[Brunel's Britzka]

Interesting topic.

 

If you are within striking distance, this place is a fantastic resource. We sort of stumbled upon it - not the sort of thing you’d expect to find a mile from Luton Airport. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossman_Collection

[Henceforth in Lined Green.]

You've found a good image there Mikkel.

 

Look closely at the left-most van, and you will see that it is actually a 6W (I'm pretty sure) passenger coach, with battens fitted on the inside of the windows. If we could see inside, we would find shelves for strawberry baskets, in place of seats and luggage racks. Apparently the LSWR did this with redundant ^W coaches, because they were short of vans for "the flush".

 

Its quite a late photo, I think, post WW1, possibly even post -1923. There is another very good set of photos showing this operation pre-WW1, where all the berries are in long-handled wicker baskets, which were returned empty after use to the farms, but here I think we are seeing disposable cardboard and tin (for the handles and lips), or thin wood, trugs.

 

It ought to be time to discuss the strawberry harvest, berries should be ready in a few weeks from now, but here the weather has been all back to front this year (May was in March; March has filled the whole of April and May), so my few plants are looking very retarded indeed, likewise all other fruits.

[So what is this all about then?]

As a further thought: although she has side-tanks, Rishra, preserved at Leighton Buzzard, is very close indeed to where you are heading. I now live only just down the road from LB, so if you need further and more detailed particulars as you go forward, I might well be able to help.

[So what is this all about then?]

Very well justified indeed.

 

I'm now itching to see the outcome of this because, as you might have detected, I've long had a fondness for the Brede loco.

[So what is this all about then?]

Yes. RCL’s drawing includes the buffer/coupler blocks that Sipat was fitted with, and the cited dimension is over those.

[So what is this all about then?]

I suspect that BC drew it from photos and leading dimensions. This is a Bagnall GA of Sipat herself, lifted from Station Road Steam website. Different valve gear and smoke box saddle, but probably otherwise very close to Brede.

 

 

 

[So what is this all about then?]

Delved into the NG&IRM magazines.

 

No. 93 is the edition with lots of info about Sipat class, including a drawing, and a summary of how it evolved from the Brede type.

 

No.117 contains a drawing of a Mercedes class, but what else it contains I don't know, because I can't actually find my copy!

 

Leading dimensions of Sipat: wheel diameter 1ft 3.5in; wheelbase 2ft 6in; length overall 10ft 4in; width overall 4ft 0in.

[So what is this all about then?]

Very good photos indeed! Thank you.

 

Both are reproduced in the IRS Sussex & surrey handbook, where they are credited to George Alliez, who was a prolific photographer of industrial locos, and always kept really good notes - I've got a couple of prints from him, and they are carefully annotated on the back. The top one is S6894/1927, and the bottom S6900/1927, both new to County Borough of Hastings, and both used at both powdermill and Darwell Hole. The Darwell hole job included creating an aqueduct to Brede, so we might be on topic!

[So what is this all about then?]

I'm hijacking Whart's page here, so perhaps transfer to PM, but yes please, I would like to see the "probable Darwell" - that job used Sentinel locos, so VB would be right.

 

Several web references seem to say that the Brede loco was a Mercedes, which goes back to an article in TNG52 by Maurice Billington, but I think that later research changed that view. Best get the book!

[So what is this all about then?]

The Brede loco was a sort of pre-Sipat, with different valvegear IIRC, but the same general dimensions.

[So what is this all about then?]

Mercedes cylinders, I think 6"x9".

 

Sipat, I think 4" x 7.5".

 

This is from memory though.

[So what is this all about then?]

Cracking photos. I don't think I've seen the one of the loco and wagon before.

 

But, is the Mercedes class loco a relevant inclusion? I've given my copy of the huge, fat Bagnall book away, and  my NG&IRM mags are packed away, so can't check, but I think Mercedesclass were signficantly bigger than Sipat class.

[So what is this all about then?]

One of several about 18” gauge railways that BC wrote/edited at that time. They broke what was then new ground for a lot of us, because there was hardly anything published about them outside snippets in NGRS and IRS journals up to then.

[So what is this all about then?]

What an excellent protoype to choose; I shall watch with interest.

 

I'm pretty certain that RCL designed his Bagnall kit to work in at least two gauges/scales, although I thought it became a bigger loco than the teeny little Sipat class in 1/32 ........ perhaps I'm thinking of it in 1/35.

 

Is the booklet the one by Brian Clarke from a long time ago, maybe c1980? If so, I had the honour of contributing the additional material and drawing covering Hastings Waterworks' other railway, at Adams's Farm.

[18. The layout's rationale : or, Where, Why, and When.]

My late uncle was in charge of maintenance at Crowborough Camp - he ran his own small building and painting firm for many years, but took employment as a way of ‘easing down’ before retirement, which seems odd now I write it down!

