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Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1


Nearholmer
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Isn’t the cube of two eight?

 

Anyway, yes, at least in part because it moves things out of the realm where the non-scalability of the physics of fire and steam make things challenging.

 

I’ve quickly tired of “war on the line”, probably because thoughts of travel restrictions and austerity seem a bit too current, so here is the last picture on that theme for now.


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Into the brave, and comparatively colourful, ‘fifties with the “touring train”, which is tatty enough that carting it to other people’s layouts poses no great risk. Today, I hope it is taking an excursion-load of hill-walkers in baggy shorts and army-surplus boots to somewhere in the Peak District for a day of bracing exercise and heavy drizzle. They’ll enjoy their sandwiches and flasks of Bovril.


95A65B7D-8458-4798-9C66-C1514760B239.jpeg.3c416311ac9cf74678073df629b918d5.jpeg

 

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The reporting number thingummy on the front?

 

Funnily enough, I’ve just been looking at a picture of a WR loco working a through train on the Southern Region, and that had the big WR-type number frame, complete with reporting number, on the front, which looked rather distinctive. Southern practice was, I think, limited to pasting fairly small numbers onto one of the head code discs, and they might have shown the loco roster number rather than train number, I’m not totally sure - the train number was less less important because the discs gave the destination and route.

 

All little regional quirks.

 

PS: the cylinders seem to have fallen-off your loco; you can buy spares from a chap in Rugby.

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4 hours ago, Donw said:

If you halve the scale say 1: 16 rather than 1:32 the volume will increase eightfold.  However the cross sectional area will only increase fourfold  So on a boiler you could either increase the size of the boiler tube or put in four times as many.  Hence what works at 1/16th may need to be changed at 1/32  so things like boiler tubes are often reduced in mumber rather than in size because the airflow can be too restricted in a small tube.

Even when the scales are very close descisions about the firebars the numbers of tubes and the draughting arrangements can greatly affect the steaming ability. Also the design and execution of the steam passages in the cylinders can make a difference.

I suspect in was the design details rather than the scale difference that matter in this case.  Also the fuel and water consumption may not have been considered. You may get extra power at the expense of higher fuel consumtion.

 

Don

 

Eight, nine... picky, picky... I don’t think fuel and water consumption are really considered in models, are they? Provided the steaming time from available capacity is sufficient, isn’t that what matters? 

 

Plus, the extra capacity might be what makes the difference? 

Edited by rockershovel
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The LMS and whatever it was that succeeded it were wont to use cut out individual paste on numbers that never matched up, rather like the ransom notes crooks used to do with bits cut out of the newspapers. They also went on a side window of the front and back coaches of the train. It  looked delightfully makeshift, but you always got a procession of trains with them tearing along the North Wales Line, or heading for the Lancashire Coast.

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Regarding the weight of a 3.5 inch gauge "Maisie" GNR Atlantic versus the weight of the 3.25 inch gauge B-L one - there are different purposes and consequently different building styles:

- All the frame members on LBSC's "Maisie" are at least 1/8 inch steel plate - the photos I have seen of B-L examples look as if the frames are no more than 2/3rds the thickness.

- The Maisie boiler is designed for a working pressure of 80 p.s.i. and the plate thicknesses are at least 2 mm and around the firebox at least 3 mm (plus) copper.

- Then we come onto the Cast iron whells and the cast Gunmetal cylinders / axle-boxes / etc which are significantly more substantial - as is the platework.

 

The weight goes up easily, but then the job is different and the adhesion / grunt needed to shift 4+ burly blokes is noticeably more than running a scenic railway.

 

Regards

Chris H

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Now to a more directly related subject. The Grand-Childer-Beasts were here again today - extended half-term hols - so as we can now play trains on the two main circuits we did!

 

So a few pictures from "Gutter Lane" station area (you wouldn't know - yet).

 

Initially you will see that the local early-ish BR set ran - as I visited the loco at the 1954 exhibition in Willesden Roundhouse, for the International Railway Congress meeting held in London that year.

 

IMG_0481.jpg.42c1bd9b0efcf83d81a91e86fac4c23f.jpg

 

The small bloke is me in 1954 - I have no idea who the big bloke is! (Dad was behind the camera)

386884606_DukeofG1954001.jpg.d81df7232d301dcc90b698bd79cede4c.jpg

 

The second loco was seen at Longmoor at the last Open Day in 1969.

