CKPR

Slightly out of period but my great-uncle Ted served in the navy during the battle of the Atlantic and on the Baltic convoys and was sustained on a 4 hr watch with a packet of jam sandwiches (or when the jam ran out, bread & butter sprinkled with sugar) and a flask of cocoa.

Re. the "Hot Cocoa" tank wagon - As we seem to cogniscent not just of history but also of railway modelling history, I'm sure some of you will recall reading about the the fictional PO wagons that did the rounds of various layouts and which constituted an in joke in the 1950s-60s Railway Modeller [MRN and MRC were too serious for that sort of thing but MRC adopted a sort of hep cat argo just before the Ian Allan takeover - get with it or be square, daddio !] - off the top of my head, I can recall the Sabden Treacle Mines, Wheal Clidgy, The Byfield Cheese Quarry and The Stocksfield Stottie* Mine * Enormous dinner plate sized barm** native to the north east and best ordered in halves or quarters. ** what you put bacon or cheese in [see also breadcake, oven bottom, batch, etc].

Dunno - does it make diesel noises ?!

Regarding gasworks and stations, on the CK&PR itself, Cockermouth gasworks were adjacent to the line to the west of the station and had its own sidings, whilst the Keswick gasworks were nearer to the town centre and separated from the railway by the River Greta. Hence, all the coal would have been carted for 1/4 mile or so up Station Rd, down Bank St. , along Greta Side and thence to the gas works on Otley Rd. ( and no, I've no idea either why there is an Otley Rd in Keswick).

Indeed, and it is often forgotten these days that the emerging TUC in the mid-late 19th century considered that the working class might be better represented by the protectionist Tories rather than the free-trade middle class Liberals and there was surprisingly little common ground between the unions and the Social Democratic Federation, etc (I'm obviously simplifying things a bit here). As a background to how this played out locally, there's some fascinating local history written by Paul Salveson, a former professional railwayman and now visiting professor at Huddersfield Univ., on the socialist and labour movements in the Calder Valley in the late 19th century as well as lots of railway history [http://lancashireloominary.co.uk/index.html/?fbclid=IwAR3bGRd_RxfKDQXvXUg1HRXCFif4lDpFJ1MTije9gi6qfh7CYmMLoRLz6mY ] - interestingly, the nascent socialist movement was much more akin to the green and civic nationalist politics of today, with a strong focus on localised self-improvement.

The Allerdale Coal Co. wagons are now in the paintshops, along with various L&Y, GCR and, ermm, BR wagons - at least the latter are just grey or bauxite whilst I've got to mix a shade of red to match the colour of the original three ACC hoppers. Update - All seven of the ACC hoppers have been (re)painted as I ended up doing the first three in the 'new' red that I had mixed up.

Indeed there was and the need for different types of of coal explains the seemingly contradictory movements , many of which are reminiscent of the proverbial 'coals to Newcastle' . The Cumberland coal field seems to have latterly yielded primarily steam or coking coal and it was the establishment of local coking facilities that led to a reduction in the importation of coal and coke from Durham. Coal was still brought into West Cumberland from the north east and I suspect that this was primarily soft 'house coal' for domestic use - I think this accounts for why Mealsgate, which was adjacent to Brayton pit, had a coal merchant, one Thomas Blacklock, with his own wagons for bringing in coal for local domestic usage [ There is a 4mm r-t-r model available from https://candmmodels.co.uk/cm-limited-editions/ ]. The output of Brayton pit, latterly owned by the Allerdale Coal Co., seems to have gone straight to Maryport for either export via the docks or use in the local iron and steel industry Update - I looked up Allhallows colliery on the Durham Mining Museum site and it's production is listed as steam, coking, gas and household.

Would that be a big top 'at ?! Any excuse...

The marvellously named 'Mr Cement Limonene type' from MR Hobby might be a possible alternative to DL Limonene ?

True, but there was still opposition to the closure of the Stainmore line as it meant that all freight traffic for West Cumbria and Furness that originated from Teeside and Wearside had to be routed via Newcastle and Carlisle. There was also the loss of a diversionary east-west route to and from the north-east.

Similarly, the Stainmore line was another major pre-Beeching closure, in this case of a trans-Pennine route, that was weathered by the powers that be,

There is a diagram showing the necessary modification of the ends and roof in 'Railway Modeller' November 1974 p317 (in the ROTM article).

I think that was made by either Randalls (who had the 'Merit' range before it was sold to Peco and became 'Modelscene') or ECM [ 'Selectrol' ?]

