Rails Announce OO 18000 Gas Turbine Locomotive

[Wickham Green]

3 hours ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

hmmm, next project?  or a source for the sound files?

 

 

Sounds like a stem loco coasting by !

[mdvle]

2 hours ago, Ian J. said:

I've always thought laser scanning is for use as guides on dimensions while assembling 3D CAD from scratch, rather than for actually making the 3D CAD from.

 

As you say, 3D scanning merely gets you a point cloud that then has to be turned into something more usable before the model designer can get on to the CAD shape.

 

But dimensions are generally easy to measure, and then either used directly for the CAD or to confirm that the drawings are accurate and thus the drawings can be used for the CAD.

 

Where a 3D scan can provide benefit is if one is unsure of the drawings (or there are no drawings) and the object has a lot of complex shapes/curves.  But it also requires the object to be unaltered from what you are trying to recreate.

 

Given that the 18000 shapes seem moderate, and it has been altered, it would certainly appear that the extra costs in 3D scanning aren't really justifiable.

[Enterprisingwestern]

3 hours ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

hmmm, next project?  or a source for the sound files?

 

 

 

Giving me a headache working out the Whyte wheel notation on that thing!

 

Mike.

[7013]

15 hours ago, dibber25 said:

Enjoy! 

I've not found any pics of her with a headboard on, but the steam era reporting numbers were not uncommon. I daresay Stationmaster can tell us what 455 was. She appears to be on the up main and I'm thinking maybe Twyford/Maidenhead area. Photographer not known. (CJL)

Lovely photo Chris, I know it was dubbed the 'Kerosene Castle' in its day, but do you not think there is a passing resemblance to 'Darth Vader' in this shot?

[dibber25]

2 hours ago, 7013 said:

Lovely photo Chris, I know it was dubbed the 'Kerosene Castle' in its day, but do you not think there is a passing resemblance to 'Darth Vader' in this shot?

Yes. It's a bit more rounded than Darth. I have a photo of it taken when it was just completed. I can't post in case of copyright issues. In nothing but black and silver it must have looked stunning - especially against drab postwar backgrounds. (CJL)

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

3 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Giving me a headache working out the Whyte wheel notation on that thing!

 

Mike.

 

D-D+D-D I think.  There's a less agricultural looking version, the GT1 which is a Bo-Bo-Bo+Bo-Bo-Bo. 

 

rumours that there is a Sinatra class gas turbine Doo-Bi-Doo-Bi-Doo have so far proven unfounded

[Devo63]

I have a "What If" query regarding this locomotive. If it had been delivered before Nationalisation what would have been the livery and possible running number? The black and silver scheme was used on the LMS twins and seems to have been selected by British Railways as standard for the other early prototypes. If it carried a GWR livery I'm assuming it would have been in lined loco green with brass number-plates instead of the large silver numbers. 

 

The model is a bit too expensive to buy for a "nevawazza" repaint but it would be interesting to see it running as a Great Western engine.    

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, dibber25 said:

Enjoy! 

I've not found any pics of her with a headboard on, but the steam era reporting numbers were not uncommon. I daresay Stationmaster can tell us what 455 was. She appears to be on the up main and I'm thinking maybe Twyford/Maidenhead area. Photographer not known. (CJL)

The photograph was taken between Ruscombe (aka Ruscombe Sidings) and Twyford and the train is on the Up Main Line with Ruscombe's Up Main Distant Signal visible above the 4th coach.  Twyford East Signal Box is visible in the background as the pale coloured shape  immediately in front of the third overbridge from the photographer's position.

 

As St Enodoc has already noted the most readily available source for WR Train Reporting Numbers makes the trains to be the 08.20 Weston - Paddington in the 1957 service.  However the shadows suggest that  the photo was taken later in the day (unless the train had been heavily delayed?) and what information is currently in the public domain indicates that 18000 was generally working westwards from Paddington in the morning and back in the afternoon so the number might not necessarily be a guide to that particular train.

[woodenhead]

4 hours ago, 7013 said:

Lovely photo Chris, I know it was dubbed the 'Kerosene Castle' in its day, but do you not think there is a passing resemblance to 'Darth Vader' in this shot?

Would make finding a sound file easier, lots of video tape, dvd and digital Darth Vader content to choose from

[dibber25]

7 hours ago, Devo63 said:

I have a "What If" query regarding this locomotive. If it had been delivered before Nationalisation what would have been the livery and possible running number? The black and silver scheme was used on the LMS twins and seems to have been selected by British Railways as standard for the other early prototypes. If it carried a GWR livery I'm assuming it would have been in lined loco green with brass number-plates instead of the large silver numbers. 

 

The model is a bit too expensive to buy for a "nevawazza" repaint but it would be interesting to see it running as a Great Western engine.    

I have a feeling that an artist's impression of 18000 features in the book  "The Great Western's Last Look Forward' but I can't now recall if it was in GWR livery. I seem to think it was a rather fanciful drawing of the gas turbine. (CJL)

[The Stationmaster]

10 hours ago, dibber25 said:

I have a feeling that an artist's impression of 18000 features in the book  "The Great Western's Last Look Forward' but I can't now recall if it was in GWR livery. I seem to think it was a rather fanciful drawing of the gas turbine. (CJL)

It was a very 'impressionistic' picture and not in colour but it did share a contrasting (colour) 'waistband' with the final livery.  Judging from Kevin Robertson's excellent tome about the Western gas turbines the first colour picture, again an  artist's impression but a far more realistic one in this case, was published in 1949 and showed the loco in the black/silver livery in which it actually appeared.   

[Ian J.]

Maybe the GWR hadn't decided what livery to put it in while it was their project?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

It was a very 'impressionistic' picture and not in colour but it did share a contrasting (colour) 'waistband' with the final livery...

