Locomotion & Rails of Sheffield announce SE&CR D Class

[Venator]

Got x4 on order. SE&CR n.o 488 & 726, SR 1730 and BR 31574. I would have ordered the other two if money was no object! Must say I am delighted with the sample photos they do look really good. Hopefully the quality control and testing has been rigourous.

[Jack P]

Not to sound overly negative, (because across the range there has been a vast improvement over the original samples) but the Southern black one still doesn't look right to me, as the below pictures should illustrate.

The cabside letters and 'Southern' on the tender look much too big and bulky to me. The Sunshine/BR one looks to have much more reasonably sized numbers.

 

It doesn't matter too much, as it's well within the scope of most modellers to apply new transfers with the possibility of giving it a new identity in the process.

 

Are the buffers sprung?

 

 

 

 

[JSpencer]

1 hour ago, PaulRhB said:

Are these emails from Locomotion or Rails? Only asking as I didn’t get anything about confirming the price either but my order is still in my Rails account. If it’s Rails too I’ll have to contact Oliver again as I raised this a few months ago. 

 

I have orders with both but only recieved mails from Locomotion.

[truffy]

3 hours ago, Graham_Muz said:

Sorry not really, they are still black but in bright sunshine, in the same way the boiler has a bleached out stripe down the middle. 

Far be it for me to disagree with you Graham, and I rarely enter into these debates, but the boiler handrail around the smokebox has a distinct lustre to it that suggests brass, not black. Also note the shadow is more brown.

[Graham_Muz]

24 minutes ago, truffy said:

Far be it for me to disagree with you Graham, and I rarely enter into these debates, but the boiler handrail around the smokebox has a distinct lustre to it that suggests brass, not black. Also note the shadow is more brown.

I still stand by my original view. Locomotive handrails are steel not brass and this loco photograph is under strong sunlight. 

[Graham_Muz]

41 minutes ago, Jack P said:

Not to sound overly negative, (because across the range there has been a vast improvement over the original samples) but the Southern black one still doesn't look right to me, as the below pictures should illustrate.

The cabside letters and 'Southern' on the tender look much too big and bulky to me. The Sunshine/BR one looks to have much more reasonably sized numbers.

 

It doesn't matter too much, as it's well within the scope of most modellers to apply new transfers with the possibility of giving it a new identity in the process.

 

Are the buffers sprung?

 

 

 

 

a good point Jack, and another reason why I will be renumbering the one I have on order. 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Graham_Muz

[Calidore]

1 hour ago, Jack P said:

Not to sound overly negative, (because across the range there has been a vast improvement over the original samples) but the Southern black one still doesn't look right to me, as the below pictures should illustrate.

The cabside letters and 'Southern' on the tender look much too big and bulky to me. The Sunshine/BR one looks to have much more reasonably sized numbers.

 

It doesn't matter too much, as it's well within the scope of most modellers to apply new transfers with the possibility of giving it a new identity in the process.

 

I think even the transitional BR livery has slightly over-bold and somewhat 'chunky' lettering on the tender. I agree to a point with the view that it's easily fixed, and to that degree it's a minor quibble, but still a bit of a shame to need to do it.

 

1 hour ago, truffy said:

Far be it for me to disagree with you Graham, and I rarely enter into these debates, but the boiler handrail around the smokebox has a distinct lustre to it that suggests brass, not black. Also note the shadow is more brown.

 

This photo is an extremely close call either way, for me. I do think that along the majority of the boiler length the shine of the handrail seems to match the shine from the sun on the boiler cladding, but there is a marked contrast once looking at the smokebox area. It seems to retain a much higher degree of shine than the smokebox (which granted, in matt, wouldn't have much, but even so the difference is noticeable). But then again, looking at the tiny visible portion of the rail running across the face of the smokebox after it turns, the sheen is gone entirely when in an area not directly lit by the sun, and it appears black. I wouldn't be confident to make a call either way here, although in the absence of strong positive evidence for the polished finish, black would surely seem more plausible and likely to most people.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Calidore

[GreenGiraffe22]

2 hours ago, Jack P said:

Not to sound overly negative, (because across the range there has been a vast improvement over the original samples) but the Southern black one still doesn't look right to me, as the below pictures should illustrate.

