Edwardian

We've missed it too. What beutiful summer evening light.

I believe I may even have one of those, though I have not seen most of the GWR Grouping Era stock of which it is part since 2013.

It is problem for the Proceedings thread to ponder further, but personally I would be shocked, shocked, by the suggestion that those who set themselves above us do not always act in the best interests of the general populations of their countries. I mean, surely the last 14 years in the UK speaks to the care of the political classes for the the people of this great land.

Yes, but they might have been intended for patients (windowless padded cells on wheels comes, perhaps unfairly, to mind). There were proper carriages on the line, judging from that filum, which I assume were for the relatives. I am sure that Whittingham Hospital was built with the best of intentions and probably, for the first decades of its use, it did provide better lives for its inmates than they would otherwise have endured as "pauper lunatics", as the founders put it. It certainly seems intended to have accommodated inmates well in pleasant surroundings. The emulation of a country house set in recreational park land seems clear. Later, in the 1960s, it seems to have been criticised as one of those grim Victorian mental institutions, and probably no longer represented the best conditions or the most enlighted care 90 years on from its well-meaning inception. Of course, the subsequent days of "care in the community" were to see the closure of many such places to be replaced with the new horror on the mentally ill living on the streets. Few societies have a good record in dealing with mental illness, and places like Whittingham at its inception, and for many years after, may have represented the high point, such as it was. There is a model railway, called Hospital Gates, that is "inspired by" the Whittingham system. O gauge, IIRC. I recall an article in which the builders seemed all kind of queasy about the fact that the railway served a mental asylum and made sure no part of the hospital featured. I cannot help thinking that if we were less queasy about mental illness and acknowledged and confronted it more, our society would provide better outcomes, and I do not see the need to shy away from depicting such a subject any more than I would a necropolis railway or a military railway in wartime (killing each other does seem to be an integral part of human life, albeit one that ought to be more avoidable than it has often proved to be), and there was even a prison railway, though that is not pleasant to contemplate either. These are all slices of life, and there are certain things I would certainly not depict, yet if I see a loaded WW1 hospital train or a closed train of Victorian "lunatics" on a model railway, it will give me pause for thought, it will make me a little sad or uncomfortable, but, then that might just be better than ignoring it. That said, this hobby should be a source of joy, and no one should be criticism for treating it as escapism. I certinly do!

Is it too grim to contemplate what they might have been used for?

Abolutely delightful, Annie, and beautifully constructed.

Dunno wot you mean...

1,397 pages ago, it says this: An attempt by the West Norfolk to develop Shepherd's Port, on the west coast, as a rival to Hunstanton, failed however. The West Norfolk, which had upgraded and extended its line to the nearby coal port at Wolfringham Staithe for the purpose, lost heavily as its investment in infrastructure, new stock and the construction of Shepherd Port's Grand Hotel, did not produce the expected returns. This could not have come at a worse time for the West Norfolk, which had built a number of new lines, some of considerable length, during the preceding decade and a half, and had been obliged to borrow significantly in order to do so and to finance the additional stock needed to run these routes. Towards the end of the century the West Norfolk had also needed to renew a considerable mileage of the original 1850s-1860s permanent way. Thus, the failure of the Shepherd's Port scheme was very nearly the straw that broke the camel's back. The failure of Shepherd's Port marked the turn of the century as a time of straightened circumstances for this generally prosperous line, though the company's finances had largely recovered by the mid 1900s.

The WNR, which suffered a financial crisis around the turn of the Twentieth Century.

Presumably Trade Me - Peco Turnouts

Yes, the waist beading does not surround a recessed panel, so is on the same plane as the upper body beading that does surround recessed panelling. I note that some companies, e.g. GNR and MS&LR, have this raised beading continue below the waist. More common - perhaps a typically 1870s style for many companies - is to restrict the raised beading to the waist. In such cases, there is sometimes a step down below the beading. The 7mm model below is of an 1870s LSWR prototype. It is one of the LSWR carriages derived from the MC&WR-built examples that I have used for WNR's 1870s carriages (the difference in these LSWR-built version is that the quarterlights have 4 radiussed corners). On GER examples, I do not see such a step down below the waist beading. The LT&SR carriages are in some respects fairly close to GER practice, and like them, they do not appear to have any step down below the waist beading. Not that this matters to me, because I am using these as late 1870s/early 1880s freelance carriages, but Allen seems to have captured the LT&SR body style perfectly. The LT&SR 4-wheel carriages in this style were introduced in 1876, but built through to the 1890s without any apparent update in their style. In the context of the WNR, we have the following stylistic progression: - The MC&WCo 1872 4-wheel stock, now (1905) largely confined to branch sets - The WNR-built late 1870s/early 1880s 4-wheel stock for which I want to use these LT&SR etches. I think they will be used on local stopping mainline services. - The missing link. I want some mid 1880s 6-wheel carriages. These should retain the large radius tops to windows, but introduce recessed waist panels - Mid 1890s 6-wheel carriages, which will utilise the Hattons 6-wheel carriages. In addition, there will be tram carriages, the odd old Joseph Wright survivor still in service and some second-hand purchases.

Yes, I have much to look forward to!

This arrived yesterday. It is a LT&SR luggage brake. It was drawn up and added to the Worsley Works range at my request, so my thanks go to Allen Doherty. The addition of this vehicle to the existing LT&SR range allows me to make a 5-coach mainline set for the WNR: Luggage Break / First / Second / Third / Break Third. The body style is very 1880s, though the design was long-lived on the LT&SR. They were to my eyes unusual prototypes in combining this style with electric lighting from new. Re-imagined as typical 1880s carriages, built with, and retaining, gas lighting, in both style and dimensions they represent a logical progression for the WNR from the 1870s carriages that have been 3D printed by Gary at Oak Hill.

And as a Star should look, with the cab porthole windows!

Have spent the week in the West Riding walking around Brontë country. Yesterday, I was allowed a day off.... We journeyed from Haworth to Keighley, stopping at Ingrow (West) on the way for a look around, lunched at Keighley then back to the other end of the line to Oxenhope, where we also had a look around, before returning to to Haworth. I'll just put the pictures in order from Keighley to Oxenhope for simplicity. Our engine for the day, which I'm going to call Ivatt the Terrible.... Keighly used to have a turntable in the 'v' of the junction, so I assume the pit is the original, but the table seems to have migrated from Hawes Junction (known as Garsdale in Modern Times) on the Settle & Carlisle. If memory serves, this is the table that caught the wind and spun an engine like a top, inspiring a similar incident with Gordon in the Railway Series. The, IIRC, 30,000 gallon water tower is still in operation, feeding the water columns. Ingrow... Ivatt the Terrible at Ingrow... Ingrow's surprisingly high loading bank... The "Engine Shed" is, of course, the former goods shed. Lurking in the workshop extension was the Coal Tank (and somebody's curtains from the look of things)... In the little museum, which represents the Bahamas restoration group, were a couple of modern industrials and a selection of the usual artefacts Ingrow yard crane: The real jewel of Ingrow is the Vintage Carriages Trust's collection. The Trust also owns locomotives, including Manning Wardle Sir Berkeley, which I spotted at Beamish, IIRC, in April this year, and this rather charming Hudswell Clarke of 1893; Oakworth, featured of course in the 1970 Railway Children film... Haworth... Oxenhope.... Where resided Pug: And other delights... And back to Haworth....