CKPR

That's because your models are so good and we need two goes to take it all in !

As you may have realised, I'm not of the "And now for my favourite part, the scenery" school of railway modelling. I've managed to make it more manageable and much less messy by scaling down the materials and processes. I'm using school supply 'mod roc' [the same box that I used on High Blaithwaite ! ], but I'm cutting it into small 2-3cm wide squares / strips and using a saucer for the water rather the washing up bowl. Similarly, I'm working on small areas at a time with reference to photographs and maps rather than trying to do everything at once. The top coat is still the dreaded polyfilla simply because I had some in the shed but I'm going to try using plaster of paris or even Artex if I can find any. Talking of the latter, I was always impressed by the work of Jack Kine and his artistic (finescale ?!) approach to modelling a landscape. You can see that the platform walls have been redone, this time with Busch self-adhesive embossed walling. This was a delight to use and easy to paint and I might be further investigating the world of jolly expensive but really rather good German HO scenic materials.

Often O gauge using LMC products, powered by 3 rail or, better still, clockwork and having that elusive railway atmosphere that so few of us manage to capture these days.

Is possibly the case that the term 'railway modelling' refers to two different but interlinked acitivities, namely making railway models and making model railways ? A few people such as Peter Denny, P.D.Hancock, etc have done both at the same time, some of us do both but separately like Iain Rice with his finescale model making and his Hornby Dublo layout, and some of us primarily do one or the other. As for other forms of modelling, there is perhaps a similar relationship between military modelling and wargaming, in that whilst both involve miniature military models, the amount of model making in wargaming can vary from quite a lot to buying stuff in, all of which is then used in simulations of miniature battles that involve imagination as well as rules [dons tin hat and ducks under the nearest table].

Other rather sad news Cumbrian news - Dave Myers RIP.

Good point given that it's a First class ticket half, which probably does narrow it down to one of the Ballantine-Dykes or perhaps their friends and relations. Just a thought regarding staff, presumably a nanny would travel First class when taking the children out ? Interestingly, the tickets came from a seller in Devon, which doesn't in itself mean much after all this time, but the majority of surviving M&CR ephemera tends to come from within Cumbria [and yes, little Miss Bossy Boots Badenoch, both Cumbria and we Cumbrians still exist].

These arrived in the post today whilst I was engaged in contructing the scenery on Mealsgate. These are two M&C ticket halves, one an excursion return from Carlisle to Maryport (may be a pleasure trip for shopping or to go to theatre or the races or perhaps a Sunday school outing to some worthy but utterly dull event ?), the other a return from Maryport to Dovenby Lodge station on the Derwent Branch. This narrows the ticket holder to either the Ballantine-Dyke family or one of their staff as Dovenby Lodge was a private station for the family of one of the first chairmen of the M&CR.

I was using some of my stock of Vollmer embossed card the other day and noticed the price sticker for the much missed Arts & Crafts Studio in Chester with it's marvellous downstairs model department. Quite coincidently, I bought some more Vollmer embossed card last week from the ever excellent Hereford Model Centre and was £2 a sheet rather than 85p

The positions of the various structures have been finalised using known dimensions and photographs and the substructure for the platform has been fitted. I've also cut away the embankment to the correct angle of the bridge. @Edwardian, fear not James as the Class 25 has been banished to its stabling point in the carriage shed road and the branch train proper is being used to check clearances. We're in P4 territory here as having scaled down both the rolling stock and civil engineering to 1:76.2, the clearances are prototypical and hence pretty tight (the M&CR's loading gauge was always somewhat restricted).

A view from a bridge - blocking in the landscape with card before getting to the hopefully not too messy bit with the mod-roc. I've painted the rails but will clean up the railheads after building up the landscape. Next step, making a brew and then attending to an urgent request from a student about her doctoral thesis (I know, I'm supposed to be on annual leave this week). Again, excuse the class 25s but I'm not risking one of my M&C engines as a test engine at this stage. Ah yes, the dog leg in the (truncated) goods shed siding - it's been relaid three times and I'm not risking making it even worse by taking it up again...

That is the best railway modelling I've seen in a long while in any scale, with a rare combination of accuracy, precision and above all atmosphere.

Bleak but better, don't you think ? There will be a low embankment at the front with a proper facia board to be fitted when the basic scenery is in place. The road bridge will now fulfill it's proper model railway function and hide the exit to the fiddle yard. The area behind the station building will be slightly raised to platform level, gradually falling to towards the carriage and goods sheds.

No going back now ! The topography of High Blaithwaite has been drastically modified and will now hopefully be much more accurate. I've also narrowed Mealsgate as a prelude to swopping the controls to the other side and making a proper control panel, complete with a working lever frame. I'm on me tod for two weeks (Mrs-CKPR-to-be is away cat sitting in Mancunia), I've got a weeks holiday coming up and I'm stocked up with scenic materials, etc, so we should see some progress on both Mealsgate and High Blaithwaite.

Rather ironically, the North Sunderland was reincorporated as a light railway under the 1898 Act after closing to traffic in 1951, presumably to facilitate formal abandonment and dismantling. Interestingly, the North Sunderland remained an independent company to the end, albeit that it was effectively under the control of the LNER from the late 1930s, with this passing to BR who effectively closed it by ending the arrangements for hiring said Y7, etc.

Also, some of the standard gauge lines that always used very small engines and lightweight rolling stock,for example the North Sunderland that was running trains of two or three 4w and 6w coaches headed by a Y7 0-4-0T (!) into the early 1950s, were not actually light railways in the sense of being built under the 1898 Act. ,

Off the top of my head, Ponteland might be worth looking at.

I was very impressed with this layout when I first saw it in RM and recently sought out a back copy of the relevant issue to read about it again. It seemed to me to be very much in the spirit of the old O gauge layouts from the 1940s -1950s such as the Millport & Selfield that used current RTR items in a very railway like manner to portray current practice.

Good question and given the M&C's link with the Caley at Brayton, I would presume it was Annan (Shawhill).

Juat arrived in the post, an un-used M&CR luggage label for Annan. These seem to be relatively common and I wonder if this is because of the dwindling traffic over the Solway Junction line back in the day.

Re. the location of the turntable on a loop - is this typical of the LBSC and is there an 'escape route' out of the engine shed in the event of the turntable being out of action ?

Strictly old school round here, marra !

I've finally got around to making a mock up of Mealsgate station building from the CRA plans by Mike Faulkner that were kindly given to me by @SteamAle at the Workington show some years ago. The original plans are to 3mm/1' and rather than redraw them, I decided to make a 4mm scale proving model from mounting board before starting on the model proper, which will be made of ply and DAS. I'm currently working out how to use A1 sheets of thinner mounting board to reproduce the platform, forecourt and roads in one piece so as to avoid any obvious gaps or changes in level. For the purposes of establishing the correct position of everything, I'm obviously just playing around with various bits and pieces, some of which like the stop-gap platform, will be scrapped or rebuilt. PS the station building was made from the last of my 50p mounting board offcuts from the now sadly closed Printing House in Cockermouth so another sort of connection with the M&CR proper !

It would probably have the same relationship to our hobby as Jake & Dino Chapman's 'N*zis in hell' tableaux had to military modelling...

...in Englands dreaming !