The cabside letters and 'Southern' on the tender look much too big and bulky to me. The Sunshine/BR one looks to have much more reasonably sized numbers.

 

It doesn't matter too much, as it's well within the scope of most modellers to apply new transfers with the possibility of giving it a new identity in the process.

 

Are the buffers sprung?

 

 

 

 

 

Agreed the lettering is bit chunky, easy to re do with transfers yes, but one shouldn't have to on a £200 model...! By chance 1734 was the number I gave to a kit one I bought off someone ages ago that I've since sold on, I think I saw a photo of the real 734 pulling out of Hove at some stage in its life...

 

[Jack P]

1 hour ago, Graham_Muz said:

a good point Jack, and another reason why I will be renumbering the one I have on order. 

 

Also a good reason to swap out those buffers for some nice SECR tapered ones! Will be interested to see which number yours ends up as, we may have another snap moment!

 

Reading the Rails update, it advises that production should be complete by the end of April, does that then mean we should expect these around May/June?

[chris45lsw]

A great shame about the elementary blunder of having a rear facing lion on the tender of 31574.  The early BR emblem (unlike the later crest) always faced forward.

 

Chris KT

[JSpencer]

Overall I think the handrail colour is a minor issue and certainly I will be glad of my versions.

But as I have many books on the south east, I went and had a look at coloured pictures in BR days.

 

The first is an E and D class clearly showing the handrails painted in black:

 

 

 

The second of an L1 clearly in black but with sun light reflecting off the upper edge:

 

 

Throughout the entire book "South Eastern Steam", all colour photos, I did not find any locos with handrails in other colours except those not in BR liveries.

Edited April 16, 2021 by JSpencer

[GNR Dave]

For me, the shadow on the bottom of the handrail in front of the smoke box is way to light for it to be black. It's far lighter than the shadow on the cabside handrails which are undoubtedly black. Also, the sun in the photo is coming from the upper left, yet as the rail goes round to the smoke box door, it gets darker. Black is the darkest colour, so the handrails on the boiler sides must surely be lighter in colour. I know livery regulations state handrails should be black but I think this particular member of the class is a rare exception. 

Just my opinion.

(Never thought I would find myself disagreeing with 'The Muz' on matters Southern )

[Graham_Muz]

7 minutes ago, GNR Dave said:

For me, the shadow on the bottom of the handrail in front of the smoke box is way to light for it to be black. It's far lighter than the shadow on the cabside handrails which are undoubtedly black. Also, the sun in the photo is coming from the upper left, yet as the rail goes round to the smoke box door, it gets darker. Black is the darkest colour, so the handrails on the boiler sides must surely be lighter in colour. I know livery regulations state handrails should be black but I think this particular member of the class is a rare exception. 

Just my opinion.

(Never thought I would find myself disagreeing with 'The Muz' on matters Southern )

 

A few more points:

Its all to do with the brightness of the sunshine and reflected light.

Also as a scanned image is cruelly enlarged  the pixilation due to the resolution of both the scan and the original print form (especially if scanned from a book) will change the colour perception.

The boiler is black, no argument, yet look how the sunlight shows areas of it as almost white

As you say the sun is top left from the view of the camera so the view we are getting as the handrail as it goes around the front of the smokebox will more of the side in its own shade, hence appearing darker. 

 

(it's ok to disagree with me, I sometimes disagree with myself...)

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Graham_Muz said:

(it's ok to disagree with me, I sometimes disagree with myself...)

 

I am frequently tempted to disagree with you but usually sit on my hands. However in this case I find myself totally in agreement. 

[No Decorum]

21 hours ago, Graham_Muz said:

From memory I think we only saw images of the left hand sides of the initial livery samples. It is noted that the Cycling lion early emblem is facing backwards on the right hand side, at the time these emblems usually faced forwards on both sides as it does on at least one photo I have seen for 31574.  It would be good if anyone has a photo with the RH rear facing emblem?

Fortunately, I’m not interested in the BR version but if I were, I could not ignore that. It is a highly visible clanger and it would be a blot on the reputation of Rails and Dapol if released like that.

[chris45lsw]

A great shame about the elementary blunder of having a rear facing lion on the tender of 31574.  The early BR emblem (unlike the later crest) always faced forward.

 

Chris KT

[Rising Standards]

I've just called Rails in the hope of getting some clarification on these issues with the BR model.

