SteamedLyons

I'm gonna be honest it was a bit of a rush-job just to see how it looked, but I'm pleasantly surprised it's good enough to fool. (Sorry Northmoor!) Glad folks here have found some joy in it! Good point about the steps though, probably should be some at the front. Mainly I was looking at the post-war Ivatt stuff, but I suppose I forgot to add them!

Is this anything? :3

Crosti 7MT anyone? Perhaps should've added some Caparotti gear? 😉

There is of course the next logical step, to simply just update the 36xx as the 3631 class! Better aesthetics (?) and that's about it. I imagine cleaning out the smokebox on this would only be as bad as a 56xx in comparison to the above, though that's arguably marginal!

I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who's posted in here thus far. Some very interesting and honestly cool looking features bobbing about!

I'm just curious if anyone knows where I can get a hold of a gradient profile for the old St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway, specifically south of the bridge over the L&M? I'm working on a fictional preserved railway in Railworks based on the line as it's my local, and whilst I've gotten enough data for the St Helens Central (Shaw Street) to Junction section done I'd like to extend over the extension also for a bit of additional operational fun. The most I've been able to find are some extremely blurry photos of signalbox junction displays that show a profile for that section, but not clearly enough to read. Bit of a niche subject, but if anywhere's a good place to ask!

I've always personally been rather curious about the embellishments given to steam locomotives both historically and in preservation, but as far as I'm aware (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) there's no thread to discuss these things currently on RMweb. What's mainly got me to create this thread is the attached photo of C&O 2716 during it's 2019 move from the KRM to the Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation Ravenna's base and the use of the modified CSX logo and the KSHC's logo on the cab. I feel like it's a really nice homage to include, and while these sorts of personal touches aren't authentic to the railway I know a lot of people will now remember (seemingly being a pre-grouping thing when engines were often allocated to either a single or pair of crews who would keep a good eye and have more direct pride in their engine's appearance) I feel it's a shame that either I've been ignorant, or it's rare to see in the UK. Moreover it's actually pretty cool seeing preservation societies leaving their marks on engines in their care, whether it be a modern transfer applied or livery for a tour as a tongue i So I'd like to ask if anyone has any details say of the KWVR's 75079 when it wore a Cockney Sparrow on it's tender, the picture below of a Star with an adorable heart on it's smokebox, the NSE & other embellishments applied to DMU noses for a period or even the many liveries the West Coast Railways fleet has worn (Galatea in red or Leander & British India Line in black, the latter with TOPS numbering on the cab!) any similar embellishments and the reasons behind them then I'd love to hear of it! It's such a fascinating and very human part of railway history that I'd love to get more antiquated with.

I believe that's the one Robin Barnes did? Very pretty little thing! I've personally mused on a later Ivatt version that's eerily similar to the later Standard 4 4-6-0, but that's more an asthetic thing since it's just said 4MT in Ivatt dress! One frustrating part of the above proposal in my opinion though are the 6ft, 6' drivers. Other than that it's a relatively easy modeling job (all you'd have to do is construct a chassis and new valve gear) but where else on a LMR loco can you see that size? Seriously where, I want to birth a pretty pair of these in N! If not I'd probably just compromise on 6ft, 9' because the difference is probably near invisible in N! Granted there's not much advantage over a normal 5, but when did that ever stop us! Just imagine: the duo pounding up Camden in the crisp autumnal air, LMS postwar passenger black still prestigious and gleaming as they take the strain of the Merseysider, covering for a failed Princess Royal perhaps? The long, sweeping strokes of the valve gear may look elegant, but it'll be a rough journey for the poor crew! Maybe they'll pass one of those strange 'bo-bo' suburban thingies that the driver heard tales of being tested on the branch to Harrow, or maybe one of the mammoth 4-6-4's also adjusting to life on the Royal Scot that the fireman frets over in his darkest nightmares (they say the mechanical stokers are prone to failing!) A lowly 3P wheezes past, rushing empty stock to Euston, subsequently covering the last of our vision of the train as it pounds out of sight, but the loud barks echo from into the foggy distance long after they graced our eyes.

