A little while ago, when I was trying to figure out WHY I never got very far into any modelling project before stalling, I realised it was because my heart wasn't really in any of them. After nearly 30 years of pretending to be interested in all things LMS, it suddenly dawned on me that actually I WASN'T.

What interested me was the pre-Grouping period; and the challenge of modelling it in N.

Was it even POSSIBLE to model the pre-Grouping in N, I asked myself.

Well, there was only one way to find out ... and that was to jolly well give it a go. After all, Grafar had produced three pre-Grouping RTR locomotives (OK, so two of them were the 4P in thoroughly unprototypical Caledonian and Somerset & Dorset liveries, and the other had the original can motor and pizza cutter wheels ... but all the same!) and then there were a number of kits that I knew of which were clearly pre-Grouping types (LYR railmotor and Aspinall 0-6-0 saddletank; LNWR "Prince of Wales tank" 2-6-4T). And N Brass Locomotives had, at one time, produced a RTR "coal tank" 0-6-2T. So there were certainly SOME locomotives. And the NGS produced a kit for a MR box van; Peco produced a Midland brake van; and Farish had produced a North Eastern bogie van. Then there were all those Dapol gunpowder vans (including LNWR, LSWR and NB). So it certainly looked as though SOMETHING ought to be possible.

And so the fateful decision was made ... I would sell ALL my Big 4 and British Railways stock, and turn my attention EXCLUSIVELY to the pre-Grouping period.