Castle Aching

[Northroader]

Wait til  next month:

[Nearholmer]

This is getting quite good, in that 999 and 2000 were both made as clockwork models pre-Great War, and a few pages on we can show the Bassett Lowke and  Hornby clockwork Compounds.

 

The more eagle-eyed readers may spot the dodge used to get 2000 round tinplate curves.

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Hroth]

Ok, the leading driver has metamorphosed into a pony truck, but for once it doesn't look unusual.  Could they have tried the same solution that Lima came up with on their 0-6-0 OO/HO mechanisms, a floating central driver, or would the wheelbase have been  too long?

[Nearholmer]

I think at the time it was probably about using a standard, mass-produced, 4-coupled mechanism, as well as about the curves. That loco is by Maerklin, who never did very well in Britain, because they weren't careful-enough about scale, proportion etc. Their NBR Atlantic was very poorly proportioned, almost laughable, and later they made some very over-scale locos. Britain became scale-oriented sooner than Germany, under the combined influences of Bassett-Lowke and Greenly.

 

Bing went at the same slot in the market, a recognisable model of a modern suburban passenger tank, using a standard mechanism, at a reasonable price, by producing the GWR "Birdcage", which wasn't bang on scale, but looked very good, and had all the right wheels in all the right places. IIRC Greenly designed that model for them.

 

If you want to see a really bizarre loco, try a GER Decapod, again using a standard mechanism and able to go round tinplate curves. I think it was Maerklin who made that too.

[Edwardian]

Today's Beard is that of S W Johnson (1831-1912), locomotive superintendent of the Great Eastern Railway, where he built the first 0 4-4 side tank engines, and introduced the inside cylinder 4-4-0 to England (the type having appeared in Scotland three years earlier).

 

 

Not sure what he went on and did after that, but I seem to recall he stuck with locomotive design.

 

[Buhar]

6 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Not  sure what he went on and did after that, but I seem to recall he stuck with locomotive design.

I believe he went and played in an octopus's garden. 

 

I think Stephen may be along shortly to clarify. 

 

Alan 

[Northroader]

 

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Today's Beard is that of S W Johnson (1831-1912), locomotive superintendent of the Great Eastern Railway, where he built the first 0 4-4 side tank engines, and introduced the inside cylinder 4-4-0 to England (the type having appeared in Scotland three years earlier).

 

 

Not sure what he went on and did after that, but I seem to recall he stuck with locomotive design.

 

Lovely, such beautiful engines.  I feel quite overcome........Oh dear I seem to have something in my eye.

[Compound2632]

57 minutes ago, Buhar said:

I believe he went and played in an octopus's garden. 

 

I think Stephen may be along shortly to clarify. 

 

Alan 

 

Famously, S.W. Johnson was locomotive engineer to the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in the mid-1860s. Here's a gallery of his mates and their beards, all seen rather later in their careers:

 

William Stroudley, Works Manager:

 

 

Dugald Drummond, Assistant Works Manager:

 

 

Walter Mackersie Smith, Chief Draughtsman:

 

 

Drummond's daughter Christine married Johnson's son James (Locomotive Superintendent of the Great North of Scotland in the 90s).

 

Enough tentacles?

 

[Edwardian]

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Famously, S.W. Johnson was locomotive engineer to the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in the mid-1860s.

 

 

Walter Mackersie Smith, Chief Draughtsman:

 

 

Did he work part-time as a Russian emigre nihilist anarchist bomb-plotter?

 

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Drummond's daughter Christine married Johnson's son James (Locomotive Superintendent of the Great North of Scotland in the 90s).

 

 

 

 

Does History record whether either wore beards?

 

Nice lines, though ....

 

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Did he work part-time as a Russian emigre nihilist anarchist bomb-plotter?

