Richard Hall

The usual random parcels van inserted behind the loco. If my eyes do not deceive me, a "Stove R" six-wheeler. Wonderfully archaic. I'm guessing these parcels vans were attached at Carlisle: I wouldn't have thought something like a Stove R would have been rated for the maximum line speeds attainable between St Pancras and Carlisle.

Lovely photo. A Tweedmouth K3: I wonder what it was doing at Hawick? Pretty sure the loco next to it is 65331 with its curvaceous tender cab: most J36 tender cabs looked like garden sheds.

Two months late, but finally:

Here we go. Scenic boards for Stobs are now at home where I can work on them. Starting with lifting and relaying the track south of the viaduct as I'm not happy with the alignment. Never mind, here's 61184 with a Niddrie-Canal Class E: a taste of things to come.

This is just idle curiosity now, but I wonder what the sighting on Whitrope Up Distant was like from inside the tunnel. 365 yards doesn't sound like a lot of space to bring an 800 ton train to a halt.

Copyright shenanigans apart, that strikes me as an awfully short distance between Distant and Home. I realise Up trains wouldn't be travelling fast at that point, but presumably there was a banner repeater just before the North portal?

Absolutely not. Found it via Google Images. I'll pull the post anyway seeing as the photo shouldn't be on the Internet in the first place. Regards, Richard

Oh, do you want me to take it down? I hadn't realised there was an issue. Richard

60824 with steampipes! Now I'll have to choose a different identity: if Stobs does any Scottish shows you'll be getting an invitation as a guest operator, with locomotives. Looks a bit too clean for a St Margarets V2 if you ask me. You can still see the lining... The skirting was removed with a sharp scalpel, at right angles to the footplate and about 45 degrees to the boiler. I carefully cut round the sandbox fillers leaving them in place to support the footplate. The plastic is very thin: I used UHU adhesive to fix some lead weights inside the bodyshell of 60969 and it melted the top of the boiler. There's a lot of filler in there now, and a Plastikard banjo dome. I still need to tidy up the ragged edges along the bottom of the boiler on the black loco, with some shaped Microstrip to help hide the damage. The profile of the lower motor casing fairly well matches that of the boiler so I'm going to try glueing thin Plastikard overlays to the motor, carefully shaped to be a close fit to the body. On both locos I have chopped off the chassis level with the front of the cylinders so I can replace that square cast lump with something frame-shaped. The grey loco has Plastikard front frames profiled to clear the wheels as per the real thing: I haven't yet done the same for the black one. I binned the spring-loaded system and instead packed the front coupler pocket with lead. The wheels are from a Dapol Grange bogie from Coastal DCC, shimmed to eliminate any sideplay. The axle hole needs opening out slightly as the Dapol axles are larger diameter. I also have spoked trailing wheels, source unknown, really weird things with 6 spokes but the right diameter and still look better than solid ones. It's a lot of work, but the Farish V2 is a very old model and out of the box it looks more like a K3 than a V2. Alan Cumming suggested lowering it, and I reckon that makes more difference than anything else.

Progress has been slowed down by recent events. The scenic section is stored at my workshop, storage loops are at home where I have been working on them, and railway modelling isn't included in the list of permitted reasons to leave home. However I now have storage loops (named "Shankend" and "Stobs Camp Sidings"), a working DCC system built from MERG kits, and I am starting to work through some of the motive power that I will need. These two are very much work in progress - both lowered and with the nasty boiler "skirt" cut away. The grey one has been converted to tender drive and has a proper underside to the boiler: the black one is still loco drive, with lead weights in place of whatever lightweight alloy Farish used. It doesn't look quite as nice but it's a lot cheaper - I had to sacrifice a (slightly damaged) B1 to get the tender drive for the grey one. The original tender from the grey loco will go behind a K3 when I get round to building that. Identities - grey loco will be 60969 (photographed through Stobs in 1961 and 1962). Black one was going to be long-time St Mags resident 60824, then I realised that 60824 and 60969 both had outside steam pipes. It seems a bit daft to have to make up steam pipes for the black loco when there are plenty of other identities available. Nominate your favourite WR "V2" here... Richard

Fifty years ago today... Out of curiosity, does anyone know where D5307 and inspection saloon went, after Bruce McCartney photographed them exiting Whitrope Tunnel? Did they get as far as Carlisle and come back? I don't recall seeing any photos of the return leg. Richard

I looked at modelling Hawick a while ago in a short-lived fit of optimism. It's actually very do-able in N gauge with a bit of trimming of the sidings on the North side. A bit much for one man though, maybe my retirement project... Richard

That is really rather fabulous and would make an epic, even legendary club layout. Probably a bit much for a solo project, I'm having enough problems with Stobs and that is only 8' x 2'6" on the scenic bit. I especially like the fiddle yard arrangement for "out and back" working. Much better than the usual tailchaser. When I started work on Stobs I was in a pretty rough state physically and mentally. I started building the structures more than a year before I even thought about baseboards. Soldering up the footbridge from Code 40 rail helped me get through a dark patch, even though I couldn't see how I would be able to build a layout to put it on. I now have baseboards but nowhere permanent to put them up Richard

Anyrail? Is this the start of a very ambitious WR layout project? I do hope so. Richard

March 1971, and track recovery work has reached just north of Barns Viaduct, leaving the severed stumps of the Up and Down lines. A dismal sight. Fortunately this is a model railway so the clock is running backwards. Tracklaying should be done in the next week or so. Richard

The railway lands... Starting to make a bit of progress here: baseboards are near enough finished and I'm hoping to start tracklaying next weekend. Richard

An operational question that I have been puzzling over. There were a few signalboxes on the WR which by the early 1960s were only manned as required. Stobs and Steele Road for example. From what I can gather these were usually opened for the daily Carlisle-Hawick pick-up goods to shunt the sidings, then closed once it departed. Question: where did the signalman come from? Did he travel with the goods, opening and closing each box as required? Richard

I'm having all kinds of problems with baseboard construction, but at least the viaduct is almost finished. My workbench is starting to look like Hawick yard in 1971, with piles of track panels (well, 500mm lengths of Finetrax anyway). Hopefully I will be able to start tracklaying this month if I can get the baseboards to stop quivering like a nervous whippet. Richard

Track recovery wagons sitting there like vultures, ready to start lifting the moment the last train had run. BR really did want this railway gone.

Signalbox!

Thanks for that, I'll see if I can track it down on catchup.

I had a close look at the Shankend photo last night and you can see the ends of the sleepers overhanging the tops of the doors. A pity we don't have photos showing exactly how these were loaded. Richard

A bit more work in progress. Yes, I've made the pillars slightly too wide. But I don't think that ruins it completely, and I've put too much effort into this card and Plastikard edifice to start again.

Thanks chaps, not quite as interesting a find as I had hoped. Glad to see you back 'Chard, it has been a bit quiet hereabouts lately and I need all the WR inspiration I can get right now. I'm building baseboards for Stobs and whatever else I may be, I'm no carpenter.

Here's one that's annoying me at the moment. It turned up in one of my periodic Google searches, titled "Calstock viaduct, Cornwall". I'm halfway through building a model of Barns Viaduct so I'm not fooled by the Cornish red herring, but I can't find any more than this tiny image of type 4 superpower bound for Carlisle. Just to make it more interesting the image title includes "D231", and if that is a reference to the loco it's a long way from its home depot of Rugby (1F). Obviously 1966 or later from the blue/grey BG and midwinter from the lack of foliage, but only three passenger coaches (and possibly two of them brake ends) which seems a bit short to me.