CKPR

Has anyone ever modelled any of the stations of Trollope's fictional Barsetshire, such as Winter Overcotes or Shearing Junction (change for Worsted and Fleece) ?

It's very difficult, if not impossible, to 'prove' a negative but it's very straightforward to demonstrate that any given hypothesis (e.g. All railway modellers are autistic) is false. It's known as the 'black swan argument', in that it's easier to disprove the assertion that all swans are white, as all you need to do is to find a single black swan to disprove ('falsify) the assertion / hypothesis, rather than it is to check all the swans in the world to prove that they are all white. I wouldn't advise the latter course of action anyway, as they're horrible creatures (says someone who was attacked by a swan in 1967 when it bit me AND stole my ice cream cornet).

My day job is clinical psychology, I've worked in the field of autism for nigh on a quarter of a century and, no, being a railway modeller (or having any other hobby for that matter) isn't a sign of being on the autistic spectrum.

These look excellent and I think that a combination of the 1860s and the 1900s sets would produce the rather old-fashioned attire, especially when it came to headgear, that was worn 1890-1910 by crews on the M&CR and doubtless on many other of the smaller and more remote lines.

I was just about to post the very same !

By complete chance, I once shared a flat with Alan the builder of 'Horselunges' and made some of the wagons (HM&ST prototypes) and one of the locos for it in a swop for an exquisite M&CR signal box, which i still treasure.

Just bought one today at the Workington show. Now, as all of my existing PO wagons are only lettered on one side only, I'll have to get another matching but unpainted Dapol wagon and somehow cut them in half lengthways to make two wagons out of it.... ermm, mebbe not !

As well as being high-end hi-fi manufacturers (I've got a Garrard 401 & SME 3012 set up), SME were also, and may still be, aerospace industry sub-contractors. Not bad for a firm that started out making model signals 60 years ago.

September 1975 IIRC

What's pertaining old bean ?

GEM kits are still available from Thamesmead (IIRC)

I remember reading reviews of that kit when it came out in 1977 and the castings certainly looked a lot better back then - you've made a grand job of some pretty ropey main components !

Thanks - We're very close to moving to just outside Ludlow into a house with a very large shed / very small barn that is already earmarked for my workshop and the layouts (Mealsgate, High Blaithwaite and hopefully Linefoot Junction and the Aurora & Pacific Logging and Traction co.). As predicted, I've been working on my stack of American craftsman kits whilst down in Cardiff and have just completed the JV Models Boyd logging camp - these plank by plank kits have opened my eyes to building exactly as per the prototype !

Bill Nelson's 'Chance Encounters in the Garden of Light'

Now that sir, is proper modelling !

Taking this a step further, how about a Class 28 or 17 with the engine on fire on a mid to late 1960s layout ?!

have also been completing a rake of varied coal wagons for the Nantcwmdu Coal Company (I was told firmly by a Welsh speaking friend that it should be Nantcwmdu, not Nantcwmddu - after I had lettered about eight wagons) for my Rhymney layout, but they are not in a fit state yet to photograph. I just got rather fed up with applying transfers, and put them to one side for a while. I appreciate that this might be a bit too late, but I only ever letter PO wagons on one side, especially if I'm doing similar bespoke letter by letter jobs. I take my hat off to you for tackling a rake of eight - the most I've ever done is five and that was with POWSides dry rub sets (in my defence, dry rub lettering is one of the minor works of the devil)

You're losing me here, chaps - where is this strange place you call "Norfolk" ? It's not on my 1908 RCH map of Maryport and Workington and it's not even on my big map of the known world, a 1899 map of the Leeds & Liverpool canal and that goes to some godforsaken place in the far east called Kingston-upon-Hull. I'm beginning to think that you're making it all up...

This is what "Polar Lights" have been doing with the old Aurora monster kits, the moulds for which are either lost or unavailable.

"When I was a young engineer, one of my colleagues invented a fictional electrical device called an 'interositor'. Whenever a Very Senior Person toured our department, and asked (hands clasped neatly behind back, craning forward slightly) "So, what are you chaps working on at the moment?", the reply would always be "We're looking further at the possible advantages of interositors.". Wasn't the "interositer" from the 1950s SF film "This Island Earth" ?!

I too once had a Highfield Models 'catalogue' (from the York show in 1977 or 1978 IRRC ) and as far as I can recall, the range included: -HR brake van (possibly two variants) - I've still got one of these unbuilt -NER Milk van -NER Brake 3rd and Compo coaches -LSWR coach (Brake Compo ?) -GER Tram engine (Y6) -Sentinal 4w VBT -GER sundries van (I think) -GWR coach (?) The GCR/CLC brake must be a later model as I certainly don't recall it.

I'll be watching this thread with interest as I've also recently purchased this kit with a view to building the BCR version, presuming it's not too similar to some of the early 0-6-0s of the M&CR.

The name board from Forres SB, several wagon plates, a BR 9F tender numberplate, several NER cast iron door and gate plates, a BR first aid box (used as such), a couple of LNWR and FR bridge number plates (one of which is, by complete co-incidence, the number of our house and sits by the front door - the future Mrs CKPR thought it was intentional but I'd just left it there), a couple of NER oil cans, an awful lot of old paperwork form the pre-group lines in West Cumberland, various framed RCH maps, a couple of working LMS hand lamps, a noticeboard from Bassenthwaite Lake station, etc. In my defence, I haven't added to this mini-museum in the past couple of decades and gave away a load of similar stuff a few weeks when I moved house and just abandoned several cast iron track chairs along with a Furness Rly brick (!)

Not just the GWR and LNER kits please - the Connoisseur kit for the BR standard brake van was one of the best etched kits I've ever built and probably the best wagon in my collection.