Airfix / Dapol / etc. Rocket kit

[John Harris]

I realise that this is an unpowered static kit, but having got a new Hornby Rocket, I was wondering if anyone has tried converting / updating the static kit to the final configuration of the Rocket (as displayed these days).  I think the main changes are the cylinder alignment and the addition of a smokebox, though the wheels might well be changed and the preserved locomotive lacks a tender.

 

Any input would be gratefully received, I guess I'm hoping there was an article in an old magazine.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

jch 

[Il Grifone]

As I understand it, a completely new locomotive was supplied, but the truth is lost in the mists of time.

I think this would have been similar/same as the contemporary illustrations of 'Northumbrian', Certain restraints needed for the competition would have been unnecessary for a locomotive in service.

[Steamport Southport]

32 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

As I understand it, a completely new locomotive was supplied, but the truth is lost in the mists of time.

I think this would have been similar/same as the contemporary illustrations of 'Northumbrian', Certain restraints needed for the competition would have been unnecessary for a locomotive in service.

 

If that has come from some bloke that works for the NRM then dig up all the salt in Cheshire. You need far more than a pinch....

 

Total revisionist nonsense. Rocket is Rocket. Lion is Lion. And the Hetton Colliery engine is original and not built in the 1880s.

 

People were building stuff like this in the 1880s? Rubbish. It was built in 1822 and altered over the years.

 

Why build something like that if you could buy something like a second hand Manning Wardle for pennies?

 

 

 

 

 

Jason

[Axlebox]

..apparently Locomotion number 1 is much the same!

[The Johnster]

The Hetton loco as photographed is an 1820s loco that has been kept in service by Colliery blacksmiths for more than 60 years, and they’ve done pretty well.  The wooden boiler cladding has gone, there’s a new smokebox, chimney, probably a new tubed boiler, and I doubt the chimney is original; ditto wheels  But no reason to think the frames, footplate, engine, or motion are not original.

 

Trigger’s broom applies to many of our best known preserved locos, and I doubt Flying Scotsman, King Arthur, Caerphilly Castle, and many others built in the 20s or earlier have much of the brand new ex-works originals left in them beyond the nameplates, but the Hetton loco was probably never overhauled all at once, just patched and kept running...

 

[Hroth]

I've a couple of Airfix/Dapol Rocket kits and when this Covid thing kicked off, I was going to try making a "Northumbrian" from one too.  Its still on the Project List and may be there a little longer!

 

As I've got the general release Rocket pack, and a couple of the open coaches on preorder, It would look nice as a little "Opening Day" diorama, though not with Mr Huskisson being run down...

 

7 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

If that has come from some bloke that works for the NRM then dig up all the salt in Cheshire. You need far more than a pinch....

 

You get the feeling that certain reaches of the NRM are staffed by people trying to make a name for themselves, prepared to make a leap for pastures new before their areas of "responsibility" go belly up!

 

Of course, they're rather economical with the actualitie, when they only had City of Truro, it was always "the first loco to make the ton".  As soon as they got their hands on the Flying Money Pit, they changed their tune... 

 

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Trigger’s broom applies to many of our best known preserved locos, and I doubt Flying Scotsman, King Arthur, Caerphilly Castle, and many others built in the 20s or earlier have much of the brand new ex-works originals left in them beyond the nameplates

 

Or numberplates for that matter!  I believe part of the fun of running ex-GWR locos on Heritage railways is trying to find as many different loco numbers as possible on the different parts when they're being overhauled. GWR interchangability and standardisation was a wonderful thing!

 

 

 

[Gibbo675]

Hi John,

 

Here is my iteration of Northumbrian that I converted from the Dapol Rocket Kit. The kit was built up as normal except that plasticard plate frames were glued onto the lower edges of the kits bar frames to which the cylinders were attached. The fire box was extended with plasticard, the smoke box from the kit was not used, a complete new one was made. The tender was pretty much scratch built using the the lower part of the frames from the kit spliced together with new parts.

 

I shall take some better photographs tomorrow and post them so that you may see better what I did.

 

 

Gibbo.

[Il Grifone]

10 hours ago, Hroth said:

I've a couple of Airfix/Dapol Rocket kits and when this Covid thing kicked off, I was going to try making a "Northumbrian" from one too.  Its still on the Project List and may be there a little longer!

 

As I've got the general release Rocket pack, and a couple of the open coaches on preorder, It would look nice as a little "Opening Day" diorama, though not with Mr Huskisson being run down...

 

 

You get the feeling that certain reaches of the NRM are staffed by people trying to make a name for themselves, prepared to make a leap for pastures new before their areas of "responsibility" go belly up!

