Pacific Ocean Drained?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

With Hornby now well underway on a new model of the Stanier Princess, do we think 'that's it' for current standard models of pacifics, the most iconic express loco wheel arrangement used in the UK?

 

I see a fork in the road approaching. With a  finite stock of subjects, and the last popular class about to be covered, what turn to take? Is it going to be what we are now seeing with diesel traction, repeat subject, better featured model? Or is the market going to be tested with 'the others', none of which are preserved or proposed for a new build?

 

Not a clue myself, other than the thought that the Turbomotive is very funky indeed and Hornby are halfway there with a new Princess. Bears, Ravens, the Thompson Ughfest, do these have any traction?

 

 

[Zomboid]

Thompsons probably, but since the bear and Ravens didn't make it to nationalisation those seem unlikely.

[Pete the Elaner]

It depends what a manufacturer believes will sell well enough.

The Turbomotive has been mentioned. As much as I would like one, I am not convinced it will be popular enough for a manufacturer to produce it.

[cctransuk]

7 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

With Hornby now well underway on a new model of the Stanier Princess, do we think 'that's it' for current standard models of pacifics, the most iconic express loco wheel arrangement used in the UK?

 

I see a fork in the road approaching. With a  finite stock of subjects, and the last popular class about to be covered, what turn to take? Is it going to be what we are now seeing with diesel traction, repeat subject, better featured model? Or is the market going to be tested with 'the others', none of which are preserved or proposed for a new build?

 

Not a clue myself, other than the thought that the Turbomotive is very funky indeed and Hornby are halfway there with a new Princess. Bears, Ravens, the Thompson Ughfest, do these have any traction?

 

 

 

Well - if it's true that the tooling for the 'Clan' is lost / knackered, then they might have another go at that.

 

They do seem to go for silly money nowadays.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[tomparryharry]

As a Western person myself, I think there are oodles of 4-6-0's out there, just awaiting the call. By that, I mean Great Central, LNWR, LSWR, LBSCR, to name but a few. 

 

I know I keep banging on about it, but that very nice LBSCR K class mogul is just itching to be modelled, and, it'll sell, and sell well. After all, who's your target demographic?  

 

Under the contract, I'm now not allowed to mentioned the LB&SCR * class ***** model, until someone else mentions it, or the subject extends to a further 5 pages.....

 

 

[brack]

There are loads of pacifics not released as RTR models. I don't believe anyone has released any of those which happen to be tank locos for instance...

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

15 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

As a Western person myself, I think there are oodles of 4-6-0's out there, just awaiting the call...

Possibly, but they are not the iconic pacific type, which leap off the retailer's shelves and have kept Hornby afloat through every kind of experiment in mismanagement. The right stuff has carrying wheels under the firebox.

 

16 hours ago, cctransuk said:

Well - if it's true that the tooling for the 'Clan' is lost / knackered, then they might have another go at that...

Odd isn't it? Even if the physical tooling is 'lost and gone forever' Hornby will still have the research and CAD, so it is the tooling cost alone to restore to production. I would guess that the retailers haven't been on Hornby's case about the lack of this model, or something would have been done by now. (If the new build makes it to operation, that strikes me as the timing for this model to re-emerge.)

[Allegheny1600]

Maybe manufacturers could try and tackle the equally iconic (imho) Atlantic designs, surely there must be more variety there?

Presumably, this would fit with your "others".

Cheers,

John.

[melmerby]

10 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Maybe manufacturers could try and tackle the equally iconic (imho) Atlantic designs, surely there must be more variety there?

Presumably, this would fit with your "others".

Cheers,

John.

Ah!

I see you mean the GWR with North Star and some Saints as well as those nice French ones they bought

[The Johnster]

Are pacifics actually all that iconic?  I suppose FS and Mallard are, and that my view is skewed by a Western Region upbringing.  I'm a Cardiffian of a certain age, old enough to remember the trolleybuses but not the trams, so have a soft spot for Canton's Brits, but for many people who are old enough to remember the steam era, pacifics really only ever made an impact on the ECML and WCML until WW2, when they began to appear on the Southern.  But the Brighton, Midland, bulk of the GW, GE, L & Y, G & SW, and North Wales main lines never saw them until the Brits and Clans turned up, too late to make a difference, and neither of those locos can be said to have made an iconic impact.  And not even then in the case of the Brighton, though they'd had a pacific tank engine.

 

For most people, pacifics were something they'd read about.  RTR has always promoted train sets with them, though, to the detriment of realism when what is needed is 0-6-0s...

Edited July 31, 2019 by The Johnster

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Are pacifics actually all that iconic?  I suppose FS and Mallard are, and that my view is skewed by a Western Region upbringing.  I'm a Cardiffian of a certain age, old enough to remember the trolleybuses but not the trams, so have a soft spot for Canton's Brits, but for many people who are old enough to remember the steam era, pacifics really only ever made an impact on the ECML and WCML until WW2, when they began to appear on the Southern.  But the Brighton, Midland, bulk of the GW, GE, L & Y, G & SW, and North Wales main lines never saw them until the Brits and Clans turned up, too late to make a difference, and neither of those locos can be said to have made an iconic impact.  And not even then in the case of the Brighton, though they'd had a pacific tank engine.

