rowanj

Though my modelling preferences tend towards Steam, I actually was lucky enough to do most of my spotting from 1060-64, so caught the transition to Diesel, and very interesting it was too, The down side is that I missed a handful of classes it would have been nice to see- D20 and G5 amongst them, as well as other classes A5, A8 which lost their work to what became Class 101 DMU;s, I do have a few (too many?) diesels which get out from time to time, I saw all the Deltics, so D9004 on an UP express would have been a regular sight for us at Liitle Benton. The Class 24 on minerals was rather less common, as J27 and Q6;s stiil had all that suff, supplemented later, astonishing us at the time, by K1's and Ivatt 4MT's at North Blyth. The 24's were more often on mixed goods, often with a brake tender, replacing K3's, B1's and V2's as far as we could tell. Thornaby got a few Class 27's without steam boilers, and were well pleased with them according to local accounts,- less so when they were all sent to Scotland, I saw the odd one on trips to Thornaby which was an easy shed to bunk, Often a young member of staff would take us round when he heard we had come from such far-flung corners as Newcastle, I wen to London t every Easter school holiday for a good few years, starting in 1959, accompanied by my Gran, Mother and younger brothe, This was a great adventure for a train spotter, I always hoped to be pulled by steam, but it was always a Class 40 in both directions, - the last visit was 1964 when my expectations of a Deltic or Class 47 were dashed, In the last few years I was allowed to go alone from Thames Ditton to Waterloo and wander round the London Stations, I remember being disappointed with Marylebone, and feeling very uncomfortable in an empty Broad Street- it must have been a Sunday. Letting a 12 or 13 yo do that nowadays would be inconceivable - it certainly wasnt allowed for my kids/ Anyway, my last Class 40 trip was from Chathill to Newcastle on a stopper from either Berwick or Waverley, when we were put into a slow line and held at signals while an express thundered past.I think it was the Up Talisman, but my memory may be playing tricks, The Class 40 has been put into Little Benton Sidings to allow an express to pass as a sort of homage to that trip with my mother.

J77 68392 is held at the s0uth exit with a pair of wagons , probably headed for Heaton Yard, The wait shouldn;t be too long, as an -Up express is sailing by at about 60mph before slowing downfor the approach to Central. The train turns out to be an Edinburgh- Kings Cross, with Gateshead's 60005 in charge, Although it was always a double-chimney A4, it doesn;t seem to have been a particular favourire at 52A, simply taking it's turn with the other A4's on the roster. After the A1's arrived, these were the preferred motive power as decreed by the local Loco Superintendent.

Obviously I'd need to be 40 years younger with the experience and knowledge I have now. Oh, the fun to be had! Let's make it 55 years.

I like building kits, even if I;m not very good at it. I can think of 3 good reasons why folk are not doing it as much now. And don't tell me- I know there will be others.,,, 1. Compared to even a few years ago, it is easier to get an RTR equivalant at a lower price than a complete kit. So my days of building a J27 , Q6 or G5 are long gone. 2. There is an expectation that the kit will just fall together with a bit of Evostick and superblue. Soldering is seen as a "Black Art" ( and I confess I;m pretty poor when it comes to soldering white metal), In addition, you need to do a fair bit of reasearch of the prototype if you want an accurate model, And you have got to be able to get all the parts and relevant transfers etc. And you have to be able to paint it, and sometimes even line it. More and more, the first port of call is to see if ther is a 3D print, 3. As John New says, some (many) kits have errors built in. Sometimes it doesn;t really matter- so what if a splasher is 1mm too large/small- and 9 times out of ten they can be corrected, if you know how, and knew it was wrong in the first place, For example, I'm currently building a PDK Hunt, which has about 10 pages of pretty good instructions, The basic fittings go together well, so all should be easy. But the draincocks are wrong compared to the prototype, a prominent lump is missing, and not mentioned, on the LH cylinder cover. And I really struggled to make sense of a bracket fixed to the RH chassis side and how it related to the (very nice) casting) of the Lentz Rotary Shaft. I only worked it out because I had the Tufnell D49 book with lots of pictures. Don't get this right and there's £200 down the drain. And I know I'll find I need to fabricate some body detail which isn't in the kit when I get to that stage. So really, I suggest that, unless you like kit-building, or really want a particular loco, getting started is less and less worthwhile, I'm afraid, Don't think I'm knocking PDK or any other supplier, I have nothing but admiration and gratitude for the folk who continue to produce kits for the likes of me, But I suspect, if I was40 years younger with the disposable income I have now, I'd be teaching myself CAD (if I hadn't done it at school) and buying a 3D printer.

