MikeOxon

Go back to early broad gauge wagons (or some prefer 'waggons') and there are all sorts of terms, such as 'strouters' for side supports, cleading (cladding), tilts (canvas covers), and flanches (flanges). Road wagons and carriages had their own terminology, including 'splinter bars', 'close futchells', 'outer futchells', and 'nunters'. I found out about some of these when I modelled Brunel's 'Britzka'

'Thoughts' (also on GWR e-list): I had a look at Alan Peck's book about Swindon Works and realised how turbulent a time the mid 1860s were for the GWR. Gooch's retirement in 1864 caused considerable upheavals, leading to Joseph Armstrong being appointed his successor. Armstrong brought in a new team, including William Dean and Thomas Clayton from the North, to tackle the tremendous challenges brought by the inevitable impending demise of the broad gauge. Very large numbers of new standard gauge engines were required and Armstrong had to deal with this alongside major construction of new works at Swindon and the failed plans for Carriage Works at Oxford. It is hardly surprising that precise details of design changes are hard to find amongst all this activity. Joseph Armstrong built about 600 new locomotives at Swindon at a rate of 60 - 70 per year, as soon as the extended facilities were available in 1869. It is not surprising that Armstrong placed great emphasis on simplicity, while requiring the new engines to be as powerful as the broad gauge engines they replaced. While I can't be specific about exactly when the Giffard injector was applied, I think it is clear that it fitted in with Armstrong's design priorities. The Beyer engines were 'stop gaps' but they brought the new injector with them and would have been taken up as soon as possible for the new Armstrong constructions. I realise that this is not very specific response to your query but may be the best we can do.

I really appreciate your comment, T0ny 🙂 I write because I enjoy doing so and comments like yours make it feel even better 😁

For my 'Queen' model, I used 'Alan Gibson' wheels. As @Annie pointed out, you can use 'Lord of the Isles' wheels for the larger singles. I used a couple of pairs of these, bought from 'Peter's Spares', for my original 'Rob Roy' model, for which they had the advantage of having the correct 24 spokes. I did have to turn down the flanges. For my 'Sir Daniel', I have 3D-printed my own wheel centres, with the correct number of spokes. The Broad Gauge Society plans to make a range of metal wheel rims available, to suit various large-wheeled engines.

The photo demonstrates how, with all that extra 'top hamper' the Dean engine really needs the front extension to restore some sense of balance.

Thank you Jim, for showing that comparison - a good example of a picture being worth a thousand words 🙂

Where do I begin, Chris ...🙂 Dean was faced with the problem of rapidly increasing train loads - he needed more steam, which meant larger fireboxes, large domes and bigger, heavier cylinders. It all got too much for the 2-2-2 chassis that had served since Stephenson's time. His engines were looking heavy and lumpish after Armstrong's light touch! Dean was saved by adding a front bogie that restored more elegant proportions but by then the days of the 'single' engine were numbered. Dean - over size domes etc.

I agree, their proportions are aesthetically pleasing.