 

For most people, pacifics were something they'd read about.  RTR has always promoted train sets with them, though, to the detriment of realism when what is needed is 0-6-0s...

If you take Birmingham New St.

An extremely busy station on two major routes and pacifics were, until the latter days of steam, like hen's teeth.

Pacifics only really appeared after they had been bumped from their original services by dieselisation.

A few Brit's, the odd A1 from the NE in latter days and Coronations once they were taken off the Trent Valley services.

[pH]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

But the Brighton, Midland, bulk of the GW, GE, L & Y, G & SW, and North Wales main lines never saw them until the Brits and Clans turned up, too late to make a difference, and neither of those locos can be said to have made an iconic impact.  

 

The G&SW saw pacifics fairly often before the Brits. With Clans shedded at both Glasgow and Carlisle, they turned up regularly on the mainline from their introduction.  They also worked the Port Road to Stranraer, and turns to and from Glasgow from there. A heavy overnight sleeper from Euston with a Duchess as power, was run over the G&SW from Carlisle, allegedly to keep it out of the way of fast commuter services into Glasgow over the ex-Caledonian lines. For a time in the early 1960s, English expresses from St.Enoch to Leeds and St.Pancras were worked by A3s transferred to Leeds depots. And, immediately before the arrival of the Brits at Kingmoor (which then took over this duty), the 5.30 PM out of St.Enoch for Carlisle regularly had a Polmadie Duchess. 

 

P.S. And I forgot (easy to do!) the A2s and A2/3s transferred to Polmadie in 1963, just before the flood of Brits into Kingmoor. They didn't last long, but they were used over the G&SW line. I've read an account by the fireman of what he believed was the last ever run of 60524, where he had to throw the fire out of the engine and fail it while working a down train north of Dumfries. 

Edited July 31, 2019 by pH

[Forester]

4 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Are pacifics actually all that iconic? ....  But the Brighton, Midland, bulk of the GW, GE, L & Y, G & SW, and North Wales main lines never saw them until the Brits and Clans turned up, too late to make a difference, and neither of those locos can be said to have made an iconic impact.  And not even then in the case of the Brighton, though they'd had a pacific tank engine.

 

 

Brighton built large numbers of pacifics.......

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Forester said:

 

Brighton built large numbers of pacifics.......

Chwarae teg, as we say in Wales, fair play.

 

1 hour ago, pH said:

 

The G&SW saw pacifics fairly often before the Brits. With Clans shedded at both Glasgow and Carlisle, they turned up regularly on the mainline from their introduction.  They also worked the Port Road to Stranraer, and turns to and from Glasgow from there. A heavy overnight sleeper from Euston with a Duchess as power, was run over the G&SW from Carlisle, allegedly to keep it out of the way of fast commuter services into Glasgow over the ex-Caledonian lines. For a time in the early 1960s, English expresses from St.Enoch to Leeds and St.Pancras were worked by A3s transferred to Leeds depots. And, immediately before the arrival of the Brits at Kingmoor (which then took over this duty), the 5.30 PM out of St.Enoch for Carlisle regularly had a Polmadie Duchess. 

 

P.S. And I forgot (easy to do!) the A2s and A2/3s transferred to Polmadie in 1963, just before the flood of Brits into Kingmoor. They didn't last long, but they were used over the G&SW line. I've read an account by the fireman of what he believed was the last ever run of 60524, where he had to throw the fire out of the engine and fail it while working a down train north of Dumfries. 

So, as I said, not until the Brits and Clans turned up.

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

If you take Birmingham New St.

An extremely busy station on two major routes and pacifics were, until the latter days of steam, like hen's teeth.

Pacifics only really appeared after they had been bumped from their original services by dieselisation.

A few Brit's, the odd A1 from the NE in latter days and Coronations once they were taken off the Trent Valley services.

This is pretty much the sort of thing I was getting at.  Birmingham was the second city of the Empire, and 3 major companies served it with 2 huge stations, yet even up to the very end of steam 4-6-0s were the norm.  Birmingham trainspotters no doubt commuted out to the field at Tamworth, but the bulk of the population of that huge metropolis probably never saw anything bigger.

[pH]

46 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

So, as I said, not until the Brits and Clans turned up.

 

I'm not sure what you mean. All the examples I gave were before the flood of Brits into Kingmoor, which started in December 1963. I was taking that as when the Brits turned up. Yes, there had been a few Brits at Carlisle (Kingmoor and Canal) before that, but all had been transferred away by summer 1963. 

 

The Clans were allocated to Polmadie and Kingmoor when new in 1952. Is that the date you're taking for when "the Brits and Clans turned up"?

[The Johnster]

Yes, 1952.  

