GWR & LNWR Pre-grouping 4mm locos workbench

[Mikkel]

What a treasure trove of locos this is turning into. 

 

I'm a little confused about the three variants of 517s you're building. Have I got this right:

 

1) Inside bearings and Belpaire firebox

2) inside bearings and roundtopped firebox

3) Outside bearings enclosed cab long wheelbase

[Brassey]

What a treasure trove of locos this is turning into. 

 

I'm a little confused about the three variants of 517s you're building. Have I got this right:

 

1) Inside bearings and Belpaire firebox

2) inside bearings and roundtopped firebox

3) Outside bearings enclosed cab long wheelbase

 

Hi Mikkel,

 

No not quite right.  No Belpaires here.  Quarryscapes of this Parish is probably utterly confused by the amount of number plates I have ordered as I constantly change my mind but here is the current running order:

 

1. No 835 inside bearings, short 15' wheelbase, slim Wolverhampton style valance, round top firebox, half cab.  Allocated to Leominster in 1912. Rescued M&L (now Gibson) kit which only came with a 15' chassis

 

2. No 848 outside bearings, long 15' 6" wheelbase, deeper Swindon valance, round top firebox, enclosed cab.  Allocated to Kidderminster in July 1912.  Mainly modified Mallard kit with High Level 14xx chassis.  This was one of the locos that was finished in the lined Chocolate livery.

 

3. Malcolm Mitchell 517 kit.  I had intended to build this as a long wheelbase outside bearings, Swindon valance style half cab round top but it is likely to be no 1482 which was allocated to Hereford in 1912 but was also an enclosed cab.  What is interesting is that, according to John Copsey's The 517 Class At Work in the Great Western Journal, on 25 Aug 1911 no 1424 worked the 11:40 Hereford to Craven Arms.  Now according to the Carriage Diagram of October 1911, this was made up of LNWR stock so we have a GWR engine pulling an LNWR train. This increasing the scope of use for these 517s but the Mitchell kit won't be built till I get round to that train.

 

In the meantime, here is a scan of a Polaroid of 835 as she was when I first finished her in the early 1980's when the kit first appeared.  She is posed in front of an Airfix signal box my brother built:

 

 

These are most of the parts I rescued though I won't be using the tanks sides:

 

 

This is how the beams are arranged to allow the centre axle to be driven and yes the offside front Gibson wheel is really that wobbly though I have done my best to remedy this.:

 

 

The original Sharman wheels were donated to number 848.  The spare couple of axles of Gibson wheels that I had to replace them must have a much bigger throw cos I had to take a large amount out of the footplate to clear the cranks, now all hidden.

 

 

Edit to add picture

Edited August 29, 2017 by Brassey

[Mikkel]

Thanks for the clarification Brassey. All interesting stuff and that Polaroid photo is so evocative!

[drduncan]

Could you share the coach working information?

[drduncan]

And the Hereford loco allocations?

D

[Brassey]

Could you share the coach working information?

 

Hi Duncan

 

I'd already sent you these following your appeal on this site a few months back.  We spoke about it at the EMGS skills day

 

Peter

[Brassey]

And the Hereford loco allocations?

D

PM sent

[Brassey]

Could you share the coach working information?

 

The carriage workings do not specify the actual make up of the local branch trains but most of the pictures in "The Tenbury and Bewdley Railway" show GWR 4 wheelers

 

In addition at http://www.gwr.org.uk/prot36.html it states coach T36 Brake Third No. 949 was allocated to this work as built so I am sure my assumption is correct.

[Methuselah]

A fascinating thread for me as I'm modelling Tenbury focussed on a similar period.....

[Brassey]

A fascinating thread for me as I'm modelling Tenbury focussed on a similar period.....

 

Thanks for the interest.

 

A number of the Tenbury trains started/finished at Ludlow so didn't run through Berrington an Eye.  

 

There was one GW Goods train to Stourbridge Junction that did and a RR GW Cattle train from Leominster to Bewdley.  

 

Both these are on my build list and gives me an excuse to build a saddle/pannier tank and/or a Beyer Goods to run them

[Brassey]

Last year I made the resolution that I would build stock according to the demands of the timetable of the layout and made a start with the first train.  And thus I would no longer get side tracked into building the latest kit I'd acquired or something someone else was doing on a forum that looked interesting or I'd read about in a magazine etc.  I'm sure we've all been there.

