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Nellie's New Railway - A 1963 BLT


Nearholmer
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I'm sure a red Nellie is a Polly, and I'm half sure that there was a third name as well, not that I can remember it.

 

I've got a Nellie that I use to practise lining on. I have to say that BMC damask red looks very nice on her....

 

Andy G

(if you don't want the bare chassis of the jinty, I can certainly use it....)

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Connie, yes I knew there was a family connection there (the wife is a Nelly, and a cat was a Connie)...

 

I suppose we could now take a serious detour into discussing what locos Basil, Sybil etc would be....

 

Andy G

Pm sent

 

 

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Well, the Sybil that instantly springs to mind is a 2ft gauge Bagnall 0-4-0ST (was it the one that was on a plinth in Stafford, maybe?), and I'm sure that hours of fun/tedium can be had by looking in the ILS loco names database for all the rest of the characters.

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13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Nellie wishes me to respond that she regards herself as a ‘proper engine’, not a ‘mere shunter’.

 

She has a sister now, too.

 

I bagged another Nellie and a Jinty For a very good price at the CMRA show today, and could have had miles of Super 4 track and two coaches in the same box ‘all in’, but I’ve got too much junk already.

 

 

There's nostalgia. My very first train set c. 1971 was to have been No. 27 with a short goods train (RS 614 I believe) but it was out of stock so my parents forked out for the more expensive set with 47606 (RS 613) thereby starting a preference for Derby-designed locomotives that I have never thrown off.

 

Edited by Compound2632
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2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

There's nostalgia. My very first train set c. 1971 was to have been No. 27 with a short goods train (RS 614 I believe) but it was out of stock so my parents forked out for the more expensive set with 47606 (RS 613) thereby starting a preference for Derby-designed locomotives that I have never thrown off.

 

 

47606 was part of RS613 but the link didn't take me to it. Basically the same set as I had some years before under the Tri-ang label.

 

Don

 

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Gosh Triang Jinties.  I sawed them up and made every variety of ex-Midland 0-6-0T's that my fevered teenaged brain could devise.  The sight of a photograph I hadn't seen before was all I needed to get the razor saw out.  Not very fine scale and not very exact of course, but I was happy with them.

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On 11/01/2020 at 00:48, Nearholmer said:

If Nellie ever feels in need of assistance, which ten-a-penny train set 0-4-0ST could easily be altered to look passably like this LSWR locomotive? 

 

https://transportsofdelight.smugmug.com/RAILWAYS/LOCOMOTIVES-OF-THE-SOUTHERN-RAILWAY/SOUTHERN-RAILWAY/i-ZTz9Ltq/A

 

Answers on a postcard to: Smokey Joe, c/o Hornby, Margate, Kent.

 

 

 

 

Yes indeed. Behold: A Pug Called Ironside. 

 

(Apologies for the horrible nameplates. These were supposed to be temporary, but have so far outlasted three Prime Ministers.)

Ironside_1.jpg

Ironside_2.jpg

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That is very good - captures the look very well.

 

Since spotting the strong resemblance between these Southampton engines and various Scottish pugs, a dim recollection has surfaced: I think that there was a Smokey Joe to Ironside/Clausentum conversion described in Railway Modeller some years back, in an article that talked about why/how the LSWR ordered Scottish-style engines from a Newcastle loco builder. Was that yours?

 

And, did it include a drawing of the Ironside-type?

 

The Hornby pug looks rather longer than the Ironside, in the same way that Nellie is too long for a real S14/C14, but I don't have drawings of either to hand, so can't form realistic opinions about how much hacking is necessary in either case, which might be different from how much hacking I'm 'up for' ...... I seem to recall when I attempted a Nellie to C14 in about 1973 that it involved three or four vertical slices to be taken out of the moulding, which resulted in lots of off-square-ness and lots of really poor glued joints!

 

(For the avoidance of doubt, this is a closet appeal to all and sundry for drawings)

 

All this is "down the road" stuff, of course, because Priority 1 is to get the track laid down and wired ...... which I will start tomorrow if the weather is bad.

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16 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Nellie wishes me to respond that she regards herself as a ‘proper engine’, not a ‘mere shunter’.

 

She has a sister now, too.

 

I bagged another Nellie and a Jinty For a very good price at the CMRA show today, and could have had miles of Super 4 track and two coaches in the same box ‘all in’, but I’ve got too much junk already.

