The Isle of Alnogg - Dogger Bank

[Player of trains]

Good evening everyone, the 2-8-2 tanks are on the back burner for a bit while I figure out chassis problems, I bought a battered 47xx as a donor but it has ended up being a bit too big overall so back on the search for a suitable mechanism or building one. Still I've wanted a loco to actually pull the coaches I'm working on so this weekend I've used components of the 2-8-2 tanks to put together an 0-6-0 tank. 

 

The original idea was to make a new cab for a Hornby terrier. The results were spectacular but just looked like a terrier doing its best impression of a hermit crab. I liked how daft it looked but it suited an industrial rebuild rather than the bespoke loco I was intending.  

 

 

The cab ended up being cut and shut into the overall design I went for and I think its my favourite design yet. I'm intending it to be a general purpose shunter and light trip working loco so comfortably at home across the C&SCR network and working onto other lines on the island. 

 

This has been a first major attempt at printing handrails too and I am very pleased with how they came out. Support requires delicate removal but when the material has cured the handrails are surprisingly durable. Wire and turned knobs are absolutely superior but the printed rails can stand up to some punishment before breaking. 

 

 

 

Livery wise I've finally settled on the London Tilbury & Sarf'end Lavender, I've had my heart set on lilac or mauve locomotives for a while now. Pregrouping companies always had fun liveries when the manpower to clean them was cheap and there's a good prototype for it in the LT&SR Lavender even if it was a short lived special occasion livery. 

Plan is for passenger and mixed traffic locomotives to be painted lavender with red frames, lavender wheels, white rims and white lining. The lining and lettering might be white and blue or white and red wine as I've used on the ROD rebuild a few pages up. 

 

 

 

 

 

The paint still isn't finished and the photos in the thread aren't yet up to date but I am very happy with how this loco is going and has come out. The Lavender is enamel and needs a few more coats and the black needs touching up where it has rubbed.  After that I need to finish off a few other details, I need to source a few more brake pipes and print a variety components such as a tablet catcher for working on the branch lines. 

 

For now I'm happy to have another loco in the fleet and I'm already looking out for damaged terriers to donate their mechanisms. 

 

But what to do with the body that's left over...

 

[eheaps]

Some excellent freelance designs here, the 2-8-2T is particularly brilliant. I'd also like to express my approval of the the purple liveries. I did a virtual model of a fictional narrow gauge class with a similar livery, I recommend a pinkish lining to really show off the paler background colour...

 

[Player of trains]

3 hours ago, eheaps said:

Some excellent freelance designs here, the 2-8-2T is particularly brilliant. I'd also like to express my approval of the the purple liveries. I did a virtual model of a fictional narrow gauge class with a similar livery, I recommend a pinkish lining to really show off the paler background colour...

 

 

Thank you Eheaps, I have a particular adoration for your Trainsim designs as well particularly the articulated ones, I've often thought about making the Golwé in 009. I do agree with your points about the lining, the lavender is absolutely brighter in person than it is in photos so I will probably go with the red wine lining I already have thanks to Corbs, although I still want to explore pale blue or turquoise for lining and shading coach numbers. 

 

The lavender is a unique colour for locos I know and the LT&SR one must have been appalling to keep clean. The reasoning in my head is that it is actually one large advertising sponsorship. One of the main industries the C&SCR serves is the Kennadrin Chemical Co in the Pidd Vale. The company manufactures paint as well as caustic chemicals which are brought down the vale by the Chevril Magna & Bramble Fosse railway for export at Chevril Magna. The KCC purchased production rights to Mauveine after its discovery and began to manufacture industrial grade paints in a variety of hues. How better to demonstrate the long wearing properties of your product but applying it to a steam locomotive, it worked for Solvite! Originally the KCC were going to approach the CM&BFR but at that point it was a rinkydink operation in a well hidden valley, instead they approached the C&SCR which was already using a shade of Vermillion supplied by the KCC produced from ore extracted up near Bramble Fosse. A darker shade known as Kennadrin Mauve was used from 1871 to 1902 on passenger locomotives and a lighter shade known as Kennadrin Royal Lilac was adopted in 1902 until 1952 as a celebration of King Edward VII's coronation. The livery would be taken out of use when the C&SCR was amalgamated by the nationalised railway system in 1953 but it can still be spotted on various preserved locomotives and is still considerably brighter compared to the more austere liveries on the island. 

[Player of trains]

Time I get back to posting, I’ve still been working on Alnogg but things have taken a recent back seat to my third year internship for my university course with some pretty important audits coming and going so I’ve been pretty distracted from posting but I’ve still managed to make a few updates worth of posts, that and rather a few short bits of written history should anyone be interested. 
 

 

Rather unexpectedly I have acquired a OO12 layout for a fantastic price alongside the rolling stock used on it. This is rather useful as I bought a kit for IMR15/MNR4 Caledonia at Warley last year and I’ve been meaning to billd it since. 