A comment on my recent post about modelling Rocket reminded me that my first scratch-built locomotive was an Armstrong 2-2-2 that I constructed 10 years ago and described in ‘Railway Modeller’, July 2014 , as ‘Simply Victorian’. I explained in that article that I was encouraged by a drawing of one of these engines in Russell’s ‘A Pictorial Record of Great Western Engines’ with the caption comment that: "The utter simplicity of these early engines can be seen." The idea of ‘simplicity’ appealed to me! Later, when contemplating additional engines for my ‘North Leigh’ layout, I considered other Armstrong types, including the earlier ‘Sir Daniel’ class. At that time, I wrote of my first model that “It really was simple to build - basically a brass tube over a brass plate, with a very simple 'chassis' to hold a set of wheels at the right distance apart! It was really just a wagon that can be pushed along by a motorised tender. I would recommend an early 2-2-2 as a good subject for a first attempt at locomotive scratch-building.” Principal Components of my 1st model Whereas the 'Queen / Sir Alexander' class that I chose to model were the last engines designed by Joseph Armstrong before his untimely death in 1877, the 'Sir Daniels' were his first standard-gauge engines built at Swindon, starting in 1866, Writing in 2015, I decided that “In summary, I can see that I could make a model of a 'Sir Daniel' by using exactly the same methods that I used for 'Queen'. At the moment, I feel tempted but concerned that the two would end up looking too similar! If I do tackle a 'Sir Dan', I shall have to choose a prototype with significant differences from my existing model” I felt at that time that my options were limited by what I could make using the traditional methods of brass-sheet construction. Since then however, my horizons have widened considerably following my adoption of 3D printing which greatly eases the problems associated with matters such as open splashers and other awkward features. Sir Daniel No.378 in ‘as-built’ condition One elephant remains in the room, however, and that is the fact that a ‘00’ gauge model really is a ‘narrow gauge’ model, within which true-to-scale boilers may not fit! In the case of my ‘Queen’ model that meant taking jewellers’ snips to the brass sheet I intended to roll into a boiler – fortunately, it still rolled successfully! It also meant that I had to adopt covered-in splashers to hide the gaping hole that I had created, so my model had to be of the later Dean rebuild of the type. Now, with 3D printing, I felt able to look back to the original design of 1866 for an engine that would be significantly ‘different’ from a rebuilt ‘Queen’ prototype of 30 years later. I still had to take into account the constraints of ‘00’ gauge, with a back-to-back dimension between the driving wheels of only 14.4 mm (3’ 7” at prototype size) against a boiler diameter of 4’ 2” (plus cladding). According to RCTS ‘Locomotives of the GWR’,Part 4, the main dimension of interest to a modeller were: ‘Sir Daniel’ Cylinders. Diam. 17" Stroke 24" Boiler. Barrel 11’ 0" Diam. outs 4' 2" Pitch 6' 11". Firebox. Length outs 5' 4" Wheels. Carrying 4' 0". Driving 7' 0" Wheelbase 7' 8" + 8' 4", total 16' 0". For comparison, the later ‘Queen’ class had shorter boilers but larger fireboxes and a longer wheelbase of 17’ 6”. Creating a Model. I started by considering the design of the boiler and the need to accommodate ‘narrow gauge’ driving wheels. My references were the photograph of ‘Sir Daniel’ as originally built, shown above, and a drawing by Jim Champ, which I imported as a canvas into ‘Fusion 360’ Usually, I like to make the boiler from a brass tube and add a 3D printed cladding, as on the prototype. In this case, however, I had to accommodate the driving wheels, so I decided to 3D print the boiler itself and add weight by lead strips afterwards. After some thought, I decided on the following procedure: 1. create a cylinder of length 44mm and diameter 18mm, to represent the external dimensions of the boiler plus its cladding 2. create a pair of 28mm diameter driving wheels, with additional 0,5 mm flanges, and mount these either side of the boiler at the ‘00’ back-to-back separation of 14.4 mm 3. Assemble these parts into their correct locations within Fusion 360 to create a visual impression of what modifications would be required to the boiler model, as shown below.. Tackling the 00 gauge Boiler Problem I realised that the diameter of the cut-outs in the sides of the boiler would have to be wider than this, because it would simplify the design of the splashers, if I could also recess these into the sides of the boiler. I drew a circle of the required diameter in Fusion 360 and then used the ‘extrude’ tool in ‘cut’ mode to create recesses of the depth required to accommodate the driving wheels. Cutting recesses for driving wheels and splashers After dealing with that problem, the rest of the construction followed a familiar course. I extruded a pair of outside frames from the drawing canvas and set these at a ‘true scale’ distance apart. This means, of course, that the driving wheels are inset, relative to the prototype, but the overall arrangement of the locomotive is correct. If I wanted to run the engine on scale track, this would be possible, simply by extending the driving axles. At this stage, the frames are purely ‘cosmetic’ and I shall consider the design of the real chassis later. All the other parts were similarly extruded from the drawing or, for the dome and safety valve covers, I used the ‘revolve’ tool on a profile sketch. One thing I always have to bear in mind is the ‘printability’ of a 3D model created in Fusion 360. I aim to divide up the component parts, so that each one has a flat surface to lie on the printer bed, from which the rest of the structure can be ‘grown’, For example, I provide flat plinths on the boiler, so that the various boiler fittings can be printed from flat bases. The ‘exploded’ view below shows the collection of parts that can be printed individually. Components shown separately in Fusion 360 As usual, I also like to do a ‘test fit’ of all the components by assembling them within Fusion 360 as a final check before printing – they can be seen against the ‘canvases’ from which the parts were extruded below: My model of ‘Sir Daniel’ assembled within Fusion 360 The next stage will be to design a chassis, which will be based on an inside-frame for the wheels. As in the case of my existing ‘Queen’ model, I intend this one to be driven from a powered tender. Mike

