Fresh Running Moonshine for Every Home

Fresh in from the land of the inch high. 

Might be worth avoiding the area due to road closures, for they’re digging up the road today to pop a new pipeline in, not for water, sewerage, gas or electricity, but for moonshine. 

The new initiative, under the watchful eye of Barry Bullhead from The Ministry of Mayhem has come in to connect all properties to fresh running moonshine by the end of the decade. 

The target, as with most government plans will almost certainly not be met, they never are of course, so priority is being given to licensed properties, starting with The Miners Arms. 

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Stunt Double for Fred Dibnah

 

Here we are again deep in The Forest and another rogue engine has appeared, this one being from Ipswich, an unremarkable town in the far east of Little England. 

Waving Willy notices that Bob Geeza has taken up residence on the engine, Bob of course loving a bit of heat, even on a hot summer day, though it looks like it might storm soon. But as regular followers of this nonsense will know, Bob’s appearance is usually an indication of something more nefarious. 

Meanwhile Fred, who is a part time stunt double for the world renown steeplejack Fred Dibnah, is waiting the fill up the engine. But not with water, the tender has a secret partition allowing it to carry several gallons of moonshine, the real reason for its appearance so far from home. 

📷Pentax Spotmatic, 50mm Zeiss Jena Tessar, Ilford Delta 100. 

35mm film fund 👉 www.buymeacoffee.com/Nevardmedi3

Zorki 4

Another camera from my collection. A 1962 vintage Zorki 4 wearing a 35/2.8 Jupiter 12. 

I bought it in Poznan, Poland from a street market vendor back in 1994 whilst out there chasing working steam locomotives on regular trains. Which means I’ve owned it for just under half its life. 

The lens was from some Soviet collector’s camera shop in Sydenham the following year. 

All fully working too. It’s had a couple of films through it this year. The lens is stellar even wide open. 

The thing on the top is a modern wide angle viewfinder, the in camera viewfinder only being suitable for a standard lens. 

I have an original auxiliary rotating viewfinder, but this is more practical in that it takes up less space. Is brighter and doesn’t get knocked in to displaying the wrong focal length. 

Farnham Railway Station. April 2025. Foma 100

Bristol Docks. March 2025. Foma 200 

The Middle of Frigging Nowhere Friday

Almost 1000 feet up in the Mendip Hills near Priddy, there’s a disused boiler house which used to serve the lead mining industry. An old railway still runs up to it, but it’s been many years since it last saw action. Until today. 

In the brown coat, Barry Bullhead from The Ministry of Mayhem runs a moonshine side hustle along with several other dodgy activities - something that will be familiar to those who’ve followed my load of old tosh for some time. 

And to the right Peter Peckett and his waving sidekick Waving Wally have successfully managed to traverse the old steeply graded line, and with Barry Bullhead are checking out the old boiler house as a potential location for the next moonshine production run. 

Bob Geeza Cat is of course here, he always appears when there are nefarious activities in inch high land. 

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Boats, Beer. Wibble

“You come over here in your boats and expect to be put in to the best catteries, kennels and zoos...."

“No, we’ve just popped over to your side of the canal for a pub crawl, any recommendations? Ideally ones that don’t sell Doom Bar or beers that look like custard and taste of grapefruit…”

Cattle Class

We’ve not had Monochrome Monday for a while, so here we go. 

Here we are at the tiny rather ramshackle halt at Brew Street. Rumour has it, that it’s made from the remains of a tea clipper that ran aground off Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel many many years ago. Though others say that it’s made from old railway sleepers, however the first story is more interesting, oven though the latter is more believable. 

The little train is an example of 4th Class (aka ‘Cattle Class’), something that was a option back in olden times. It will of course be familiar with present day budget airline users on their way to the Mediterranean for that ‘all inclusive’ holiday. You know, the one an ‘English menu’ (“we don’t want none of that foreign muck”) and with loads of screaming feral kids urinating in the hotel pool making the water go green. The parents often have ‘Ingerland’ tattooed on their foreheads back to front, because they did it themselves looking in the mirror. 

I digress, for here we have Bob Geeza Cat looking on rather jealousy at Rufus Hound getting all the attention from Neil (though it might be Neal, they look very similar, especially in black and white). 

Barry Bullhead is chatting to Arthritic Arthur about cycling, having just seen him labouring putting his bicycle next to the smokebox door. It turns out that Barry wants to start cycling having recently had a health scare, and is asking Arthur about fluorescent yellow tight fitting Lycra so popular with late middle aged warrior bicyclists of modern times. 