 

I don’t remember any Indian Army there, but I do have a set of photos I took at Uckfield and Crowborough of a troop train, double-headed Cromptons, that would fit nicely into your emerging backstory.

[18. The layout's rationale : or, Where, Why, and When.]

PS: Coal was still delivered to Tunbridge Wells Central Goods in 21T opens until c1980, if that helps.

[18. The layout's rationale : or, Where, Why, and When.]

You be careful with the countryside round there - my aged mother still lives somewhere roughly where you put your layout!

 

Not sure whether you are aware, but the SER had running rights from Tunbridge Wells over the Cuckoo Line, as a result of the settlement of the border war between the SER and LB&SCR that caused it to be built - I think they may even have run a desultory service that way for a very short period.

 

Whether that can factor into your scheming, I don't know.

[EMU - ex-SECR 4SUB Drawings]

Photo of 1491 in "Southern railway Miscellany", again appears to show "LNWR panelling".

 

I'd be surprised if there wasn't a Railway Gazette special edition for the completion of the Eastern Suburban electrification, although its not one I've got, and most such editions contained good GAs of the stock. The Engineer describes the new-build stock of 1925 for bothe Western and Eastern sections, with (very soot and whitewash) photos, but skates over the conversions in a paragraph and provides no illustration ......... nobody boasted about recycling in 1925, it was a subject of minor shame it would seem!

[EMU - ex-SECR 4SUB Drawings]

The photo of 1421 here is interesting http://www.semgonline.com/gallery/3car_SubUnits04.html 

 

I think it shows ‘LNWR’ panelling, a ducket, and a short van section.

 

There is also a photo of 1404 in the edition of Moody’s ‘Southern Electric’ that I have, which, so far as I can make-out, shows the same.

 

The photo taken at Orpington car sheds here, again so far as an imperfect photo permits, also seems to show the same https://www.wikiwand.com/en/SR_class_3Sub

 

But, were there differences according to the age/type of coach that was converted to become an EMU car, even within those of SECR origin?

 

 

[A quick stub point]

With a two-position stub, all you need is a stop of on the outer side of each fixed rail to obtain alignment.

 

They remained in use on some industrial NG lines, notably those using double-flanged wheels, until those systems closed in the 1960s. There might even be the odd bit left in a slate slab works now. For double-flanged wheels they have a pivoting rail instead of a crossing, which makes any linkage more complicated.

[Holborn Viaduct - Background - Early Green Period 1939-54]

Are you going to move forward in time to model this period now then?

 

Personally, I think it’s as good a choice as pre-grouping, and could be made seriously atmospheric

 

The “cobbling together” of SR Eastern Section EMUs wasn’t quite that, BTW, in that the cars were actually built by the SECR with a view to eventual conversion when it could be afforded - they weren’t actually all that old in 1925.

 

Does the 4-DD fall into your period? It does!

 

K

[Canterbury & Whitstable Railway, Tayleur 0-6-0]

Until rechecking, prompted by what you say, I had it in my head that the C&W has remained independent for longer than it did. Thanks.

[Canterbury & Whitstable Railway, Tayleur 0-6-0]

Brilliant.

 

The C&W isn’t exactly a well-known Line; where did you find the info to build it? Does Bradley cover it as an ‘absorbed’ engine?

[Why on earth would anyone model early British railways in HO?]

The Crampton question might boil down to weight-distribution and, therefore, adhesive weight and tractive effort.

 

With a 2-2-2, careful calibration of the spring-response-rates on the different axles can ensure that a relatively high proportion of the available weight is available for adhesion ........ essentially put a stiff spring on the driven axle, and softer springs on the carrying axles. I wouldn't be surprised if half the mass was carried on the driven axle, and a quarter on each of the carrying axles.

 

I'm struggling a bit to work out how one would spring a Crampton to optimise the percentage mass on the driven axle, but if you look at the French example posted by 231G, the springing on the two carrying axles is clearly different, which hints at some care being taken over this point. My surmise is that it is difficult to load the driven axle of a Crampton so as to make effective use of the available mass. Did it have equalising beams between the carrying axles?

 

The Norris looks to me as if it would naturally want to load the driven axle, and that it would be a matter of careful design, around the exact position of the driven axle, to get sufficient mass onto the bogie to allow it to undertake its steering function.

 

Views?

[Why on earth would anyone model early British railways in HO?]

There's a guy in the TCS, who creates a "loose lay" layout using the Bachmann and other commercially made 'earlies' (IIRC, he has a good few from the old K's Milestones series), with suitable scenic setting including the last run of a stage coach, and it always generates a huge amount of interest. My gut feeling is that even a tiny layout will do the same, because it is an era that is so seldom represented at MR exhibitions.