IMG_0490.jpg.541b8267e38b0234000cf3302ee0cf39.jpg

 

Then we went GWR for an hour or so under the control of the elder apprentice - I stood back and enjoyed the view.

IMG_0495.jpg.055118dc8a62ba6bc5b7b0fd509b0dbf.jpg

 

Psst! The pantograph in the background represents what the GWR would like to have done west of Exeter - to stop hauling so much coal around???

 

Regards

Chris H

Edited by Metropolitan H
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53 minutes ago, Metropolitan H said:

The second loco was seen at Longmoor at the last Open Day in 1969.

I was there! I'll never forget Gordon starting 14 coaches (5 LMR + 9 BR) out of Longmoor Downs.

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1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

I was there! I'll never forget Gordon starting 14 coaches (5 LMR + 9 BR) out of Longmoor Downs.

And setting the landscape alight. The only time I ended up using a fire-beater in anger.

 

An interesting day and I still have the same girlfriend / wife - it was a good party we went to that evening! Pity I was rather tired at the time.

 

Regards

Chris H

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Metropolitan H said:

And setting the landscape alight. The only time I ended up using a fire-beater in anger.

 

An interesting day and I still have the same girlfriend / wife - it was a good party we went to that evening! Pity I was rather tired at the time.

 

Regards

Chris H

 

 

Good onya as we say down here. I was a bit young for those sorts of parties...

 

 

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I often spent quite a bit of time during my school days wondering what has happened to all these larger scale trains made by Bassett Lowke and the like. The grand O gauge layouts mentioned in Fuller’s book for example. And whatever happened to all the gauge 2 and 3 stuff, has it been scrapped, or is it languishing in the sheds of well-to-do homes across the U.K.? Or is it all in private ownership somewhere? 
 

Douglas

Edited by Florence Locomotive Works
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6 hours ago, Metropolitan H said:

Regarding the weight of a 3.5 inch gauge "Maisie" GNR Atlantic versus the weight of the 3.25 inch gauge B-L one - there are different purposes and consequently different building styles:

- All the frame members on LBSC's "Maisie" are at least 1/8 inch steel plate - the photos I have seen of B-L examples look as if the frames are no more than 2/3rds the thickness.

- The Maisie boiler is designed for a working pressure of 80 p.s.i. and the plate thicknesses are at least 2 mm and around the firebox at least 3 mm (plus) copper.

- Then we come onto the Cast iron whells and the cast Gunmetal cylinders / axle-boxes / etc which are significantly more substantial - as is the platework.

 

The weight goes up easily, but then the job is different and the adhesion / grunt needed to shift 4+ burly blokes is noticeably more than running a scenic railway.

 

Regards

Chris H

There's also the question of the general philosophy of the individual designers. B-L, in the smaller sizes tended to be model manufacturers. LBSC, on the other hand, preferred to make what he regarded as small, real locomotives that sometimes bore a superficial resemblance to a larger counterpart. He certainly wrote on more than one occasion of his dislike of the term "model". As a result, the majority of his designs even the 0 gauge tiddlers, included the features noted: beefy frames, proper suspension, powerful boilers running at high pressures, robust valve gear and rods. Certainly there were exceptions, but they were exceptions, and Curly himself tended to refer to them as toys rather than models.

 

There's also the question of cost. B-L, "premium" manufacturers though they were, were still a commercial entity and had to build models at a price that the market would bear. An LBSC design, professionally built to spec, would have been a very expensive item indeed. Not a problem when the prospective owner is building it in his shed from raw materials, but not a road to profit for anyone trying to produce such a thing commercially.

 

I actually have an idea of two on how an LBSCesque SM32 live steamer might be manufactured in relatively small numbers, for a sensible price, and still offer the designer/builder a small profit, but that idea is heavily dependent on modern manufacturing techniques that simply weren't available in the 1920s. Or. really, until the last 20 years for the small player.

Edited by PatB
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Back on Western Region train reporting numbers for a moment: does anyone know whether there is a kit of the frame thing available in 0 scale, or failing that a dimensioned drawing?

 

I've had a google around and found nuffink, except a few hints that Precision labels may have once made them for JLTRT, but the Precision website? Sheesh!

Edited by Nearholmer
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Information on that does seem very sparse, all I can find is a decent photo from Slinn’s “Great Western Way”, which gives an idea of what they’re like. Possibly Sankey Scenics might do a custom pack of numbers if you asked them.

