LC's 5 inch gauge blog

A very fine effort Mark, it was good to see it up and running over the weekend and sounding very sweet, nice crisp even exhaust beats. I like to steam/test run my engines at the earliest opportunity to Iron out any little niggles, far better that way than completing 100% and risking damage to paintwork whilst solving issues so you've done the right thing!  

Hi Mark,

 

Looking good so far

 

Is this a model works Pannier, or a "Pansy"?

 

A very attractive design and indeed we were to buy one in kit form years ago but opted for a Don Young Hunslet instead, not least due to the latter having outside cylinders and being easier to lubricate.

 

Paul A.

hey Paul.

this is very defo a pansy, having had a winson brit for a while I wouldn't touch anything modelworks with a bargepole! hehe. if you go back to the first post in the blog there's a pic of when I got it. but they are very good engines and I have slowly been rebuilding/repainting this one now for the last 3 years. something I been working on a while, rebuilding and detailing to LT configuration

I always think it was a real shame about the modelworks engineering faults, as there was some interesting designs. But the rate at which they expanded their range was quite frightening, and ultimately contributed to their downfall.

 

 

The Pansy is a robust design, I'm sure she'll give you years and years of running.

 

It's a very neat job so far, and looks very distincitve and different in LT guise - which I must say suits it very nicely.

 

Paul A.

Yeah, i'm afraid what modelworks failed to do was to design, develop and test their products properly. They also had the mentality you could build one of their kits on a tabletop, which is ridiculous, and there really wasn't the for-thought of design going into their products, and quality of build that would be necessary to work. Its only with the likes of Polly are we finally getting almost ready to run and decent kit built engines.

 

But yes,the pansy is a very robust and strong design. I've driven and known several, always decent engines, once you get them right. fortunately a lot of work to correct the valve gear had already been done to mine, but i've put in a bit of extra time on it myself to sort the rest out.

As to the LT re livery, in my opinion the best they ever carried, and certainly the reason why nearly a third of the panniers we have are still with us. That and the fact only 2 of the preserved 57xx engines (8 in total) didnt come from LT, and the other 2 came from the NCB. My own connection is the large amount of London transport and metropolitan railway rolling stock we have now built. So, a logical choice for a first steam engine, having had several others on loan in the past

 

Mark