But of course, Lycra has yet to be invented, so suggests he chats to Nasal Nigel about where he gets his latex wear and rubber coat with the ‘special pocket’ - something much sought after in the bus-spotting fraternity. 

And finally, this pic was taken on traditional B&W film - Ilford FP4 on a steam era Pentax Spotmatic with a 28mm lens. So there. 

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Super’D’elicious!

Deep in The Forest of Dean, there’s much excitement at Fountain Colliery this morning with the overnight surprise arrival of one of Little Lostock Hall shed’s ‘Super D’ goods engines, number 49451. 

Its arrival is most likely an administrative error, something that regular readers of this nonsense will be quite familiar with I’m sure. 

A lot of railway modellers suffer ‘administrative errors’ with their locomotive rosters apparently, especially TMD owners who have to have every sound fitted Class 37, irrespective of era, manufacturer and/or shed allocation. 

I digress, for here there’s a bit of competition as to who is going to crew the engine, with Fred and Neil having a kneeling competition to see who can kneel the longest without blinking. 

Over to the right, Jim and Doug are seeing who can stand still the longest, something that shouldn’t be an issue being made of resin, but it does mean that the competition could last days, weeks, or even years - unless I knock or shake the baseboard to force a conclusion. 

Meanwhile with all the competitive distraction, Waving Weginald has crept up on to the engine and is slowly reversing the locomotive out of shot. 

What happens in The Forest, stays in The Forest. 

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Friday Frolicking

We’ve not seen Hubert the Conversational Latin Speaking Horse for a while, but here he is back in action after being craned onto the short train of jollity. 

The annual works outing is always a fun affair, with plenty of antics which will almost certainly be frowned upon by today’s elf and safety hi-vis clad jobsworths. But once the train is moving there will be little they can do, for following the train will require a risk assessment in triplicate, 9 months strategic planning - and of course 14 years of prior consultation. 

Meanwhile, local toffs Anne and Camilla are here to join in the fun, especially seeing horses and booze are involved.

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A lot of effort goes into creating these cameos, this really helps, cheers 👉 www.buymeacoffee.com/Nevardmedi3

Marked Safe from The Great Train Bothering

 

None of the inch high went to The Great Train Bothering in Derby over the weekend. They were too busy doing a little track maintenance. Or at least contemplating it. 

Here we have Shrewsbury shed’s wandering ‘coal tank’ in charge of a rake of hoppers arriving with some fresh ballast to be packed around the sleepers. Care needs to be taken, for most of them are supposedly rotten. But we don’t worry about such minor detail in inch high land, for rumour is that the sleepers are in fact fine, being moulded plastic and come from a small seaside town in Devon. 

Derek and Clive on the left are preparing to spring in to action to assist the activities, but will likely head to the pub when they work out that the engineering isn’t at all necessary due to the track and ballast being glued down solid. 

Bob Geeza Cat is doing his best to balance the scene, and isn’t really the nefarious feline mastermind that we’ve all been led to believe. He’s simply an opportunistic poser. But I think many of you have known this for years. 

And finally, Freddy the Flag, strangely enough has never waved his flag, it being solidly moulded to his right leg, due to him like the sleepers, also being made of plastic. 

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Wandering Coal Tank

 

Shrewsbury shed’s wandering ‘coal tank’ has turned up again at Fountain Colliery deep in The Forest. 

It arrived overnight, driven by a mystery crew who are nowhere to be seen. Though it’s quite likely that they’re in The Miners Arms nearby having snuck in at closing time for the unusual Friday night ‘lock in’. The legendary lock-in attracts drinkers from far and wide, and sometimes even wider. 

The loco needs to be moved, or at least be made use of seeing it still appears to have a good head of steam despite being unattended for several hours. Most mysterious, any thoughts on this are most welcome. 

Meanwhile Barry Bullhead from The Ministry of Mayhem is chatting to Douglas and Dougie to see if they know anything about driving steam engines. They don’t sadly, their specialty is simply digging holes, being former champion gravediggers. 

Bob Geeza Cat says that he can help, he being a very clever cat, but all Barry, Douglas and Dougie can hear is “meow, meow, meooooowww, meow, meeeoooowwwww” 🐾

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A lot of effort goes into creating these cameos, this really helps 👉 www.buymeacoffee.com/Nevardmedi3