as opposed to a right bear

No.111 was, of course, also allocated to 'The Great Bear'. The two '111's were brought together for a joint photo at Swindon, presumably when the 2nd version was new:

Turmoil everywhere and not only the weather - elections, wars, you name it .... Nice to have a 'cheer up' photo 🙂 At first glance, the shed on the left of the photo looked as though it had some 21st century-style graffiti on the wall - an illusion on what appears to be brickwork.

In Whishaw's 'The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland' published in 1842, Plate XI shows the undergear of various GWR (broad gauge) vehicles, including the 'traction apparatus': If anyone can shed light on the circular structures within the 'traction apparatus' under the 1st Class, the Posting Carriage, and the Carriage Truck, I shall be interested - some early form of shock absorber? Mike

I've been using my old Geetech printer, which has an unheated bed to which I apply a layer of blue painters tape as the working surface. As that gets worn, I simply strip it off and replace it. The Prusa has a detachable build-plate that can easily be removed and washed when necessary, so no problem either way. I decided to use the Geetech until the current head fails, since I am totally familiar with it, but it will 'expire' before long, because the proprietary heads are no longer available. It is possible to convert the machine to take an 'Ender' head but other parts are wearing out too. I had a lot of teething troubles with it but it has become a good workhorse and I still like its 'domesticated' appearance, I need to bite the bullet and get used to the Prusa but there 's new firmware for it just been released, so I shall install that first.

As a modeller, I like to have a few key dimensions - especially wheelbase and, hopefully, visible boiler length and diameter. The last can be problematic as it rises the question of cladding thickness, so actual diameter is probably the best thing to quote and then leave it up to a modeller's judgement. On the whole, I think that, in a survey of this type, the initial build is the most important thing. Trying to track every detail of re-building has to be done on an individual engine basis, as boilers etc. got swapped around all over the place! (e.g. 'Sir Daniel' No. 386 carried a boiler which had previously been on No. 166 (157class)) I suggest you pull out the general features of each 'Designer's period' in an introduction before starting on the individual classes. It'll get more difficult when you get to the Armstrongs and the division between Swindon and Wolverhampton styles!

I hope there's a sound file too 🙂

I hope we'll see video of Hector in action, soon.

I suppose I have come full circle in my modelling - my first scratch built model was a 2-2-2 of GWR 'Queen' class. I chose it because it was simple to build, with no coupling rods and critical alignments.