Just to firm up the dates, the transfer to Gateshead from York was 22/07/61, and the loco was withdrawn 07.10 63. I suspect the photo is the dead line at Heaton-probably a Sunday, but Darlington is also a possibility- the loco was recorded at North Road on 18/01/64 awaiting scrapping. Colour photos can be problematical, but the livery looks faded, so if the date turned out to be in 1963, I wouldn't be surprised.

I told you the photo had nothing to do with Magpies.......

Come . come, chaps. AWS and double chimney mean the visits to Wembley were things of the past, and would be a long time before they returned, The date is March 1963, and it would be a United in red which held theCup aloft that year.

I;ve been saving this photo for 1st April. I promise it's not a spoof or photoshopped, Gilbert. 60005 being cleaned at 52A! Who would have believed it?

The LRM J25 has been in the woorks, as its' tender was "on loan" to a J24 under-construction. Now back in service, it heads back to Newcastle, on returning train from the Bellingham Agricultural Show. This was the last of the season ,held (as it still is) iat the end of August. I have horrid memories of a Saturday there trying to collect the set of those cans of lager with different pictures of scantilly - clad girls on the side. 46256 might recognise his "downside-gift" of the artic, The BSO at the back is resided GBL. Heading North, this is the J27 which kept its' long smokebox to withdrawal after losing its' superheater. I think this was a NU-Cast kit.

The J24 is still waiting for a tender.I'll keep looking, but wonder if I should just have a go at building one. 65615 was one of a handful whuch lasted long enough to get a BR number at its'last General at Darlington in 1948, None got a BR emblem, so the tender will have BRITISH RAILWAYS on the side, This loco got a 69A boiler, so that is what I have tried to replicate- both the 69 and 69A are on the Isinglass drawing, This loco also transferred from Malton to Borough Gardens at Gateshead after its; general, so fits better than most of the others which got to 1950/51 for my layout's purpose. Before I re-united the J25 with its' tender, I took a comparative photo to show the relationship between it, (a P1) and its shorter, elder brother, or is it sister (Class P), Behind it is the bsic chassis of what I hope will be a PDK D49/2 THE GOATHLAND, looking a little like it did in a couple of photos in North Road Scrapyard. I'm just following the instructions, so see little point in posting loads of photos. So far, all the fits have been fine, though I had to file the axle bushes back on the "live wheels" side to get them to turn. I;ve also omitted the overlays for the springs, but who can see anyway. Sneaking into the picture, so I thought I may as wll leave it, is my preferred solding flux.

Luckily, I have a good supply of French swearwords in reserve. I needed them as, when I came to fit the back head it fouled the motor. In addition, thanks to a helpful post from Mikemeg, it was clear that I had made the fire guard too big and the reversing lever too tall. Merde!

This all sounds a bit like my current project, building a J24 because I had a spare J25 cab etch. Progress is on my kit building thread.

Ny therapist says I should just build a plastic wagon kit after all that stress, I told him I needed a tender and had aPDK D49 Hunt to do, and he warned there may be serious consequences. I wonder if I should go really mad and look at an A7?

What do you reckon? 6 out of 10.? For my first scratch-build, at 74, I'm pretty chuffed, even though no Gold Medal will be winging its= way to Little Benton, The loco is still borrowing a tender, and needs the cab finishing and glazing- my effort at at a backhead is lying in front of the loco. Buffer beam and glazing next, then I;ll give it a spin with a pick-up freight.

