Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[rockershovel]

6 minutes ago, Donw said:

I have two rolling roads one is for 2 rail 0 gauge locos only. The other is adjustable to 0 or 1 gauge for steam locos  or clockwork no insulation between the rails. Neither sound much help to you.

 

Don

 

Could be. 3-rail locos don’t require insulation between the rails, and only require a short section of central conductor rail (apart from the occasional ones fitted with whistles in the tender). The problems seem to revolve around security of the rollers, and the particular wheel profiles. 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It’s a very accurate model By the standards of the day too.
 

 

Hornby made one too, and that is also very good, but ever-so-slightly more toy-like.

Bassett Lowke also made a industrial model of a err, “milk pumping station” for United Dairies complete with super detailed tank wagon. It’s pictured in the Bassett Lowke story, which now I remember you have. 

[sncf231e]

5 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

That looks rather good. How do you find Lionel 3-rail locos perform on it? There seem to be two issues - wheel profile, and security of the rollers with large locos. The price looks reasonable, too. 

I do not think I ever had a problem with any loco with this rolling road. Mine has 19 rollers (so I can run from 0-4-0 to a (3-rail) Big Boy on it).

Regards

Fred

[Nearholmer]

Rambling on the theme of comparative tank wagons, here are some green ones.

 

I think I’ve shown both before, but the 1930s one is the sibling of the milk tanker, and in better mechanical condition, although the other side is in poor cosmetic condition, almost certainly due to sun damage. It cost a princely £17 from a house-clearance chap who thought it was the much more common Hornby version. The ETS ones has milk-tanker boards, which is a bit peculiar.
 

The weakness of the single pressing including sole-bar and W-iron must have become apparent by WW2, because post-war wagons have a much stronger arrangement, with the W-irons fitted to a sub-assembly. I think the postwar steel is better too - I reckon it is a slightly higher carbon grade, less mild, and the tooling seems to have been capable of sharper bends. I wonder if they acquired hydraulic tools to replace fly-presses when engaged on war work.

 

Edited October 5, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Florence Locomotive Works]

This may be a slightly stupid question, but does ETS still make British outline wagons? I ask as they seemed a bit cheaper than Ace/Darstaed or BL.

[kernowtim]

13 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

This may be a slightly stupid question, but does ETS still make British outline wagons? I ask as they seemed a bit cheaper than Ace/Darstaed or BL.

ETS currently make British outline wagons for Raylo & WJ Vintage, As well as some continental wagons in British liveries. They also made some of the Corgi Bassett lowke range.

[Nearholmer]

Many ETS British wagons use tooling that was originally made for modern Bassett Lowke (i.e. Corgi then Hornby Margate), and is now used by them for commissioners such as W J Vintage, Raylo, and Ace. ETS have also developed new tooling for WJV/Raylo for things like bogie wagons.

 

I think ETS might sell a few British wagons under their own label (some 6W tanks, I think), but the vast majority of their British models come to market under British labels.

 

Price-wise, the modern BL was priced way too high for the market, presumably because it was carrying high overheads and profit margins for Corgi then Hornby Margate, which is part of what killed it. But, they vastly over-ordered too, ending-up by dumping stock at "fire sale" prices, and  even now there is some 'New Old Stock' around, and secondhand/NOS prices for mint items range from comparable with newly commissioned things in the case of the more sought after items (BL advertising wagons and tanks; milk tank) to much lower for the less sought after ordinary wagons, vans, and petrol tankers.

 

Some wildly optimistic/greedy dealers try to get secondhand prices for modern BL that are equal to the prices they were initially sold at, or even more, which becomes most starkly apparent not with the wagons but with the Class 20 loco, which you will see advertised secondhand at prices higher than a brand new one costs from ETS today!

 

Scour the secondhand market (don't buy the first one you see - it might be overpriced), and look at WJV's website for new prices.

 

Vintage BL prices divide into two: postwar wagons are very cheap, maybe £10 each for vans and opens, £25 for brakevans, in mint/excellent, often boxed, condition; pre-war wagons vary from 'reasonable' for the more common ones to "How much??!!" for the very rare ones in top condition (which is why I only have slightly dog-eared ones).

