Castle Aching

[St Enodoc]

42 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Mr. Joel appears to be singing to a death mask...

... or a waxwork.

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

... or a waxwork.

 

Dear God, WHAT have we unleashed???

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Well, this is interesting - in midwinter, a middle-aged man's thoughts turn to his Nellie. I've seen one done as a sort of ersatz K&ESR 2-4-0T a long time ago, but yours seems entirely, and interestingly, original.

 

I was looking at the Bachmann 'Thomas' range when I was in the model shop buying points last week, having heard that the mechanisms are good and smooth, and they seem to have a lot of bash-potential, especially Young Percy, but they aren't 'bash-priced' IMO. £70+ for razor-saw fodder seems a bit much.

[Regularity]

They sometimes turn up in cheap starter sets, where you can (if lucky) get both non-Thomas and not-Percy, plus some track and wagons, for about £100.

[Edwardian]

13 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Well, this is interesting - in midwinter, a middle-aged man's thoughts turn to his Nellie. I've seen one done as a sort of ersatz K&ESR 2-4-0T a long time ago, but yours seems entirely, and interestingly, original.

 

I was looking at the Bachmann 'Thomas' range when I was in the model shop buying points last week, having heard that the mechanisms are good and smooth, and they seem to have a lot of bash-potential, especially Young Percy, but they aren't 'bash-priced' IMO. £70+ for razor-saw fodder seems a bit much.

 

7 minutes ago, Regularity said:

They sometimes turn up in cheap starter sets, where you can (if lucky) get both non-Thomas and not-Percy, plus some track and wagons, for about £100.

 

The Percy/Not-Percy is perhaps more versatile and more expensive of the two, but I have from time-to-time acquired the 0-6-0s at very reasonable cost. 

 

The other drawback to the 0-6-0 chassis is the height of the motor, but I can probably re-wheel one with smaller wheels to make one of the larger of the Manning Wardle/Hudswell Clarke/Hunslet industrial saddle tank ilk, and I have another 2-4-0 planned.  Patient and judicious lurking on the Bay of Fleas means that you should not need to pay much more than £25 for one.   

 

I generally reckon that anything up to around £50 is good going these days for a donor chassis.  Again, it's necessary in some instances to be patient and to shop around, but that budget brings both the Dapol/Hornby 14XX and the Electrotren 0-6-0T/ST also within reach.  More expensive donor models need special justification, like a brand new B2 Peckett for WNR No.2!   

[TurboSnail]

I've recently bought 2 Pecketts (one each in B2 and W4 flavour) for donor chassis, but I'm attempting to justify it by saying I have two or three bodies I'll swap between them. That makes them half-price, right?

[Hroth]

The Bachmann Thomas/Stuart is only fit for cutting up, the front buffer beam height is ludricous and there's no front coupling, preventing it hauling a train tender first!  However, I've got a DCC fitted Stuart (was cheap) and I'm not terribly impressed by the mechanism. It sounds odd and isn't very lively....

[Northroader]

There’s a “collectors fair” held here once a month, which rather surprisingly has run from time immemorial. I go occasionally, although it’s pretty well all OO and Dinky stuff, but I have picked up Ur Nellies for £8 which work. But then I’ve been a silly boy and thrown away the top and kept the chassis to use for narrow gauge to O scale with a new soopystructure, where they tear around the track without let or hindrance.

I suppose I should look at something cheap out of a blue box and get some better running.

Kevins Nellie set me off a long reverie the other day (I was with SWMBO visiting sister in law and would have gone dooally otherwise) and linking in with Dons comments on the Jim McGeown O Nellie, which has better proportions. It struck me that really with a small 0-4-0 tank engine, all that matters is the “skyline”, what’s mounted on top of the smoke box and boiler, together with what the upper half of the cab looks like. Then it was what lines it could be applied to, and doing it in 0, just scratchbuilding to keep the costs down. It does raise some interesting possibilities. Now if you could only pick up old O Nellies for £8...