Regarding the two 2-4-2Ts, my inclination would be to strip down the acquired one, detail it and then repaint in order to get a uniform standard across your locomotives. Obviously, I wouldn't do this myself if I acquired a Furness engine as built by Ross Pochin [which won't happen as these are all in the safe hands of the Cumbrian Railways Association] because the standard of both build and finish would be much higher than my own models, which would raise a bigger problem of uniformity of finish in my 4mm locomotive fleet ! On this point, I think that the uniformity of standards and finish is one of the main reasons why 'Buckingham' is so impressive. Returning to acquired engines, I have one pre-grouping engine that I purchased, a LNWR 'coal tank' made from I think the Pro-scale kit and even though it was already in LNWR livery, I still stripped it, detailed it with a set of 'Riceworks' parts and repainted it back into LNWR livery. It's still my only LNWR engine but fits in much better with the FR and M&CR engines for being painted in my style as it were.

My probably half-remembered and incomplete understanding was Afghanistan had a relatively liberal reform-minded government in the late 1960s-mid-1970s that ran into opposition from the highly conservative rural 'elders' [ the fathers and grandfathers of the current Taliban] and ended up on the verge of civil war. At which point, the Afghan government asked the USSR for support, which was forthcoming but the Soviets then effectively deposed the government with Afghanistan becoming a Soviet satrap by the late 1970s and the rest is history.

As someone who has recently started 7mm modelling, I was surprised at the lack of compensated under-frame components. I've purchased some Smiths 'W' irons but these are made in stainless steel, which strikes me as a very odd material to use, particularly when it comes to soldering and painting. I've also seen various compensation systems using rocking cradles with internal bearings and I should try them out to get over my dislike of these in 4mm - I expect that they should work much better given the greater mass of 7mm vehicles.

Oh, I dunno about that - the night life around Bigg Market in Newcastle is (in)famous for people being somewhat under-dressed for the weather. Many many years ago on a freezing cold snowy Friday evening in mid-winter, I set off with some friends to go from Durham to Sunderland Poly to see The Fall. Wrapped up in big coats, scarves and gloves and shivering in an inadequately heated car, we drove past a bus stop near the Penshaw monument at which we espied a group obviously waiting for a bus into the Toon and who were in shirt sleeves and skimpy dresses amid the falling snow.

You could never win, as despite winning a prize every year I was at the grammar school, I told that I would be lucky to get a job running the pick'n'mix counter in Woolies. As John Lennon said, they hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool.

I still have my copy of David Jenkinson's "Rails in the Fells" that I chose for a school prize (Form 1b year prize, Keswick School, 1976)

Same in our house with the added 'But why did you make a mess in the first place ?!'* See also 'Why does the kitchen floor get dirty ?!' (Ermm, because we live in the countryside alongside a muddy lane and surrounded by farms & fields ?) *CKPR is 58 years old in six weeks time...

Ah, I see what you mean - the ex-NER coaches are still in the 7mm range ! I either must have completely overlooked them when I last looked at the Connoisseur website a few weeks ago or it's been updated since then - the former is more likely. At £64 a pop, they are rather out of my price range though...the 'BTP' kit has well and truly emptied the coffers and I'm still trying to sell some more of the US brass* to pay for the Y7.I've been able to make economies in other departments and luckily for me, hand-made cooper-clad sleeper / Marcway 'O' gauge point work is very cheap on the Bay of Fleas, it being more suitable for my purposes than Peco's very pricey points. *Just sold another engine this afternoon so that's the books balanced for the Y7.

Best dressed man in rock'n'roll - I guess the title now passes to Robert Fripp, as long as his wife stops messing with his hair and tie. Ironically, the also recently departed Dusty Hill (RIP) definitely wasn't the best dressed man in rock'n'roll.

Talking of sturm und drang and the related notion of the sublime - https://existentialcomics.com/comic/160

I'm going to scratch-build the ex-NER 4w coaches to start with - practice for the autocoach ! The David Jenkinson carriage modelling book duly arrived and I read it cover to cover a few weeks ago whilst holed up in south west Wales in the caravan with a very poorly Mrs-CKPR-to-be. I've got lots of plasticard, a new cutting mat and plenty of 10a scalpel blades in stock so I'm all ready to get cracking on some 7mm coach building. As you may have sussed, my interest in the North Sunderland is long-standing and I actually built a lot of the post-war rolling stock as my initial EM project - the first Nu-cast 'Y7' kit was bought from The Model Shop in Blenheim St. in Newcastle-upon-Tyne when I was in my final year at Durham. I therefore have previous when comes to the ex-NER coaches as they were my first scratch-builds c.1985-86.