Phil Sutters' photos with the keyword: SDJR blue livery

Please see the set description for the background to these photos. As with all these models, this loco has been stored and moved several times since the early '70s, when feeding the family was more important than hobbies. In the mean time the boiler hand rails and vacuum brake pipe have come adrift. The wheels are the original Triang L1's and the bogie never seems to have had a coat of black. I am still quite pleased at what was achieved when I was -/+ twenty.

Please see the set description for the background to these photos.

This is a forty-year-old handbuilt, hand-painted, lettered & lined model, based on the drawing which was made from the official photo! The lining on this model was a lot easier with its straight lines. I used a nice old bow-pen with very fine steel 'blades' and standard Humbrol enamels, thinned very slightly. The gold was always clogging up the pen and wouldn't make a very fine line, so I would put down the finest I could and cut it back with the black. This rectilinear type of panelling, a departure from the rounded cornered pattern of most SDJR passenger stock, followed the Midland Railway's design of the period. Indeed the Midland had many more of the same van, albeit with minor details. There are drawings of both companies' versions in Peter Tatlow's 'Historic Carriage Drawings' volume three. When I compared my drawing with Peter's I found that my length was out by 4mm or 1foot! The rest of the dimensions were fairly accurate. To see the official photograph close-up please go to www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/26349947 My drawing is at www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/26356065

The 'John' referred to was my Father, whose railway photos fill a good half of my railway album. The layout got disbanded when he moved from Highbridge to London. I have just noticed that there is a bush discreetly hiding the 8F valve gear on the 7F! Please see the set description for the background to these photos. This was a slightly better put together diorama. The Fox Walker saddle tank was virtually just a repaint job from a white-metal kit of a GWR saddle tank. The 7F was a scratchbuilt body on a Hornby-Dublo 8F. The paint looks terrible so I won't be uploading a closer shot of that and, of course, the valve gear is not the delicate-looking set that graced the real 7F. The converter wagons, behind the 7F, were sold by Triang, when their parent company Rovex had bought Hornby. They had the Dublo coupling, which was similar to the Peco one, at one end and the Triang hook and loop one at the other end. They were sold cheaply so you could run both manufacturers' rolling stock together. There were the open wagons seen here and a horse box, which allowed passenger trains to be hauled by the other maker's locos. I bought 8 or 10 open wagons and ran them in pairs, having painted them in private owner liveries.

I know that the coach grab handles are the wrong shape. This was before the Ratio Midland panelled coaches were available. I just thought that there was a danger of having a much scruffier finish if I tried to replace the moulded-on G-shaped GWR ones with the S-shaped Midland/S&D variety. Please see the set description for the background to these photos. The biggest challenge with recreating these one-off prototypes, was finding a reasonable match for chimneys, domes and safety valves. Our main source of these was W&H Models, from the Baker Street area of London. They published a catalogue, annually I think, which showed most of their lines and usefully included profiles of their range of boiler fittings.

This carriage, had it had a single arc roof profile, would have been of the type seen behind No. 33 at Templecombe Upper, in plates 96 & 97 of Mitchell & Smith's Bournemouth to Evercreech Junction. Plate 35 of their Burnham to Evercreech volume has another view. One of my drawings is of a very similar 4 wheeled carriage which my notes say was redrawn from a larger scale drawing in the HMRS Journal Vol.8 No.6. This is clearly a 6-wheeler according to plate 97. 13.5.2013 - I am really amazed at the interest that these photos of 40 year-old Triang clerestory carve-ups have attracted. They are not exactly high quality, with hand-painted crests and lettering and those GWR grab handles. Anyway I am pleased I bothered to get them out of their boxes, put them in front of a camera and uploaded them. Thanks for your 'views' - 164 on this one - when on Flickr.

This was my attempt at this carriage with the curious half compartment at the end. (Having typed in this note, I came across the explanation in Mitchell & Smith's Bath to Evercreech Junction. It started life as a luggage compartment.) I didn't put footboards on the bogie carriages as they seemed destined to catch on platforms etc. As usual the Triang GWR clerestory 'G' hand grabs have remained. I see that Roxey do a pack of etched LSWR reversed 'S' shaped ones. So if I ever get back to putting these models on a track, I could upgrade them, I suppose. I notice that I have missed off the crest. I could have digitally inserted one, but I prefer to show these old models how I had them running in the late 1960s. I think I can justifiably put the location as Highbridge, as both the prototype and model were built there and indeed the drawing was drawn there - albeit at slightly different map references!

I clearly haven't followed my drawing or the photo on page 34 of Atthill's Picture History of the S&D, as there should be lamp tops as well as ventilators on the roof and I have obviously followed the lower roof profile of the GWR clerestory coaches from which this was concocted, rather than the higher single arc roof seen in the photo. Of course there is also my reluctance to hack off the GWR's 'G' shaped hand grabs, to allow the SDJR's reversed 'S' shaped ones to be fitted. But this was 40 years ago and I had limited resources. The Guard's door and ducket have been switched - maybe to avoid too many segments having to be cut and reassembled. Why the central rib of the ducket's panelling has been missed I don't know. Anyway I don't remember seeing anyone else modelling 4mm blue S&D in the sixties and early seventies. There was Mac Pyrke's improbable (albeit nicely modelled) Berrow Branch with 2Ps, some BR standard types & an odd Bulleid venturing several miles up the coast beyond Highbridge, but that was in the near contemporary BR steam period. There were a few drawings and photos in the modelling press and I think there were some 7mm finescale models about. I have recently rediscovered the July 1993 Railway Modeller, which featured Denys Brownlee's 2mm/1ft scale model of Burnham-on-Sea in the 1930 period. He let himself have the slightly doubtful presence of a 7F up the branch. Perhaps it was on a running in turn from Highbridge Works. I can't remember if they did ever go there for maintenance.

That's all the S&D official photos scanned & uploaded! I have done a fair amount of de-spotting on the tender of 70, although I seem to have missed one up on the flared top. The number is way higher than most and the date is the only one I have come across. In this case the stamp on the back is a large rectangular one from the BR LMR Public Relations and Publicity Dept. Euston.

I didn't make a drawing of this loco. as there already was Skinley DWG No 65H to work from.

A drawing of no. 10 by Tom Lindsay appeared in Model Railway News - February 1967 edition

If I ever started modelling the S&D 'blue period' again, this would be the first loco I would try to model. There just weren't the small motors readily available in the 1960s and somehow I never fancied tender-drive.

Built at Geo. England's Hatcham Works at New Cross in south London

This was one of the ones that was previously included in the S&D models set, but I thought it best to keep all the official photos available in one set. I made a drawing of this horse box, www.flickr.com/photos/phil-seaford/6882702691/in/pool-451... , but one could take this side-on view and drop it straight onto your computer and get a more accurate drawing - assuming you had some appropriate software.

Model Railways published drawings of this and similar brake vans in an article by P.R.Bunce and P.M.Giles in its issue of December 1979. Looking closely at the original print, it seems likely that the paintwork was well weathered and the lining had dulled down, so as to be inconspicuous against the more obvious light and shade of the panelling.