Northbound...

Just 39 days to the Wigan Exhibition. It will be great to take New Mills north to Lancashire and exhibit the layout close to the WCML. Early 1960s Anglo-Scottish services will feature prominently with Duchesses, Princesses, Clans and Britannia's still vying with the new electrics and Class 40s for the premier services while a host of other steam classes right back to the G2s provide support.

Normal service will be resumed......

The Artistic Director who loads our content onto this blog has been somewhat distracted over the past few weeks. Daughter got married, then he was required to move 90 year old in-laws from Suffolk to Buckinghamshire followed by Mrs AD's special birthday tour of Italy. Reports indicate that he is recovering and normal service will hopefully resume over the next few days. In the meantime some holiday snaps fom Italy...

Peco crazy track on the metre gauge Circumvesuviana main line out of Naples.

If in doubt use a double slip!

A ride on the Frecciarossa between Milan and Naples at speeds
of up to 330kpm, certainly a land speed record for the AD!

Metal Breakdown

The Artistic Director has been promising to produce a breakdown crane for New Mills for many months so perhaps these recent photos of the Cowans Sheldon crane at the Didcot preservation centre, taken by Phill Hutchings, will spur him on.

The proposal is to use the original Hornby Dublo crane as a basis for the project. Often dismissed as a rather crude model, these photos prove otherwise and confirm that the Binns Road model makers captured much of the essence of this railway beast.

Running late..

With Himself undertaking lineside clearance work at tunnel South on the FR, in between building stock for Bron Hebog and the Guru busy at his Berkshire stables, work on New Mills has been rather patchy of late. However, here is another in our series of Models of the Week..or should that be month!

46245 City of London is one of our fleet of LMS pacifics. In the early 1960s Duchess and Princess class locos began to look rather tired, if not unkempt, a sad end to what were the flaghips of the WCML. However, 46245 was an exception due to it's regular deployment on specials and contempoary photos show it in a clean and polished state right up to it's final demise in October 1964  Consequently our model is only lightly weathered to respect this and is certainly our cleanest pacific on New Mills!  

A signal intention

New Mills is now 20 years old and although it still out-performs many younger exhibition layouts it does inevitably require regular maintenance. Himself has been refurbishing the enigmatic colour light signals built originally by Phill Hutchings and each capturing actual examples on the WCML. The bracket mounted signals that control the exit from the upper cross country loop and adjacent fast line are the latest to be upgraded.

Here is the structure removed from the baseboard and ready for some TLC. Himself will improve the components where possible but work strictly within Phils original specification, retaining the design that has proved so reliable over the years.

If you can't beat them....

Our sister blog has come up with the novel idea of presenting a 'loco of the week', a cunning device that will introduce visitors to the growing collection of Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland locos that have served Dduallt over the years and soon Bron Hebog. Not to be outdone, the New Mills team are proud to present their first LOTW, our ex LNWR G2A class 49361.

Photo: Steve Gibbons

These successful eight-coupled locomotives were designed variously by Webb, Whale, Bowen-Cooke and Beames for the LNWR between 1892 and 1922 but underwent various upgrades. Interestingly these "Super Ds" as they were nicknamed, outlived the LMS built "Austin 7s" that were supposed to replace them! They could still be found on freight traffic until late 1964. I can vividly remember them clanking through Berkhamsted on lengthy coal trains. Great survivors and The Guru's model as shown above, appropriately weathered and detailed, certainly looks the part on New Mills.

Coming Out

Let's get this over with. For those of you wishing to put faces to names here is a team photo of the Cooper Hire MRC membership, just about to head off with New Mills to the recent Derby Exhibition

From left to right, The Guru, Sparky Harrison (our regular New Mills operator), the Artistic Director and Himself. Regular visitors to our blogs will note that Rob 'Two Rounds' Waller is missing, otherwise detained somewhere north of Hadrians Wall on this occasion but very much part of our team at RAILEX last weekend.

Captions please via the Comments section but keep it decent!