 

This year, in order to speed up progress, I have decided to build things straight from the box rather than kit mingling of which I am very fond but does take a lot longer.  Also if there is a pause in the process (such as Xmas) it's easy to forget which bit you're going to pinch from which kit putting the whole thing on hold whilst you try to remember.

 

 

So that's this year's resolution.  Whilst I build up the will power to paint the 517's, next up is an LNWR Coal Engine from an LRM kit.  This build has been started on a blog rather add too many boring details to this thread before there is anything to show.  The Coal Engine fits the plan because the next train on the list is an LNWR fast goods.  Bearing in mind that the line featured Express Goods and Special Express Goods, the only thing I can tell defines a "fast goods" is that it did not stop at every station unlike a local making it faster.  So the LNWR Coal Engine will fit the job.

[Brassey]

Now that I have a chassis ready for painting (re LNWR Coal Engine blog) I really need to bite the bullett and get on with the paint jobs in the queue.  So I have finished GWR 517 class no. 835 ready for painting.  

 

This is a real Frankenstein of a model with whitemetal, brass, nickel silver bits both kit sourced and scratch built.  A bit more tidying up particularly the chimney which I am sure is on straight but the camera has distorted:

 

 

It doesn't look too bad given its ancient ancestry

[Mikkel]

Classic lines. Northern Division salutes you.

 

Incidentally I was admiring Lee Marsh's lined brown version earlier today. Not a bad livery actually. Would have been interesting if that had spread. An opportunity for a parallel universe layout, perhaps.

[Brassey]

Classic lines. Northern Division salutes you.

 

Incidentally I was admiring Lee Marsh's lined brown version earlier today. Not a bad livery actually. Would have been interesting if that had spread. An opportunity for a parallel universe layout, perhaps.

 

Mine does not look quite as clean as Lee Marsh's but then mine cost me next to nothing!

 

My longer wheel base full cab version is one of those that was finished in brown.  Rather than 848 as stated previously it will now be number 1425 which was shedded at Leominster in 1912.  Just got the plates from Coast Line along with 1445 which was a Shrewsbury based Metro Tank that spent the summer of 1912 at Ludlow sub-shed

[Brassey]

835 GWR 517 class is out of the paintshop.  A bit of touching up to do, numbers to be added and varnishing/weathering

 

 

Edit: PS also whistles to be added which I got at ScalefourNorth last weekend

Edited April 22, 2018 by Brassey

[Brassey]

Progress on GWR 517 1425 has been slow but I have made the bunker and cab rear.  Needs beading doing and lamp irons before final fitting:

 

[Brassey]

Progress on the 517's has been typically glacial but 835 now has her numbers.  Just buffer heads, rear buffer beam numbers and some cab detailing to do.  I have bought the whistles and will fit them to the cab roof once I've found them again.

 

 

And 1425 has the 'armchair' bunker beaded and fitted along with lamp irons and the closed cab.  This one will be finished in chocolate.

 

 

I've also been doing a spot of ballasting in the meantime.

[davelester]

Dear Brassey,

 

I've just discovered this thread, and what a pleasant surprise!

 

One problem I've been having with old-style GWR locomotives is finding the information. I have a set of RCTS books. I have some of the Russell books. But as far as I know none of them have details about splasher widths (your first post on the Dean Goods). So what source material are you using?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Mikkel]

"Armchair bunker", that's a nice name for it, hereby adopted 

[Brassey]

Dear Brassey,

 

I've just discovered this thread, and what a pleasant surprise!

 

One problem I've been having with old-style GWR locomotives is finding the information. I have a set of RCTS books. I have some of the Russell books. But as far as I know none of them have details about splasher widths (your first post on the Dean Goods). So what source material are you using?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

Hi thanks for the question.   Well I cheat by firstly copying what the kit manufacturers have done who may have had a GA drawing to refer to when designing the kit.  In that instance I used a Martin Finney Dean Goods kit but I also have a Malcolm Mitchell 517 which does include copies of GA's with the instructions.  However, the kit manufacturers will have designed the splashers wider to take account of the narrower BTB in OO so I take this back out as I model P4.  You can see that the splashers on 835 are wider than on 1425 because 835 uses the splashers from an old white metal M&L kit whereas the splasher tops on 1425 are scratch built.  I also refer to photos to gauge what looks right; to see the wheel behind the splasher would be wrong.  P4 wheels are thinner than OO so the splashers can be narrower.  Both these kits and my 1425 have valve gear so narrower splashers give a better chance of seeing this between the frames.  So far I have not built any working valve gear though! Don't hold our breath.

 

PS:  IIRC the Finney Dean Goods has a choice of different width splashers depending on which discipline you model.