 

7F5244DC-9C8F-4FF4-A2CC-0E118C154D84.jpeg.f061fffa80fac2ec60775eaa72df7653.jpeg
 

Both were full of hair and fluff, with liberally oiled commutators, but it’s taken me less than half an hour to get them both working ...... the Jinty won’t be refurbished, but will donate its motors as a spare.

 

The ‘new’ Nellie (a Polly, I think) has a pigeon-toed gait, but runs OK, and will run better after a more thorough cleaning. Whether I can ‘true’ the wheels is another matter, because once the bushes are ‘out’, they are hard to correct. New bushes maybe? Her housing has only a couple of tiny chips in it, so whether to take a saw to it, I haven’t decided.

 

If you are worried about the running qualities of the wheels why not replace them with Romford wheels (Markit sell Triang axles) and if you are worried about the Retro aspect I may well have couple of Mazac ones the correct size 

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Hayfield

 

I'm thinking of going with two Nellies:

 

- No.27 utterly untouched, because it seems wrong to amend something that has survived as it has for 49 years, and which has all the sentimental associations of being the first brand new loco I bought with money I'd earned myself (errands, and I think the paper round);

 

- another one, which has no sentimental associations, and which can be pimped in every way. New axles, wheels, and gears, either a 5-pole motor or a neo-magnet or both, track-wipers, and maybe the body surgery, outside cylinders etc to make it look more like a C14.

 

But, as I say, track first, trains later.

 

K

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1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

Since spotting the strong resemblance between these Southampton engines and various Scottish pugs, a dim recollection has surfaced: I think that there was a Smokey Joe to Ironside/Clausentum conversion described in Railway Modeller some years back, in an article that talked about why/how the LSWR ordered Scottish-style engines from a Newcastle loco builder. Was that yours?

 

And, did it include a drawing of the Ironside-type?

 

The Hornby pug looks rather longer than the Ironside, in the same way that Nellie is too long for a real S14/C14, but I don't have drawings of either to hand, so can't form realistic opinions about how much hacking is necessary in either case, which might be different from how much hacking I'm 'up for' ...... I seem to recall when I attempted a Nellie to C14 in about 1973 that it involved three or four vertical slices to be taken out of the moulding, which resulted in lots of off-square-ness and lots of really poor glued joints!

 

 

 

The article was nothing to do with me. However, back in the very early days of this forum our genial host @AY Mod posted a thread in which he combined a Bachmann Percy chassis and a Hornby Pug body to produce an 'Ironside' which was much closer to scale length than mine.

 

I do have a cut down 'Nellie'. If you're not too bothered about felicity to prototype then in terms of modifying the body it's really just a question of shortening the bunker. As you can see I really do need to do something about the cut line.

pug bash 10.jpg

Edited by papagolfjuliet
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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Hayfield

 

I'm thinking of going with two Nellies:

 

- No.27 utterly untouched, because it seems wrong to amend something that has survived as it has for 49 years, and which has all the sentimental associations of being the first brand new loco I bought with money I'd earned myself (errands, and I think the paper round);

 

- another one, which has no sentimental associations, and which can be pimped in every way. New axles, wheels, and gears, either a 5-pole motor or a neo-magnet or both, track-wipers, and maybe the body surgery, outside cylinders etc to make it look more like a C14.

 

But, as I say, track first, trains later.

 

K

 

Kevin

 

Sorry but I missed the part about two Nellies, I bought one with a new home made P4 chassis. I am building a layout with a Southern & South Western Influence, if you are superdetailing the body I would bin the wheels, motor and gears.

 

Take the chassis apart and either cut down the cast blocks or use frame spacers.

Fit 1/8th axle bearings so either Romford or Gibson wheels can be used,

A pair of Gibson coupling rods. 

Fit a High Level Gearbox and one of Chris's new can motors.

Attach a cylinder (to hide the chassis) and simple motion.

If possible lower the body by cutting the front and back chassis tops so the wheels go through the footplate a bit 

 

I think the list for the body would be much longer, 

 

Another thought is I have just acquired a Branchlines Pug chassis, I wonder would that fit/ Gibson do a set of LSWR B4 frames (can be ordered with holes as well as hornblock slots )

The B4 has 16 mm wheels  and 28mm wheelbase and the chassis are about the same length

 

Polly has 16.5 wheels and   32mm wheelbase, Pollys buffers are 2 or 3 mm higher. A 9 mm wide gearbox will fit between the frames (just)

 

The Branchlines Pug chassis (£23 back in May 2018) is about 1 mm shorter if you fill up the buffer beam recesses and has cylinders, motion etc (looks like I have just found a use for it !!)

