papagolfjuliet

Just as an example of how balmy the northern climate was before the Little Ice Age, there were actual vineyards in Snowdonia. Hence 'Clogwyn y Gwin' - 'The Cliff of Wine' - on the flanks of Snowdon itself.

Worth bearing in mind that that saga was written four hundred-odd years after the settlement of Greenland and many years after the rest of the Norse world had lost contact with the settlers. In reality southern Greenland was 'Green' at the time of the colonisation - Vikings tended to name new lands after the things they saw there, hence 'Vinland' because of the vines and 'Soay' meaning 'Sheep' because of the wild sheep on that island. It was the Little Ice Age which finished them off, just as it finished off the vineyards of medieval Britain. https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/greenland-vikings-0018286

Incidentally I can't find my copy of the Summer 1983 Moors Line but it features an anonymous letter from a man who claims that his father actually worked on the railway! The plot thickens...

A recent and possibly jokey announcement by the Levisham Station Group that the NYMR's United Molasses tank, now being restored for static display at Levisham, was to be lettered 'STAPE MOLASSES' in reference to an ancient April Fool's joke in Moors Line Magazine prompted me to to look out the original article from the Spring 1983 edition, which I reproduce here. So plausible is it that it strikes me as an eminently modellable scenario.

Now this is genuinely charming. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/314914422636

Peter Clark's locomotive in China states that a minimum of fifteen S160s - CNR Class KD6 - were originally supplied and numbered 463 to 478+ (the + implying that there might have been more - the book dates from 1983 when concrete information was not easy to come by) and that by 1966 only two, the one in your photo and another, were still in traffic. That said I am convinced that I saw one shunting outside Jinan in 1998.

Can I interest you in the delightful Pickering railway gasworks? https://www.railscot.co.uk/locations/P/Pickering_Railway_Gas_Works/slideshow.html

There's always 'Fury' I suppose.

Good grief. I'd completely forgotten about that one.

New press release. Should mean some interesting engines working the BMR, considering the VoR's huge collection.

That was an Arthur, not a Nelson. The most recent Nelson is Bachmann's 1990s split chassis offering. Edited: Oops.

The Parallel Scot is an obvious one, and it is odd that Bachmann never replaced the old Mainline model. The absence of a Lord Nelson and a Saint and a D49 to modern standards are also glaring omissions. Things may have changed under the new regime but given Hornby's fondness for producing models of small and singleton classes of charismatic express passenger engines I'd lay a shade of odds on that company producing 'The Great Bear' or the Raven pacifics or the Thompson 'Great Northern' before any of the aforementioned low hanging fruit. They are after all pretty well the only locos of that size as yet unmodelled.

Hornby have in fact produced a clear roofed VDA - without a clear roof!

According to Pat Hammond's book, the Holden tank and Caley pug were chosen as prototypes for Hornby's baseline starter set locos in 1979/1980 because they had open backed cabs which were felt to be more attractive to children.

In fairness that is the original 1979 release, although the model has appeared in plenty of not-quite-prototypical liveries since then. One in BR departmental red seemed to be in every single Hornby train set during the Nineties, and the VEA banana van also hung around for a while.

Goodness me. Many thanks

I bought this layout a few months ago and have finally begun tidying it up. It appears to have had three previous owners - the original and very talented owner who scratch built practically everything but didn't quite finish it, a second owner who made a mess of the end backscenes but did little else, and the chap from whom I bought it whose daughter gave it to him as a birthday present but who never did anything with it. Unfortunately I couldn't fit the thing in my car and it was damaged in transit by a Shiply driver, with some buildings and bits of scenery lost, and I am now working on sorting these out using suitably modifed proprietary items. Originally end to end it will be rebuilt with a continuous circuit and the two fiddle yards repurposed as micro-layouts. Dealing with that horrible blue slap at each end is of course a priority. The scenery is strongly reminiscent of Paul Windle's work. Does anybody recognised it?

Scanned these this morning. Thought they might be of interest. 47 703 'Saint Mungo' approaching Waverley ex-Glasgow. An ecumenical selection of rolling stock at Goathland. And at Boat of Garten. Amusingly named Motor Rail, also at Boat of Garten. 'City of Truro' between Seamer and Scarborough with the GW150 set. 'Columbine' in the Great Hall at York, before both it and the Great Hall were mucked about. Also my little brother apparently.

Here's the single during its Fairbourne sojourn. Now there's a job for a Bachmann 'Emily.'

Although the earlier BBC version (featuring 'Joem' and 'Sir Berkeley' as opposed to 957 and 5775) also starred Jenny Agutter as Bobbie and was also shot on the KWVR.

An eminently modellable photo of 'Count Louis' in action on the Fairbourne in 1931, during the brief period when the line was duel 15" and 18" gauge to accomodate the Regent's Polytechnic Stirling Single.

All four episodes of the excellent BBC adaptation of Dorothy L. Sayers' 'Five Red Herrings' feature extensive scenes of Caley blue Fairburn tank No.2085 in action on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite.

Good thing he didn't turn violent. You might have had to bash the bishop.

Appropriately enough, Bobby Bits lives in Bangor.