 

The handrails were requested to be black, but are being produced polished as shown. Annoying but I could live with this.

 

The backwards crest has been picked up and requested to be corrected, but they don't have confirmation that it's sorted. Like No Decorum said, this is something I would notice every time I looked at the loco, to the extent that I'm questioning whether to go ahead or change to the SR-style lettering version if possible.

 

Yes, these things can be changed fairly readily, but on a £200 model (especially one where the more complicated printing carries a £10 premium) this shouldn't be necessary - as has been said before, it costs no more to produce correctly than to get it wrong.

[Calidore]

10 minutes ago, Rising Standards said:

I've just called Rails in the hope of getting some clarification on these issues with the BR model.

 

The handrails were requested to be black, but are being produced polished as shown. Annoying but I could live with this.

A truly bizarre state of affairs. So Rails asked the factory to make them black, and the factory said ‘tough’?

 

I wonder how easy it would be to pop the handrail knobs off and respray the whole knob / rail assembly. But I fully agree, shouldn’t be necessary whatsoever.

[Guy Rixon]

54 minutes ago, Calidore said:

A truly bizarre state of affairs. So Rails asked the factory to make them black, and the factory said ‘tough’?

 

I wonder how easy it would be to pop the handrail knobs off and respray the whole knob / rail assembly. But I fully agree, shouldn’t be necessary whatsoever.

If the handrails are made of sensible metal, it should be possible to blacken them chemically in situ. The bluing fluid can be sponged on and wiped off with a cotton bud. However, it would be tricky to spary them with fixative without affecting the rest of the body.

[JSpencer]

18 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

If the handrails are made of sensible metal, it should be possible to blacken them chemically in situ. The bluing fluid can be sponged on and wiped off with a cotton bud. However, it would be tricky to spary them with fixative without affecting the rest of the body.

 

If they are steel or brass, I have a chemical in my garage. The problem is that steel sometimes goes brown several weeks later after using it.

[rembrow]

6 hours ago, Rising Standards said:

I've just called Rails in the hope of getting some clarification on these issues with the BR model.

 

The handrails were requested to be black, but are being produced polished as shown. Annoying but I could live with this.

 

The backwards crest has been picked up and requested to be corrected, but they don't have confirmation that it's sorted. Like No Decorum said, this is something I would notice every time I looked at the loco, to the extent that I'm questioning whether to go ahead or change to the SR-style lettering version if possible.

 

Yes, these things can be changed fairly readily, but on a £200 model (especially one where the more complicated printing carries a £10 premium) this shouldn't be necessary - as has been said before, it costs no more to produce correctly than to get it wrong.

Thanks for getting the info from Rails. Regarding the crest, hopefully the manufacturer will alter the printing, or make new tender tops if it's already printed. If not I would hope that Rails/Dapol will arrange for replacement tender tops as an after supply correction. They had to do this with the Dapol 68 in DRS livery when first released and appear to be doing it for the Dapol produced Salmon engineering wagon commissioned by Footplate, which has too short a deck. 

Edited April 16, 2021 by rembrow

[deepfat]

I am just going for the secr livery as it's my wife's favourite from when she took me to the NRM and saw the original. I have bachmaan secr birdcage coaches and some of the secr Hattons genesis on order as well. I am hoping that is what she would have pulled back in the day, but happy to be corrected 

[Wickham Green too]

21 hours ago, JSpencer said:

 

If they are steel or brass, I have a chemical in my garage. The problem is that steel sometimes goes brown several weeks later after using it.

Even a black permanent marker might do the trick ...... though some do have a rather purplish tinge !

[adb968008]

Left and right side of 31574 here both very clearviews of the lion, and the handrails.

 

https://rcts.zenfolio.com/steam-sr/sr/e/h810FA790#h810fa790
 

 

(url, not my image, off smugmug).

Click the links and zoom in, the image enhances very clearly.

I know which way I think the lions point, and what colour I think the handrail is.

 

 

Edited April 19, 2021 by adb968008

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Left and right side of 31574 here both very clearviews of the lion, and the handrails.

 

They're clearly taken at different dates though. Apart from the smokebox numberplate, I think the cabside numbers are in different styles. The LHS photo seems to show them a bit bolder.