5&9Models

Fantastic and absolutely fascinating as always. I’m going through a very similar process at the moment but my firebox/boiler/smokebox assemblies are resin cast from scratch built masters. These are for my Rennie locos, but Satellite was basically a standard gauge version of their Mazeppa and Arab built to Gooch’s patterns. Do you have Brian Arman’s two volumes on early BG locos? I’m reading them at the moment and have to say they’re superb.

Now this is really exciting! By coincidence I’ve just modelled some very similar sandwich frames for my 1841 Rennie ‘Satellite’ built for the London & Brighton Railway. Looking forward to seeing your project develop.

Wow Ian, you have been busy! Great to see the progress and I love the little quayside railway. I seem to remember a conversation a couple of years back about casting some suitable seaside railings for you?

Superb work to a brilliant standard and so quick too! I’m really excited to see the locomotive project develop.

Great work, it’s a wonderful example of one of those vehicles you only get on the Broad Gauge where the wheelbase is wider than it is long! Will you be printing the luggage too?

That crane looks superb. Looking forward to seeing the next wagon completed.

Fascinating job Ian, good to see such an iconic loco being modelled. I’m still hoping Hornby will follow their forthcoming Lion with a Patentee or Planet... or both!

Fantastic work and super quick too! Very much enjoying these posts even if I find the ‘computer bit’ rather baffling. I’m so old-fashioned!

I reckon she preferred the first version too!

Excellent work, and as others have said, quick too! Well done. I fully appreciate what you mean about the process rather than the finishing. I have a number of items of rolling stock waiting patiently for me to paint them. I really enjoyed creating them but finishing the painting and getting them on the layout? Well, that’s where I struggle, it’s much more exciting to move on to the next build. Very much looking forward to the luggage box. Am I right in thinking there were a couple of different sizes?

This is actually the 1855 revised version. In the original 1854 painting the young man is chatting-up the young lady while her father sleeps. However, it was so controversial Solomon had to repaint it so the father and young man were conversing and the ladies chastity remained intact!

Fascinating stuff! I find the width of this carriage surprisingly narrow given the possibilities of the broader gauge. Especially since W. B. Adams jointed carriages for the ECR were a full 9ft wide on 4ft 8-1/2in gauge track!

Impressive work and a really interesting project. I look forward to following this.

I think you should always have older styles. People could only have up-to-date fashion if they could afford it and the vast majority of them couldn’t. Most clothing was as you say third, fourth even fifth hand, either hand-me-downs or bought from second hand shops. There are some fabulous and inspiring photos of what most folks wore in ‘Dickens’s Victorian London’ by Werner and Williams, ISBN 978-0-09-194373-8 and ‘Images of Lost London’ by Philip Davies, ISBN 978-1-909242-04-3. But these fascinating books come with a health warning, you will be up ‘til the small hours as once opened they are almost impossible to put down!

Fascinating choice of carriage, can’t wait to see this one progress.

Thank you. Yes, I soldered two pieces of 10 thou brass together, marked them up, drilled some holes and then spent some considerable time fettling with the Swiss files!

Absolutely outstanding as always Mikkel. I’m a great believer that a model railway should be an opportunity for story telling, a bit of theatre to entertain and amuse. You are truly a master at this. Bravo!

I know.

Thank you. Being 1849 the loco was a coke burner. Coke was often supplied to the locos in sacks and couldn’t be piled up like coal so easily as it’s light weight would cause it tumble around and fall off. Therefore the complete lack of any bunker sort of makes sense. I can only imagine that when the fireman was running low, the brakesman would haul another sack over to the loco. It’s something I will have to make sure I include on the model.

Thanks Ian, much appreciated.

Thank you Eric, not Brighton related but a fascinating little loco. Looking forward to starting the tender/carriage next.

Thanks very much. I’ll keep on with it.