Having gone right back to 1804 with Trevithick’s locomotives, I decided to start moving forward again - to Stephenson’s famous ‘Rocket’, which was to put passenger-carrying railways firmly on the map. When I built my Trevithick model, I wanted to put it alongside a model of ‘Rocket’ to illustrate the progress made over 25 years but, although I know I have a 4 mm scale model built from an Airfix kit, ‘somewhere’, I couldn’t find it! I did find however that there is a 3D printable model of ‘Rocket’ on the same Printables website, where I had found the Trevithick 3D model files. Again, the ‘Rocket’ model was designed for a larger scale than my usual 4 mm/foot but, in this case, the scaling factor needed was not so great. The model I downloaded was by Václav Krmela, who has made his .stl files available under the Creative Commons (4.0 International License) Attribution-NonCommercial His model was designed for 1:32 scale, so needed reduction by 42% to print at 4 mm/foot. Most of the parts printed satisfactorily at the smaller scale but, as with the Trevithick model, I had to thicken the walls of the boiler and chimney to make them sufficient robust. I particularly liked the way in which the design incorporated location tabs, which made it very easy to assemble the printed parts in their correct orientations. For example. I show the basic chassis which has tabs to locate with both the firebox and boiler: Components of Václav Krmela’s model, showing helpful tabs These tabs worked perfectly well on my reduced-size prints and are a feature I must aim to include in my own future models. A feature I didn’t like was that the cross-heads on both sides of the engine were fixed in the same position, so didn’t allow for ‘quartering’ of the driving wheels. When I imported the relevant .stl files into ‘Fusion 360’, however, and converted the mesh bodies into ‘base features’, I found that they split into two parts – the piston body and the piston rod and slide bar – so I was able to re-position the cross heads to appropriate positions along the slide bars. This was unexpected and a feature that must have been ‘lost’ when the .stl files were created! I have found that the ability to import .stl meshes and convert them to ‘base features’ in ‘Fusion 360’ is very useful, as it allows modifications to be made to downloaded model files. Bodies created in Fusion 360 from original .stl file To check the overall assembly, I brought all the parts together within ‘Fusion 360’, as shown below. Vaclav Krmela’s mesh model, assembled in ‘Fusion 360’ So now, all I had to do was print the parts. I printed some of the smaller parts in groups, including a set of wheels and a set of various small pipes, rods, and stays. The latter group was on the borderline of what is possible at my chosen scale and I made several attempts before I managed to print a reasonably ‘clean’ set. These tiny parts only took 1 minute to print but adhesion to the print bed was rather ‘hit and miss’ until I tried applying some ‘Pritt Stick’, which increased the success rate considerably – here’s a set, as printed, warts and all: 3D printed pipes, rods, and stays, before fettling I attached these fragile parts by applying a touch of a 200° soldering iron tip while holding the ends in place with fine tweezers. It has been an interesting print job although, looking at the assembled model, the pipework in particular is rudimentary, when compared with the full-size replica. A very significant omission is the pair of pipes carrying exhaust steam from the cylinders to the base of the chimney – this use of the exhaust blast to ‘draw’ the fire was an important factor in the success of Rocket at the Rainhill trials. Full-size Rocket replica at Tyseley, 25 June 2011 I felt I had to rectify this omission, so I made 3D prints of the two upper pipes and the pipe at the bottom of the firebox. Again I used ‘Pritt Stick’ to ensure that these tiny parts didn’t wander on the printer bed. My additional 3D-printed pipework Printing this model has served my purpose in providing a comparison to the Trevithick model, so demonstrating the progress made over the intervening years. The appearance of the ‘Rocket’ model does suffer, though, from the ‘Tri-ang’-like profile to the wheels! 3D prints of the downloaded Trevithick and Rocket models Whereas Trevithick conceived his engine as a ‘general purpose’ machine, ‘Rocket’ was built to meet the very specific requirements laid down for the Rainhill Trials. In particular, ‘Rocket’ was designed to haul light loads at high speed and Stephenson realised that, for this task, adhesion weight would not be a critical factor. Nevertheless ‘Rocket’ needed improvement for general service use, so there were further rapid developments by the Stephenson company. The next step was the ‘Planet’ class 2-2-0, which introduced the use of a pair of inside cylinders under the smokebox, an enduring feature of British locomotives. ‘Planet’ was followed by the ‘Patentee’ in 1833, which established the 2-2-2 as the archetypal British express engine and could be described as the first ‘modern’ locomotive. A detailed description of Stephenson’s ‘Patentee’ Locomotive Engine was published by John Weale in 1838 “by the liberality of Robert Stephenson, Esq., having been written under his direction and revision by Mr W.P. Marshall” Stephenson’s ‘Patentee’ My model of the broad gauge ‘missing link’ is an example of this type of engine, which set the pattern for express engines until increasing size and weight dictated the use of more carrying wheels. Mike

You achieve some beautiful renderings with 'Fusion 360', Dave. Although I use this software myself, I have still not mastered the rendering to such a splendid degree. Do you have any tips for the rest of us to achieve such results? Mike

It was some time before I discovered Part 3 of the RCTS survey of GWR engines. Incidentally, it's great to see that these Parts are now available on-line. It's a large Part but, while there are some fascinating 'odd-ball' engines, I'm not sure it contributes much to the line of GWR loco development. The most significant part of the history is probably what experiences Joseph Armstrong brought with him to Wolverhampton from the Shrewsbury and Chester works at Saltney. Apart from that, I think the rest could be omitted as peripheral.