 

He was Locomotive, Carriage, and Wagon Superintendent of the Japanese Imperial Railways, 1874-1883, which may explain. There was plenty of Russian plotting in Japan around that time, if Boris Akunin is to be believed - The Diamond Chariot (2003). Under his real name of Grigori Chkhartishvili, he's an expert on Japanese literature, so should know.

 

7 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Does History record whether either wore beards?

 

 

I've not tracked down photos of either. Putting James, Johnson, and Scotland into Google isn't very helpful, turning up James I & VI, the Prime Minister attempting to follow in the steps of Finn McCool, James Boswell and Samuel Johnson making their famous tour, or assorted professional gentlemen, some in kilts. 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

35 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Walter Mackersie Smith, Chief Draughtsman:

 

 

 

 

 

It appears some junior draughtsman seems to have attracted his beady eye. Either that or he's just realised that his beard has mysteriously caught fire. 

[Edwardian]

20 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

I've not tracked down photos of eithe.   Putting James, Johnson, and Scotland into Google isn't very helpful, turning up  ..... assorted professional gentlemen, some in kilts. 

 

How very distressing for you.  I'm sorry now I asked

 

Personal disclosure time: I have worn a kilt. 

[Buhar]

I wore my kilt for the Istanbul bit of our wedding. It literally stopped traffic! In Istanbul stopping moving traffic is a major achievement. 

 

Alan 

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Walter Mackersie Smith, Chief Draughtsman:

 

Uncanny resemblance to Lenin...

[Edwardian]

22 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Uncanny resemblance to Lenin...

 

Well, of course, "Lenin" was not his real name.  actually, the Bolshevik leader's name was Vladimir Ilyich Mackersie Smith

[Hroth]

59 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Personal disclosure time: I have worn a kilt. 

 

TMI

 

40 minutes ago, Buhar said:

I wore my kilt for the Istanbul bit of our wedding. It literally stopped traffic! In Istanbul stopping moving traffic is a major achievement. 

 

TMI.  Did you get whistled at?

 

38 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Uncanny resemblance to Lenin...

 

14 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Well, of course, "Lenin" was not his real name.  actually, the Bolshevik leader's name was Vladimir Ilyich Mackersie Smith

 

But what all interested folk need to know, was beard wearing mandatory in The Draughtsmans Contract?

 

 

[Annie]

Looking at old photos of railway staff it seems that at a certain level of seniority a beard of some description was almost compulsory. 

[wagonman]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Does History record whether either wore beards?

 

I have reason to believe that Christine Drummond was clean shaven for most of her life...

[St Enodoc]

4 minutes ago, wagonman said:

 

I have reason to believe that Christine Drummond was clean shaven for most of her life...

TMI

[wagonman]

Delving even further back – it's seriously difficult keeping up the pace hereabouts – when Sam Fay took up his post at the MSWJR he transformed the outfit so radically that people started to complain about having missed their train because it departed on time.

[Donw]

1 hour ago, wagonman said:

 

I have reason to believe that Christine Drummond was clean shaven for most of her life...

 

Was she not unshaven (or at least her face, I believe ladies may shave areas few men do). Any suggestion she needed to shave her face regularly might be taken as a slur

 

Don

[Schooner]

13 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Leaving aside the hair shirt hair suit hirsute, or otherwise, for a moment - the 417s really were lookers  

 

Nice pert  [on reflection] tender too, although 421 herself looks in need of a little TLC:

 

A preliminary scout about the internet suggests that if one were to model a 417 [in 4mm], a worse start could be made than from here.

 

Thoughts?

Edited April 7, 2020 by Schooner
Glasses wiped; scale noted

[robmcg]

11 hours ago, Annie said:

Lovely, such beautiful engines.  I feel quite overcome........Oh dear I seem to have something in my eye.

 

That's what comes of leaning recklessly out of windows while the train is in motion...

[dunwurken]

Not only has the thread racked up 1,000 pages but there have been in excess of 25,000 posts  on the thread.  If my calculations are correct the first post on page 1001 was post No. 25000.

Malcolm