 

Of course, they're rather economical with the actualitie, when they only had City of Truro, it was always "the first loco to make the ton".  As soon as they got their hands on the Flying Money Pit, they changed their tune... 

 

 

Or numberplates for that matter!  I believe part of the fun of running ex-GWR locos on Heritage railways is trying to find as many different loco numbers as possible on the different parts when they're being overhauled. GWR interchangability and standardisation was a wonderful thing!

 

 

 

 

I can remember from my spotting days discussions on how much of a locomotive had to be seen to count as a 'cop' (visits to places like Swindon  ). We never really decided, but I settled for enough to identity the locomotive. Just the name/number plates didn't count, as I could then count some long scrapped rarities  (possibly fakes?).

[Squirrel Rail]

2 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

 

I can remember from my spotting days discussions on how much of a locomotive had to be seen to count as a 'cop' (visits to places like Swindon  ). We never really decided, but I settled for enough to identity the locomotive. Just the name/number plates didn't count, as I could then count some long scrapped rarities  (possibly fakes?).

We had the same debate and settled on the  frames and whatever was left on it! Our reasoning was cabs, bodywork and bogies could all be changed but the frames were the equivalent of the chassis number!!

[Il Grifone]

2 minutes ago, Squirrel Rail said:

We had the same debate and settled on the  frames and whatever was left on it! Our reasoning was cabs, bodywork and bogies could all be changed but the frames were the equivalent of the chassis number!!

 

Probably that's the case, though I wouldn't be surprised if some frames got swopped too or even whole engines (Bristol/Windsor Castle comes to mind). A loose boiler complete with smokebox number couldn't be ignored for example!

[Squirrel Rail]

1 hour ago, Il Grifone said:

 

Probably that's the case, though I wouldn't be surprised if some frames got swopped too or even whole engines (Bristol/Windsor Castle comes to mind). A loose boiler complete with smokebox number couldn't be ignored for example!

I was working on diesels but didn’t know that about the Castles - I’m now curious!!

[Ravenser]

49 minutes ago, Squirrel Rail said:

I was working on diesels but didn’t know that about the Castles - I’m now curious!!

 

As I understand it, Windsor Castle was the  normal GW/WR "Royal Engine". At the time of George VI's funeral she was inconveniently in Swindon Works for major overhaul...

[Johann Marsbar]

22 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

If that has come from some bloke that works for the NRM then dig up all the salt in Cheshire. You need far more than a pinch....

 

Total revisionist nonsense. Rocket is Rocket. Lion is Lion. And the Hetton Colliery engine is original and not built in the 1880s.

 

People were building stuff like this in the 1880s? Rubbish. It was built in 1822 and altered over the years.

 

Why build something like that if you could buy something like a second hand Manning Wardle for pennies?

 

Sounds like you might be interested in the 5 page article in the latest edition of Steam Railway  (pages 62 - 66) then.........

 

 

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Ravenser said:

 

As I understand it, Windsor Castle was the  normal GW/WR "Royal Engine". At the time of George VI's funeral she was inconveniently in Swindon Works for major overhaul...

Bristol Castle was No. 7013 built in July '48 and with many detail differences with 4082 which was built in April '24, they swapped identities permanently in Feb '52 so that the appropriately named engine could work the funeral train.

Seems like it probably happened a lot (e.g the case of GWR Rood Ashton Hall is well known)

 

Another is the LMS subterfuge with 6220 Coronation's visit to the USA

However Coronation didn't visit the USA, it was 6229 that did but names and numbers had been swapped, they were swapped back on it's return, unlike the GWR Castle's permanent swap

6220 was a Caledonian blue engine. 6229 was red.

[Ravenser]

1 hour ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

Sounds like you might be interested in the 5 page article in the latest edition of Steam Railway  (pages 62 - 66) then.........

 

 

 

I have a copy of the detailed NRM monograph documenting the locomotive's history and the detailed survey and examination of the preserved locomotive carried out in 1999 (The Engineering and History of Rocket , a survey report , NRM/Science Museum 2000)

 

That survey and report is unequivocal that this is the original Rocket , and that substantial parts such as the frames date back to 1829.