I know there was a very-early morning Parcels from Waverley to Central. which also included a couple of of passenger coaches. I'm unsure about a simiilar Down train, but let's assume there was one, and that B1 61273 has been given the task. Quite why a York loco would be on the train is a mystery, It is in pretty poor condition, so will be heading into works as soon as possible, Hopefully, only a spot of oil will be needed, but you never know with these Bachmann split chassis,

Another nice moment is to see a chimney and dome in place, even if just with a bit of Blacktack, The fit between loco and chassis, unfortunately, is a bit awry, but I should be able to sort it out. Unless I hit a snag of interesting proportions, the rest is really just detailing. so hopefully, the nest photo will be the completed body., Some bits will need to be fabricated- the piano front on the smokebox looks to be a pain-

I'm a bit out of touch with the Oxford Rail - Hornby relationship, though evidently there is an Oxford Rail programme still developing models. Jolly good thing, too. The J26 was on display at Warley, and it seems to be a nice model. I don't know what has been done to produce it, but the only thing I can spot are the round spectacle plates. The rest just looks like a J27, but so did the real thing. There were no balance weights on the wheels of the J26. I wonder if any other mods were more to do with putting right issues with the original J27 run? I'll almost certainly get one, though they were never seen on Tyneside, at least in BR days. ( unless someone knows differently). But as I have a few Teesside locos which seem to get to Little Benton with alarming regularity,and as I want to support the manufacturer, a stray one is likely to appear before the year is out.

A major step forward has seen the chassis and motor assembled, Tested with power applied directly to the motor, it actually goes! Some tidying up and pick-ups fitted should be that. It is, however, pretty light so I'll see where I can add a bit of lead, The basic superstructure of the loco body is also done, I've started to fit the splashers, have found a chimney and smokebox door, but seem to have lost the dome I was sure I had, The body fits the chassis, so, hopefully, the acid test of running the thing assembled will work, and that should leave only the detailing to do, (Only, he said!).

Just for fun, I raided the stock box/spares pile to get as close as i can to John's photo. No triplet, I'm afraid. The Kitchen car gets out from time to time, but the Diners are put away awaiting a re-build. The BG is Hornby.

Yes, but it's a bit of a mystery how it ended up at Little Benton, which is NORTH of Newcastle, or how it could have been turned. All I can think of is that it came up from London and entered Central via the High Level Bridge before going on to TCQ. I suppose the alternative is that it was a standalone consist to provide dining for the great and good at a launch. The V1 is certainly nice and shiny too . Either way, it's a good excuse to run something different on my railway....

Modellers may be interested in this photo of a Gresley triplet passing heading south at Little Benton in a period between 1958-62, I'm not sure what diagram this is, but there is a bit of a mystery as to what it was doing here. The coaches look ex- works, but where would such work be undertaken, It has been suggested they were detatched at Tyne Commision Quay from a Boat Train, but that seems unlkely unless they were marshalled at an end, rather than within the train, The V1 is a Heaton loco, so the triplet hasnt come far, Either way, it's an unusual photo.

The motor gearbox is now assembles and test- fitted into the chassis,Just a standard Highlevel Compact and motor. I find these boxes to be a bit fiddly, but certainly not difficult to assemble, There seems to be plenty room in the firebox, so I'll cut the necessary piece out of the boiler bottom, test fit and then complete the chassis detail, fit the rods and paint it. As can hopefully be seen, I replaced the valances on the body, Though they looked OK in real life, photos showed too many creases and bumps for my liking, and as a lot of this build is to see what I can (or can't) do, I had another go using thin 1mm rod, This, apart from looking better, gives the footplate added rigidity.

What an interesting shot, John. Thanks for posting. I've never heard of launch specials going to Tyne Commision Quay, and it seems an odd destination, given that, depending which shipyard was involved, there were stations on the Riverside Branch much more conveniently situated, I "pretend" to run Boat Trains on the layout, but actually getting stock to Tyne Commision Quay via Little Benton is a bit complicated, needing a reversal at somewhere like Backworth Goods, Trains normally headed along the North Tyneside electrified line and reversed at Percy Main. 67637 was a V1, and was at Gateshead and Heaton with a late creast from 1958 to withdrawal in 1962, so the photo is in that range. Is the triplet that which was usually on The Northumbrian? John

I'm sure Graeme King was correct about the origins of this kit, which is Lambton Tank No 5 currently in the queue for restoration on the NYMR, The hard work fitting the Bachmann chassis has evidently been done- it is not for the fainthearted- and makes up into a nice model. Here is one I did earlier....

I'm sure your revised formula is accurate David. I got the one I used from a really nice Nick Dunhill Youtube video, and, after using it, found that the blank brass was too long and needed cutting to get a neat butt joint, I then had a "duh" moment, not for the first time, as Nick was rolling a boiler in O Gauge, I'll know for the next one, if there is one.