Northroader

Not quite a steam roller wheel, but there’s a bit of meat.

Theres two aspects strike me, first off the bogies are mounted in ball and socket joints, with no allowance for any sideways movement. This means any sideways displacement on a curve has to be met by the driving wheels, and any movement there looks to be blocked by the suspension arrangement. Hence the need for flangeless drivers, but the tyres don’t look especially wide. It must have been very tricky to run over any restricted point work. Then there’s the rubber suspension, which looks as if it’s applied to the bogie wheels as well. Getting the weight distribution set up is bad enough on an ordinary engine with leaf springs and adjustable nuts on the spring hangers, quite how it was done on this one would be a challenge, to put it mildly.

Pre WW1, surely? Best route, from Paddington to Fishguard, then there’s an overnight boat to Waterford, not the Rosslare route, pretty run up the estuary to Adelphi Wharf, then direct to Tipperary. She will end up as “Becky” anyway.

An Ifracombe Goods?? (Parts thereof)

And if I got it right, it’s 7mm? One single point, one three way point, no more? I think you can now settle down to have a happy and contented old age.

“If you see something that doesn’t look right……”

Oh, right, there’s me thinking… https://www.bart5.com/bar-t-5-home/

It says “Mogul” but it’s a 2-4-0?

They do some very nice stuff, but all 4mm. scale. I meantersay….

SWEDISH RAILWAY SETTING. I have to thank @Schooner of this parish, for alerting me to this shot. Just occasionally you get a totally formed picture that you can damn near do a complete model from, and I think this is one. A railway pier linking into a ferry service in 1880, in this case somewhere up the Gulf of Bothnia, that leg of the Baltic up between Sweden and Finland. A setting a bit like Tollesbury Pier in Essex, or Bantry Pier in County Cork. Statens Järnvägar, Swedish State Railways, had a very good selection of Beyer Peacock locomotives in their fleet, and if you fancy doing some browsing, you’ll find quite an attractive system.

Some time back, I put in a link to a Gn15 Emett line “Tippy Ashwood”. Just been watching his latest video, showing ideas and gear for battery operated loco. High tech for me, but it’s worth a look for keeping up to date with what’s around, and I note the Hornby 0-4-0 chassis can benefit with slower speed running, something well worth considering:

Best not go there, Saint! (We’ll say dirt)

Theres these two camellias in pots either side of the front door step. What possesses such a delicate, tender flower to start blossoming in February, I’ve no idea, every evening we’re watching the weather forecast for overnight frost, and take them in the house, otherwise that lovely bloom will be turned to brown mush. This last week, they’ve stayed out all the time. Back in November, I was putting together some strips of 10mm foamboard to make up a fiddle yard base, and was very disappointed to find the glue didn’t “take”, just staying wet and messy 24 hours later. It seems you have to store the stuff at over +5 C, so it’s lived with me on top of the chest in the bedroom for the last few months. Now it’s warming up, so mix a dollop with about three parts water and a few drops of washing up liquid, and go round the “Western Fringe” line ballast with an eye dropper. It’s now set rock hard. Then dig out the foamboard, and try again… Result! That’s set nicely, so push on with the Washbourne fiddle yards. So now we can definitely say its warming up, and we can celebrate Spring with Hilda.

Could be East/West…

What we now call Taplow was originally the Western terminus for Maidenhead, before the bridge over the Thames was completed. The goods shed is contemporary with the one at Paddington, sharing the same design, but the Paddington one is larger. The Taplow shed lasted until quite recently, but then demolished, which was a real pity.

There’s an 0 gauge line, Blackney, set in the Forest of Dean, terminus to fiddle yard set up, with a kickback siding into the fiddle, where he’s recently made the fiddle yard a scenic section. Works quite well, IMHO.

There’s no whitewash patches round the 13amp sockets to tell which one’s tripped, either?

Annie, when they first tried digging the Channel Tunnel in Victorian times, they found a coal seam, so this led to the development of coal mines in East Kent, and so it is possible to find NCB sidings on the Southern, if only limited. From a rail fan / modeller point of view, this led to the East Kent Railway, a Colonel Stephen’s job. So to Wingham Canterbury Road, my kind of station. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/wingham_canterbury_road/

On the subject of iron bodied GWR wagons, there’s 31076, the number falling between blocks of the various 3 plank builds listed above. It’s pictured at Newquay Harbour, loaded with coal, presumably imported by sea from South Wales. Would it be one of the mentioned jobs, or just absorbed from the Cornwall Minerals Railway? The wagon next to it still has dumb buffers… then there’s the spring shoes, either they’re a very good fit, or there’s extensions down from the solebars? Flitched?

May I add that the article and drawing I was on about was in Railway Modeller No. 69.

Can’t find the reference now, I’m afraid, but way back, 1950s 60s sort of era, there was an article done in the Railway Modeller by Norman Eagles, (who created the “Sherwood Section”) He had gone to Burton shed and been given access to measure up one of these engines, and did a drawing for it. Sorry I’ve slung my clipping for this in a clearout a few months ago, just have the model left:

It looks as if the upper body panels are stepped out above the wheels. This one looks as if it’s designed with rail transport in mind? Presumably those are securing chains hanging down, there are no placard boards above the roof to take down, and the front pole for the horse harness pushes back under the vehicle, rather than detaches. Suppose it’s painted chocolate? Pity the sign writing front or back doesn’t show.

I think that you should be able to look at a layout with no trains being present, and get an impression of where it’s meant to be, so that scenery can give a geographical impression, and the buildings and infrastructure such as signals give a much firmer idea of the company involved. If you look at a bare board populated by D299 wagons, you’re left asking “where’s this?”

I did a Duncan Models pantechicon in 0 scale, and used it as a load on a LBSC machinery wagon, which is how it would go by rail. The wagon had a flat deck, not a well, and the pantechnicon was a tight fit inside the wagon. The poster boards above the roof have to be removed, the drivers seat folded down, and the pole at the front removed. If it is loaded dead central on the wagon, I found it is just within load gauge limits, nothing to spare.

I’m sticking to the trademark name “Washbourne”, Don, but it’s got the capability of getting a Caledonian flavour by becoming “Washburn”, and if I can last long enough to do the NER, it’ll be “Washbeck”. The loco. is trying to be a GNoS “E” class, LNER “J91”, but I’m afraid it’s an awful bodge. I used a spare chassis for a South Wales 0-6-0T (all my finished stock for South Wales went in the Great Clearout) but the wheelbase is about 18” too long. Then Things happened during the superstructure build, dimensionally and square wise. Jonathan did a comment over on another thread this week about how you get more meticulous as you grow older, I’m afraid I’ve gone the other way.