CKPR

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).

Actually, that probably is how you get to Castle Aching !

Castle Aching - Twinned with Madderport (Eng.) and Craig (Scot.). Actually, where 'is' Madderport ? CJF used to think that it could be reached by getting the slowest train from Liverpool Street and then changing twice onto progressively slower trains, but others have cast doubt on that suggestion (primarily on the grounds of the existence of the Madderhorn !).

Izzit 'eck, ars too busy deeking at M&CR enjuns in Jenkinson & Essery's "An Illustrated History of LMS Locomotives" (the clue as they say is in the title !)

The worst of it is that I can see my copy of Ahrons from where I'm sitting...

I knew I should have used the C&WJR as my second example rather than the highly standardised SMJR...

Mind you, some of the smaller railways, such as the M&CR and the SMJR, had very heterogenous collections of engines with little or no discernible 'house style'. The M&CR built engines to their own designs at Maryport works, sometimes built one-off copies of their neighbours' engines and occasionally bought in engines to the designs of other railways. The final two M&CR engines, 0-6-0s Nos 29 and 30, were built by the Yorkshire Engine Co. ostensibly to an H&BR design but ended up looking more like a GCR 9J.

Nearly completed the buffer beams for No. 7. Assembling them involved some very messy business with 5 min epoxy but they are now very solid (the 'bolts' are wire going all the way through the wood to the back plates) and they cleaned up nicely. After the battle with the epoxy, gently sanding the wood to shape was rather therapeutic - there's something very comfortable, almost cosy, about working on wood and metal with worn sandpaper and an old file. Next job is to fit the draw hook and then attach them to the loco and tender (and hopefully remember to trace around them to facilitate making the set for the Beyer-Peacock kit-bash that I'll be starting soon). The buffers are still only loosely fitted, albeit that I started cleaning them up a bit. I would normally remove w/m buffer heads, drill out the bodies and fit steel heads and rams but I'm putting that off in this instance given the size and double quantity. That said, I'll probably end up trying to make them work...

This reminds me of a review in 'The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction' of the original 1970s 'Survivors' drama ,in which the reviewer wondered why the eponymous survivors put so much effort into locating and running diesel generators and then trying to find fuel for same when they could have just used old traction and stationary engines instead.

The Wills E5 and GWR ex-TVR U1 were also made for the Dublo 0-6-0 chassis

It could have all been so different, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Space