And now for something completely different. In 1911, the SE&CR acquired its first ballast hoppers supplementing its traditional flat bottomed, low-sided opens which, nonetheless, lasted in some numbers into the 1960s. These were curious things with three chutes to unload the ballast (just the one bottom door on the GWR P7) designed to be operated from track level and rightly reckoned to be sub-optimal from the user's point of view especially when the wagons were - as designed - unloaded in motion. In 1915 they added another train's worth of similar hoppers of 21T capacity with the operating wheels moved upward and a platform provided for the operator. Construction was by the Leeds Forge Co., and they seem to have been at least partially responsible for the design since they some very similar vehicles to others until their closure in 1929.
* This sensible and much-safer set of features was later adopted by the SR on their later bogie hoppers but, through Leeds Forge's successor, Cammell Laird (later Met Camm), more very similar 4-wheeled vehicles were built for the LMS and LNER and by BR as the Catfish and Dogfish . Characteristic Swindon conservatism saw them get Met Camm to build their P22 design when the same company had a superior vehicle available for thirty-five years...
Image from Bixley, et al,
An Illustrated History of Southern Wagons vol. 3 and used here for illustrative purposes.
Hornby, of course, have offered a moulded plastic version of the Trout and since examples of the second batch of SE&CR hoppers lasted into the '60s and there are pictures at Meldon which is the right end of the SR for me how could I resist? Getting hold of one has proved a bit tricky but a kind donation from Mike Whitchurch has solved that and here we are. So apart from the lovely pressed steel side door the main difference is the capacity and the consequent height of the hopper, roughly 6" lower on these early relatives. From a modelling point of view the difficult bit is the door but I have a plan for that.
Here's the donor - sadly the nicely-moulded axlebox lettering has to go and the chutes are 2mm shorter than they should be (trainset wheels, but who can really tell), as do the buffers and bendy footsteps. Vacuum brakes and their associated fittings are to be added. About an hour's drastic surgery later...
... and that's where we are. No turning back.
Adam
*Vehicles to a very similar layout were supplied to London Transport by Glos C&W in the late '30s (The SVR and various other preservation outfits have these in preservation -
London Transport ‘Herring’ Ballast Hopper Wagons - SVR Wiki - though the account of the design history is... eccentric/baloney/with a major chronological contradiction at its heart).
- just reveals the level of their non-GW research - new works to Potters Bar! 
