Jon4470

The booklet is available from the North Eastern Railway Association (NERA) https://ner.org.uk/product/ner-electric-traction-on-tyneside-1904/ I haven’t seen the contents personally…..so not sure how relevant to your needs but it could be of interest. NERA also have carriage diagrams books. There are 5 volumes and they run in date sequence. The “North Eastern Railway Passenger Train Vehicles” Diagram book 2 has diagrams of the 1904 clerestory electric stock. These diagrams are basic, but do have the main dimensions and show the layout of the interiors as well as the exterior. If you are a member you can also search the photo and magazine archive. I made a quick search on the photos (“Tyneside electric “). This turned up 3 or 4 photos of the clerestory stock. A bit more effort would probably find a few more photos. There maybe be something in the magazine archive….but that takes a bit of searching.

As Richard has already posted, it is brand new. I’m sure if you contact the sales officer from the website link they will be able to confirm the costs for postage, and then get a copy out to you.(as long as you are happy with the costs)

Hi Chas Yes, shame to miss you at York….I thoroughly enjoyed the show. There’s nothing relevant to modelling the railcars themselves. However, there is information about how, and why, they were used. This could be relevant to operation of layouts. For instance, on some lines they were used to create more intensive services, on others it was purely about cost cutting, some were used for Sunday services etc. Also there is some information about the use of steam trains for the heavier loadings e.g. on market days, Saturdays etc. As for the amount data in reports……..this feels like we’d need two comfy armchairs, potentially a drink or two and proceed to set the world to rights🙂 Without getting too deep into the subject, I think one thing that definitely affects this is technology. Last week I was able to get Chat GPT to produce a simple summary in 30 seconds. This would have taken me about 1 hour to produce using Word. Before computers I would have had to write it out/ dictate it, have it typed up, proof read it, correct it etc…..even as a rush job it would have been a full day, maybe two. Or to put it the other way round, if I allocate two days to the task, just think how much “stuff” I could get out of Chat GPT…..replace “stuff” with you word of choice😃

I figure that this may be the best topic to post this in: I bought this while at the York show yesterday. Available from NERA at £3.50. It is a reproduction of a 1934 report detailing the pros and cons of the railcars. Included are examples of the types of service that they were used on, availability statistics and estimates of costs. There is also a follow up (short) report recommending the scrapping of the Clayton designs. Although it is quite a “dry” read; for me, it was very interesting to see the contemporary views about these railcars and their uses and benefits. The diesel railcars were brand new and also feature briefly….. with the benefit of hindsight I think it’s a real shame that they weren’t developed more. One thing I did note was that, in the cost estimates, the lifespan of the railcars was assumed to be 15 years. In reality I think that the actual scrapping dates were approximately at 15 years of age…..if no WW2 would they have been replaced? In contrast, the life expectancy of standard stock was quoted as 40 years for cost purposes. As a piece of social history, I also find it interesting how business reports were produced at the time. Without the benefits of spreadsheets and word processors, the report has to be succinct. I think that, if produced now, the authors would be sent back to get much more data to back up their recommendations…..although I’m not sure that the modern approach always produces more accurate reasoning🙂

Hi Chas I think that there are also a few internal partitions to include. I’d be inclined to start with these, as they can define the width at top and bottom of the sides. Once tacked in, you could then trial fit the roof section and floor to make sure the widths are correct. Then move on to the spacers. If anything is incorrect it is easy to unsolder and start again. Of course, then you have to make sure you form the ends correctly to match the widths.

Progress on the J39 has been made….albeit slowly. The loco detailing is complete now. I haven’t changed the handrails on the cab side yet. I plan to see how well (or badly) they match up with the tender handrails. If they don’t match (or, rather, if the difference annoys me) then I’ll change them. Patch painting, lining the buffer beam and re-numbering are next steps. In a previous post I said this would become number 1854……..that was completely incorrect…….. I have no idea where I got that number from🙄 The correct number will be 1534. The tender is also largely complete…. Bank Holiday today helped with that. Other details will be added after painting and lining in red. That footplate edge will need some filling……not something I had noticed until I looked at the photo🙂

The modelling for this loco is based on a model that @jwealleans posted in 2017 on his workbench. (Which, in turn, he based on an article in BRM from 1995). The list of modifications that he made was: New loco to tender coupling Boiler mould line removed New lamp irons Separate drop grate operating rod New cabside handrails Injector pipework Fallplate Replacment cab rainstrips (the originals curved too high) Sandbox operating levers Smokebox rivets removed (they were flush in LNER days) Second Wakefield lubricator added ( I don’t need this) Rear coal plate moved back. To this I will be adding: a single cover plate for the front cylinders because the Bachmann model has the older separate covers. Worksplates on smokebox sides oil pipes both sides with loop, oil box on right hand front splasher Fit front brake hose and steam heat Buffer beam lined in white number change New tender🙂 No time like the present….out with the craft knife and off with the moulding lines. Work in progress……. Think it’s done…. Next step is to start pipes.

