No brick laying today, I'm afraid. It was too wet. At first we entertained the idea of a concrete laying job, but the forecast was absolutely dire, thus excluding even this simple job. Unfortunately we couldn't move the day at this short notice, so it's back to work next Monday. Broadway signal box Wednesday though :-)

What to do in the rain? Perhaps you would enjoy this picture as much as I did. If you are a regular volunteer on the railway, you'll know where it's from: (or maybe you never took any notice of it, but often sit near it)

It's a picture of a Steam Rail Motor, taken at Toddington in 1913. It's on the up line, by the sidings leading to the goods shed.
On the back is a source:
'Presented by Mrs. O.L Bradley, daughter of Jesse James'.
On the front, a list of people in the picture: Stationmaster Thomas Marsden, Unknown, Arthur Stanford, Jesse James, Alfred Ledsey.

The order is not quite clear - does it refer to the two people inside the rail motor, then the three standing below? Which one is Thomas Marsden?

Thanks to BAG member Ron Taylor (working from Hong Kong !) we have also been able to add this newspaper cutting to the archive. It gives details of his life, that he was the original stationmaster at opening in December 1904, and that on his retirement, his wife received a 'handsome handbag'. 'A handbag?' as Lady Bracknell might have enquired. What a lovely gesture.






Unfortunately the picture gives no details of the SRM itself, but.... there is a great book on these wonderful contraptions, 'Great Western Steam Rail Motors and their services', by John Lewis. You can still find it second hand via Amazon. Each of the 99 SRMs produced is listed with its own case history.  One has of course survived - No. 93. So which is the one in the picture? You can't quite make out the number, and this sort of detective work is quite fascinating. It took ages...

First, the model. It's a long 70ft one, panelled in wood. A 'Type O', one of the later and most common types.
Then, the date and colour scheme.
We know the date: 1913. Early models were painted chocolate and cream, between 1903 and 1908. Our example isn't though. Between 1908 and 1912 we had lined all over brown, then from 1912 to 1922 lined lake. The lined brown model had a GWR garter crest and 'supporters' (Bristol and London arms separate) and we can just about make out one of these. It's the all over brown colour scheme then, about right for the date.

Then the actual number. The SRMs were allocated to Cheltenham and Evesham for our line, but Evesham stopped by 1911 (the SRMs stopped running on our line in 1917) and the Cheltenham allocations didn't have a number that fits in with the little that can be identified from the grainy picture (it has a vertical stripe in it, those in Cheltenham at the time had round numbers, eg 38, 92, 96 around 1913)

Then, a discovery - Stratford on Avon also had two SRMs allocated. One ran north from there, the other south. Which number did it have in 1913? No. 94 - it fits with the grainy picture! That stripe is a 4 then.

The book even gives a timetable for the car that ran south (Car B):

7.15 Stratford - Cheltenham 8.55
9.42 Cheltenham - Honeybourne 11.03
11.11 Honeybourne - Broadway 11.22
12.03 Broadway - Honeybourne 12.18
12.36 Honeybourne - Cheltenham 01.56
02.39 Cheltenham - Evesham 04.00
04.38 Evesham - Cheltenham 06.06
06.10 Cheltenham - Honeybourne 07.16
07.39 Honeybourne - Cheltenham 08.50
09.00 Cheltenham - Stratford 10.42

207 miles in total for the day. What a long day too, two crews one might suppose.

With this timetable, we can ascertain that the picture must have been taken either at around 10.00 am , or after lunch at around 3pm on an up train from Cheltenham.

Finally, the record shows that SRM 94 was built in 1908 and converted to trailer 185 in 1929, after running nearly half a million miles, a pretty respectable distance for such a small engine.

Does anyone know any more?

Back to brick laying next Monday ! Thanks for checking in.