Edited January 6, 2020 by Northroader

[Donw]

If you really want cheap 0 gauge locos you could do not better than to follow Jim Read. His LNER Y8 0-4-0 is built from Shellac  treated card. The frames are card with metal bushes. The motor cheap chinese. The wheels are probably Hornby 00 ones and use suitable worms and gears. The buffer heads are drawing pins and apart from the coupling rods and some bits of wire the rest is cardboard.  The threads on hear have sadly lost the photos but there is a website https://ogaugemicro.blogspot.com/ Jim will send you a PDF of the Y8 b. build is you send him a polite email.

There is no reason the same approach couldn't be done in 4mm. You could probably buy suitable coupling rods use them to drill pilot holes for the chassis so they match up. 

The is someone on here who is a bit of a whizz with cardboard......

 

Don

 

[Northroader]

I’ve seen that loco on Jim’s thread. Really for strength, dimensional stability, and wear resistance, I’d stick with brass sheet, which is simple and cheap enough to use. I suppose I should be more adventurous in looking for suitable gears and motor online, at present I just get a set from Premier Components at a show. With wheels, for most sizes you want, it has to be Slaters. From there it’s on to “ethics”, should you be trying to get every detail exact to match a particular prototype, or should you be happy with a “rough sketch”, even to the extent of having an altered wheel arrangement?

Edited January 6, 2020 by Northroader

[Donw]

Well untill soldered up thin etched brass frames will distort easier than card treated with shellac both become stronger once built into frames with cross spacers. Decent thickness of NS is a different matter much stiffer or 1/16th brass come to that.  As to your last bit if it is a loco for a freelance line you have a lot of latitude but if you are modelling a specific class of mainline loco the choice has been narrowed. Although the GER did chop the front off some coupling rods off making a 0-6-0  into a 2-4-0 just the sort of bodging a modeller might do. And of course the GWR Kruger could only have been made from left over parts from kit bashing

 

Don

[Edwardian]

3 minutes ago, Donw said:

And of course the GWR Kruger could only have been made from left over parts from kit bashing

 

Don

 

I shudder to think what the parts were left over from, though now, of course, you can play that very game with Hornby's new steampunk range!

[jwealleans]

Quote

Hornby's new steampunk range!

 

The most tactful description of a Thompson pacific I've seen in some time.

[Hroth]

19 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

you can play that very game with Hornby's new steampunk range!

 

Its easy to do, just glue some gears on it. (Its what Hornby appears to have done).... 

 

10 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

The most tactful description of a Thompson pacific I've seen in some time.

 

There's no use in being polite about those, even gluing gears on them wouldn't work!

 

 

[Annie]

I cannot believe that they associated the Bassett Lowke name with that rubbish.

[Nearholmer]

Its bizarre, as if they have no idea of the potential monetary value of the TM that they own, let alone its symbolic importance. I know a man who offered them a reasonable sum of money for it, which they declined.

 

Let's hope that the range disappears rapidly and without trace, so that the damage done is limited.

 

(said with no prejudice against steam-punk modelling, if indeed that is what the range actually is)

 

 

 

[Annie]

As a former Victorian Sci-Fi and Steampunk miniature wargamer I can tell you that what Hornby is offering is NOT Steampunk and is nothing but a total mess.  And as to whoever thought it was a good idea to associate the Bassett Lowke name with it needs to be tied down and have those horrid brass watch gears superglued over every inch of their body to teach them to never do it again.

 

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Regularity]

As someone “born in the Barratt”, I am saddened by this desecration. Not the idea of using the BL manteau for SteamPunk, as that kind of sits with Northampton  (if you know your music history), but the crass way it has been done: let’s stick some gears and bits of plastic on our cheapest toys.

[Compound2632]

On a wider note, in this announcement Hornby seem to have eschewed any further development of pre-Grouping locomotives in favour of a return to their core area of large 20th century express passenger engines.

[webbcompound]

just been alerted to the Hornby "steampunk" range by Castle Aching. Thank goodness I was wearing my ionising goggles or my brain would have melted. As the kids would say OMFG. I'm trying to imagine the planning meetings which preceeded this release. This really is poorly conceived stuff. Just stick some straws and clock parts randomly on the outside of things. On the other hand maybe we are all too concerned with British aesthetics....

