Yet again, I pen these notes whilst in ‘lockdown’, though it seems that things are slowly improving and that there is a glimmer of light ahead in the tunnel that is Covid-19. Our collective interest in railways generally and Cumbrian railways in particular must mean that we can all find something to occupy us, but, if that was not the case, then the brilliant idea of providing us with a divertissement - the Daily Challenge - was. Each day, Graham Worsnop and Ken Harper have been posting photographs on the CRA Chat Line taken from the CRA photo archive, ably selected by Dave Richardson. The images are simultaneously posted on our Facebook page and comments made on either location have been cross posted to the other. This has generated a lot of interest and a significant number of people are now following us who weren’t before. Typically between 300 and 500 look at the site each day.

Each posting was made a few minutes into a new day and it was easy to spot the night-owls amongst the participants, eager to get their comments in. Each of the images has brought forward a lot of comment and to enable some of the replies to be seen by others, David Hunter has collated the comments in the usual ‘Electronic Telegraph’ style.

With one new image a day, it will not be possible to include all the photographs and the comments they have generated within the pages of Cumbrian Railways. However, it is essential that all this valuable information is fully recorded, so we plan to put together an electronic publication which will be available for downloading from our web site, so please keep an eye out for it when available.

As you will see from Guy Wilson’s piece opposite, things are still happening within the CRA. In my own area of publications, there have been trying times, though with the assistance and support by some committed people, we are still managing. The first of these people is George Coulter, of HSP Milners, the printers of the Journal. By the time the Journal was ready to be printed, George had furloughed most of his staff and Cumbrian Railways, Lakes Express and the Index were all worked through and delivered to Barry Stephenson, our new Membership Secretary, for distribution. Assisted by Alan Crawford and Brian Quayle, the envelopes were filled and franked, ready to go to the post office (usually a team of five or six are involved). Our Journal is delivered to the sorting office in green bags, which would normally take 20 envelopes each but because they also had the index, they only took about thirteen. It was then found that the sorting office in Workington was only open between 7am and 9am. Once the bags have been dealt with, the team had to wait for the bags to be returned on the next day before more could be taken to the sorting office. As only two of the first batch of a dozen bags were returned to Barry, further delays ensued. Eventually, all of the envelopes made it into the post and all involved offer their apologies if you had to wait longer to get your copy.

As well as thanking George Coulter of HSP Milners for his magnificent efforts in getting the Journal printed, I must also mention the work put in by Nigel Pattinson of Border Offset of Carlisle, who did the work on our latest book ‘Bigrigg’. Again, it took a little longer to do, but the end result has proved to be stunning and there has been much praise given to the research team that put it all together. The amount of detail is vast and the importance of the mining in the area has been recognised. See the panel in the current Lakes Express for details of the book and how you might be able to get a copy. Because of the current situation, the book can only be obtained from us, as we are not yet able to get orders out to book sellers and other outlets.

Things will soon get back to normal and the Covid-19 nightmare will become something we will all want to forget about, but whilst there has been a heartening national upsurge in support for each other, please let us not forget the heroes of the CRA for their efforts in keeping us all going throughout it.

ARTICLE	AUTHOR(S)	PAGE
Editorial	Mike Peascod	246
In My View	Guy Wilson	247
Coke to Cockermouth	Dave Richardson	248
Listed Cumbrian Structures of Railway Interest: Part 1 — Buildings and Structures in Allerdale	Brian Quayle	254
Part 2 — Buildings and Structures in Barrow-in-Furness and Surrounds	Brian Quayle	257
Four Generations of Railway Ancestors — The Braithwaite Family	Tony Braithwaite	260
Some Additional Information on Staffing on the Cleator & Workington Junction Railway	Tony Braithwaite	265
Furness Railway Buffer Stops: The Model and the Prototype	Karl Crowther	270
Pertinent Paragraphs: References to Cumbrian Railways in The Railway Magazine Part 18 — 1908	Barry Stephenson	274
Cumbrian Railways Today	John Peel	277
Book Review: The New Railway to Scotland	Graham Worsnop	278
The Electronic Telegraph	David Hunter	279
The Lockdown Quiz	David Hunter	280
Letters: A Spectacular Derailment Near Penrith; Lambrigg Crossing		282