CKPR

It's written by Robert Western who wrote  a history of the CKPR for  Oakwood Press in 2001 and I don't know yet  if there is any lineage back to Jack Simmons 1947 book  (Oakwood Press No. 4 !).

The other treasures lurking in the RM digital archive are the real labours of love, the largely scratchbuilt layouts and individual pieces of rolling stock that are just so atmospheric and evocative even though they are not accurate to the n-th degree - have a look at RM for 1976 and you'll see some marvellous modelling that didn't all come from a factory, let alone one in China.

In other news, looks like I'll be doing a review of the new Oakwood  Press book on the M&CR for the CRA journal, 'Cumbrian Railways' .

I like to have a kit build ongoing with a scratchbuild and so I've dipped into the collection of loco kits seen in previous posts and made a start on the London Road Models Cauliflower. Or rather, the ex-Geo. Norton Webb 1800 gal tender that is common to several LRM LNWR kits. "Always build the tender first" is the old advice and this case, it will be good practice for the ones included in the Whitworth and DX Goods kits. Definitely a case of etched brass origami and I'll be making a couple of wooden formers before tackling the other two.

21 hours ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

A seriously good album as well.

All the very best for a speedy and full recovery - sounds much more serious than my minor cardiac troubles, so do take it easy and hope that some railway modelling is part of the rehab plan.

This makes at least three of us currently modelling the North Sunderland in O gauge.

On 20/02/2023 at 17:04, MarcD said:

I still have a FR hopper wagon that I built in the late 90's it was built from a Rush drawing similar issues the drawing was a work of fiction.

Marc

Reletter it as Rowrah & Kelton Fell ?!  No one will be any the wiser !

Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery.

Dougal ['CKPR']

From memory, there is an article in "Airfix Magazine Annual 3" on a freelance LT layout that has pictures of stock built using the Hamblings lithos.

5 hours ago, TurboSnail said:

 

 

 

And a Fletcher Jennings Class J - 15" version. I didn't have a lot of info to go on when making it, so hopefully it's reasonably accurate, and no doubt more information will now show up since I've finished it. 

Very nice and always good to see a standard gauge Fletcher Jennings / Lowca Engineering locomotive. I'm presuming that you've got, or have sight of, Ian Kyle's "Steam from Lowca" (1974) ?

Possibly in its dried form and in sacks would be my guess (with the emhasis on guess).

Thank you, that's really helpful as  I should have that copy and now know where to look.

I'll have to get a move on then !

Indeed and it's been staring me in the face since I started railway modelling in the mid-1970s. Also, architectural modelling isn't really my thing and the thought of making Cockermouth station building in 4mm was pretty daunting !

The upper picture is from Bowtell's 'Rails through Lakeland' and the lower one from Robert Western' s 'The Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway' (the latter is also reproduced in Peter W. Robinson's 'Railways  of Cumbria')

I'll be doing some more work on No.3 later on after tea but I've also been doing some armchair modelling as well. Given the previously reported changes in the plans for our house, the 'last great project' of building Cockermouth has obviously been shelved, but I had a moment of inspiration the other day - what about another CK&PR station ? Obviously, it would have to be  modellable as a 'cameo' layout  within the now much reduced space available to me. Hence,  the obvious choice for personal and practical reasons is Embleton, the first CK&PR station out from Cockermouth - no loop, a small two siding yard, a single storey station building, a level crossing and a stationmasters house [still standing by the side of the A66 !]. As an aside, I  was always very taken with Ian Futers' NBR layouts that I saw at the York shows in the 1970s, but it has taken 45 years for the penny to drop that the CK&PR equivalent was practically on my doorstep. So, Embleton it is and a through station to boot, perfect for NER coke trains, M&CR through trains and even the latterday 'Lakes Express'. Of course, I might be tempted to pretend that the line remained open after 1966 and run my early 1970s class 25s and 40s on through freights to west Cumberland...

Not GEM but very similar and made of brass - is it a good match for the existing lever frame ? It's set up for passing contact point control so might be a drop in for the old one.

Back to reality ! Luckily, the later M&CR 0-4-2s are pretty similar under the footplate and here is the existing chassis with the wheels after a bath in gun black.

I started building No.4 solely because I had W Hardin Osborne's 4mm sketch of it from RM February 1965 [but see the correspondence in the May 1965 edition]. As I accumulated more photographs and information, I became aware that No.4 might not be the most appropriate choice, footplate complexities not withstanding, as she was very much a 'mainline' engine and thus unlikely to be seen on the Mealsgate or Derwent branches. The question of which of the other M&CR 0-4-2s to build was resolved with reference to this iconic photograph in Bowtell's "Rails through Lakeland" that shows an M&CR 0-4-2 [with a straight footplate - hurrah !] with a train of two hired LNWR coaches on a Keswick service near Bassenthwaite Lake. A spot of logical induction and a subsequent discussion thread on the CRA's "electronic telegraph" led to the conclusion that the engine in the photograph is actually No.3.

A rather belated Happy New Year to all and sundry, albeit that it is still 1908 hereabouts, and here's one resolution that I might actually keep - building M&CR No.3. You might recall that the chassis for a proposed model of 0-4-2 No.4 was built  but the project had stalled due to the complications involved in forming the footplate and splashers. I've done some more work on 0-6-0 No.7, which is now nearly complete and awaiting painting when the weather warms up, and so turned my attention back to the nascent 0-4-2. These mixed traffic engines were  very much the iconic M&CR engine design and were closely related to their cousins on the neighbouring G&SWR. Therefore, any self-respecting M&C layout has to have an 0-4-2, but which one ?!

On 16/12/2022 at 19:30, Dave Hunt said:

 

I once had my model of a Midland Railway American Schenectady mogul at an exhibition when one 'knowledgeable critic' said to his  mate, "That's wrong, they had American style bogie tenders, not the Midland type." "Excuse me," I said, "The ones you refer to were the Baldwin engines, this was built by Schenectady." He looked at me as though I had just climbed out of an alien spaceship and told me I was wrong as he had seen it in a book a friend of his had about American locomotives of the Midland Railway. "Yes, I wrote it," I said whereupon he replied, "Well, you would say that wouldn't you." I was too taken aback to reply as he walked away.

 

Dave

I think I encountered the very same 'expert'  at ExpoEM North a few years ago - he told me that I was wrong in not putting a numberplate on my model of M&CR No.26, which was displayed in front of a widely published photograph of said engine sans any form of numberplate. I was still wrong in his expert opinion !

This is a long shot and it would require a lot of work, but David Jenkinson wrote an article in RM in 1966-7 [i.e. it will be in the Peco digital  archive for RM] on building a Midland Rly Pullman and gave very detailed instructions for making the roof. An updated version of his method can be found in his book on carriage modelling published by Wild Swan.