 

It indicates that a number of major components (eg the firebox and trailing wheels) were missing by 1862 when it was donated to the museum, and that some of these were replaced by suitable representations when the engine was refurbished by Robert Stephenson & Co immediately before presentation 

 

To be blunt there is no way that some of the modifications / additions and damage described in the survey could possibly have been found on a replica, and photographs of Rocket in 1876 at the museum exist. That rather puts paid to any question of a "replica from the 1880s"

 

For example there is no way that the two sets of bends and fractures documented in the front left frames, plus the fact that supplementary frames to carry a buffer beam were fitted in the first place, can be reconciled with anything other than a working engine which has been modified

 

The relevant passages (4.2.1 , p56 and 4.2.2 p57-8) reads:

 

Quote

There is significant accident damage to the left-hand longitudinal member, which has not only buckled but has broken 6 in from the leading edge, at the point where there are two transverse holes (Drawing 4.5). It is likely that these holes, which feature only on the left side of the frame, had been for the mercurial gauge, fitted to meet the requirements of the Rainhill Trials (Appendix 1) [my added emphasis] It seems that major damage was incurred before the buffer beam and supplementary frame had been fitted (Section 4.2.2) when the main frame, which protruded beyond the smokebox, was vulnerable to impact damage. It appears that the leading left corner was bent back on itself, the severity of the impact suggesting that the damage may have been incurred by the accident in Olive Mount Cutting in January 1831.... Further front-end impact damage was incurred on the Naworth collieries railway (below) which caused the buckling of the combined frame assembly which is still evident.

Two pairs of tapped holes on the front cross-member , holes C, are evidence of the former presence of the diagonal front tube-plate stays (Figs 3.2, 3.4, and 3.5) which were removed when the larger smokebox was fitted.... 

 

A number of other redundant holes in the frames reveal modifications that have been made during the working life of the locomotive......

 

4.2.2 Supplementary frames

 

The two supplementary leading frames 'B' (Drawing 4.3) were probably fitted at the Edge Hill workshops in February 1831 following the Olive Mount accident (Section 3.7), by which time the need for Rocket to have a front buffer beam, to permit an increase in its operating flexibility, would have been apparent.....

 

Further braces at the front end were added when the locomotive went to Kirkhouse in 1836, probably be the fitters sent out by Robert Stephenson & Co (Section 3.9). Additional wooden buffers were fitted on the underside of the main buffer beam to accommodate the lower buffing height of the chaldron waggons on the Naworth collieries railway ....

 

Whilst operating on the Naworth collieries railway (and possibly contributing to its withdrawal from service), Rocket was involved in a front-end collision, probably with chaldron waggons, which appears to have fractured both left- and right-side 'Kirkhouse' braces, buckled the left-side main frame and supplementary frame, (Section 4.2.1), and left the buffer beam with the downward tilt that it retains. The remains of the lower buffers, their mounting pads and the fractured frame-braces remained on the locomotive and were in situ when it was presented to the Patent Office Museum in 1862 (Fig 4.3) [which is a detail of one of the 1876 photos] 

 

Regrettably the Kirkhouse braces and the tie-bolts were removed at the Science Museum, in 1923 when the lower buffers were removed (Section 3.10) They were apparently scrapped in 1933, but there is no file note to explain their removal

 

In addition 4.7.10 notes "two indications on the tubeplate of the original 38 degree cylinder mounting plate"

 

- There is no way any late Victorian replica would display these modifications and damage

- There is no way anyone building a replica would make it incomplete in this way. They would - for example - ensure the replica had a firebox. Nobody would build a replica in the state shown in the 1876 photos.

- The loco shown in the 1876 photos is demonstrably the loco currently in the custody of the Science Museum

- The loco in the custody of the Museum has a very clear well-documented provenance back to at least 1851 with correspondence and accounts from 1851-8 indicating that it was at Robert Stephenson & Co in a significantly incomplete state

- The record of Rocket from 1830-c1840 must refer to this machine: it is quite clearly an early ex L&MR loco, and the buffer beam shows it was No. 1

 

You could try to argue that it is a replacement loco of c1830, which I think is what Il Griffone is suggesting, but certain features / modifications (emergency lower boiler stays / asymmetric firebox) clearly tie back to passages in Robert Stephenson's correspondence during the construction of the locomotive in 1829, and the implication of traces of a high cylinder mounting, and the present cylinder mounting frames being an addition, as well as the need to add a front buffer beam, suggest that it is a significantly earlier version of the class than the locos being delivered in 1830.

 

Also the L&MR would need to pay for a replacement engine - and that would be documented in their accounts.

 

I would want to see very compelling evidence to displace this kind of detailed museum scholarship. Not sure an article in Steam Railway making sensational claims really cuts it

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

9 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

I would want to see very compelling evidence to displace this kind of detailed museum scholarship. Not sure an article in Steam Railway making sensational claims really cuts it

 

 

The article in the latest Steam Railway is actually a five page one on the recent study of the Hetton Colliery locomotive Lyon which has been dated to circa 1849  by the NRM (instead of 1822) and nothing whatsoever to do with Rocket.............

