Next up we have representation from the North Staffordshire Railway.

The North Staffordshire has always intrigued me. It came into existence due to the railway politics of the 1830's. The planned Grand Junction Railway route through the potteries was diverted via Crewe by agreement with the Manchester & Birmingham Railway in preparation for the creation of the LNWR in 1846. In order to fill the void, funds were raised, significant funds, as the Trent and Mersey canal was bought with a view to filling it in to create the track bed (and conveniently remove the competition). This was never done and the canal can still be seen in use from the train between Stoke and Stafford. The price paid for the canal was in excess of £1 million in 1845!

It is also my local line. The trackbed of the Macclesfield - Leek line runs a few hundred metres from my door. Thankfully it still reverberates to the sound of steam thanks to the 10.25 inch gauge Rudyard Lake Steam Railway. www.rlsr.org

The main route north-south route from North Rode to Norton Bridge was only about 35 miles but links directly to the LNWR, GWR, GNR, MS&L (GCR if you must...) and the Midland, made the NSR what the Americans would call a bridge line. The Knotty, as the NSR was known (due to its use of the Staffordshire knot symbol) played its role well and remained independent until the 1923 grouping maintaining a constant level of profitability that would make many of its larger rivals jealous.

The NSR rolling stock was built by a mixture of external contractors and in-house in its own Stoke works. In many ways it was ahead of its rivals, its wagon designs being larger and higher tonnage from an early time.

The wagons here are two 3plk opens of differing side height and a 4 wheeled milk van. All very much a work in progress, the milk van requiring the most. All are built form kits from Meteor models. The open wagons are brass, with white metal castings that require some fettling, some of the castings being a bit rough.

The milk van is obviously a resin kit, nicely cast. This will form the milk train into Three Shire's in conjunction with a D46 LNWR refrigerated van that is sat in the kit pile. I need to sort the chassis components and I've lined up the W irons to the sole bar but the axles do not align to the axleboxes, ho hum....

I'll post up an update once the wagons are painted and finished.

I'd love to give the Staffy running rights into Three Shires Head, but NSR loco kits are hard to come by. Dragon models do an M class, but that is out of time frame being built in 1907 and would not be used on menial freight tasks. Other NSR kits have been produced but don't appear to be available at present. So if I want some Knotty motive power I'll be scratch building, which is a way off yet as I'm still getting confidence and experience kit building. One of the chief engineers shared a name with me so I'd love to do an type 9 outside cylinder 2-4-0t. I'll stick it on the to build list.........