The layout is built to resemble the track plan of Wantage top yard and I adore it. I’ve been working on rebuilding it to resemble the works of Peter Barnfield as I mentioned in Annie’s new thread at the time of writing. 
 

 

The engine sheds are original to the layout but have been repainted and given good old wriggly tin roofs,

 

 

the station with its train shed is going to say there but I’ll be junking the shed although I want to try and salvage the canopy, as built the layout had trees behind the station and I want to open it up with proper buildings and a small plaza for the locals. To this end I’ve already fitted a cobble alleyway down the side of the workshop shed to reach the goods platform.

 

 

 

Though not entirely all pictured current motive stock are two Kitson trams, Matthews steam tram, GE 25 tonner and a dubs 0-6-0/Caledonia which is currently being built for me by a friend. 
 

A follow up post to soon appear regarding the small history of this little line and how it fits into the greater Alnogg story, now please get your passports out as the guard is required to check them.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Player of trains

[Player of trains]

So what did I mean by passport? Well Alnogg has a neighbor...

 

Since a visit to St Michaels mount in Cornwall in 2016 I have wanted to build a railway running across a causeway to a tidal island, only further compounded when I found out that Mont Saint Michael in France actually did have a railway too it although I've never quite sussed if it was submerged at high tide or super tides, a question for Mr Northmoor perhaps? As a result a tidal railway has been a part of Alnogg for a while and you can find the original St Williams Causeway Railway on the older maps I was posting in 2021. 

I also have an interest in microstates like San Mariana and Bermuda which both had their own quirky railway systems. After watching Passport to Plimlico a few weeks ago a plan was properly hatched. (read as I stole and repurposed the plot)

 

The Island of Saxonia and Saxonian Railways

 

In 1477 after the disastrous ending of the Burgundian wars with the battle of Nancy, Charles I of Burgundy was able to escape to England with the vestiges of his guard where after probably a lot of nagging to Charles IV and probably some dosh he was seceded the small tidal island of St Williams, a uniquely Christian enclave on the still predominantly pagan Alnogg. St William himself being a missionary who landed on Alnogg around 1031. 

History has a funny way of reclaiming people no matter the timeline and the now Duke of St William (what a down grade) was shipwrecked off of Black Lantern Isle supposedly by wreckers.

Suddenly without any ruler and nobody to exactly tell them what to do the fishing port of Great Broch utillised its new independence establishing a very early democracy with a ruling council and chief magistrate. By the time anyone realised what was going on the wars of the roses had ended and the small island community had grown quickly in the following seven years to the point it was actively trying to join the Hanseatic League. Henry VII only learned he did not actually control the small island in 1490 when the small island gifted him several horses as a show of goodwill, after some brief dialogue and more money changing hands the island was allowed to remain independent. 

 

This is where the history is still rather a work in progress as this isn't yet perfect and a huge chunk is missing between the 1400s and 1800s but either way in the 1870s the island government was investing in the construction of a new causeway to the mainland town of Boster, this causeway was about a mile long across the mud flats, and the work was being undertaken to coincide with the connection of Boster to the island network by the Postgate and Granthwaite Railway. The decision was taken to invest in building a railway across the causeway to link Boster and Broch making the journey much easier between the island and mainland and increase the flow of goods to the mainland. Seacoal, local mushroom wine, agriculture and other items. 

 

The railway along the causeway would open between Boster and Broch in 1889 built to a gauge of 3ft with two Sharp Stewart 2-4-2 tanks and rolling stock built locally. finding success the railway would be built further inland connecting small hamlets ending up with a motley collection of trams being bought to run the inland section and a large Dubs 0-6-0 for heavier freight as oil began to be transported over the causeway by 1905. 

 

In so far its a fun experiment and backstory behind the new 3ft layout and everything is up to change, what's there is a work in progress and might be added too or I'll decide the whole thing is daft and close it down and keep St William as a local island.

 

I have far more concrete pieces of history that have been written in the meantime ranging from breadrolls and wine to survival of a certain paddle steamer and the Kamchatka which I want to write up as well, the notebooks are getting rather full at this point and I think I'm taking it all a bit too seriously for a model railway hah. 

[Schooner]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburgdamm

 

 

Eastern neighbour - great minds and all that! A rather different prospect, but maybe a useful touchstone

[Player of trains]

25 minutes ago, Schooner said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburgdamm

 

 

Eastern neighbour - great minds and all that! A rather different prospect, but maybe a useful touchstone

 

Oh quite the opposite of not being a touch stone! The Hinden Dam is for sure something I did look at, especially its sea defenses way from the main causeway itself, St Williams is smaller than Sylt, closer to Holy Island really, just about big enough to have some weight to throw around 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Player of trains

[Player of trains]

Good morning everyone, a chance find at the railway club on Tuesday has resulted in the line now having its head offices. 