One of the potential locos for my layout is a Gresley J39…. They got more or less everywhere! Many years ago I bought one of these….. Now, clearly this is a BR example……however I had also acquired this other body shell via eBay…. A quick swap and it now looks like this… This batch of J39s was built by contractors in 1936. They were lined red because they were sent an out of date painting spec! (The LNER painted these locos plain black from 1928 onwards). I’ll have to change the number to 1854 which was shedded in Newport and, therefore, could easily have appeared on the Leeds Northern. The other thing that I’ll have to change is this… This is a 4200 gallon tender. My loco needs a 3500g tender. No real problem because I have also acquired this kit from South Eastern Finecast. In the next post I’ll start the modelling…..

Not much actual model making going on at the moment. This is mainly because work gets intense for me during December and January…and tends to squeeze out the desire to make stuff. Nevertheless, I have had a real good go at completing my planned sequence of trains. This is something that I have been working on in fits and starts for a while. It has been about 80% complete for a year or two in fact. I’ve used the up and down timetables and merged them with information from a “census” in 1931 (aka a trainspotters log) plus the carriage rosters for the line. From all of these sources i was able to create a list of trains with approximate times, the number of wagons or carriages, which loco was in charge and also the carriage types. The list was then condensed a little by removing some trains from the sequence. In the end, though, the sequence still has 68 trains in it😱 Undaunted I have carried on with the task! I next allocated the goods trains to sidings. I allocated each passenger train to a cassette number. As I progressed, I could see how several real trains could be represented by one model train. For instance if a up train passed through at 9:30…then it can be used to represent a similar down train passing through and hour or so later. This is made easier because many of the passenger trains used standard fixed sets in the North Eastern Area……and,so, look very similar. Thus the number of model trains required to represent the total sequence falls. At the moment I have 17 cassettes….these include a cassette for the Sentinel shunter, right up to a cassette for a 9 carriage excursion. In other words, these should be considered as “virtual cassettes” and are being used to represent model trains. I also have 5 “sidings” required for the goods trains. So this makes a total of 22 model trains to represent 68 real trains. This is still a lot, but definitely more manageable. For the passenger trains I know the type of carriages required and hence can work out suitable diagram numbers. When compared to the carriages that I have in store (in the maturing pile) that then gives me my shopping list. I don’t want to waste my precious money on things that I don’t need. For the locos, I have used the 1931 census as the basis and kept the same loco, unless it had been scrapped or allocated away. Any substitutions were from locos based in the same sheds….so should be plausible. Quite predictably I have more than enough locos already in the pile😃 For the wagons ……well there is plenty more research to do. I know the number of wagons required and the type of goods train involved. I’ll have to study photos carefully to figure out the exact types of wagons that I want. That should keep me busy for a while! Next steps with the sequence will be to create flip charts for each movement……I’m hoping that this will help me visualise the movements that are required to run the sequence and thus to develop a plan for the fiddle yard/cassettes that I will need. Apologies for a very wordy post……hopefully, though, of some interest. Jon

There was an article in Model Rail Feb 2003 about the Jamieson range. The author was Robert Forsythe (who, I think, produced a book about kit ranges) and photographs were by…..Tony Wright. The article lists 30 plus kits in the main range at one time or other. It also lists a similar number of hand cut kits. The Standard 2-6-4 appears in the main range list and it gives a breakdown of the costs to acquire this kit as £5 2s 6d in 1954. This included wheels but excludes the motor and purchase tax!

Just a co-incidence…..I have been reading Hush Hush by William Brown over the last few days and, at one point, he says “ when I was an apprentice at Shildon Works the body of Royal Sovereign was grounded near the level crossing”. From his introduction, I would guess that this was late 1960s or early 1970s. I wonder if the reference to P W use at Lowestoft is as a grounded store or mess hut?

Definitely worth changing those transfers in my opinion. The new set look much better.

Hello Mark The few photos that I have seen of these vehicles in teak are very dark. I think that this is probably just the nature of the films used at the time….quite a number of late 1920s photos of Gresley carriages also look very dark to me. I sometimes wonder whether any graining should really be visible on our models since they are normally viewed from quite a distance. In reality the carriages would probably look brown - albeit with some panel variation. In the end I suppose it comes down to the finish that we each feel happiest with. For what it’s worth I use Humbrol 7 for the primrose lining on my carriages. I will also send you a pm. Jon

Just for completeness, I thought I’d weigh the Sentinel Railcar as well. This is the NuCast model and is entirely white metal. The spud is one option for powering these models, although I chose a different power unit for my build. It weighs in at three times the weight of the shunter.

Thanks for pointing that out. I think I’ve now fixed that problem! Jon