Croxley Wiggenhall Road Depot (model)

How are the BR brake vans coupled to the vandalised trailer car?

I may need to include some stock moves in due course for cars that Acton works can't fix!

Nice one, works well

That is what I actually do but use sticky labels made on a label printer however I can only really change them between running sessions. Given that I will have 6 501's and 12 ends I think I will just go with a mixture of headcodes on the different units.

Xerces Fobe

Funnily enough I was going to ask a somewhat similar question. With the impending re-issue of CO/CP stock, is the driver essentially the same bodyshell as Q38 driver?

Ref the Q stock xercesfobe: You're on pretty safe ground having almost any combination of Q23/Q27/Q35/Q38 in a 4 car set. There was even 1 set that had 4 x Q38 cars!

(I have a part built Q23 driver I bought on ebay + 1 x unbuilt Q38 trailer so was looking for another driver myself (Q-anything!) - no idea when it'll get built hence I was searching for something to make 3-car set)

The CO/CP conversion kit is being made now - its on the website!!

Xercesfobe, can you post some photos when you get them so we can all have a look!

I would follow Glyn's advice. Make them up as Q stock, you probably can't do much with the middle R stock car although 21 went for scrap in 1972!!

Excellent layout with a real north London feel to it. Hope to see it live sometime soon!

Just an idea for the headcodes, what about fitting a small magnet behind the white screen and then making up some magnetised templates as above - perhaps easier and less fiddly than a slide-in system? Come to think of it, didn't the SR 4SUB units employ a similar principle (without the magnets of course) in real life?

Remember them well. There were also some 504s stored in open sidings near Northampton, some in lined green livery, too. Wonder if they were the same cars.

Presumably it was thought that 90 different headcodes were enough, and therefore only ten stencils, instead of twenty, would be required.

When headcodes were introduced for non-electrified lines, (notably the Hastings demus) they were given headcodes which were multiples of 11, as no 4SUB would ever be need to use those codes, and demus all had roller blinds - indeed several 4SUBs also had them.

Until the 1930s the Southern used single-letter headcodes - some stencils were invertable, so the maximum use could be obtained from a limited set (only twelve stencils), so headcodes V and ^ were both used, similarly P and d.

Not if you use a thin sticky-back magnet and light it around the sides with some sorts of a lightpipe or side-looking LEDs!

That said, that produces the cheap game effect with the lighting being brighter at the edges than the middle..

Or, you could print on paper a headcode strip, and have a magnet square on the side, to pull it up or down with.. then light from behind. Won't take a huge amount of space.

Not that long ago. I was surprised to read (in David Brown's new book on the Southern Electric) that pre-war suburban stock used letters right up until the last was withdrawn in 1962.

However, numerical codes had been introduced for main line stock in 1933 (actually re-introduced, as the LBSCR's ac units had numerical headcodes), and numerical codes were also used for Bulleid-type 4SUB units. Thus, for example, a Hampton Court service could be either "H" or "30", depending on the age of the stock.
The special sets used on the South London and Wandle Valley lines both used headcode "2" (possibly to signify they were two-car units, or just because "O" and "I" had already been used?)

The letters used were H, I, L, J, L, N, O, P, S, T, U, V, selected to be easily distinguishable and easy to make as stencils. On the SW and SE divisions some of them had lexicograhical significance -

H: Hampton Court, or Hayes,
L: Leatherhead, or (Dartford) via Lewisham;
N: (Dartford) via Nunhead,
O: "Roundabout" (Hounslow),or Orpington
P: via East Putney, or (Crystal) Palace (HL)
S: Shepperton, or Sevenoaks
U: SidcUp line (getting contrived here!)

Some of the stencils could be inverted (P and V were both used this way) and a bar or two dots could be placed above the letter to triple the number of available codes.

Roller blinds were introduced with the 4EPBs in 1951, and a few older sets were retrofitted (some SUB, COR, and BEL units).

As has been said, numerical headcodes which were multiples of "11" were not used on electric units, to avoid the need for a duplicate set of stencils. However, as all SR demus and locos had roller blinds, such codes could be used on non-electrified lines like those to Hastings (22) and East Grinstead (66).

Letters (in pairs) were re-introduced for use on freight duties when class 33 diesels, class 71 electrics, and class 73 and 74 electro-diesel locos started to appear, all fitted with roller blinds. Blinds were also retrofitted to the three "Booster" locos (class 70), but they only ran for four or five years in that condition.

Sidcup line? I'm pretty sure it's called the Dartford Loop Line (the one that goes via Lewisham, Hither Green, Lee, Mottingham, to Crayford and then to Dartford, with the opportunity to loop back up the Bexleyheath line to London again at Slade Green.

What was the headcode for Dartford via Bexleyheath?

You could buy the book...........!

The Bexleyheath line, (which was codes 70-79 in numerical headcode days, depending on the termini used at each end) was "S" for services from CX or Cannon Street, and "J" for those from Holborn Viaduct and Blackfriars (both via London Bridge or Nunhead).

Various dots and bars above the letter distinguished individual destinations (Charing Cross/Cannon Street, Holborn Viaduct/Blackfriars, Slade Green/Dartford/Gravesend/Gillingham.

So for example a bar on an up train signified a Charing Cross train, whilst in the down direction it meant the train was going beyond Dartford (which might be from either CX or CS).

(S was also used for services to Sevenoaks via Swanley on the ex-LCDR route)

Latest stock for Croxley WRD 5 Q Stock cars and and 2 C69's which were described as R Stock by the supplier who got his leg suitably pulled at the CMRA Show at St Alban's last weekend ( no it wasn't Phil!!)



The C69's are both banana'd one worse than the other so not to sure what i am going to do with them yet. The Q stock will be formed into a 5 coach train and will run as a special assuming that it had got to Croxley via Richmond and Willesden. Very much a "what if "but it will add a bit more variety to the layout . A 5 coach train is too long for the depot head-shunt and therefore will not run into the depot unless split into a 2 and a 3 car unit.

I guess a Croxley WRD "Open Day" would be another possibility.

Xerces Fobe

Is the 'C' stock resin? if so it might be possible to straighten them out by placing them in warm water. It works with smaller items but I'm not that sure about a complete body-shell.