A glance at the contents pages of Ahrons 'The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825-1925' might give some food for thought. He mixes several different methods of classification - starting by time periods, within which he traces various lines of development. He punctuates this progression by occasional chapters on 'performance', which includes the effects of various technical developments. There are also some chapters on very specific types of locomotive. In the GWR context, the special needs of the Welsh valleys comes to mind. Mike

I suppose the modern equivalents are MOT centres and the rather small sheds that local garages use

While browsing through old copies of 'The Locomotive Magazine', I came across the following description of a GER Restaurant carriage. In case it's not already well-known, I quote from The Locomotive Magazine Vol. IV June 1899: "SINCE May 1st the G.E R.Co. have been running on some of their fast seaside expresses vestibuled restaurant cars of new and improved construction built at Stratford works from the designs of Mr. Jas. Holden, the Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Supt. Several of these cars are shown above. The first class cars are connected to one end of the restaurant cars by covered vestibules. whilst the third class are similarly joined at the opposite end. The under-frames are built up of steel channels. and each car runs on two steel framed 4-wheeled bogies of such a design that oscillation has been reduced to a minimum. The bodies of the first class cars are 48-ft. 3-in. long, and have accommodation for 20 passengers, the.restaurants are 55-ft. long with seating for 32, and the third class are 55-ft. long with carrying capacity for 52. The cars are all 8-ft. 6-in. wide, and have clerestory roofs rising to 8-ft. 7-in. from the floor. The internal sides of the first class compartments are finished with satinwood panels and bevelled edged mirrors in walnut frames and mouldings, whilst the ceilings are lined with a neat pattern of “Endeca” decoration. The upholstering is in dark blue cloth, except in the smoking-rooms, where leather is employed. The third class compartments are decorated with light oak framing, panels and mouldings, and the seats are finished in “terry " velvet. Lavatories are provided of latest design. The kitchen at the centre of the restaurant cars is of ample size, and carries all the necessary appliances for cooking on a large scale, and in the first class style the G.E.R. refreshment department is noted for. The warming is provided for by hot water pipes carried round all the cars and concealed in a brass network. Compressed oil gas supplies the lighting, and electric communications are provided throughout the cars. On the trains to which cars of this description are attached, breakfasts are served on the morning run to town, and dinners on the return in the evening—an excellent arrangement, which should be greatly appreciated by City men spending their leisure at the east coast resorts. The choice of the title “restaurant car” augurs well for the success of these G.E.R. novelties and means business. Half the would-be customers on other lines are “warned off" by the exclusive look of the words “Dining saloon” painted in large letters on palatial looking cars, which carry first class prices, &c., in their appearance. Our idea of a restaurant car is one in which either class of passengers are welcome, and where they can procure a cup of coffee, a 1/6 lunch, or a 3/6 dinner, provided they are willing to pay for it, just the same as at the refreshment rooms or any ordinary restaurant." Plenty of good modelling info 🙂 Mike

Yes, I tracked it down to The Locomotive Magazine Vol. IV, No 40, April 1899 - the accompanying text states: "Unfortunately but very little appears now to be known concerning the old broad gauge locomotives of the North Devon. Our first illustration shows the "Star", a 7-ft. single engine reputed to have been built by Bury, though certainly not possessing the usual "Bury" characteristics .This engine had a six wheeled tender, the brake gear being operated by toothed wheels at the back attached to a rod running along inside the coping. The " Mole," " Exe," " Tite " and " Barum " were similar engines ." A nice find - I might be tempted to model one myself. Mike