In the latter half of the 1840s, William Bridges Adams began to dabble in locomotive design with the help of several key figures, particularly the resident engineer of the Eastern Counties Railway, James Samuel. He had established a works at Fair Field, Bow in 1843 for the purposes of expanding his business building carriages and wagons for both rail and road and locomotive construction was a natural progression. Together they developed the principle of the light locomotive which was proffered as an alternative to the ever increasing weight and power of railway locomotives in general, particularly with the gauge wars and stiff competition between the mighty broad gauge with it's powerful Gooch designed passenger engines and the ultimate symbol of power and speed on Stephenson's gauge, Thomas Russell Crampton's mighty 'Liverpool'. Adams argued that the wear and tear on the permanent way was unacceptable, it being barely able to keep pace with locomotive and rolling stock development. The huge volume of dead weight hauled around by large engines meant that much of the time, particularly on branch lines, the arrangement was highly uneconomical. Adams offered an alternative in his lightweight locomotive and carriage, either as a fixed vehicle with engine and carriage on one frame like 'Fair Field' for the broad gauge and 'Enfield' for the Eastern Counties, or a paired light engine and tender carriage. His vision and that of James Samuel was for frequent light 'shuttle' services and it could be said that considering the make-up of todays trains on lesser lines, he was way ahead of his time. This locomotive and its tender/carriage was first illustrated in Adams' 1850 publication 'Road Progress' as a fold out plate. Essentially the same design appeared in one of his many (32) patents, No.13653 of 1851 and the culmination of this design was Ariel's Girdle displayed at the Great Exhibition in the same year, although this was made by Kitson, Thompson & Hewitson of Leeds since Adams was bankrupt by the summer of 1850 and the Fair Field Works sold off. The design concept was sufficiently noteworthy for Zerah Colburn to illustrate it in his 'Locomotive Engineering and the Mechanism of Railways' in 1871, although the tender carriage in Colburn's drawing is considerably shorter than the original and looks decidedly odd. Stephenson's continued this basic design and one of their versions was illustrated by Daniel Kinnear Clarke in his book 'Railway Machinery'. It is more sophisticated machine and makes for an interesting comparison. This drawing is reproduced courtesy of the National Archives. My fascination for the life and work of William Bridges Adams is well established and aside from writing his biography (an ongoing long term project requiring an immense amount of research not helped by Coronavirus lockdown restrictions), I have an ambition to model at least a good representative selection of his various creations. The 4mm scale model described here is the first of my efforts towards modelling his locomotives. During 2020, the Bodmer single occasionally drove me mad so I felt it was important to have a side project to restore the equilibrium, a sort of yin and yang approach. I would not normally have two loco projects on the go simultaneously in the fear than neither of them would get finished however, in this case it proved a blessing. The following photographs show its current state with much still to do including the tender/carriage. I have to say I find it one of the most attractive (dare I say sexy?!) little engines I have ever seen. Further pictures will be posted with some constructional details in due course. The wheels are only just on (I don't like to force them home until I'm ready to fit them for the final time) and the splashers balanced in place. The footplate side sheets are made but not yet fitted. Cylinders and motion remain to be finished and may well be fitted after painting. They are very delicate and if I gum them up with paint (schoolboy error) I will not forgive myself! There is a little more plumbing to be done such as the steam pipes from the dome and the injectors but it is almost there. The drop in the buffer beam allowed the smokebox door room to open since the boiler was fairly low slung. Adams was a great believer in keeping the centre of gravity as low as possible, a popular theory of the time. The idea was that it made for steadier and safer running but this was not quite the case. The footplate was no wider than the outside edge of the splashers and therefore quite narrow. Later versions including those made by Stephenson who continued the design were wider. The coupling to the tender/carriage can be seen and th two brass pipes are the feed from the water tank, a long wide shallow container which sat under the tender/carriage. Apparently water from the well tank under the boiler was circulated back through this tank to keep the passengers warm in cold weather. Clever!

Yes. In fact wheels really bother me when I’m building early locos. Gibson, Sharman, Romford etc are all very well but so chunky and often have the wrong spoke count too. I have made my own in the past but it’s a lot of work and they can be a little too delicate. Thanks for your generous comments too.

Thank you. I’m quite glad it’s done. I can move on to something else equally challenging!