Castle Aching

[Bedders]

For the hard of thinking, what's a BTP?

[jwealleans]

Indeed.  One of these

[Nearholmer]

The other things in favour of 0-4-4Ts is that they are very flexible, which was important given the tight point-work and curvature that was present in a lot of places until quite late in the pre-grouping period, and that they can have a good sized firebox with largish driving wheels, which suits nippy operation on light trains with frequent stops. It can be no accident that they were exceedingly popular for London suburban use, with all the southern companies, and the GER and GNR being big users of them.

 

I bet there were impassioned debates at the ILocoE about the respective merits of 0-4-4T and 4-4-0T for London service.

 

Kevin

[runs as required]

For the hard of thinking, what's a BTP?

 Bogie Tank Passenger

Good thing I googled it, I was going to answer Branch Tank Passenger - they always seemed to be flanked by autocars as in the above mode. The Derwent Valley line up to Blackhill/Consett was long their own - with a gruesome (unsolved) murder on one discovered at Lintz Green station.

dh

[uax6]

The BPT that comes to mind is the Caley 439 class. A very handy wee tankie. Then of course there are the wee tankies of the Highland..... and also the good old M7s.

 

All of course a sort of lineage of each other I suppose, and all having at least one survivor into BR days.

 

Andy G

[Northroader]

In model work having the bogie at one end does limit the curvature an 0-4-4 can go through, thinking model radii. I've got one which has just side play for the bogie, and the corners at that end swing over very far, affecting platform clearances. It's best to try and set them up with plenty of side play on the leading driver to help limit this swing, or even try and make them as a double bogie job, like a diesel, which then affects the driving wheel splashers. I've done a 4-4-0 that way. The 0-4-4 tank is, to lift a phrase of Awdry's, a Very Useful Engine. Pretty well all the old pre group lines had some.

[Nearholmer]

Indeed.

 

The earlier, I think, of the London ones (GNR, MR, LCDR, and maybe even GWR) were "back tanks", and there was a bit of moving of water accommodation around between side, back, and it think, well-tanks, at different times, to try to get optimum weight distribution in both directions of travel.

 

If you have plenty of time to spare, the Basilica Fields website is a mine of information about late-Victorian London locos, and somewhere on it there is a reproduction of painting by Jack Hill showing a District Railway 4-4-0T on the Met line "racing" a GNR 0-4-4BT on the Widened Lines - the painting comes, I think, from a really interesting book by one of the prolific writers, Nock maybe, about pre-grouping locos, which contains several marvellous paintings. Why, oh why did I get rid of my copy?? Oh, I know - so that we could open the front door!

 

https://basilicafields.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/jack-hill/

 

K

 

EDIT: Er, I think I got the painting wrong! The GNR loco is a 126 class 0-4-2WT, not a 120 class 0-4-4BT, I think. This Victorian train-spotting is harder than I thought. It's very confusing, because the LCDR had locos built to GNR drawings, for one thing, and half the locomotive engineers were sons or brothers of one another, or swapped companies, taking drawings with them.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Nearholmer

[JCL]

Second that about Basilica Fields, I've lost quite a lot of time on there.

[Poggy1165]

Thirded. The Basilica Fields site is a massive time stealer. Only today I spent a lot of time admiring a photo on there of a Massey Bromley 0-6-0t (as per MRJ Number 0) on a long train of sheeted GE cattle wagons. Now if only Dapol would make a model of that!

Edited August 8, 2016 by Poggy1165

[JCL]

I wish it had been continued, I'd not noticed before but it stopped in 2014.

[Edwardian]

I find that the GER is very well supported online, which is helpful, as I don't have any books on the company.

 

I have learnt a lot about GE wagons from Basilica Fields, and GERS has some wonderful articles online, which really helped me to mug up on GE carriage development.

 

Really like that IWC tank, Kevin.

 

Bunked off work this afternoon to drop in on the Smallest Fry's first gymkhana:

 

 

[uax6]

I like the posh bailer twine.... ;-)

 

Andy G

[Nearholmer]

Did I detect the tiniest smidgin of "Proud Dad" in post 1505?

 

BTW, is it OK for horses to "Black and White Up" these days? I thought that perhaps it wasn't considered politically correct any more.

 

K

[uax6]

I think you did, and its something that I'm awaiting for my little one to get to. Shes only been riding for about 10 weeks, and she seems to have a knack for it....

 

Mind you, I'm not ever buying her a horse......

 

Andy G

[Edwardian]

Well, borrowed pony, borrowed horsebox, borrowed jacket (the Mem's), borrowed tie (mine), but she got there and rode well for a first timer (double clear rounds on the jumps), and had a wonderful time!

 

And, yes, the Zebra was ridden (by The Boy).  Very modellable building in the background.  Light Railway in the Yorkshire-Durham borders?

[runs as required]

As I recall each of the manic Edwardian dogs is larger than either the pony or the elegant rider!

 

And thank you for nothing in intro luring me into Basilica Fields forever. The writing is enchanting; I pause look up and realise two hours have passed.

