MR Chuffer

Good point, will take that onboard and scale back to a couple of crates a week. But they do work hard in my mill town and have ravenous appetites....

Yes, this is all in the plan. I have a list of industries and businesses for my semi-fictitious Lancashire (mill) town and my driving modelling passion is that, the traffic. The mills need inputs, cotton from the docks, machinery and, of course coal. Outputs being finished goods - back to the Manchester/Liverpool, waste by-products, redundant machinery. The gasworks, coal in, coke and tar by-products out. And besides industrial and land sale coal, there would be stone in, road building materials, timber and explosives were regularly shipped from a nearby dump. And then there are people to feed, a fish van twice a week for the fish n' chips, cattle, milk, Southport produce, etc. and the town had a significant Co-op presence covering all sorts of goods, as they did. But where did the fish come from? Heysham was only developed in 1904 and Fleetwood was the dominant west coast fishing port and pure L&Y. A daily L&Y trip goods will be be bringing in any LNWR wagons (only 2 so minimal); GNR, yes difficult to work into a scenario but I have a nice fitted van from way back, and I've ended up with a NB and GC open wagon - the latter even harder to justify? But each wagon has a purpose and will convey a load to earn its keep or sit on the shelf. I will be the "oversized Controller", and will have this railway run properly and for profit!!

First decade of 20th century.

I'm thinking specifically where the MR butted up to the L&Y in East Lancashire, the end on junction between the 2 at Colne, shared traffic at Blackburn where the MR had goods facilities and ran through trains from Liverpool and Manchester over the L&Y up through Blackburn and Clitheroe to Hellifield and on to the Settle and Carlisle. The Midland also ran trains over L&Y metals on the North Lancashire loop from Rose Grove through Padiham, Simonstone and Great Harwood to Blackburn and beyond, thereby avoiding the busy Accrington area. So quite a compelling case to my mind for intermingling Midland and L&Y wagons, and it looks like there will have to be scratch build

@BarclayI see "'Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway wagon diagrams' by Noel Coates is available on the L&Y Society site and at only £9.50. I think that may be my next port of call anyway.

Yes, regrettably, 7mm, not 4mm

Agreed, I think I could find the time and money to add a L&Y class 23 or 25 to my locomotive roster.

Drool..... http://www.mikeysoft.co.uk/davidgeen.co.uk/catalogue/ly.htm. Given the range of other major and minor companies goods wagon availability in model form, the L&Y had very extensive operations across the North of England so I find it surprising there isn't more out there.

I've only just restarted after 30-40 years away, and have probably 17 years left on this earth (according to actuary tables), so I want something to run in the next 3-5 years and can just about manage a Slaters kit without too many bodges - I have 20+ to build... I have all my PO wagons, thanks POWsides and RTR so I'll save "build from scratch" for the odd MR tariff van, fish van and other occasional MR oddity. Plus, I'm more operational than detailed model build.

As I build my OO gauge northwest MR-based wagon fleet, I've introduced a few "foreigners", LNWR, CLC, GNR and others, from readily available RTR and kits but I really want L&Y wagons to be the second numerous contingent. Looking for simple stuff in RTR and kit, open wagons, a break or two and the occasional van to make a trip goods And perhaps a specialist van or two like fish but I can't see much commercial and then there are the two L&Y Wagon Books - Vol.1 and Vol.2 - which, at their current prices, are a bit overkill for a handful of basic wagons which seem spread between the two volumes. Can anyone please suggest options before the last resort of self-build (for which I'll need plans anyway)?

Photos of the sides, compared to the "standard" Luggage 3rd; besides the different coloured plastic, on closer examination, I can just about make out 2 join lines on each side (pencils pointing at them), a cut and shut job? Anyway, neatly executed and I'm the winner. On the Midland Railway Society front, I was a founder member of the Midland Railway Trust/Butterley many years back but looking through the Society's book list, I see one of the Midland into Lancashire books I am looking for so there probably is a deal to be done. The annual membership fee is less than the monthly fee at my local model railway club and I'd probably get a lot more out of the Society, they're heavily biased to the L&Y round here, which I can tolerate to a degree

@Compound2632, thanks Stephen, lots to digest here, the biggest mystery being the D508 kit origin. As I said, D508 sides, albeit with a darker grey plastic for the sides than the other kits, accompanied by all the usual standard Ratio paraphernalia in a box marked Ratio Brake 3rd but with this crossed out and handwritten Brake Composite. From what you say, I'll keep it as a Composite Luggage to better fit in with some of the formations you have outlined above. And yes, I'm kind of imagining more of an MR presence in East Lancashire/Lancashire as a whole than there actually was at the time. I have a substantial resource of MR books, Essery, Jenkinson, Dow/HMRS, et al, from way back when as well as MR models from 35+ years ago, and I now live in East Lancashire..... Which begs the question, have you ever come across a book by Donald Binns https://www.amazon.co.uk/Towards-Lancashire-Midlands-Extension-Barnoldswick/dp/B003DCW9RO/ref=sr_1_9?crid=13265QQYSX507&keywords=skipton+railway&qid=1578838119&sprefix=skipton%2Caps%2C181&sr=8-9. I think it was self published in 2008 following on from his previous book "The Skipton-Colne Railway and the Barnoldswick Branch" from 1995. I believe the above books would very much support your hypothesis of the Midland deferring to the L&Y to work the Lancashire - West Riding traffic having read a synopsis of Donald's 2008 book on a website somewhere. Sad to say whilst trying to source it, I came across his obituary from February 2012. Ratio coach pricing? 5 at £9.99 each and 1 at £4.50. Cheers, and many thanks for all your input.

