Fleetfoot Mike

Bingo. Found my copy of RA Cooke section 63, which usefully includes an earlier plan of Church Stretton which looks eminently... ahem... nickable Also found, to my embarrassment, the copies of the Wild Swan '34 GWR shed allocations and Railway Liveries, 1923-47: London, Midland and Scottish Railway I already own, both of which I re-bought last month

It's a fictitious station somewhere near Marsh Brook, with a track plan that owes a fair bit to Bromfield/Onibury.

That was on my list of things to fix (while trying to keep the various clusters of points off the baseboard joins). I'm still not happy with the goods shed area - the whole crossing with single slip, refuge siding plus loop area making the station long rather than fat fits with most of the stations down the Shrewsbury/Hereford line (and general LMS and GWR practice), but I'm conscious that the goods shed doesn't quite feel right at the moment. Considering putting it on a loop a la Ludlow, or... heh. If I could find my copy of the appropriate volume of Cooke, I'd be better off.

Bingo! Just found a copy. Thank you for the pointer.

Belated followup questions, having I think finally settled on '34 as the date for the layout (keep that shirtbutton out of my sight ), and actually managed to get all the currently stashed stock out of storage. It's time, at least, to start filling holes in the loco and coach roster. Having access to shed rosters for the likes of Shrewsbury, Craven Arms. Hereford etc, I'm starting to get a decent feel for what's likely to be seen (Webb coal tanks, Fowler 2-6-4Ts, ex LNWR 0-8-0s, J/D 3Fs, Cauliflowers (please, a R-T-R one, someone?), plus Stars (Shrewsbury seemed very fond of its Stars!), a Saint, 51xx's, even a 56xx, 43xx moguls, a ROD 2-8-0...) Couple of questions - for through (both LMS and GWR) trains from further afield what was likely to be seen, both passenger and freight? Scots? Patriots? Castles? Halls?

To my not inconsiderable delight, I just found an online copy of a GWR WTT covering the Shrewsbury/Hereford joint line from 1936. Obligingly, the GWR also note when LMS services are running as well. Questions: I note in several places services listed as 'Joint Goods' or 'Joint Passenger'. Which company would have run those? whose stock etc? I'm also working on the assumption that services that appear to stop at Craven Arms but are noted as 'To Swansea' are headed off down the Central Wales line. Interestingly some of these are also marked 'Joint'! Also: were GWR locos stabled at the LMS shed at Craven Arms at all in this era?

5811 on Wenlock shed is definitely prewar - it was only allocated there for a short while till they decided it couldn't handle the gradients. Also, "Great Western Railway Locomotive Allocations for 1934" (Wild Swan) has a picture of 5818 on Pontrilas shed dated July '35 (page 41, bottom)

Oakwood Press, "The Wenlock Branch" page 164 top picture has a nice side view of 5811.

In the light of the latest updates, Google Street View is a bit handy - I've been checking bridge locations and general look on that for Much Wenlock of late.

When hell freezes over Mike, Leeds fan since his age matched Big Jack's shirt number, and chuffed to BITS today.