I came across this lovely picture on the web, and typically, I forgot to note the photographer.  It’s Waddon Marsh Halt, taken from the A23 road bridge, and the power station that is now the Croydon Ikea lies behind the photographer.  This little single track link ran from a junction at Waddon to one at Mitcham.  It started very industrial, feeding all sorts of works and the power station.  The Micham end near Beddington was almost rural in nature.  And it was the final resting place of old EMU’s such as those converted from LBSCR overhead electrics.

There are so many interesting details in this photo, all making interesting modelling subjects, though this area as a whole is surprisingly large and probably too expansive to model.

There’s the single track electrified line surrounded by industrial sprawl.  The National Library of Scotland maps show, post-WW2, all sorts of industry including a tar works, a cement works, and multiple engineering works.

Note the signal box, island platform, and a fine multi-arm semaphore in the centre of the picture.

No doubt the pylons and power lines come from the power station, or perhaps they are just supplying all the surrounding industry.  Alternative power comes from gasometers on both sides of the photo.

On the far left, in the middle of it all, is housing, including lots of washing on the line.  Was it still white when they took them in?  (Mind you, I recall seeing flats in HK, with lots of white clothes on bamboo poles drying above a packed multi-lane road.  Somehow, the sun defeated the fumes and they always seemed to come out perfectly clean and white.)

Also on the left are the allotments.  Not something seen modelled, but very much a part of the railway scene, using up odd bits of land adjacent to the track.

And a solitary pedestrian marching along the footpath by the line, probably having crossed the line on what seems to be a typical Southern Railway concrete footbridge.

And last but not least, here we are in the depths of Southern Electric land, probably in the early 1960’s and there are steam locos shunting the power station on the right.  (This is Croydon ‘A’.  Croydon ‘B’, now IKEA, lies behind the photographer.)  These lasted well beyond the end of steam on the main line.  Here are two of the little locos in action.  Derek Buckett’s delightful shot (hope it’s OK to show it here) shows the coal wagons dwarfed by the wall of the Croydon ‘B’ power station.