 

 

Edited October 5, 2020 by Nearholmer

[GRASinBothell]

Interesting that you mention the Ace wagon as sharing the same tooling, however I have found that the Ace coal wagon is rather meatier than the others (I found myself tempted by the one from the Somerset coal field!). So, I went upstairs, and did a little measuring. The body of the Ace coal wagon is 125 mm (long) x 57 mm (wide) x 35 mm (tall), whereas the Bassett-Lowke and WJ Vintage coal wagons measure 115 mm (long) x 55 mm (wide) x 32 mm (tall). I rather wonder whether Ace wagons do, in fact, share the same tooling...

Gordon

[brianusa]

Hi Gordon, how are things your side of the Sound?

Quite a long while ago I purchased the BL Cl.20 set in a wooden box with a couple of vans cheap, from Hattons.  Hardly used it as the loco was DC and didn't really like some tinplate track and Lionel points.  Likewise the ACE Commemoration loco,  both sitting on the shelves now!

              Brian.

[GRASinBothell]

Static would be the best answer I could come up with, Brian!

I also have an Ace Celebration that doesn't get much use - there are way too many others now to give it track room! Actually, I've just got one more - one of the WJ Vintage (i.e. ETS) Austerity tank locos in post-war Army livery - I've just been running it with a train of "essential" military supplies (i.e. all my beer wagons!).

Gordon

[bruce palmer]

Re Hornby tender wheels ...of course they are available ..one Chris Ford of Rugby UK does them in white metal , turned . They work very well ...how can the rest of us forget him ?

 

 

Hes listed in the UIK HRCA spares Directory but do you want his contact details ?

 

Bruce

[goldfish]

9 hours ago, GRASinBothell said:

Interesting that you mention the Ace wagon as sharing the same tooling, however I have found that the Ace coal wagon is rather meatier than the others (I found myself tempted by the one from the Somerset coal field!). So, I went upstairs, and did a little measuring. The body of the Ace coal wagon is 125 mm (long) x 57 mm (wide) x 35 mm (tall), whereas the Bassett-Lowke and WJ Vintage coal wagons measure 115 mm (long) x 55 mm (wide) x 32 mm (tall). I rather wonder whether Ace wagons do, in fact, share the same tooling...

Gordon

 

I believe that the easiest way to identify ETS built wagons is by the way the couplings are attached. If they are attached with M3 nuts and a screw they are ETS, if they attached with a clevis pin and spring washer, or some other device, they are not.

The newer ACE coal wagons also represent the opening end door, which the ETS artwork does not. They also have brake levers which ares missing from the ETS casting.

Edited October 6, 2020 by goldfish

[Nearholmer]

This type of Ace wagon certainly isn’t the old Corgi tooling, but I thought, maybe wrongly, that they were still made for Ace by ETS.

 

Were they actually contracted to Darstaed or elsewhere in the Far East then?

 

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by Nearholmer

[goldfish]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Were they actually contracted to Darstaed or elsewhere in the Far East then?

 

According to the ACE website "We have also licenced the tooling of our former ACE Trains coal wagon including coal load to Station Masters Rooms". Which implies that they are using their own tooling. By the look of the wheels I think they are made by Darstaed,

[Nearholmer]

Could well be. I suspect that some odd runs of coaches sold under the Ace label have come via Darsaed too. The BR-livery suburban coaches that are sold in sets with tank engines being the ones I'm thinking about.

[Nearholmer]

A parcel of what most people would consider scrap-iron arrived at lunchtime.

 

These are immediately pre-WW2 BL wagons (W-irons integral with solebars) fitted with the uncommon BL pre-war auto-coupler. Given the price I paid, I think I’m probably alone in being excited by this, but cannot resist foisting them upon readers of this thread!

 

 

The auto-couplers are truly gross, but they do have a ‘delayed uncoupling’ capability, and a little dangly bit that allows them to couple to ordinary, tasteful, drop-links.

 

 

Picture of nether-regions to allow pre and post war comparison.
 

 

 

The opens are in decent condition, but the vans aren’t really, so quite what to do with this lot I’m not sure!

[goldfish]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

These are immediately pre-WW2 BL wagons (W-irons integral with solebars) fitted with the uncommon BL pre-war auto-coupler. Given the price I paid, I think I’m probably alone in being excited by this, but cannot resist foisting them upon readers of this thread!