 

Uncle Lindsell used to let me ride with him on those GER surprised looking 2-4-2 tanks down to Ongar provided I helped him weed his allotment alongside Epping station.

dh

[wagonman]

Well, borrowed pony, borrowed horsebox, borrowed jacket (the Mem's), borrowed tie (mine), but she got there and rode well for a first timer (double clear rounds on the jumps), and had a wonderful time!

 

And, yes, the Zebra was ridden (by The Boy).  Very modellable building in the background.  Light Railway in the Yorkshire-Durham borders?

 

 

That little chap on the right is pure Thelwell!

[Edwardian]

That little chap on the right is pure Thelwell!

 

Save that the little 'chap' is Jamesdóttir again, I couldn't agree more.  The Shetland goes by the name Kipper. He is a right so and so, though seemed to take to me, for some reason!

 

The Offspring came 2nd in the fancy dress, too, despite spending less than a tenner on foam-board and (hopefully) washable black paint. Artistry by the Mem. Budget modelling!  And guess where the foam-board off-cuts are going?  Yes, that's right, into the landscape of Castle Aching.  Waste not, want not.

 

Version for Kevin: Waist not, wont not.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Edwardian

[uax6]

If I was named after a smoked fish I'd be a so and so too.

 

One thing I haven't quite got the hang of when I go to the stables is remembering not to call the horses 'nags', and 'cart horses'. This doesn't seem to be liked by the owners for some reason....

 

Andy G

[corneliuslundie]

I don't think there is much potential in modelling the railways of Iceland! I once found a loco stuffed and mounted in the docks, on a literally freezing summer day, but nothing more.

(Apologies to anyone who does not see the link to the previous post.)

 

Jonathan

[Nearholmer]

Or, thinking of the baler-twine, if that was what it was, retaining the hacking jacket: Waist knot; want knot? Not quite Mary Quant knot.

 

For the small fee involved, it is worth becoming a member of The Narrow Gauge Railway Society, in order to obtain the back-number of its journal containing a long, and unnecessarily detailed, account of the railway history of Iceland.

 

K

[Caley Jim]

....The Shetland goes by the name Kipper. He is a right so and so, though seemed to take to me, for some reason!

Sounds like a typical Shetland.  We had one who cold untie your boot laces!  One of his other tricks was to come up behind you when you were standing in the feed shed door and headbutt you in.  When you turned round he would be standing there looking in the other direction with a look that said 'it wisnae me!  A big boy done it an' ran away!'

At the Highland Show I once heard the commentator describe them as 'full of character', in other words, cheeky wee runts!

 

Jim

[wagonman]

Save that the little 'chap' is Jamesdóttir again, I couldn't agree more.  The Shetland goes by the name Kipper. He is a right so and so, though seemed to take to me, for some reason!

 

 

 

 

Ooops. Chapess!  I've heard a few tales about Shetland ponies too, including one that would take a nip at your backside if you weren't paying attention.

[Edwardian]

RIP Colonel Gerald (aka Duke of Westminster), Hon. Colonel of the Cheshire Yeomanry, one of the squadrons in which I served in early life.  Died at Abbeystead, where I was once a guest, a wonderful shooting estate.  You don't get many fully-staffed Victorian houses these days, so it was a rare experience.

 

At the time, I recall him telling us that he had unearthed evidence of an estate railway at Eaton Hall and was intent upon resurrecting it. 

 

Turning to Wiki, I find a page on the original railway of 1896 (15" gauge) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaton_Hall_Railway) and it seems that it was revived in the 1990s. I read that this was with a replica locomotive, the original having gone the R&E. All roads lead to Boot, evidently.

 

Wiki has this rather lovely 1898 shot: 

 

 

Edited August 10, 2016 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

Oh, no!

 

a sad loss to the minimum gauge world, and another ramble off down the curved, and very narrow.

 

Yes, a representative section of The Eaton Hall railway has been resurrected, and, until recently, it was open for visitors on a couple of occasions each year: village fete day; and, a gathering of The Heywood Society.

 

I went to one of the latter a few years back, and getting into the estate involved a sort of "knock twice and ask for Gerald " routine at a back gate.

 

And, I just found this: https://www.eatonestate.co.uk/our-giving/eaton-hall-garden-open-days.aspx

 

There are several replica Heywood locos around now, and the best place to see one is at the Perrygrove Railway, where they assemble Heywood rolling stock too, and the general layout has some similarities to that at Duffield Bank. SWMBO and I ascended the line on the "dicky seat" at the back of a train of Heywood coaches, with the rails clicking out from under our feet.

 

If you want to get deeply into Heywood railways, this is the book to start with

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arthur-Heywood-Fifteen-Gauge-Railway/dp/1871980224

Mark Smithers is the most astonishing researcher, who will spend weeks, months, years if necessary, buried in archival material to pull a book together - he digs out stuff that nobody else would ever find. He has produced another tome about eighteen inch gauge lines, and one about the railways at Woolwich Arsenal.

 

Kevin

Edited August 10, 2016 by Nearholmer