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Are pacifics actually all that iconic?  ...

 

For most people, pacifics were something they'd read about.  RTR has always promoted train sets with them, though, to the detriment of realism when what is needed is 0-6-0s...

The answer I suggest lies in what you have written. Look at RTR OO from post-war. The big hitters, H-D and Triang, followed by the smaller Trix and Wrenn manage a quite disproportionate ratio of pacifics, relative to all other wheel arrangements in their respective ranges. They were just following the money. (It was certainly all I wanted while young, but then we did live very near the ECML, and our family regularly went the few miles to where the WCML might be seen. So I saw gleaming green pacifics always going at a 100mph or more near daily, and many times a year huge brown pacifics doing about 50mph at best. A  certain preference was formed...)

 

As for 'most people': post WWII pacifics were powering long distance services to all major population centres except Brum. Anyone in London and the home counties (and that's past a third of the population) the Leeds-Manchester,  Newcastle, Glasgow-Edinburgh conurbations (and even the very small cities of East Anglia and towns down West on the former LSWR route) could see pacifics if they used the railway. I think that's a large majority of the island covered, and all but one of its conurbations.

 

And I totally agree that the small fry of all sorts were vastly more necessary for a model railway, and happily for me Wills BEC, Stephen Poole,  K's  etc. white metal kits came to the rescue in making such things possible.

 

23 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Maybe manufacturers could try and tackle the equally iconic (imho) Atlantic designs, surely there must be more variety there?...

How much I would like that, but their day is long past, and their star somewhat faded. The count after 3 classes now with RTR OO models is about a dozen more only, and some of these are 'duplicates' of the early non superheated/later superheated variants with little to externally distinguish them. I would so like any of what became C6, C7, C8, C11 under the LNER's administration, but have no great expectation of seeing them in RTR form.

[Compound2632]

The number of potential purchasers of RTR locomotives for whom pacifics were the cult engines of their youth is dwindling. It seems to me that tastes are changing as those with no actual recollection of the steam railway, such as myself, look back to frankly more interesting and colourful times - as the success of various collectible pre-grouping engines has demonstrated. 

 

Someone mentioned the lack of pacifics on the G&SW line. Now if a RTR manufacturer was to tackle a Manson 4-6-0, I'd be at the front of the queue...

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Possibly, but with mainline steam operation dominated by pacifics, that's a factor to keep them in the public eye. The only new build with the power to work on the network is a pacific, and there is the Clan underway. Of course they might all be eclipsed by a large Mikado, but that's wait and see...

[The Johnster]

Can't agree, not with regard to the pre WW2 era anyway.  Only the ECML and WCML saw pacifics at all (we will ignore The Great Bear for now), and they were not the dominant locos on the WCML.  No GW or Southern main line saw pacific action, and neither did the Midland section of the LMS or the GE section of the LNER.  The GC section did see a few A3s, but they were the exception rather than the rule there!

 

If you look at the big industrial cities, Birmingham has already cropped up, but Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham, Leicester, Wolverhampton, and Cardiff had to wait until after nationalisation, and Sheffield only ever saw the GC allocations.

[BernardTPM]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

No GW or Southern main line saw pacific action,

Didn't Buliied build one or two Pacifics?

 

Sorry, during WW2 (but a lot of them).

Edited August 2, 2019 by BernardTPM

[Bomag]

On 31/07/2019 at 21:22, The Johnster said:

This is pretty much the sort of thing I was getting at.  Birmingham was the second city of the Empire, and 3 major companies served it with 2 huge stations, yet even up to the very end of steam 4-6-0s were the norm.  Birmingham trainspotters no doubt commuted out to the field at Tamworth, but the bulk of the population of that huge metropolis probably never saw anything bigger.

 

Dublin and then Glasgow was the second City of the UK, the second city of Empire was Bombay, Delhi or Calcutta depending on period.

 

Birmingham was not on any route which required consistent high speed or long distance haulage capacity at high output so did not need Pacifics.  The GW had a relatively small length of high speed sections so they did not need Pacifics and 4-6-0s with Welsh coal were sufficient; presumably if they had made a better fist of  the Great Bear they may have come to the same conclusion as Bulleid and Riddles that you can design a cost effective 6 or 7P pacific for widespread use, and in the latter case is easier and cheaper to maintain.

 

Similarly if the combination of better fettled track and lower speeds expected average speeds of most of pre-war LNER was swapped for later conditions the V2s (or at least some more of them than the last 4) would have been built as Pacifics  

[Zomboid]

6 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

Didn't Buliied build one or two Pacifics?

Not prior to WW2

[Compound2632]

On 31/07/2019 at 21:22, The Johnster said:

Birmingham trainspotters no doubt commuted out to the field at Tamworth, 

 

My father among them (early 1950s). By his account, the high point of excitement was when the signal came off on the main for a pacific-hauled express. He's mentioned specific nicknames for both that particular signal and a Duchess - not "Semi". Must check with him!