Being Wantage inspired I’ve been looking for a townhouse style building to work as head offices and perhaps a booking hall on the ground floor, so the chance find of an IHC homes of yesterday HO kit made me rather happy.

 

Originally I just modified the kit to have a 4mm scale door but the flat roof wasn’t working. Far too North American looking so some quick work with Wills fancy tiles and it looks a lot better.

 

 

 

I could just about fit Saxonia Tramway Co into the brick hoarding and I think it looks good enough.

https://imgur.com/a/PqGW1eS
 

The embossed Co is a bit clunky made from two chopped up 8s but it works from a distance 

 

 

The office is going to sit parallel to the road though the station plaza with the train shed coming out of the side. The two low relief buildings are both old Superquick kits that I want to use as the core of a building to reface. Not sure what I will reface them with just yet but probably pebbledash. I’m not too keen on mixing plastic and card buildings so closely as I find the texture  change a bit distracting without a buffer. 
 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Player of trains

[Player of trains]

The station area looks a whole lot nicer now, textured the foam board and now looks like an actual platform. I’ve faced the platform with Jarvis single bond brick and the tarmac texture was a citadel paints technical debris paint, the name currently escapes me.

 

 

 

The tramway office has had its first shade of brick red and is starting to come together too. 
 

Next and perhaps a little more somber is the dead engine in the shed headshunt. 
 

 

I’ve wanted to put an abandoned loco on this grassed bit of track for a while but until conversations in Annie’s layout thread pivoted towards the R&ER I hadn’t quite nailed what I wanted. It was probably going to be a Southwold style 2-4-2.

 

 

I modelled the modelled R&ER Manning Wardle with regulation Elvis at the controls and then set to work making a battered version 

 

 

Sagging couplings and tube plate exposed and all the brass work stripped off.

 

 

All printed and painted on Monday, productive use of a bank holiday I think

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m rather happy with how this bit of set dressing turned out but still needs a bit more work, the rust could be crustier and some more long grass and moss needs to be around it. Oh and some nettles that the fitter needs to grumble about stamping down whenever the old hulk is raided for spare parts for one of the trams or conventional locos. 

[Player of trains]

Quick update to the layout as it’s now been put away for the time being and an awful lot of musing on possible standard gauge projects.

 

The tramway needed some point levers. So some got made and printed, really it should be interlocked with Facing locks on the loop points but realistically this section would probably just be one engine in steam or one engine in steam for a tablet section. 
The levers aren’t any one design but largely based off large cast iron bases and levers.

 

 

 

 

 

The two Superquick shopfronts have also begun to get their makeovers and I’ve made new roofs from the classic strip paper method, I’ll use small strips of aluminium foil for the flashing.

 

 

Back to more standard gauge side of things a few models had a nice outing at the club on Tuesday night.

 

 

0-6-0 Hergé did a few laps with the converted Tri-ang Clestory coaches, which haven’t been off the shelf since November, the plum and white livery goes very very well with the LT&SR Lilac I think and its giving me the impetus to finish the rake off.
 

I have six of these coaches overall, three of them have been fitted with three links and Bachmann Gresley bogies but I think I should design something less obvious to replace them and it also saves money buying a further three pairs to convert the others. does anyone have good photos of drawings of the typical bogies of the era?

Were Fox bogies from Leeds Forge ever employed on carriages? I have a good design for a standard gauge fox plate frame bogie I would rather like to use if possible as I do like plate frame carriage bogies.

 

 

A relatively new arrival in the form of a Dapol era Beattie Well Tank had its first and last run as a Beattie with me. It’s a very nice runner even if it’s not very gutsy. Jury is out on what it will become, I had got my heart set on Slaughter 2-2-2 tank with push pull gear and a single coach for branch line traffic but as my current layout plans won’t fit a branch line like I wanted it may become an off the shelf Beyer Peacock 2-4-0 of the Isle of Alnogg Central Railway after talking with parishioner @Schooner regarding a project we’re cooking up together.

 

Next up are potential “big” engines for the Isle of Alnogg central, originally engineered by Robert Stephenson the IoACR got hooked on buying externally built and second hand locomotives rather than building its own, I’ve fallen down a real rabbit hole of C. 1900s Chinese locomotive design when a lot of it was still Anglican exports and I’m thinking with Alnogg being mostly wide open grass land with few natural hills singles and Atlantics are perfect for the Alnogg Central which operates largely over the grasslands or central valley between the two hill sections formed by glacial detritus. 
 

 

I’ve become rather obsessed with this Kerr Stuart built small driver Atlantic for the Taokow Chinghua railway, it’s just the thing I can see on fast secondary trains such as post and paper traffic and perishables.

 

Though of course by mentioning China and singles I could only be talking about the 1910 Shanghai Nanking locomotives.

