Well hello, T.E.T. fans, here I am again jumping the gun! I have a full day tomorrow taking the wife to Ft. Worth for her medical treatments so I will spend most of the day / evening away from home. SO...I thought I would post early (on Monday night). Luckily I can still see/read everyone else's posts on my phone, I just can't post myself from my phone at the medical center (just not skilled enough and there is only very weak wi-fi).
So here we go...I thought today you might like to see something a little out of the ordinary. In Europe / United Kingdom, the "tail end" was , in the US era of the caboose, equipped with what they called a "Brake Van". In this the brakeman rode and observed the train and made sure that the cars were braking when the engineer applied the brakes. Candidly I am not sure how the control system worked exactly or if he had actual control of the brakes. However the "Brake Van" was about as close to a freight caboose as you might get.
Hornby trains, of course, manufactured Brake Vans to go with their freight (or "goods") trains and today I am posting one of their post nationalization brake vans. This one, from the No. 50 line up of freight wagons was just about the last of the 0 gauge line as through the 1950's O gauge sales were dropping fast and OO gauge (HO in the US) was climbing to take their place. The No 50 wagons were a last ditch attempt to both lower the cost of O gauge to compete and to keep the line open. (Remember Lionel's strategy in this same period with Scout sets etc was not too different).
Here is the Hornby, No 50 BR (East) Brake Van. It was only made in the East regional British Rail color, brown. It was introduced in 1957 and it stayed in the line until the end of Hornby O gauge in 1969. Note, unlike Lionel for example, this modeled a "bay window" car but the window bay is not actually made it is just suggested via the tinprinting on the side of the car. This was obviously done to control cost as actually adding the side cupola's would have been quite expensive but they could be suggested in the tinprinting for almost no additional cost.
Here is the forward observation platform, where I would assume the conductor or brakeman observed the train. The center portion of the car is enclosed much like a US caboose.
Here is the opposite end. The small "L" shaped brackets are actually lamp holders, the crew would attach various oil lamps to these brackets marking the train. Hornby sold these little lamps (simulated) as accessories and today they are very hard to find.
Here is the top showing what I expect was the smoke stack for the coal stove used the heat the car in winter.
Well, I hoped you enjoyed our "foreign" excursion today. Best wishes for a great T.E.T. (even if its Monday 
)
Best Wishes
Don