@Edwardian, @Compound2632Now then, bookmarked this thread the other day, and bid for some Ratio 48' footers anyway that I had my eye on, despite their limitations. I thought I was ordering a Composite and 2 Brake Thirds so imagine my surprise, and delight, when I opened a Brake Third box with hand written scribbling on the outside to find it was a D508 - the illusory Luggage/Brake Composite. There are no guards duckets on it but they are easy to replicate if that's the chosen option. I am building a rake for a regional semi-fast so, from what I am reading above, I'd be better keeping the Lugg Comp as that and go and get another Brake 3rd (Jenkinson actually has numbers for that form). Furthermore, there were 2 Midland through coaches a day (according to my 1910 Bradshaws) from Blackburn to St Pancras at 12.15 and 10.27pm , would the Lugg Comp be suitable for this or would I need to go for a 54' Corridor Clerestory. And lastly, in marshalling a rake, say Brake 3rd, All 3rd, Composite and Brake 3rd, - optionally with a 6W brake for more luggage later! - where would the Luggage Comp sit if it was, say, a St Pancras through coach on a semi-fast Skipton to Liverpool service, or wherever, to be dropped off at Blackburn? Next to the loco, within the rake, or tacked on behind the last Brake? Or perhaps if attached to a stopping local, where's the optimum position? Any input will be much appreciated.

Have you checked this out http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/f/facit/index.shtml? Plus old ordnance survey maps online at the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/

FWIW, eBay purchased PayPal back in 2002 and then spun it off in 2015, but the two organisations remained tightly linked with PayPal continuing to process payments for eBay. Some of these thread posts seem to conjoin eBay and Paypal as a single entity but this has long since changed so your post of the payment screen is a timely reminder that there are choices at the checkout, which I value. If you don't get them, then you should revisit your eBay payment options.

I had an eBay payment issue last night (Sunday), won an auction - only bidder! - and expected to see the pay now button, but there wasn't one. I jumped back and forth between screens looking for a means to pay, went into my Successful Bids section in My eBay and no dice. So then I went into my You Have Won email and clicked in there on the Pay Now button which completed the process. Most odd!

And for operational interest, many golf courses had their own private halt at which the occasional passenger train could stop at on demand. See http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/ for several examples.

Great, thanks all, time to move on from roof hatches....

Back to MR D359 vans with roof hatches which I thought we were done with, I was Just browsing some photos I must have culled off here sometime and saw these. At the time, I was more interested in the wagon turntables but there are rather a lot of the vans with roof doors. I don't think they're MR, must've been popular with some company, any ideas?

@Compound2632 yes, my first inclination was to put runners on over the roof, having seen them on L&Y van photos and like you have done with the GW van you allude to. I can't really think of a compelling use case versus an open wagon with a tarp, so given the rarity of this type of van, I think mine will just get a re-roofing. Thx for your input.

My D359 just looks odd with the raised square on the roof and no detail allowing it to slide so without diagrammatic/photographic evidence, I may just perform some surgery and remove it by replacing the roof.

Reviewing my goods wagon collection from 30+ years ago, I find that I have a MR 8T covered goods which looks a lot like my other Slater covered goods but with a roof hatch, Checking Essery, I see that D358 has its roof hatch centarlly located and "lift off", whilst D359 has the hatch door over one of the side doors which Essery states was a sliding door, so I have a D359. So which way does it slide, backwards or forwards or up and over (like L&Y ones?), so should there be a guide runners? Essery admits defeat at this.

From all the above, yes, you can get a FB account with just an email address and a distorted profile, but bear in mind, from that point onwards, you have given FB permission to track everything you look at and do ON THE WHOLE INTERNET. That's what's iniquitous. Twitter, set up an account and connect to organsiations you want to and their information will feed into your Twitter stream. You don't have to do anything and can ignore it when your water's not cut off.

Brief answer, if you don't mind sharing all the minutiae of your life's details with Mark Zuckerberg (founder), who will then sell your information to anyone who wants to sell you stuff you didn't even know you need, go ahead, but be very circumspect about how much you give away (through personal settings...). If the product/service costs nothing - as FB does, then you are the product! On the other hand, although he owns Whatsapp too, it might be a better way for a community to act more privately giving less away through setting up a community group, its what our politicians all use to share their privately thoughts and secrets. And we use it for our local pub's Beer Group , as in "quick, get down there, there's a fabulous 6% IPA on...". And for complaining, use Twitter, tends to get instant responses from very public companies/organisations as well as getting you access to status updates. Hope that helps, my personal view from 30 years in the IT business, mostly running them.

Ah, well that's the skill, helps moderate your ambitions and over time, you will evolve to something practical and matching your ambitions. Good luck..