New clothes for a Triang Princess

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Well here is my finished 1950's Princess. It has turned out ok, But I am not too happy with my lining on the tender.

So here is what has been done.

Filed away the very large moulding line on the top of the boiler,

Increased the depth of the front buffer beam by 1.5mm so it will take the correct buffers.

Replaced the front bogie wheels.

Fixed the faulty motor. All it really needed was a good clean.

Replaced the missing steam valve.

Made and fitted a footplate in the cab.

Made and fitted front and rear coupling hooks out of brass strip.

Fitted vacuum pipes. 

Fitted lamp brackets to the front of the engine. They might be a bit hard to see at the moment as I used a different method. Instead of brass strip I used stainless steel wire.

Fixed a small amount of a damaged section of the rear part of the tender.

Put new buffers front and rear to replace the far to small buffers originally fitted. The front ones are now the correct oval buffers for this engine.

Serviced the chassis and cleaned the wheels. It took me 2 hours to clean the driving wheels of 60 years worth of dirt and oil.

Put caps on the water tank vents.

Put lamps set up for express passenger service.

Full repaint in satin black and renamed, lined and renumbered. Then sprayed with matt varnish

Glaze the windows,

Painted and fitted crew.

Made new base for the tender and put real coal in the tender.

I will replace the old solid wheels with ones from a later model when they arrive.

This engine is my swan song so to speak. I will not be doing any more due to problems with my health. Something in either one of the glues or the paints is causing me problems. Till I find out what I am calling it a day.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by cypherman

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Well the Princess with the new chassis with wheels that will run on system six track onwards has arrived today. But the engine is in such great condition I do not have the heart to break it up. So I am ordering another chassis. Just the chassis not a complete engine this time. Hopefully it will arrive by the end of next week. The new Princess is in such good condition that i am just going to put it away as nothing other than a service needs doing to it.

[Blackthorn]

Very nice work.  I have a black 'Princess Victoria' that I think has been around before I was even thought of.  I have often thought about improving it, but it was my first train and I can't bring myself to do it.  I might have to find another to have a bash at....

 

Mark.

 

edit; mine has a very simple motion with no top bracket from the cylinders..I wonder if they were removed at some time? 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Blackthorn
last sentence.

[BR60103]

Blackthorn:

I think the Princess Victoria always came with simple motion.

The First 10 Years book notes that there were 3 named models in 1959. In 1960 Princess Royal and Elizabeth received improved valve gear and in 1961 see-through wheels, magnadhesion and smoke generator provision. (The book only goes that far.)

 

I don't know when it was numbered 92220. 

 

[BernardTPM]

Princess Victoria reappeared in 1974 only, again without valve gear, just basic motion. Interestingly there's a couple of Green Victorias on ebay, from around the same time, again with no valve gear and not listed on the Hornby collector guide site.

Edited July 16, 2020 by BernardTPM

[cypherman]

Hi all,

BR60103,

The 92220 was put on by a previous owner. That number actually belongs to the 2-10-0 Evening Star. The number it now carries is correct for the The Princess Margaret royal. I do have another Triang Princess which is in LMS red and is in mint condition and boxed. That is safely put away. It  has full valve gear as well. I believe the Princess's from the late 60's and 70's  in black were from a train set and not sold separately.

Edited July 16, 2020 by cypherman

[BernardTPM]

There were a number of old revivials in train sets from Hornby around that time (1974), not just the Princess. It would seem though, any 'Victoria' regardless of age, wouldn't have the valve gear, but later ones would have finer, see-through wheels.

[cypherman]

Hi Bernard,

That is true about the wheels. The original wheels were solid and it is the finer see through wheels that I am after with the newer chassis. I could if I wanted just put new wheels on it. But after doing that with the SCER saddle tank It is such a faff. Much easier and not really much more expensive to get another chassis. Especially if it has a working motor. So I do not have to use one of my spares.

Edited August 18, 2020 by cypherman

[melmerby]

Victoria didn't have anything other than basic valve gear in the 1960s.

I had one as well as a "Transcontinental" version pacific (same chassis) which did have the extra bit of valve gear (and a headlight!)

Both had solid wheels, which I later shaved down to pass through Peco code 100 points.

[LNWR18901910]

On 13/07/2020 at 12:42, cypherman said:

Hi all,

Well here is my finished 1950's Princess. It has turned out ok, But I am not too happy with my lining on the tender.

So here is what has been done.

Filed away the very large moulding line on the top of the boiler,

Increased the depth of the front buffer beam by 1.5mm so it will take the correct buffers.

Replaced the front bogie wheels.

Fixed the faulty motor. All it really needed was a good clean.

Replaced the missing steam valve.

