How many of us who own their favourite/preferred loco(s) or other item(s) justify their appearance on their layouts in their chosen era or location?

We can invoke Rule 1, "It's my layout so I can run anything I like", but I prefer to go down the route of prototypical likelihoods and possibilities.

As most of my collection is based on specific themes I try to group small groups of locos and stock which could have appeared together to stage a running session on my small layout.

To show how I'm approaching this issue, my current attempt is to create a scenario representing the Coastway West line in West Sussex from May 1989 to the end of that year, using what I own without buying anything extra unless absolutely necessary.

I wanted to find suitable uses for the following:

1. 73130 City of Portsmouth, this was my first loco that started off my theme of owning locos after places where I've lived over the years.

2. 73211 County of West Sussex

3. 56075 West Yorkshire Enterprise

4. Hornby's refurbished 4VEP

5. A Provincial liveried class 156 DMU, I was born in Birmingham, it was built at Metro-Cammell, so one example had to be included.

1. First point to address was my 156, the 155s worked Brighton-Cardiff services until door faults grounded them in Dec. 1988 so 156s planned to enter service in Scotland were urgently drafted in as substitutes, they were used until about Nov. 1989 when the 155s returned to service.

members.madasafish.com/~dysgraphyk/156/class156_br-years.htm

2. The other critical point was the introduction of revised weekend-only Plymouth-Brighton services from May 1989, they were hauled by 50s Plymouth-Portsmouth Harbour and 73s Portsmouth Harbour-Brighton. I found a photo on Flickr showing 73130 on such a service www.flickr.com/photos/75514026@N03/6824127550/ and it had to be modelled!

3. The next thing to address is my 4VEP. Hornby's model represents 3588 refurbished in 1995, a late-refurbished version with sealed headlight, overhead warning stickers, orange cantrail, no NSE lettering and extra black areas above the cabs.

It needs to be backdated and has to be a unit that was allocated to Brighton in 1989 and not one from the ex-7701-55 series which have body mounted lifting brackets.

This morning after googling unit numbers from 3421 upwards, I found two possibilities that fitted the bill, albeit they were taken sometime after my chosen date 3465 www.flickr.com/photos/40011/6287209864/

3463 www.rcts.org.uk/features/archive/image.htm?img=HU05397C&jpg=HU05397.jpg&srch=&page=0

Therefore I'll need to paint the cantrails in NSE red, (carefully!!) paint window bars over the doors, file off the sealed headlights, repaint the black front cab areas yellow, add NSE transfers and renumber.

4. The most surprising find this morning was a photo of 56075 on an ARC aggregates service from Whatley to Ashford West via Orpington on 18 June 1988. www.flickr.com/photos/16313630@N07/6220653555/

I now have a plausible excuse to use it on the Southern Region on aggregates serving Ardingly, although I'll need to customise my Dapol version to suit and I own appropriate ARC wagons for it to pull.

PS - Just re-checked photos from various sources on the net, 56075 lost its large logo Railfreight livery sometime in the first few months of 1989, before my intended timeline, and its recorded shot at Orpington cited above must have been a rarity, as the next nearest geographically recorded image of it was at Bescot in 1987 www.sharpos-world.co.uk/BB3cpg/displayimage.php?album=82&pid=240 ... never mind.

PPS - using the search function on Flickr this morning (4th June) brought up another photo of 56075 on a return empty ARC aggregates working at Eastleigh on 2 June 1988, that's even better for me as it certainly travelled via the Coastway West route. Maybe it was drafted in from Tinsley to help out for one of its regular Bristol Bath Road/Cardiff locos under overhaul?? www.flickr.com/photos/47500/5817987888/

73211 can be used on the Plymouth services as well as engineering trips alongside my 33s and my Bachmann's 37254 can be used on Speedlink coal workings.

Now that I've got an idea of what needs doing I'm more confident on creating a workable collection for my enjoyment and pleasure.