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Today’s mix is a potpourri of Southern Railway locomotives.  Photos are credited where I know the source.  As ever, apologies if I have missed the appropriate credits.

A perennial question.  Why has no one released an N gauge King Arthur.  Was there a more attractive example of a 4-6-0 express engine?  Beats all those GWR things hands down. (Last photo by Trever Owen).

There might be some votes for a Lord Nelson class, but great as they are, that maximum size boiler seems to mess up the lines of the loco a bit.  Rather like comparing GWR Castles and Kings, perhaps.  This photo is interesting as it has a 6-wheel tender rather than the 8-wheel water carts, that gave the locos a more balanced look, as in the second photo.

From an earlier age, the LSWR outside cylindered 4-4-0’s were the most elegant machines.  Here we have a T3 and an X6 class.

The smaller Southern 4-6-0’s also were fine machines that could be substituted for an ‘Arthur’ on occasion.  Here we have a couple of S15’s.  Note the differences between batches.  Added smoke deflectors, a straight footplate, and a Schools class tender on the later locomotive. 

That classic LSWR tank engine, the M7, at Bournemouth, Lymington, Midhurst and Nine Elms.  These locos looked antiquated, but were powerful enough to be used on empty stock services into Waterloo. 

An ugly ducking of a USA tank in departmental service at Southampton Docks.

Finally, a different kind of period piece.  Electrification 1922 style – the Euston to Watford line.  No track laying or ballast tamping machines to be seen here!

A bit of a Jago Hazzard special today.  I always enjoy his videos, and these are a few that caught my attention in recent weeks.

Potential modelling ideas, perhaps, with some shared London Underground tracks.

And where the Underground logo came from….

Above ground, I always look out for the remains of this connection leaving Waterloo East…

Spitalfields is a fascinating area, but far too big to model….

My local station when we lived in London (though it was usually easier to get a bus to Victoria.)

And lastly, a trip to the seaside…. and beyond.

Enjoy!

And we’ll start 2023 with some more local pictures.  This time even closed to home.  I’ve attributed photos when I know the photographer – apologies when I’ve missed the credit.

We’ll start in Earlswood, just round the corner from home.  St John’s Road in 1905.  The horse and cart are crossing the Brighton line railway bridge.

Of course, there was once a Terrier called Earlswood that worked at Earlswood….

Whilst elegant expresses passed on the main line heading for Brighton….

Down the road in Redhill, the scale of change can be illustrated by this montage of the chapel in Station Road.  Once

A different view of Station Road (note the railway bridge at Redhill station in the background – one thing that hasn’t changed), and the cattle market (ex-car park, now building site) in 1904…

Redhill in 1949 and 1950….

And in the 1970’s….

And so to Redhill station.  In British Railways days, Redhill saw locomotives from all of the ‘Big Four’.  Here is an LMS Fairburn tank, borrowed till the BR standard 2-6-4T’s were available, and a GWR mogul from a Reading train (photo Ben Brooksbank.)

I wish that I had been old enough to have visited Redhill shed.  Though maybe not – I’m quite old enough these days.)  There always seemed to be something of interest on shed.  Here’s an ex-SR U class 2-6-0, again regulars on the Reading trains, and also across to Tonbridge.

And Ian Kruase has caught both the shed, and views of the town beyond.

Finally, from the air today, with the latest Thameslink stock leaving the station, probably for Bedford.  Redhill comes in for a lot of criticism, but it’s been a good home for us (down here in deepest Earlswood) for the past 36 years.