Stumbled across a note of this one somewhere online and decided to take the plunge, so glad I did: something for the lads, lasses and otherwise to enjoy on here hopefully! Always considered what a Stanier 4-4-0 would look like myself, even if it isn't strictly as such as the text theorises. Now all we need is a (rational) Bulleid light tank for those pesky un-electrified branches to replace those oh so pretty pre-grouping 0-4-4t's in deepest darkest Kent and across the solent! Railway World - March 1985...

I still personally think there are some cracking models out there that would garner plenty of demand personally that at first would seem obscure, say for example Drummonds bug. I personally think this would be due to its size and charm, the number of schemes it could carry (LSWR, SR/LSWR hybrid, SR and a fictional BR livery for crazies like me!), it's exotic and quaint and finally, it could be produced cheaply and simply due to the size and lack of requirement for a powerful motor due to the nature of its duties. Once again, the lack of LMS autocoaches baffles me, and while the bug is more a personal choice based strongly off of the W4 and it's success, they certainly have a demand as shown by the sheer number of butchered Ratio kits for non-corridor P1's! I think the problem is really just trying to meet a market - the same conclusion everyone and their traction engine have come to! I'd love to see a Riddles 2MTT (which may have just been undermined by the new Bachman Ivatt version sadly), or a Stanier 3P tank, or The Bug, but while I feel they'd all have an audience it becomes a question of how big, especially at current costs. Franky, and with no disrespect to the RMweb team, I think that it would've been nice to have a 'discount models' vote, similar to the 'post-2005 models' vote. Something along the lines of what would we like to see as a cheap engine, or indeed if people would like simpler Railroad like types alongside the main range. I can imagine it's probably not done currently since the cheaper model would probably just undermine the more expensive sister in many cases, and it's additional work and adds cost. The level of detail nowadays is stunning, but there are plenty of people who wouldn't mind sacrificing some of that for a more affordable option.

Noting the feedback, I'd try to rectify the range problems, but we'd end up back where we started... Very nice to see people discussing the idea though, made my day for sure, especially Corbs' usual speedy lashup! I'd agree about the boiler looking out of proportion honestly, but I'm not entirely sure why it ended up like this. Perhaps the initial disaster I mentioned lead up to this caused more damage than we'd thought! I might look into a 4-8-4 actually, I've already done a standard 8F and a 4MTT is definitely a massive gap in the roster (the only standard tank I haven't done!) It is at a much smaller scale, however, 34 pixel's tall as an average, so while that'll give an impression I doubt it'll be as nice as the few large scale mock-ups I've done. I'm going to include a said 8F below as a test to see how it comes out on here, and if it looks good, people can still make it out okay and enjoy it I might post more of the smaller stuff!

I've been a lurker on this particular part of the form for years (literally!) but I think this is only my first post on RMweb as a whole. I have been quite nervous my stuff isn't up to snuff, but I feel like I should force myself to post something to tide everyone else like me over until the professional madmen return! It's thanks to this forum I've been happily playing around with various ideas of my own, and like many here before me, proposed designs, the stuff some people come up with is really inspirational! Thanks for fueling my addiction to the fantastical everyone! That soppy stuff said, let's get to the loco, shall we? ...The Riddles BR Standard 5MTT! This monster came about during a time of musing about the big, imposing Baltics of the early 20th century (especially those of the Lancashire and Yorkshire and Furness) and how they could be brought into line with more modern motive power. As the only ones I did at this larger scale I do feel happy with them, although it's pretty obvious given their basis - It's just a 5MT with a 4MTT smashed into it (somehow everything from the buffer heads to the cab magically disappeared!) and would be criminally overweight for what I would presume would be almost every line in the country, perhaps a 4MT 4-6-0 would've been a better starting point? I do think it's a pretty beast though. Hopefully, I've done this right and below you should see this beast in a strange collection of standard BR schemes and a few fictional ones: go big or go home as they say!