 

E1EE9716-173D-4602-8B11-2C4A89D12A46.jpeg.9d06df7217b16f511975422171b7d6a3.jpeg 

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Perfect Simon, they are indeed the supplier - I knew someone made them. One set ordered.

 

Very many thanks.

 

This is what I want to be able to represent https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p404170585/h3E1C68A3#h3e1c68a3

 

I find them very evocative of a time period, but TBH I don't really know much about how they were used. Did they only come out on summer Saturdays when the quantity of extra services made it impossible to keep a tab on things without them, or where they used all the time?

 

 

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ISR that there’s some good footage of either a GWR King or Hall running at high speed in BR days with said design of number, in Ian Allen’s Britain’s Railways Then and Now. It was on YouTube for a while, might still be, but it’s free from memory in Amazon Prime video.

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16 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

I often spent quite a bit of time during my school days wondering what has happened to all these larger scale trains made by Bassett Lowke and the like. The grand O gauge layouts mentioned in Fuller’s book for example. And whatever happened to all the gauge 2 and 3 stuff, has it been scrapped, or is it languishing in the sheds of well-to-do homes across the U.K.? Or is it all in private ownership somewhere? 
 

Douglas

 

Ned Williams, emminent social/industrial/ railway historian of the West Midlands, has a model railway in either gauge 2 or 3. The "Smoghampton and Greenhills" railway, he inherited it part-built in the 1990s. An early incarnation was in a Model Railway Enthusiast in 1997. It appeared more recently in an issue of Garden Rail- Phil Parker, of this parish, would have more details (all my copies of GR are in store at the mo, can't get to them in lockdown).

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16 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

I often spent quite a bit of time during my school days wondering what has happened to all these larger scale trains made by Bassett Lowke and the like. The grand O gauge layouts mentioned in Fuller’s book for example. And whatever happened to all the gauge 2 and 3 stuff, has it been scrapped, or is it languishing in the sheds of well-to-do homes across the U.K.? Or is it all in private ownership somewhere? 
 

Douglas

I have a 1946 Walthers catalog and have wondered the same thing about the layouts pictured therein.

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One of the great pleasures about attending gatherings such as Narogg or Tappers, or BLS or HRCA meetings, in Britain is that people are constantly turning-up with ancient models that have clear provenance as having been part of one of the "great layouts of the past". In many cases, when those layouts were dismantled, the stock, and in some cases buildings were given or auctioned to fellow enthusiasts, who value them for their history.

 

Martin Bloxsam, well known in G0G and old-0 circles is a master of this - his stud contact layout is populated by all sorts of ancient worthies from layouts like Crewchester, and he keeps really good notes of their history, and is always super-keen to share, bringing things to meetings and inviting people to come and play trains in his garden.

 

Of course, there are fewer ancient G1 and fewer still G2 ancients about, but people still occasionally  discover long-forgotten locos - a chap who attends Narogg is currently restoring a G2 LB&SCR 4-6-2T that is very definitely contemporary with the building of the real thing, and I am inclined to believe is the one illustrated as part of a huge layout shown in MR&L in 1910.

 

Even my small accumulation of junk includes a wagon body (no running gear, and clearly a half-finished project) from G P Keen's railway, plus two clockwork locos that ran on a layout at a big boarding school, were put into store when the layout was dismantled in the early 1960s, and only emerged a couple of years ago. Much to my delight one, a Walker-Fenn 0-6-0T, has part of the original box with the original owner's name and address on it - looks to me as if he took it from home to use it on the school railway and left it there when he finished at the school, probably just before WW2. I've got another 1930s loco with the birthday inscription from Auntie to its first owner on the box - I really like those personal connections, just like the inscriptions that are sometimes on the fly-leaves of old books.

 

In short, a surprising amount does survive, but it is spread mostly through private collections. Fortunately, most of the collectors love nothing more than sharing these things with the rest of us!

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23 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

has part of the original box with the original owner's name and address on it

My Mogul has the same thing, except the box has a Cunard line baggage label! I think I’ve already posted the owner/engines history on this thread, but if anybody’s curious I’ll post it again. 

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Probably, but not definitely. In the days before permanent magnets, a wound field motor was the only choice, so an on-board reverser was needed even with a dc supply.

 

Ive got more detail of the reverser in a couple of sources, so if I get time i ferret them out and see whether it is designed for ac or dc.

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