 

Thank you for the pictures. Gross is in the eye of the beholder. Pre-war tinplate with MEN365 couplers, fascinating.

[rockershovel]

I do like the London Brick wagons... living as I do within walking distance of the great brickworks (I played rugby at Phorpres Road at one time.. ) I must find room for some of those! 

 

* the spelling Phorpres is a trade name, particularly associated with London Brick Fletton bricks, although they didn’t originate it and others also used it. It refers to the manufacturing process, by which bricks were “pressed” four times (four press, geddit?). Despite this the local pronounciation appears to be “poor-fers” or “forps” and the spelling varies according to taste. 

Edited October 6, 2020 by rockershovel

[Nearholmer]

That brick-company coal wagon is actually in a short-lived livery, dating from when Forders had been subsumed by The LBC, but the various Forders works were still trading under their original name. The Forders name wasn't dropped from the official title of the company until 1936, but they'd long ceased using it for trading purposes by then.

 

Its supposed to be getting mounted on a little wooden plinth as a mantelpiece ornament for my SiL and her husband, because their house was built by Forders/LBC as part of a terrace of 'model' workers' homes when a new brickworks was being established in 1928. There are good aerial photos showing the terrace, brand-new among fields, with works development just beginning. Nearly ninety years on, the cycle is complete, brickworks went about twenty years ago, pits filled-in, and largely back to how it was.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

53 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

A parcel of what most people would consider scrap-iron arrived at lunchtime.

 

These are immediately pre-WW2 BL wagons (W-irons integral with solebars) fitted with the uncommon BL pre-war auto-coupler. Given the price I paid, I think I’m probably alone in being excited by this, but cannot resist foisting them upon readers of this thread!

 

 

 

Interesting indeed, if this is a contemporary representation of LMS bauxite livery. It looks chocolaty - unless that's down to your lighting?

[Nearholmer]

The pre-war litho is Somewhat chocolatey, and the post-war is very brown.  The pre-war underframes and floors are a redder colour, sprayed enamel, which is pretty much the same as Hornby LMS bauxite, so I think the chocolatiness is a quirk, rather than a valid representation, but who knows? I certainly wasn’t there. 
 

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by Nearholmer

[GRASinBothell]

Given the long-running disagreement between Allen and Andries, I very much doubt if any Ace products since about 2008 would have been subcontracted to Darstaed. I suspect it is just a case of Ace specifying a body size to fit a standard Ace chassis. I suppose the tooling ETS uses could allow for different sizes.

I have wondered about those suburban carriages in the sets, given that the tooling from the C1s was lost to Ace when the split between Allen and Andries occurred. Of course, Ace has produced the Met/LT coaches since then, which is possibly the source of the design/tooling for the suburban coaches, with different artwork.

Gordon

[rockershovel]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

That brick-company coal wagon is actually in a short-lived livery, dating from when Forders had been subsumed by The LBC, but the various Forders works were still trading under their original name. The Forders name wasn't dropped from the official title of the company until 1936, but they'd long ceased using it for trading purposes by then.

 

Its supposed to be getting mounted on a little wooden plinth as a mantelpiece ornament for my SiL and her husband, because their house was built by Forders/LBC as part of a terrace of 'model' workers' homes when a new brickworks was being established in 1928. There are good aerial photos showing the terrace, brand-new among fields, with works development just beginning. Nearly ninety years on, the cycle is complete, brickworks went about twenty years ago, pits filled-in, and largely back to how it was.

 

Indeed. No flettons have come from Fletton for many years, the area is now built up as far as the A1 but the Whittlesey kilns still operate, the navvy with his hod is still to be seen on lorries on the A1 and the “Woodston Loop” from Fletton Goods Yard to Longville Junction is now the access to the NVR, who perpetuate the spelling at the reconstructed junction with their tracks (the usual local spelling seen in the Psrish church, boundary and school being Orton Longueville) 

 

[bruce palmer]

Re the prewar BL wagons ...great as far as Im concerned . Nearholmer, I think I have a bag of those autocouplers some where  if you need some . Bruce

[brianusa]

"Return to Fletton" has been imprinted on my mind since my pre war Dublo days.  So I had to obtain the O gauge version.

    Brian.