch 10 The City Terminus. In fact, the plan includes (from South to North) the south bank approach to Blackfriars, Blackfriars (formerly St. Paul) Ludgate Hill (original and new) and High Holborn, which for some reason is what he called Holborn Viaduct, with the tracks down to Snow hill and the Widened Lines. There are actually only three double slips in the entire three station complex (one of them at Holborn Viaduct but a lot of scissors crossovers. Holborn Viaduct has a very Minories like set of loco spurs off the easten end of platform one which presumably is where he got the idea from. . He didn't turn the complex into a dimensioned layout plan because he reckoned the whole thing was far too big- even in N, but did say that any of the three stations would be eminently modellable though his preference was for Blackfriars. That chapter them went on to include three plans for city termini, one of them Minories (with a kick back goods shed) followed by two five platform types one of them a Southern Railway/Region north of the river terminus straight off a viaduct over the Thames and clearly inspired by Charing Cross and Cannon Street. There is an excellent image of the Holborn viaduct approach amongst others including some very interesting then and now images of Farringdon and the Snow Hill tunnel her http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/Holborn_Viaduct_station.html The odd thing about Holborn Viaduct is that I must have seen it and the approach bridge over Fleet Street a hundred times but never noticed that it had gone when it did. There's absolutely no trace now that there ever was a railway there. Is the Thameslink Station actually on the site of Hoborn Viaduct low level and it is very pleasing to actually be able once again to travel through the Snow Hill tunnel and onto the widened lines (I last did it to get from Blackfriars to St. Pancras and it was also very strange to get to Blackfriars from the entrance on the South Bank.

The trouble with that is that Edwardian era stock already does the space saving job without having to go down a scale. It's worth looking at Gavin Thrumm's Great Moor Street for that- though his Minories is set just after the grouping. https://thrumlington.blogspot.com/2015/06/great-moor-street-minories.html

Cyril Freezer's objective with Minories was to demonstrate that you could build a busy urban terminus in the sort of space normally only considered appropriate for a small branch line affair where, in reality, the same train would trundle up and down the line all day relieved only by the daily goods train and just maybe a through coach. Minories by contrast is based on a suburban turnover operation which could be very busy. Oddly, the most Minories like terminus I personally remember n terms of busyness was Ryde Pier Head. I went there on a family holiday when I was about five ot six and vividly remember four trains lined up on the platforms when we arrived on the ferry (we stayed in a guest house on the Esplanade so travelled on the pier tram but did take a train from Esplanade to Shanklin There was not though much variety in the trains on the Island's railways. There are other excellent reference plans for compact main line termini. With Borchester Market, you could lose the colliery branch and the junction to make a simple L or U main line terminus with planty of operation, or a real example in Ramsgate Beach/Harbour which had inrtense passenger operation, a small goods yard, a turntable release, a tunnel mouth just beyond the station throat all on a very cramped site on a shelf between the cliffs and the beach. With Minories, if you single the main line and lose the loco spur you are left wiith two points accessing three platforms. It couldn't be simpler but, as Fort William, a reversing terminus, it had an incredible variety of often fairly short trains (the Hogwarts Express is five coaches) complete with sleeping cars, diners and observation coaches coming on and off as train from Glasgow and Mallaig - sometimes with summer reliefs, cross there, tail loads of fish, even an early motorail service and all providing gainful employment for not one but two pilot locos. You could choose to operate Minories as that sort of station rather thana as a city suburban affair. I think another plan worth eyeing up is John Charman's Charford. It was very much a branch line terminus (albeit with through coaches off the ACE and Bulleid light Pacifics) but, if you take the basic plan and simply lengthen it somewhat with the loco release and cattle dock road turned into a third platform you'd get a perfectly good secondary main line terminus.