CKPR

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

No problem with your locomotives as your CME will be a member of the Drummond family as per the first rule of 19th century Scottish railway engineering...

NB I was commenting that many of us in this parish would concur with these sepulchral sentiments and in no way predicting or hastening your early demise !

Are talking again about these legendary ready-to-run no filing or soldering required pre-grouping locomotives and rolling stock that can supposedly be purchased in modelling emporia ? I'll believe it when I see it* * 'it' being a RTR Furness 0-6-0 or, better still, a NER P4 hopper wagon.

I'd pre-order that one now and have several dozen run up whilst you're about it as they'll sell like the proverbial warm patisserie !

Sorry if this is rather after the fact, but I recall reading in one of Jim Whittaker's 'Railway Modeller' articles on coach building (c.1971-72) that he used gum arabic rather than any sort of glue for affixing similarly fragile card panelling.

Most of the passengers on Col. Stephens' railways ?!

Hmmm, did I really say that I was looking forward to making the buffer beams ?! This represents progress so far - what looks like the front buffer beam is actually the four buffer beam faces (two outer and two inner) that will sandwich the wooden beam proper. I need to drill a fair few more holes through all four of them whilst they're soldered together as I'm planning on inserting wires to represent the larger of various bolts with the wires then adding strength to the brass/wood/brass composite. Of course, my minidrill is still up in Cumbria so I'm having to drill everything with a pin vice archimedean drill and a reamer... The buffers temporarily in place are the same ones as fitted to my earlier models of No. 26 and No. 17 and are, I think, MR coach buffers by either 247 or Wizard Models. Looking at pictures of other M&CR 0-6-0s (I know, I really should get out more), several seem to have been fitted with heavy duty self-contained buffers with a straight shank and square base and somewhere I've got a photograph from 1986 of just such a buffer doing duty as part of an abandoned buffer stop at Maryport station.

Hang on, did I just read Fletcher Jennings / Lowca ? Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition - at last !

Very nice indeed but those lamp irons ! They must be using the same formulation of silver paint that I used on my Airfix B25 Mitchell back in 1974...

Which is why I've written off the £6 the J83 cost...

In the past few years, I've been buying HO Japanese brass locomotive and interurbans by PFM, NWSL, KTM, etc from the 1960s and 70s for my North American projects and what has struck me is that I've often paid pretty much the same price for an engine or interurban that it originally sold for back in the day. Clearly, they still command a fairly high price but they would appear to have had next to no value as an investment over the past 40-50 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet

Is it just me or did Hornby re-use the cab and bunker from 'Nellie' when they produced the J83 in the mid-1970s ? I've just been sawing up a J83 body to see if I can bodge a FR 0-6-0T out of it but have now, wisely I think, placed the various bits in a box in the back of a cupboard to await rediscover at a later date.

Whilst I'm uploading old photos, one more to prove that 'Mealsgate' really does exist - when I get it set up more permanently, I'll probably add a 12-18" extension to lengthen the sidings and maybe add a siding on the line that goes off at a tangent, supposedly to Allhallows colliery (I've got a lot of Smallbrook Studio cauldron waggons that need a home). To my eyes, this photo has the look of the type of picture that used to grace MRN and RM in the late 1940s -early 1950s - so much for digital technology, eh ?! These pictures were taken at my old 'three up, two down' terraced house in Macclesfield and hence I was able to set it up in the spare bedroom. Of course, we now live in a five bedroom detached property but funnily enough, none of the bedrooms are 'spare' in the sense of being available for model railways...

Here's an old picture of No26 on a very short train approaching High Blaithwaite from Aikbank Junction - she's obviously been drafted in from her usual haunt of the M&CR's Derwent branch from Bullgill to Cockermouth. If anyone is keeping notes, this is the first iteration of High Blaithwaite that was built before the second (!) photograph of the station at High Blaithwaite came to light and I realised that my presumption about the bridge being a stone arch was completely wrong. A pity really as I was rather pleased with the bridge as it turned out, especially the representation of the red sandstone construction that typifies West Cumberland.