 

 

I keep looking at the design and thinking it could be printed around a kitbashed midland compound chassis or outright printed and a tender drive in the large six wheel tender. 

 

A friend supplying me with works photos has really not helped. I think I have enough information to on from the photos and builders info to make a good guess at the proportions of these machines and I have a lot of suitable components already. 
 

The landscape of the island does just about justify a single driver machine being built so late with the sea level line west to east across the island. These locos would be best suited for the boat trains from Jutham to Norhaven and Boverking to meet Hamburg and Oslo bound ships, and the Parliament trains, the IoACR being originally built to link Jutham with the parliament at Seamers
 

This probably won’t happen for a while but it’s absolutely going on the list of models to make and should look very debonair in the bronze green IoACR livery with a rake of twelve wheeler saloons whenever I get around to those as well! Too many ideas and not enough time.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Player of trains

[Schooner]

1 hour ago, Player of trains said:

1910 Shanghai Nanking locomotives.

 

My word those are wonderful! Right at the heart of Uncanny Valley with body and running gear being perfectly familar by themselves but totally alien when put together. Along with the Atlantics they seem perfect for their roles in such a richly historied counter-factual, more inspiring stuff.

 

(And what do you mean? O/S 2-4-0s are big engines!)

[Schooner]

1 hour ago, Player of trains said:

 

 

PS. Love the Great (Far) Eastern-looking cab, ten points to the Kerr Stuart draughtsmen for that one!

Edited June 8, 2023 by Schooner
Sp

[Player of trains]

I do too, I'm a Staffs native so have a great love for Bagnall and Kerr Stuart and its easy to forget they did build big locos when their bread and butter in the UK and preservation were industrials or contracted builds to the Big Four. Plenty of photos of large KS locos bound for Asia and South America and Bagnall cut their teeth on building huge eight coupled locomotives for India into the 1950s.

[Player of trains]

6 minutes ago, Schooner said:

 

My word those are wonderful! Right at the heart of Uncanny Valley with body and running gear being perfectly familar by themselves but totally alien when put together. Along with the Atlantics they seem perfect for their roles in such a richly historied counter-factual, more inspiring stuff.

 

That's what I love about them, they really are such uncanny machines, they were actually based off 4-4-0 locos delivered a few years prior which further makes them unique as its a reverse to how 4-4-0s came about from singles at least in Europe. You can see with it being fitted with a Belpaire how it looks a lot like a midland compound in outline. 

[eheaps]

You might have found these already, but if not... Couldn't find the single though

 

[eheaps]

Spoke too soon!

 

[Player of trains]

Oh No... Now I really have no excuse to not build these...

[eheaps]

You might be able to get better resolution by downloading directly from the source of these scans, which was the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/pub_engineer) Searching for "Nanking" in the relevant volume finds them pretty quickly.

 

For those that don't know the internet archive has full scans of both The Engineer and Engineering which can be a great source of drawings.

Edited June 9, 2023 by eheaps
Dodgy grammar

[Player of trains]

Thank you so much that is a massive massive help. Did not expect drawings for them to actually exist anymore let alone be that available. 

[Schooner]

Dammit @eheaps, I had things to do this afternoon!

[Caley Jim]

Re. Fox bogies. A lot of CR passenger stock ran on Fox bogies. 

 

Jim 

[eheaps]

An awful lot of pre-group railways seem to have used this type of fox bogie (illustrated for avoidance of doubt as there was another type more commonly used on goods wagons), especially those who didn't have enormous drawing offices and carriage works. Each railway seems to have had there own preference for secondary springs (various combos of leaf and coil) and footboard length though. They also came in a few different wheel bases.

 

Pretty much all of my Trainz carriages run on a bogie based on this design, even if it's not strictly correct but as long as you get the footboards right I think you can normally get away with it!

 

For a fictional small railway company it seems to be the ideal choice!

 

 

PS. the more I look at those single drawings the more I want build a Trainz one...

Edited June 9, 2023 by eheaps

[Edwardian]

Yes, indeed, though there are variations, of course, the 8' Fox bogie is the nearest thing to a generic pre-Grouping bogie. It seems both appropriate and highly likely for a line such as the Isle of Alnogg, or any line contemplating a generic fictional, but prototype-literate, short bogie coach. 

[Player of trains]

Thank you to both of you for that information, I'll see if I can find drawings for these 8' bogies, I have got one of the Ian Allan published coach drawing books and I probably have them in there and if not I'm sure the Engineer magazine archives will be very useful. 

[Edwardian]

14 hours ago, Player of trains said:

Thank you to both of you for that information, I'll see if I can find drawings for these 8' bogies, I have got one of the Ian Allan published coach drawing books and I probably have them in there and if not I'm sure the Engineer magazine archives will be very useful. 

 

You have a PM