Northroader

No more progress to report, but just thought I’d show how I got to the design of that loco. Going back over seventy years ago, I got on my bike one day and went out past Pontesbury in Shropshire, to where the Snailbeach District Railway was still functioning. By then it was just taking crushed road stone from a quarry down to where road lorries could be loaded, using gravity working for hopper wagons, and hauling them back up with an ordinary Fordson tractor. Very enjoyable outing, and I progressed beyond the quarry, on to the abandoned stretch past the Snailbeach lead mine, where the quartz tips gave a “mountains of the moon” effect, up to the terminus at Crowsnest, where there was nothing much at all. Not long after the quarry laid an access road for lorries, and the line was abandoned. Anyway, the Crowsnest end became a peg for a talented modeller, Roy Link, to hang his idea of a small mineral line on. He tried various layouts in various developments and scales, all made in fabulous detail, detailed in his book “Crowsnest Chronicles”. In this book there was a drawing of a small narrow gauge Bagnall 0-4-0, which I’ve pinched and adapted. it gave me a good idea of the general assembly, and then it just got an overlay for a Hornby 00 chassis, and a person to the right scale. Doing an Emett adaptation, the length gets foreshortened, and the height, particularly boiler mountings, gets increased, although in doing this, you still need to keep the cab big enough to take a person, which will change the proportions a bit. Then the details get done to try and look more like a prototype you want. I’ve made the superstructure soldered up from nickel silver sheet, but plastikard would do just as well.

Tying this in to two paintings, one a modern one of Queen Victoria arriving in 1842, with plenty of activity; and one from the NRM, a contemporary? painting of the scene, one detail which might show how things were done is the smoke box doors opened, presumably to help the fire cool down and reduce boiler pressure?

The Pop Up kits are in unpainted ply with laser etched detail, so if you want a stone built station, you can face it with “stone” plastikard glued on, once you’ve smoothed the projecting locating tabs off. The Glasgow show sounds great, pity it’s too far for me. Tallindalloch is news to me, have you spotted Rosehearty, a GNS based branch in 0 gauge, also it has a P4 version. https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/threads/rosehearty-gnsr-new-aberdour-branch.8035/

Don’t forget Acker Bilk….

I think you’ll have difficulty getting much of a station building on that platform width. Here’s a Pop Up Designs kit I’m using on a GNoS line that’s taking shape. (It has needed a bit of tailoring to be fully suitable) It’s in 0 scale, and the board width is 10”, so equivalent to about 6” in 00. Your goods siding and shed has required over half your board width, so there isn’t really enough left to get what you want. You might make do with the front half of a Colonel Stephens type building, perhaps in wood rather than corrugated iron, otherwise add a few inches on the back of the layout? I'm enjoying the build, it is looking promising.

May I bring a layout that’s taking shape to your attention, as it’s on a club blog that possibly you aren’t following. It’s small and simple, in 0 scale, with a quality finish. The club is Newport (Gwent) MRC and Rodney Hall is heading the team. He has produced Llanastr in the past, (featured on page 8 of this thread),which should be sufficient recommendation. https://newportmrs.wales/members-layouts/tyn-y-coedcae/

What’s the glue/s you’re using, please?

You, sir, are starting to reveal yourself as a person with emerging good taste and perspicacity. I like the new signal box,too.

Well, it’s getting warmer and lighter, and spending more time doing some modelling. Doing scratchbuilding in 0 scale for pregrouping is slow progress, but I find I’m acquiring a mental outlook and philosophy to the job very like the stalwarts working on the smaller preserved lines, where mainline steam is an 0-6-0 tank engine, major progress is the delivery of fifty sleepers, the film on the rail might start to polish away after Easter; Truthall, Abergwili, Blunsdon, Brockford, Horsehay, Fimber, Brechin… Living the Dream….

Thanks for that, Dana, it’s a fascinating read. I was on the last year of my apprenticeship when we had the two locos, Locomotion and Derwent, into the works from off their plinths at Bank Top station. At the time the erecting shop had just had a rebuild of one half of one of the bays to take in main line diesels. All the pits had been filled in and a smooth concrete surface applied, then painted over green with lines, so that it looked almost like a tennis court. The first occupants were these two locos plonked down in the middle, looking very incongruous. A lot of the woodwork was replaced, and there was one story of replacement bolts being needed for some work. They thought a rather antique finish was needed, so the job was given to one blacksmith well known for his rough work, without telling him what they were for. The later careful archaeological approach wasn’t at that time being applied, it was more just tittivating the engines up.

I do like it! As to the coupling rods, the centres of the axles are quite get attable, could you not just gauge it from them? (Taking the picture I had to have the gauge slightly away, so it doesn’t line up looking at it) Hope you and your wife are fully recovered from the lurgy, best wishes.

Agreed, paintings of early railways are always going to form a good basis for a model:

Try Cuneo: (more of a “Regency” titfer.)

That stretch of beach is about all there is at Ramsgate.

Jus’ outa Newcastle this big bridge, and the engineer say to the tollman “I got cows, I got sheep, I got mules, I got all livestock. I got all livestock, I got aalll livestoooockkk….”

Nice building, without looking it up, it looks like an Austrian design and with a FS logo. Tyrol?? And a quick Google…. So it is, looks like an interesting prototype you’ve got there:

The old approach into Holborn Viaduct, with a bridge over Ludgate Hill, was quite picturesque:

My pals grandma lived just down the road from us in the village in an old house, with a little brick outhouse across the yard for a toilet, with quite a large garden behind. This drained into a sort of small pond round the back, rather like a black porridge. Every so often the council sent a tank wagon round, referred to as the “druggon” and they uses a scoop with a long handle to lower the level and cart it off. i would think the late Victorian developers would build roads with sewer pipes for new build hotels and so on in Traeth Mawr, and the older houses and railway buildings would get connected where they went by.

I’ll have to sit upstairs and have a nice long think about it:

There’s the Bourne litho of Bristol Goods:

You could have forage caps or tin hats, and the uniforms were pale blue. https://imagesdefense.gouv.fr/les-petits-trains-dans-la-grande-guerre

There was some form of sliding shutter in the partition behind the grooms compartment, so the groom could keep an eye on the horses, and maybe top up their water and fodder. I gather it was bad practice for the horse to be able to see out and admire the passing countryside, as the motion would discompooperate them. (Have a look at modern road boxes) With the army cavalry movements, the occifers horses went in horse boxes, other ranks in cattle trucks, but these were sheeted over for the same reason, so I feel it would be a waste to put your horses inside the box, as you can’t see them.

But Father, he said he was selling the steam and keeping the diesels…

hang on to your Italian stuff.

Er, no, I’m afraid the thread is titled “Imaginary Locomotives”, and the two “Bullied Atlantics” are very much in my imagination. You’ll just have to get an unrebuilt “West Country” and start sawing.