 

"Armchair bunker", that's a nice name for it, hereby adopted 

Hi Mikkel,  I think I borrowed that description from the Malcolm Mitchell instructions (as well as the design of the bunker itself and some spare parts).  The second bunker did not work out as well as the first; strange how my modelling gets worse with practice.

 

Peter

Edited November 6, 2018 by Brassey

[Brassey]

 

... What is interesting is that, according to John Copsey's The 517 Class At Work in the Great Western Journal, on 25 Aug 1911 no 1424 worked the 11:40 Hereford to Craven Arms.  Now according to the Carriage Diagram of October 1911, this was made up of LNWR stock so we have a GWR engine pulling an LNWR train. This increasing the scope of use for these 517s but the Mitchell kit won't be built till I get round to that train.

 

 

 

 

Whilst I was pondering how to use the 517's I have on the workbench, I'd completely forgotten this fact that they could have pulled LNWR trains too.  It helps to go back and read your own Topics!

 

I have a soft spot for these small GWR tanks so the candidate local trains are:

 

06:40 Leominster Woofferton

10:05 Ludlow Hereford

10:53 Hereford Craven Arms

11:47 Ludlow Hereford

11:40 Hereford Craven Arms

16:30 Hereford Craven Arms

18:30 Hereford Ludlow

20:53 Woofferton Leominster

 

Ludlow also had a Metro so that's another candidate loco for this list.

 

My rather ambitious objective is to run a 24hr timetable which would be about 90 train movements.  I recently tried to rationalise the list by taken out the goods RR's (Run as Required) which took it down to about 80.  However, in doing that and going through the WTT again I found a couple of trains I had missed! One was an LNWR loco coal empty which is easy enough as I have salted away a number of Ratio LNWR loco coal wagons which would now run with removable loads to go both up and down.  

 

The other train though was an LNWR ballast train that ran from Llandovery via Craven Arms through Hereford presumably to Abergavenny Junction and onwards. I had discounted any LNWR permanent way trains because from circa 1907 the track was in the hands of the GWR but I had overlooked the possibility of trains passing through.

 

The timing of this train through Berrington and Eye in the morning moves it to number 3 on build schedule but I better get on with finishing off the coaches to go with the 517's before I start on a new train:-  

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/72342-lnwr-coaches-gwr-coaches/

 

Peter

Edited November 18, 2018 by Brassey

[GWR8700]

Fantastic work, it's coming along great!

[drduncan]

Useful info.

Duncan

[Brassey]

For those interested in the information, the immediately prior passenger train to the 06:40 Leominster Woofferton was the 03:30 Shrewsbury LNW Mail.  This being a strict LNWR train, it does not seem to appear in the GWR Working Timetable (Service Time Table).  The formation was:

 

Sorting Van Euston to Merthyr 

Break Van (X) Euston to Hereford

Two Post Offices Tamworth to Hereford

Break Compo (42ft) Crewe to Merthyr

Break Van Crewe to Cardiff (RR)

 

The Break Compo (42ft) Crewe to Merthyr is interesting because there are no through carriages in and out of Merthyr listed in the passenger timetable. To catch this you would have to be on the platform at Crewe by 1:45am! It is the only passenger carriage in the train.

 

This train stopped at Craven Arms, Ludlow and Leominster on way to Hereford.  I wonder what locomotive was in charge.  Maybe a Renown or Precursor but it also gives me an excuse for an Experiment 4-6-0

Edited November 22, 2018 by Brassey

[Compound2632]

For those interested in the information, the immediately prior passenger train to the 06:40 Leominster Woofferton was the 03:30 Shrewsbury LNW Mail.  This being a strict LNWR train, it does not seem to appear in the GWR Working Timetable (Service Time Table).  The formation was:

 

Sorting Van Euston to Merthyr 

Break Van (X) Euston to Hereford

Two Post Offices Tamworth to Hereford

Break Compo (42ft) Crewe to Merthyr

Break Van Crewe to Cardiff (RR)

 

The Break Compo (42ft) Crewe to Merthyr is interesting because there are no through carriages in and out of Merthyr listed in the passenger timetable. To catch this you would have to be on the platform at Crewe by 1:45am! It is the only passenger carriage in the train.

 

This train stopped at Craven Arms, Ludlow and Leominster on way to Hereford.  I wonder what locomotive was in charge.  Maybe a Renown or Precursor but it also gives me an excuse for an Experiment 4-6-0

 

Is the brake compo possibly for staff accommodation?