The diesel railcars were in passenger carriage livery. Not impossible that this might have been tried to match the train?

[The Stationmaster]

Just now, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

The diesel railcars were in passenger carriage livery. Not impossible that this might have been tried to match the train?

Could well be but there's no way you can tell from that picture what the livery/colour would have been.  Or indeed what the actual loco would look like!

[57xx]

On 12/11/2019 at 11:59, Oliver Rails said:

Rails of Sheffield and Heljan are proud to announce the development of a museum quality OO gauge model of this groundbreaking famous British Railways gas turbine prototype 18000, nicknamed ‘K

 

Since then this tenacious survivor, now largely empty inside, has been resident at Crewe Heritage Centre, Barrow Hill and Didcot Railway Centre, where it is currently on display. It is now owned by the Pete Waterman Trust.

 

 

For those worrying about DCC sound, don't! Rails have it in hand, you just need to read between the lines. 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

8 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Could well be but there's no way you can tell from that picture what the livery/colour would have been.  Or indeed what the actual loco would look like!

Just a speculative thought, once the unit was in their hands; 'someone' might have proposed that since it was much the same shape as a carriage, why not look at the effect of matching livery in side elevation at least?

 

Whatever, room for the creatives among us to have a go...

[7013]

1 hour ago, 57xx said:

 

For those worrying about DCC sound, don't! Rails have it in hand, you just need to read between the lines. 

What lines would they be? 

Space to easily install a speaker for DCC sound? There is a superb sound file from Wheeltappers, but, I suspect other sound files will appear.

[JZ]

Wanted a RTR one of these for years and had given up hope. I have now given up UK and standard gauge modelling. Next someone will tell me that a Swindon class 124 is on the way.

[No Decorum]

2 hours ago, 57xx said:

 

For those worrying about DCC sound, don't! Rails have it in hand, you just need to read between the lines. 

Ben said in his first post on the previous screen, “We are not planning to offer sound fitted ...”

[adb968008]

On 13/11/2019 at 15:25, dibber25 said:

But Deltic (it was never DP1 when in use) was a private enterprise. It simply adopted American styling. It was not part of mainstream railway motive power development, was not commissioned by a railway company and it was years after 18000/10000 etc. I suspect it was also given to the Science Museum rather than being selected for preservation as part of the national locomotive collection. Had the Eastern Region not gone against the grain and bought a batch of them, it would have been very much a motive power dead-end. In that respect, at least, it is like the gas turbine, although gas turbine motive power was used successfully in both Europe and North America. And, yes, the EM1 qualifies, if only in the electric category, and is contemporary with - slightly ahead of the gas turbine. (CJL)

 

theres more than you think, and one of them is at Didcot... DL26 was a Hunslet shunter from the BR Black days, as is D0226 at the KWVR.  Any number of class 04’s and 08’s wore black too.

18000 is NRM worthy in its own right being the Gas Turbine loco that survives... sadly without the turbine.. but being empty inside, I repeat what I said earlier.. its internal space would be great to house a model railway layout..,people entering thru one cab, exit the other... layout in the engine room.. its a complete open space in there, side to side.

Edited November 16, 2019 by adb968008

[Roadrails]

There is an early pic in Swiss and the numbers are quite different... 8000 with a hastily added 1. Later, of course, 'StandARD ' 10" NUMERALS

so 8000, THERE WERE NO gwr LOCOS at 8000 EITHER SO IT FITS,  

[Roadrails]

Also, there is some original sounds about somewhere. 

[dibber25]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

 

theres more than you think, and one of them is at Didcot... DL26 was a Hunslet shunter from the BR Black days, as is D0226 at the KWVR.  Any number of class 04’s and 08’s wore black too.

18000 is NRM worthy in its own right being the Gas Turbine loco that survives... sadly without the turbine.. but being empty inside, I repeat what I said earlier.. its internal space would be great to house a model railway layout..,people entering thru one cab, exit the other... layout in the engine room.. its a complete open space in there, side to side.

Yes, well, I took it as read that I was talking about main line locos (10000/1,10201-3, etc). Of course, there were shunters - lots of them - but the gas turbine was about mainline operation with power output similar to that of an express steam loco. At the time that was only possible with a diesel-electric if you lashed two of them together (or several, as the Americans did). There's a story that the NRM could tell about the replacement of steam and the virtues (or not) of diesel-electric, gas turbine, diesel-hydraulic and electric, why they were tried and why some didn't work out. That story relates also to the railway's publicity and ultimately its public image which was very important in post-war, post-nationalisation times. Yes, when it's open, you can walk through a gas-turbine at Locomotion but APT-E was a novel experimental machine from years later and doesn't tell part of the main line motive power story in the way that 18000 could do with even a dummy, replica, plywood power plant inside it. (CJL)

[dibber25]

1 hour ago, Roadrails said:

There is an early pic in Swiss and the numbers are quite different... 8000 with a hastily added 1. Later, of course, 'StandARD ' 10" NUMERALS

so 8000, THERE WERE NO gwr LOCOS at 8000 EITHER SO IT FITS,  

The picture I have of it in Switzerland shows it as 18000 with all matching sans serif numerals. From memory, it was completed more than a year after the GWR had ceased to exist, so ample time for BR WR to spec any changes to the livery or number. (CJL)

[cctransuk]

9 hours ago, Roadrails said:

There is an early pic in Swiss and the numbers are quite different... 8000 with a hastily added 1. Later, of course, 'StandARD ' 10" NUMERALS

so 8000, THERE WERE NO gwr LOCOS at 8000 EITHER SO IT FITS,  

 

 

 

 

Not this one, then - which is in Switzerland.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.