CKPR

Aye well, that's for them tha' fancy pants southern railway companies wi' more brass then sense. And t'north eastern.

Don't forget that the M&CR was one of the oldest railway companies in the UK and certainly the oldest company in the LMSR and they always painted their engines in mid-chrome / quaker / brunswick green.

I would agree with Jol that these are probably 'Red Rose' etches.

I see what you did there !

Starting a new job tomorrow - working from home now, so no more travelling to South Wales every Monday morning and staying in B&Bs for half the week. Aside from everything else (less stress all round and more money from not having to fork out £400+ each month just to go to work), I'm looking forward to having time in the evenings for important things such as gardening and railway modelling so expect some progress reports on No.7 and her sisters. Now, if I can only find where Mrs CKPR-to-be's daughter left my big box of brass and card after I told her to help herself to some mounting board off-cuts about a year ago...

That's really sad news as these were two of my favourite layouts that I only knew from the pages of 'Model Railways' in the 1980s

This is pretty much the entire reference material for my model of High Blaithwaite - http://www.cumbria-railways.co.uk/blaithwaite2.html .The slight discrepancy in the door of the station building is because my model is actually based on the very similar building at Bulgill on the M&C mainline and was made before I built High Blaithwaite.

You have my sympathies as I built a rake of 4mm LNWR hopper wagons about 30 years ago using only a drawing in Beal's "Modelling the old-time railways". As a result, I initially built them as per NER hopper wagons i.e. like a normal open wagon with internal hoppers. A few years later, I saw a photograph in "Cumbrian Railways' that showed that they were actually proper hopper wagons with extended sides and so had to carefully remove the erroneous false ends and install all the end framing in situ. I managed to do this successfully for all five wagons , which certainly taught me to read drawings more carefully before cutting the plasticard !

Up in Cumbria for a few days visiting t'owd folks and checking on Mealsgate and High Blaithwaite after some recent redecorating, so not much modelling of any Cumbrian railways this week. As recompense for the lack of any progress on No.7 this week, here's a couple more old photos of High Blaithwaite. It doesn't really show but both the station building and the block post have fully detailed interiors but I still haven't got round to arranging any lighting in them.

Another P7 variant is outside W-irons - D&S used to do these in etched brass and Slaters similarly used to do the end mounted brake gear as an after-market etch.

Which makes me wonder what an exact no compromise finescale model of say NER No.1 would actually involve !

"It were hard to accept that I were boring. Especially with my interest in the Maryport & Carlisle Railway"

If you want to go full Edwardian in your new house, there's only place to start: "My dear wife Carrie and I have just been a week in our new house, “The Laurels,” Brickfield Terrace, Holloway—a nice six-roomed residence, not counting basement, with a front breakfast-parlour. We have a little front garden; and there is a flight of ten steps up to the front door, which, by-the-by, we keep locked with the chain up. Cummings, Gowing, and our other intimate friends always come to the little side entrance, which saves the servant the trouble of going up to the front door, thereby taking her from her work. We have a nice little back garden which runs down to the railway. We were rather afraid of the noise of the trains at first, but the landlord said we should not notice them after a bit, and took £2 off the rent. He was certainly right; and beyond the cracking of the garden wall at the bottom, we have suffered no inconvenience. After my work in the City, I like to be at home. What’s the good of a home, if you are never in it? “Home, Sweet Home,” that’s my motto. I am always in of an evening. Our old friend Gowing may drop in without ceremony; so may Cummings, who lives opposite. My dear wife Caroline and I are pleased to see them, if they like to drop in on us. But Carrie and I can manage to pass our evenings together without friends. There is always something to be done: a tin-tack here, a Venetian blind to put straight, a fan to nail up, or part of a carpet to nail down—all of which I can do with my pipe in my mouth; while Carrie is not above putting a button on a shirt, mending a pillow-case, or practising the “Sylvia Gavotte” on our new cottage piano (on the three years’ system), manufactured by W. Bilkson (in small letters), from Collard and Collard (in very large letters).... April 3.—Tradesmen called for custom, and I promised Farmerson, the ironmonger, to give him a turn if I wanted any nails or tools. By-the-by, that reminds me there is no key to our bedroom door, and the bells must be seen to. The parlour bell is broken, and the front door rings up in the servant’s bedroom, which is ridiculous. Dear friend Gowing dropped in, but wouldn’t stay, saying there was an infernal smell of paint."

