Din

Yup. They got me. I'm getting back into Model Railways (After 12 years of armchair modelling and abortive projects) and as I'm going for a Preservationist "What Might've Been" I'll want a small fleet of industrials for the "early years". 90% certain I've got a Nellie Body and a Bachmann Junior Chassis floating around in the back room that will be cleared into the Hobby Room too, somewhere...

Any chance of the Bass engine getting a similar treatment and scale upgrade? Awesome inspiration in this thread to the point I've got some cheap stuff now on order and winging its way to my home...

Ooooh, that's a pretty good one. What and where in your timeline does Sodor fall to the Modernisation Plan, or does the BR board forget it has this strange island as a national region of the network?

You know, I wonder if the NWR picked up any nicknames albeit derogatory? Being a somewhat backwater with having to cobble together and refit various older "outdated" classes from time to time alongside picking up unique engines that would no doubt have their own unique foibles, never mind under BR where the apparent under-investment likely continued. "Nowt Worth Rescuing"? "Not Worth Resources"? Lovely modelling though, fantastic work on a "gritty" reboot.

I'm beginning to feel like this was a fever dream of some sort. I seem to remember reading plans for the EVR to convert one of their more ratty 121's (in which a lot of the interior is ganked) into a clever roving workshop on wheels, complete with a ramp to bring equipment bins in and out and generally make life easier for the Pway department and give them their own train to use for inspections. Yet, when I try and find some info on it. I can't. It's very strange... Any help?

3061, so far as I know didn't work at Rawdon Colliery, but at Measham Colliery a little further away and along the Ashby-Nuneaton Joint Railway close by. She would move to Cadley Hill in Swadlincote South Derbyshire. Not sure when she acquired the name "Empress" but was definitely carrying it by 1969 at Cadley Hill. When the Shunters were upgraded to various sentinels and other such diesel locomotives they would've gone surplus, however the manager at Cadley Hill was supposedly a rather big steam buff, and would acquire as many steam shunters as possible. These would include 2 austerity tanks (Cadley Hill no 1, currently hidden in Snibston Colliery, and 3889, aka No 65 currently at the Forest of Dean Railway, used at Cadley for spares) RSH "Progress" (currently at the National Mining Museum, plinthed which is a horrific shame as she was given a completely new boiler in 1971) Florence no 2 (preserved at the Foxfield). Steam working would continue until 1981 when Sentinel 10055 and Hunslet 6693 would take over duties until 1988, when the whole site became open cast and mostly operated by conveyer belt to the truncated run round loop put in until the pit finally closed. 3061 currently lives at the Pontypool and Blanevon Railway and my goodness does she do well there. So the long winded end of this all is: I'd like one please.

I have to agree, seeing as there's still one such bike shop in my home town. The people there have always given excellent service to their customers and serve the town well. They've been going since the 30s and show no signs of slowing down. They also embraced the online side in order to see off challengers in that regard which is what a lot of these smaller retailers don't try to embrace. The market has changed quite a bit even in just the last decade or so. You don't have to change the earth to adapt to it, but I suspect a lot of smaller shops simply don't see it as a necessity, then realise at their cost it is.

Delightful looking model. Glad someone else spotted Cadley Hill (and my home town) are not Leicestershire, but South Derbyshire! Hope any blurb with the model reflects that now. Cadley Hill even got reopened (and the highly truncated Cadley Hill marshalling yard was thinned down and repurposed as a loading dock) as Nadin's Open Cast Pit which I had the pleasure of going down into when I was about 6/7 years old. They found all sorts of relics and such down there which were mostly donated to the local mining museum group.