Edited January 6, 2020 by webbcompound

[Nearholmer]

One reading of the naming of the range is that they ferreted around in the bottom of their cardboard box filled with old trade names, looking for something, anything, that would put distance between their core train brand, Hornby, and this new punky thing, for two reasons:

 

- Hornby may be a kiss-of-death name among the sort of geeks/nerds who do steampunk, because it associates firmly with the sort of geeks/nerds who do toy trains. Creating a crossover is bound to worry geeks/nerds on both sides of the divide; and,

 

- they didn't want anyone thinking those strange things are Hornby products, in case that damaged the core brand.

 

(speaking as a chap who, until earlier today was going round in a pair of NHS-1960s-ish glasses held together with duct-tape, and has been obsessing about a Triang Nellie, I feel unrepentant in using the geek/nerd term)

[Annie]

I much prefer classic aesthetics over the haphazard mobile plumbing catalogue look when it comes to Steampunk and railways.

[Annie]

13 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

One reading of the naming of the range is that they ferreted around in the bottom of their cardboard box filled with old trade names, looking for something, anything, that would put distance between their core train brand, Hornby, and this new punky thing, for two reasons:

 

- Hornby may be a kiss-of-death name among the sort of geeks/nerds who do steampunk, because it associates firmly with the sort of geeks/nerds who do toy trains. Creating a crossover is bound to worry geeks/nerds on both sides of the divide; and,

 

- they didn't want anyone thinking those strange things are Hornby products, in case that damaged the core brand.

 

(speaking as a chap who, until earlier today was going round in a pair of NHS-1960s-ish glasses held together with duct-tape, and has been obsessing about a Triang Nellie, I feel unrepentant in using the geek/nerd term)

That only wants me to demand that the watch gears are filed to have nice sharp edges before being superglued onto the body of the marketing idiot who thought that one up.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, webbcompound said:

On the other hand maybe we are all too concerned with British aesthetics....

 

Sometimes, life is stranger than fiction...

[Edwardian]

13 hours ago, Regularity said:

I am saddened by this desecration. Not the idea of using the BL manteau for SteamPunk ... but the crass way it has been done: let’s stick some gears and bits of plastic on our cheapest toys.

 

13 hours ago, webbcompound said:

This really is poorly conceived stuff. Just stick some straws and clock parts randomly on the outside of things.

 

 

As ever, I find myself in agreement with the Will of the People of this parish, the only sane constituency to which I belong.

 

I love the idea of a steam punk model railway range, and I have no problem with the idea of lending the Basset Lowke name to one.

 

Just not this one.

 

First, the aesthetic is off, IMHO.  Steampunk is hard to define, but you know it when you see it; I'm not seeing it.  If anything it's more Mad Max than Jules Verne, and I would have preferred original and coherent designs, eccentric yet graceful, to Hornby's Scrapyard Appliqué aesthetic.

 

Second, the execution is atrocious. Merely sticking gear wheels and bits of random junk to trainset  equipment does not a Steampunk railway range make.

 

It therefore succeeds only in doing a disservice both to this engaging genre and to the name of Basset Lowke.  I find I cannot love it. 

 

If I were looking for a place to start, I'd probably start with the paintings of Vadim Voitekhovitch, one of which Annie posted, and more of which are posted here.  Clearly, airships are his 'thing', but lots of trains, too. 

 

There are, however, a number of interesting ways you could go in design terms. I don't think Hornby's choice represents one of them. Think about all the loco chassis available to Hornby and think what you might clothe them in. 

 

If it were me, I'd be looking to see how far I could go using the Bachmann 'Emily'; a great starting place for a steampunk loco, and if I were Hornby, I'd be looking to use the Caley/Dean single chassis and designing an outré steampunk body shell for it.  I'd make a feature of the huge driving wheel splasher, play about with proportions and details, but retain a certain mad elegance and clothe it in a luscious livery. I'd pimp up my Triang short clerestories to go with it.  Then I'd probably look at my goods types and try for something bit, black and utilitarian, go for a rather ugly kind of beauty.  The Q1 is half way there already.  

 

And, finally, as Stephen has noted, what the Hornby 2020 range really needed was pre-Grouping locomotives ......

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Edwardian