CKPR

Closed as recently as 1976. I have seen a model of Alston in 4mm and it was pretty big for a BLT - Brampton Town on the other hand would be perfect but I've never seen it modelled ( I still have a D&S autocoach kit for the day I ever get round to it).

From henceforth onwards, I shall always refer to FR No 115 as falling into a reet big 'ole in t'ground !

Probably happened because the FR baltic tanks were ostensibly 'designed'by Rutherford who was actually the CCE with no actual experience of engine design and so contracted the work out. Moreover, despite having superbly well appointed engineering works, the FR always bought in its new engines from outside builders. Given these circumstances and the fact that the baltic tanks were a maximum size design, it was perhaps inevitable that there was some 'drift' on some of the dimensions. Anyway, it's a good story and entirely in keeping with being the only railway to ever lose an engine down an old mineshaft where it remains to this day !

I'm fascinated by the early history of model railways in the UK, especially in the 1940s and 1950s - am I right in thinking that Formo was originally a separate company to Graham Farish in the way that Trackmaster was to Rovex and Rovex to Tri-ang ?

This happened in real life when the Furness Rly. sent their new 4-6-4T engines up the line to Whitehaven and discovered that they wouldn't go through the doors of Corkicle loco shed...

The large white "M&C" lettering on the HMRS (nee PC Models) sheet is for high-sided coke wagons but what the black letting is for is unclear as the M&CR certainly didn't have any refrigerator vans. I've found this sheet to be a good source of the individual letters required for the 'M.& C.R.' or 'M.& C'. found on most M&C wagons.

I got as far as making a station name board for Allonby - I envisaged it as being a very basic loop and siding terminal. Caldbeck on the other hand would have to have had facilities ( a la Helston ?) for handling various forms of mineral traffic

I think it was actually the most profitable of all of the pre-1923 railways as it pretty much stuck to its brief of linking Maryport and Carlisle - there were several schemes for extensions, including lines to Caldbeck, Bassenthwaite and Allonby, none of which ever came to anything and probably for the best.

IIRC, that article suggests Brayton as a good prototype with interchange with the Solway Junction / Caley and, if you stretch things a bit, the NBR/LNER. The interchange and junctions with other lines is one of the good things about taking the M&C as the basis for a model railway. Obviously there's the LNWR at both ends, but also the NER at both Carlisle and again at Brigham at the end of the Derwent branch (NER mineral trains came in via the CKPR), as well as the Furness via the Cleator & Workington Junction Rly. at Linefoot Junction, also on the Derwent branch. There were also various through workings by all parties and so LNWR and FR trains were to be seen on the M&C. Also, the M&C hired some LNWR coaches (i.e decent ones with bogies and corridors) for their through working to Keswick via the Derwent branch and Cockermouth - I was born in Cockermouth and grew up in Keswick and so you can see why I'm a more than a bit interested in the Derwent branch ! The other thing about the M&C, and this is straying into 'Castle Aching' territory and Edwardian's domain, is that it seems to have been a very nice little railway under the benign autocracy of Sir Wilfred Lawson - they didn't seem to have alienated local businesses and industries in the manner of the LNWR in West Cumberland nor to have antagonised the neighbouring lines (well, not after that unpleasant business over the building of Carlisle Citadel anyway !) and was in many ways the epitome of a pre-1923 local railway company.

That's a lovely M&C mineral train, Phil and I'm not in the slightest bit (Mid Quaker) green with envy...

For anyone planning a fine-scale 100% accurate no compromise bounder and cad, here is your prototype information !

Any chance of this being produced in 4mm as well ?

Just realised that it's three years since I last posted anything about 'Mealsgate' and to be honest, there's been next to no progress what with our house move and all the redecoration / renovation this entailed. However, I've got two scratch-built M&C engines on the bench and I'm about to start hacking up a Geo. Norton LYR 'ironclad' into one of the M&C's Beyer-Peacock 0-6-0s - anyone who thinks this is a mortal sin can stop me putting my soul in grave danger by the simple act of scratch-building me one in EM!