Made and fitted a footplate in the cab.

Made and fitted front and rear coupling hooks out of brass strip.

Fitted vacuum pipes. 

Fitted lamp brackets to the front of the engine. They might be a bit hard to see at the moment as I used a different method. Instead of brass strip I used stainless steel wire.

Fixed a small amount of a damaged section of the rear part of the tender.

Put new buffers front and rear to replace the far to small buffers originally fitted. The front ones are now the correct oval buffers for this engine.

Serviced the chassis and cleaned the wheels. It took me 2 hours to clean the driving wheels of 60 years worth of dirt and oil.

Put caps on the water tank vents.

Put lamps set up for express passenger service.

Full repaint in satin black and renamed, lined and renumbered. Then sprayed with matt varnish

Glaze the windows,

Painted and fitted crew.

Made new base for the tender and put real coal in the tender.

I will replace the old solid wheels with ones from a later model when they arrive.

This engine is my swan song so to speak. I will not be doing any more due to problems with my health. Something in either one of the glues or the paints is causing me problems. Till I find out what I am calling it a day.

 

 

I think those are all nice models! Now that I own one in my possession, I intend to make it as 6213 Princess Meghan after Meghan Markle following her marriage to Prince Harry.

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, LNWR18901910 said:

I think those are all nice models! Now that I own one in my possession, I intend to make it as 6213 Princess Meghan after Meghan Markle following her marriage to Prince Harry.

being pedantic I think you will find that is incorrect.

AFAIK she is "Princess Henry of Wales" & "Duchess of Sussex"

She is not a Princess in her own right, only by marriage (Unlike Anne)

 

Stands by to be shot down in flames!

 

[cypherman]

Hi Melmerby,

You are quite correct. But you can still use the same engine with just a change in name. Personally I prefer the Duchess of Sussex.

If any of you are wondering what has happened to the Princess I bought to dismantle for the newer chassis just watch this space. I bought another newer chassis for the black princess and I am modernising/upgrading  the other one as we speak.

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Well the new chassis has arrived and is fitted.. So that princess now runs on modern code 100 rail. As I said earlier I bought the engine only part of the princess for that chassis. But when it arrived it was in almost perfect condition. Just a little bit of lining over one of the wheel arches was missing. It was too good to dismantle. So I have done it up so to speak. Not as much as the black princess as I did not want to damage in any way such a great original body.. So here it is and what I have done.

1/ Replaced the front buffers with the correct profile LMS ones. The back ones are from an Airfix tender so are close enough not to need changing.

2/ Fitted a footplate in the cab.

3/ Painted and fitted the crew.

4/ Glazed the cab.

5/ Fitted vacuum pipe to the front. Rear vacuum pipe already fitted on Airfix tender.

6/ made and fitted coupling hooks out of plasticard for the front and rear of the engine.

7/ Modified an old Airfix Royal Scot tender to work with this engine. Looks so much better than the original one. But it does look to be much further back than the original one, Even so the extra gap is only 2mm. I will modify the drawbar to a shorter length when I get time. I think it looks worse than it is because the Airfix tender has a wider step on the front of the tender.

8/ General service of the motor and chassis.

9/ Replaced the valve gear cross bracket with a new one as the one that came with the engine was damaged.

So not a lot, But it looks very nice and runs really well.

Edited August 18, 2020 by cypherman

[kevinlms]

On 20/07/2020 at 01:20, melmerby said:

being pedantic I think you will find that is incorrect.

AFAIK she is "Princess Henry of Wales" & "Duchess of Sussex"

She is not a Princess in her own right, only by marriage (Unlike Anne)

 

Stands by to be shot down in flames!

 

Equally (4)6201 is correctly named 'Princess Elizabeth' as that was the present Queens title at the time of naming. 

Does anyone know why the loco wasn't renamed, when she became Queen?

[cypherman]

Hi Kevin.

I suppose there are 3 ways at looking at this.

1/ It could be considered as bad luck in renaming an engine. The same way as sailors do not like to rename ships.

2/ Would you rename a locomotive if the person who it was named after died. The answer is probably no.

3/ It would cost money. Those brass name plates are I expect not cheap to produce. And by 1953 they must have known that steams days were numbered as diesel locomotives would be introduced on a wide scale with the Modernisation Plan of 1955.

Edited July 23, 2020 by cypherman

[BR60103]

There already was a locomotive named Queen Elizabeth (46221) after her mother.

 

[cypherman]

Hi BR60103,

Thanks for clearing that up for us.

[kevinlms]

5 hours ago, BR60103 said:

There already was a locomotive named Queen Elizabeth (46221) after her mother.

 

Of course! Thanks for stating what ought to have been obvious!