BR Late Crest Freight/Goods

Paul,
Welcome to the forum.
Milk trains on the SR had stopped running by the 1960s, so there may only be limited scope for running them.
I was living in the SR area at the period in question. The majority of freight trains seemed to be van traffic. This included continental vans coming across to Dover by ferry and heading for Hither Green, Bricklayers Arms and other goods depots. There were also cross-London freights via the West London line to Clapham Junction, via the line from Farringdon to Blackfriars (now part of Thameslink) and even on the LT line to New Cross Gate from Liverpool Street on the ER. I do not recall much detail - I think they were a pretty mixed bunch of vans and wagons.

Best bet is to get to a good bookshop dealing in railway books and have a serious browse through books covering the area and/or period you are interested in.

What RTR locos can be used depends much on what area of the SR you wish to model - in SE London where I lived it was mostly the West Country & Battle of Britian pacifics on passenger trains (Merchant Navy tended to be used from Waterloo to the SW destinations) plus Schools 4-4-0, 'King Arthurs' etc. Goods trains were worked by Class C 0-6-0s, which alas are not available RTR. Cross-london freights could use 'Black Fives', Stanier 2-8-0 and the like for variety. And of course the class 73 Electro-diesels were also around on some freights and passenger trains.
Local passenger trains were of course EMUs and various extensions to the electrified network were takinbg place late 50s and in the 60s.
Hope this helps - have fun looking things up.
Regards,
John Webb

PS If you want to ask questions about what ran in real-life, the 'Prototype' forum futher down the main index is the best place to post questions. You might find some of your questions have already been asked and replied to in the past.

QUOTE (John Webb @ 22 May 2007, 11:14) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Paul,
Welcome to the forum.
Milk trains on the SR had stopped running by the 1960s, so there may only be limited scope for running them.
I was living in the SR area at the period in question. The majority of freight trains seemed to be van traffic. This included continental vans coming across to Dover by ferry and heading for Hither Green, Bricklayers Arms and other goods depots. There were also cross-London freights via the West London line to Clapham Junction, via the line from Farringdon to Blackfriars (now part of Thameslink) and even on the LT line to New Cross Gate from Liverpool Street on the ER. I do not recall much detail - I think they were a pretty mixed bunch of vans and wagons.

Best bet is to get to a good bookshop dealing in railway books and have a serious browse through books covering the area and/or period you are interested in.

What RTR locos can be used depends much on what area of the SR you wish to model - in SE London where I lived it was mostly the West Country & Battle of Britian pacifics on passenger trains (Merchant Navy tended to be used from Waterloo to the SW destinations) plus Schools 4-4-0, 'King Arthurs' etc. Goods trains were worked by Class C 0-6-0s, which alas are not available RTR. Cross-london freights could use 'Black Fives', Stanier 2-8-0 and the like for variety. And of course the class 73 Electro-diesels were also around on some freights and passenger trains.
Local passenger trains were of course EMUs and various extensions to the electrified network were takinbg place late 50s and in the 60s.
Hope this helps - have fun looking things up.
Regards,
John Webb

Didn't Hornby do a reasonably decent SECR "dance hall" brake? (Or was it LBSC?)

Bachmann do a Queen Mary brake - which is perhaps over the top for you. And I think Cambrian have a kit for a SR "pillbox" brake

By the 1950s any common van or open would be correct. Opens and vans had been "common user" between the companies since 1917 , after 1948 anything that moved was BR's
The standard history of SR Wagons Vol4 (I think) includes a plate with caption describing it as "that common phenomenon a SR goods train with no SR wagons in it.

The ratio for goods stock pre war between companies was LMS 8, LNER 7, GWR 3 , SR1 - meaning that in the "average" goods train about 5% of the wagons were SR owned. Actually it was less because that ratio excludes the hundreds of thousands of PO minerals

Get a couple of the very good Bachmann SR vans , and fill up with other companies wagons in BR livery . The SR built almost no 5 plank opens and owned only a handful of coal wagons.

Plenty of 16T steel minerals (Bachmann again) plus old wooden PO wagons. By the 1950s these woulfd be very faded and extensively patched so there's plenty of weathering to do

Incredibly there are no RTR opens or general purpose vans for either the LMS or the LNER. Parkside kits here.

Remember the 50s were the heyday of the railway container and the conflat . BR and GW conflats are available RTR. An accurate model of an ex SR conflat, freighter brakes and all would almost certainly need to be completely sratchbulilt and I'm certainly not going to try it