[Ravenser]

21 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

The article in the latest Steam Railway is actually a five page one on the recent study of the Hetton Colliery locomotive Lyon which has been dated to circa 1849  by the NRM (instead of 1822) and nothing whatsoever to do with Rocket.............

 

 

Thank you for that clarification. 

 

It was - to put it mildly - entirely unclear from previous comments in the thread. Certainly we seemed to be having a discussion on whether Rocket and Lion (ex L&MR) were originals or replicas from the 1880s....

 

It would sound as if  the NRM have now done for the Hetton loco what they did for Rocket in 1999. I do find it very odd indeed that a loco with beam motion might have been built as late as 1849, but I think someone in S Wales built  a Hackworth style loco in the 1840s

 

 

Edited August 20, 2020 by Ravenser
to put names in italics

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Here are the close up photographs of Northumbrian.

 

The plate frames are made from .030" plasticard and run from the front of the smoke box to the rear of the fire box and are 42mm long and are 11mm deep with a cutout that reduces the depth to about 6mm over the driving wheels. The smoke box is 8mm long and matches the diameter of the boiler, the firebox is the same length as original and matches the diameter of the boiler. The cylinders are glued to the plate frames as are the wheel spashers which are also glued to the buffer beam and the underside of the cylinders. The buffer beam is 5mm X 26mm and the buffer centres are 22mm and 14mm from rail.

 

The tender frame is 42mm long, 27mm wide and 5mm deep. The tender tank is 8mm from the footplate to the top at the front, 16mm at the rear and is 38mm long with the top part of it 12mm long. The axle boxes and springs were cut from the original Rocket frame and .040" rebate filled above the springs to locate them in the plasticard frames of the new tender.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gibbo.

[PatB]

I must say, I've always thought that, engineering fabrication techniques having advanced as far as they did in the intervening 30 years, a replica Rocket probably wouldn't look like an Airfix kit stuck together by a 6 year old and subsequently left on top of a hot radiator.

[Ravenser]

I now have a link summarising the research on the Hetton colliery loco:

 

Hetton colliery loco re-examined

 

For the OP's purposes , a late period Rocket - as well as having a smokebox - would require new rear frame extensions to carry the cylinders (there is a detailed drawing of these in the NRM book)

 

There are some useful photos of Rocket as preserved here:

https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/stephensons-rocket

 

and an early drawing of Rocket in late condition (probably in 1836 when the L&MR sold her) here:

Rocket - the "Crewe" drawing, 1836

 

The NRM book (ISBN 1 900747 18 9 ) would be a very useful resource if you can get hold of a copy via  your local library

[Il Grifone]

On 20/08/2020 at 13:27, melmerby said:

Bristol Castle was No. 7013 built in July '48 and with many detail differences with 4082 which was built in April '24, they swapped identities permanently in Feb '52 so that the appropriately named engine could work the funeral train.

Seems like it probably happened a lot (e.g the case of GWR Rood Ashton Hall is well known)

 

Another is the LMS subterfuge with 6220 Coronation's visit to the USA

However Coronation didn't visit the USA, it was 6229 that did but names and numbers had been swapped, they were swapped back on it's return, unlike the GWR Castle's permanent swap

6220 was a Caledonian blue engine. 6229 was red.

 

Legend has it that a seven year old kid gave the game away. If so, he knew more than Meccano Ltd. (and me at that age - I was very happy with my new 'Bristol Castle' in 1957.) King George VI had apparently actually driven 'Windsor Castle' at Swindon works.

 

The GBL streamlined Coronation is 6220 in red (as is the Trix Twin one). It thus should have the headlight fitted for the visit to the USA, but, unlike Trix, doesn't. Mine will become 'City of Bristol' which resolves that problem and a Dublo chassis will make her go ( 2nd problem the front bogie fouls the skirt of the casing on curves).

[sandwich station]

2 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

The GBL streamlined Coronation is 6220 in red (as is the Trix Twin one). It thus should have the headlight fitted for the visit to the USA, but, unlike Trix, doesn't. Mine will become 'City of Bristol' which resolves that problem and a Dublo chassis will make her go ( 2nd problem the front bogie fouls the skirt of the casing on curves).

 

You could make it King George VI.  

[Il Grifone]

5 hours ago, sandwich station said:

 

You could make it King George VI.  

 

Yes, but I spent most of my childhood in Bristol. It would be a possibility for the second one (at under £10 a shot I bought two), but she will probably end up as 'City of Birmingham where I spent the rest of it.

I also have GWR 3712 'City of Bristol' a motorised Kitmaster/Airfix kit (that old).

Powered by a K's tender drive in a Tri-ang Dean single tender to EM gauge.

[33C]

This Rocket is technically motorised! Wind-up motor from the cheapo train set loco gives a run length of about a yard.....