 

Could this be a new 2020 challenge ? 

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Hayfield

 

I shall look at all r-t-r chassis options, including simple-to-implement improvements to the original chassis, but I don't want to get into serious chassis-building .......... this is supposed to be a quick side project using 'toy train set' locos really.

 

Top chassis candidates so far look like the Electrotren 0-6-0 as highlighted by Edwardian, and the Bachmann Percy 0-4-0, but both locos are surprisingly not toy train set prices if bought new, so patience required to find cheap ones. If not, I might just as well spend the extra to buy a modern hi-fi r-t-r loco ...... the prices for the least popular variants seem to fall to meet the rising price of toy ones.

 

I put quick in bold, because my proper toy train set is the retro 0 gauge, and at bare minimum I need to make yet another FY for the portable bit of that, because its promised for an exhibition in the summer, and another early next year, and the exhibition managers won't be too happy if I turn up with a half-finished 00 layout instead!

 

K

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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Weather suitable only for North Sea Trawlermen this afternoon. So some progress to report ......... laying 00 proprietary track is sooooo much quicker than laying the 0 gauge track that I use! This took less than an hour.

 

6CA81606-8F06-4D96-A31B-F6F9DD631F09.jpeg.83f33b57254c41817a8b8f347d44a818.jpeg

 

Eagle-eyed viewers might notice that I’ve decided not to use the short-crossing, in deference to Nellie, Pollie, and any that may follow. The ‘double-shuffle’ to get into the loco shed (which will be beyond the body of the tape-measure) is perfectly acceptable, but it doesn’t look so interesting, which is a slight pity.

 

Duty calls now, though, so track-laying is suspended.

 

 

 

 

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I was out cycling this morning and very stupidly selected a route that is decidedly hilly and heads W-SW, directly into a gale, with no tail-wind on the return, because that was along the canal, which is in a sheltered valley! Double the Notmal exercise for the distance.

 

 

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Can I enlist help with the "hole in the sky" problem?

 

The 'concept sketch' for this essay showed a bridge and buildings to hide the exit from the stage, but I'm less than happy with that since the idea moved from a particularly steep part of Dorset to a gently inclined part of Surrey.

 

The only plausible idea that I can come up with, something characteristic of the area, is to plant a load of big trees along the back-scene and in front of the 'sneak-off', but that feels a bit un-inspired.

 

Can any closet stage designers here present think of anything better?

 

200510B1-E37B-43BD-9F24-0E2FC74DCDDA.jpeg.0d6287e918b96448d396a5a51c28643f.jpeg

 

I suppose one option would be to stick a tall signal in the middle of the thicket, on the basis that the human eye is always drawn to tall pointy things.

 

 

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Disagree about the “uninspired” look using trees to hide the exit to fy. The standard approach is a bridge or tunnel, followed by a building to block the view, but using trees is pretty rare. The best application I’ve seen is the Gravett’s  Reseau Breton “Pempoul” (now in that new place at Ashford)

 

Edited by Northroader
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Well, the chance of me coming within a million miles of the Gravett Standard in anything is about 1:10^9, but I see what you're saying.

 

The trick might be to put something small, but distractingly interesting nearby, but I don't want to create a gimmick. so needs a bit of thought.

 

In the meantime, here is a pastoral idyll to contemplate.

 

 

 

3594C350-6005-40FA-B991-0C2528B34A09.jpeg

Edited by Nearholmer
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If pondering the Electrotren chassis + Nellie combination (which I've also been pondering, although why the GSR needs a heavy dock shunter is anyone's guess!), I can recommend having a poke at Nile's thread - he's made a rather nice job of the combination:

P_38.jpg

 

The thread can be found here, with the description being in older posts: 

 

 

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Ah, its what's underneath Wood Siding that's important.

 

Wood Siding was in the middle of a wood, in the middle of nowhere, slumbering peacefully, then the GWR/GC Joint (I think it was a joint bit) came slicing through the countryside in a deep brick-lined cutting, and had to provide a bridge for it and the adjacent road to sit on, and they went to town on the job.

 

Whether they just specified "bridge to carry railway over" and the contractor provided the same as they were providing elsewhere, or whether the Brill Tramway managed to con them into building to match its delusions of grandeur (it was trying to morph into a proper railway, offering a through route to Oxford at this stage) I don't know.

 

But, the place continued, and indeed continues, to slumber; I occasionally cycle that way, and the road is very, very quiet indeed.

 

 

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