CKPR

Very nice to see a tram on the workbench and I've found my thoughts wandering back to the topic after an abortive attempt some 30 years ago to model the Carlisle trams using the old Keil-Kraft kits.

I would endorse everything that Jim @Caley Jim says about DAS and it's also very pleasant to use and readily sandable without the nasty dust associated with polyfilla or plaster. I've been happily smoothing away lumps & bumps and making ditches & paths with nothing more than some old sandpaper and I think that there's definitely something more relaxing about working with 'natural' materials such as wood, card, metal and now clay. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of styrene in my model making (but definitely no resin ) and my wagons are all the better for it. That said, I do sometimes wish I'd gone down the old-school Pendon or S scale path and used card & ply from the start of my pre-group modelling in the mid-1980s (Mike Longridge's classic book on building 4mm rolling stock sits on my bookshelf to remind me of the path less chosen).

Feels likes its starting to come together a bit more now, especially since I started to use DAS for finishing off the landscape - its definitely my new favourite modelling material ! NB I know the sign says 'Allonby'...

Thanks to Phil @SteamAle for alerting me to a bundle of M&CR material on the bay of E. Here's the record from 120 years ago of the journey of a parcel from Cockermouth to Kirkbride via Brayton that involved the LNWR, the M&CR, the Caledonian and the NBR, all without leaving Cumberland.

Definitely Winton ! It was the subject of an article in RM November 1976 and it describes the climax of the Silver Jubilee running non-stop through the station.

The Easter shows at York in 1976 & 19 77- boiling hot, cramped (remember those pillars in the Assembly Rooms ?) and chock full of classic 1970s layouts. From memory, I can recall 'Rewley Road', 'Winton', 'Yatton Junction', Bill Hudson's 'Tideswell' and Ian Futers latest 4mm NBR layout.

Or the great Breck van Gaard for that matter.

I've been busy with some more of the Bausch stonework [ there must be somewhere in Germany that is geologically similar to north west Cumbria ! ] and remade all of the stonework on the goods & cattle wharf. I now just need to remove the original surface of polyfilla and wood ash, which is akin to concrete, and then it's painting everthing with gouache, which I very much enjoy, before refitting everything.

Looks better already !

Hmmm, looks some of the embankment opposite the station building will have to be cut back a bit and the goods and cattle wharf needs altering. The latter should just be case of extending the first siding and possibly cutting back the other siding and the cattle pen area. I'm going to end up with both goods sheds being truncated but that's inevitable given my attempts to fit an essentially triangular station onto a narrow rectangular base. Thinking about it, Mealsgate had a very unique and unusual track plan dating from the mid-Victorian period that remained essentially the same until closure in 1952.

Although I'm primailrily interested in the late pre-grouping and early 1970s eras, I am wondering if there is any cross-over with some other discussions going on on RMWeb, particularly those about the disappearance of old school operational layouts that were much more popular from the 1940s through to the late 1960s. By this, I mean layouts with several stations, all properly signalled and with the primary emphasis on realistic operation. It strikes me that this type of railway modelling, which has all but disappeared with the dominance of finescale accuracy, might be the answer to the lack of variety in modern rolling stock.

...London North Western of course !

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.