Strictly for them as likes this sort o'thing, here's a buffer update - I've just followed Edwardian's link to 5&9 Models on the MSWJ wagon thread and saw some strange southern contraptions called Craven / Stroudley locomotive buffers that bear more than a passing resemblance to the buffers on No.7. Curious and curiouser...

Some progress on the 517 for 'Weston Standen' as I've made the new bunker, which was the final major modification required. Hopefully, it's all detailing from here onwards. I thought I ought to return to the 517 not just to get some practice before tackling the tender for M&CR No.7 [see the 'Mealsgate' thread for more on this saga], but also because Edwardian-era GWR 'Weston Standen' is in danger of turning into late 1920s ex-L&YR 'Denley Moor' if I'm not careful. The fact that Clayton West had a track plan pretty much identical to that planned for 'Weston Standen' doesn't help to keep me focussed on the GWR. I'm also ashamed to admit that I haven't attempted to reduce the width of the footplate of the 517 - I've dismantled a couple of S/H assembled etched kits in the past to correct faults and neither went back together quite as I had hoped they would so I've decided that I can live with this error.

I've got a large (10 gallon ?) NER oil drum, ex- Whitby, sitting outside the barn behind our house but as it's (a) dark and (b) blowing a gale outside, I can't supply any photos at present but I'll take some tomorrow as soon as I can.

I seem to recall the SCATS warehouse being given away as a freebie by one of the magazines in the early 1980, possibly MR or SMT.

Since this is the pre-grouping forum and we are mostly concerned with the esoteric and exotic, in response to picking up the soldering iron by the hot end , I'll offer getting soldering flux fumes in the eyes, a trip to the minor injuries unit at the cottage hospital and then seeing everything as yellow-green for the next few days as a result of the treatment. Perhaps we should stop there as this is probably doing nothing to encourage people to start soldering !

Very nice -is the engine in the third picture possibly a GER Y65 'Crystal Palace' 2-4-2 T ?

Have you tried letting down the temper of the wire by gently heating it ? This should make it much more malleable and the temper will come back into the wire as you work with it. The main thing is to avoid over-heating the wire to the orange or red stage as it will go like cotton thread at this point !

I expect everyone is now very bored indeed with the saga of the buffer beams on No. 7 and so after an evening's work, these are now finished and attached to both engine and tender (the buffers are still loose and will be attached last thing). NB The two vehicles on the shelf are destined for 'Weston Standon', the GWR BLT I'm building for fun (!) , although there is photographic evidence of a GW 'Python' on an M&CR passenger train so this will be added to the pre-grouping NPCS pool - I've lots of horseboxes but only one other CCT (well, a LNWR OCT to be precise).

I can't say I remember it well as despite attaining JMB 'O' level Latin (Grade A) in1980, the cover and the dalliances of Cassius and Claudia are just about all I recall of said text.

Here's the cover and first two pages of the 1967 'Porthleven' layout - as the files are rather large, let me know of you want the other six pages.

I'll have to tread very very carefully here - many years ago, a dear friend of mine from the USA mentioned her college friend Randy, whose surname was the same as an esteemed locomotive engineer (LYR/LMS/BR) and author of such tomes as 'Locomotive Panorama' & 'British Railways Standard steam locomotives ', and then couldn't comprehend why I and another British friend of hers were convulsed in laughter on the floor.

Hmmm, just about to re-profile the tender sideframes to match the buffer beam and realised that I've made two front buffer beams ! The buffer beams on M&CR tenders seem to have been normal depth without the wooden packing. Oh well, that's a buffer beam in stock for 0-4-2 No.4 or the Beyer-Peacock 0-6-0 and it should be straightforward to scribe and saw out another couple of buffer beams (might as well do another one for stock).