As a fellow devotee of the M&CR, I'd recommend joining the CRA as they have various LMS weight diagrams of the M&C engines that survived into the 1920s. These are basic but in conjunction with a good photograph, you can make a good model - get hold of Essery & Jenkinson's LMS locomotives vol 2 covering the LYR, LNWR, FR and the M&CR as it has photos of pretty much all of the M&CR engines. As for the W.Hardin Osborne plans in the February 1965 RM, the drawing of 0-4-2t No. 17 is very suspect and there is correspondence in the May edition (p135-136) to that effect. I've built this engine in 4mm based on my own drawing and can supply further info if need be. As others have said, the M&C were dab hands at locomotive plagiarism and you can take your pick from a G&SWR '361', an NER 'BTP' and a brace of H&BR engines. Also, some of their 0-6-0s were built by Beyer-Peacock / Kitson to one of their standard designs and bear more than a passing resemblance to the L&Y's 'ironclads'. As for the wagon colour, it's just a medium grey ! Talking of wagons, beware the drawings for the brake van in the MRN and the box van in the MRC - much better drawings are have been published in the CRA's 'Cumbrian Railways'. Funnily enough, there are plans for two different M&C horse boxes, one in an very early HMRS journal and the other one is the one from MR, which can also be found in Nick Campling's book of NPCS drawings. Drop me a line if you want copies of any of these drawings, etc - good to have another M&C modeller on board !

I'm very taken with the conspiracy theory that Kubrick was indeed hired to fake the moon landing footage but he was such a perfectionist that he insisted on filming it all on location...

Ah, now this I didn't know about ! Trouble is, my Mallard 517 kit was bought S/H and the footplate and buffer beams had already been soldered up so I just cleaned this up and proceeded from there onwards using IAR's article. I think I'll probably have to leave it as it is but your 517 has inspired me to try to crack on with mine.

Well, Halfords British Racing Green is pretty much spot on for Mid Brunswick Green, which in turn is pretty much the same as the Mid Quaker Green of the M&CR as far as I'm concerned.

Selectadisc (also gone)

Have just got one of these so please ignore This is a bit of a long shot, but I'm looking for a London Road Models or Jidenco kit for the Barton-Wright "Ironclad" LYR 0-6-0 as the basis for a conversion project and would be interested in any un-built, half-built or even badly built kits as long as the body is salvagable (I'm not too bothered about the chassis).

The cost of hobbies cuts both ways - I'm 55 tomorrow, work in a well-paid profession, we own our house and a couple of cars bought S/H and both over 10 years old, the kids have left home, etc and yet I'm staggered at the prices, even when discounted, of new r-t-r and r-t-p models. On the other hand, my railway modelling is entirely based on kit-building and scratch building and increasingly, my kits and materials are coming from the S/H market and Ebay and my outlay on railway modelling is relatively minimal - I regard spending on something costing £50 as a very major purchase. All of which makes me wonder about who is going to take up the hobby given that previously entry-level r-t-r is so expensive and therefore I was really pleased to read the article in this months RM on the £20 micro layout (DCC to boot !) by 16 year old Luke Noble.

When comes to what to model, I've always had an interest in the railways of where I grew up in West Cumbria and like you, I felt that I should this do 'properly' by modelling in EM (could never afford O, eyesight is too poor for 2mm and discovered S too late !) and as this cut me off from r-t-r, it led inevitably to modelling the pre-group scene. Progress on this is pretty slow and I've been tempted by other interests over the years, which I've indulged by micro-layouts largely inspired by the late Carl Arendt's books and website [ http://www.carendt.com ] - my side interests in US logging lines and interurbans and latterly French metre gauge have all been satisfied by taking something from his and his contributors cornucopia of plans and ideas.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Royal-Scot-Pre-War-Hamblings-Bonds-3-rail-4mm-00-finescale-Rare-Survivor/113294512240?hash=item1a60e11070:g:qzQAAOSwiqdbug6p

If you're after the NER diagram books and a lot of other NER literature, try Second Chapter Books in Shrewsbury as I sold most of my NER collection to them a few weeks ago. As for trying to tart up up the old Triang- Hornby coke wagon, don't even go there - I tried many many moons ago and it's several hours of my modelling life I won't get back.

This is so sad - I grew up reading Allan in the Railway Modeller in the 1970s, always enjoyed his practical and often laugh out loud articles and just presumed that he was in someway immortal and that he would always be part of of our happy little world of model railways.

Regarding bridge rail in 4mm scale, I think that Roger Carpenter produced small packets of this (6-7 pieces) of this in white-metal c.1978-79