lner g5 Building an ex NER G5 0-4-4 Tank from a London Road Models 4mm kit

[30368]

As some of you may know, we have just moved from Wiltshire to sunny Buxton in Derbyshire. Whilst moving I discovered some old documents and letters.

For some time I have been trying to locate a former work collegue, whom I knew lived in Darlington, but without success.

 

When I received my first Free Pass as a Loco Works Fitting Apprentice (Eastleigh) in 1963 I did a tour of NE and ScR sheds and Darlington North Road Works. I didn't need to "bunk" the sheds because my new status allowed me to visit officially. When I reported to North Road another local, although older, apprentice took me around the works which was still busy with steam overhauls (V2, A3, A4 and 9F) and building BR type 2's. That apprentice was Ray Goad.

 

Many years later Ray Goad and I met up as colleagues working for the DM& EE BRB. Ray gave me a copy of the letter from the Works Manager (Mr Grey, whom I met many years latter at Derby Work during HST commisioning)  about my visit and we had a good laugh about past times. I subsequently lost the letter and Ray's and my career parted company and we lost touch.

 

When I was unpacking a few weeks ago I found the letter that Ray had given to me and so did some further searches and discovered that sadly Ray died in 2016 so I was not able to meet and chat over old times.

 

I discovered that Ray was a member of the Darlington Model Railway Club and so I contacted them to find out a bit more. The club are restoring Ray's 00 scale "Tees Castle" layout. So I decided that I would build a loco for The Darlington Club to run on the restored "Tees Castle" and the club members chose a Push Pull fitted G5 0-4-4T number 67286.

 

So this thread will be about building 67286* from a London Road Models kit in memory of Ray Goad a great railwayman.

 

* Further research has revealled that Ray's favourite was 67305.

Edited February 18, 2021 by 30368

[43110andyb]

I have thanked you privately I know but I would like speak on behalf all of our members at Darlington MRC that we are very grateful for your kind offer and we will follow this thread with great interest.

 

Many Thanks

 

Andy and Darlington MRC.

[30368]

The pleasure is all mine. Let's hope it runs ok when I have finished it!

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

[30368]

Have made a start with the mainframes.

 

I plan to use a HighLevel gearbox and one of Chris's coreless motors. The wheels will be Alan Gibson.

 

The frame design allows for compensated or fixed chassis - I have never built a compensated chassis but will give it a try since 0-4-4 wheel arrangement can be tricky.

 

Frames readyu to solder hornguides in position. Will be using Alan Gibson stud collectors.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

[Axlebox]

Good on you Richard, Ray was a proper gentleman and always had a friendly word of encouragement. If you had an interest in the railways of South West Durham then Ray was your man. His photograph collection has been passed to the Armstrong Trust and pictures occasionally appear on Ernie's Flickr site, as here in a wonderful shot of his home town from 1963. Thank you Ray for sharing your enthusiasm with us.

 

[30368]

Some progress today since I am waiting for some bits and pieces for track laying on my layout.

 

Frames are unlike anything I have built before due to the compensation. Where I would usually put my trusty Poppy jig to use aligning the frames with the compensation arrangements using hornblocks I have aligned and assembled the frames on my surface plate and used a 1/8" reamer to align the rear hornblocks prior to soldering the two halves of the frame together.

 

The front and rear frame spacers have been soldered to one frame half and then aligned on the surface plate prior to soldering.

 

Frames soldered together - note that the rear frame spacer is tapered as, I assume, was the prototype(?). I still have to run a solder fillit along the fold marks etched onto the frame.

 

The bogie mount cross member soldered in place - I had to file the cross member to fit the taper on the mainframes.

 

 

That's it for today.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

[The Black Hat]

Stunning photograph of Shildon with K1 62008 leaving towards Darlington. Loved this with its LNE group (NER Darlington pedigree) style smokebox door - bringing a much more uniform look. Wish the class had all been done that way. 

Its a very nice tribute and will be sure to follow the developments of this. 

[30368]

Fitted the compensation beams to the driving wheel hornguides - all simplier than I imagined assuming that it all works that is!

 

Beams in position - bogie frames in the background which will also be compensated.

 

Hornblock temp fitted to show how beam interacts with the block.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

[rowanj]

Hi Richard. I'll follow this with interest. I too am a "compensation virgin", and my pair of G5's built from NuCast kits, can best be described as "adequate", so a better loco is needed. Mike Meggison built a few of these kits, and his thread is always worth a look.

John

[30368]

No progress with the G5 I am waiting for things to return to "normal" following the Christmas/New Year period to order the wheels and the motor/gearbox.

Have contacted Richard Barber of "Locomotion" at Shildon and he knew Ray and has supplied some wonderful pictures of the G5 and in particular 67305 which, I understand, was Ray's favourite. Richard has been a real star digging out some great pictures, a few follow.

I should add that these are all copyright pictures so please contact Richard at Locomotion for permission to use.

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

Edited February 11, 2023 by 30368

[30368]

Update for Darlington Model Railway Club -

 

1. The wheelsets have been ordered from Alan Gibson and should be here any day.

2. Gearbox on order from HighLevel but slight delay waiting for smaller coreless motor.

 

I am putting together three tier trolleys to store all my collection under the layout baseboards. This seems to work well, I can roll out the trolley and select the loco/rolling stock as required. I guess I can store coaches in operational sets etc.... Some way off that level of organisation at the moment though!

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by 30368

[30368]

The Alan Gibson wheels (5ft, 16 spoke drivers and 3ft, 12 spoke bogie) have arrived. The bogie has now been assembled and the compensation beams work very well. The coupling rods halves have been soldered together and await cleaning up. I use plenty of solder to fill the gap between the two halves of the rods.

 

The bogie rests on its blutac support. It all fits together well although keeping it all square is tricky. Wheel sets have considerable sideplay so I will fit some fibre washers each side to limit this slightly. I have also cut out the half etched semicircle on the mainframe to clear the bogie frame. This (I hope) will be a club layout locomotive so running reliably is more important than perfect compliance with the prototype. Its a very small compromise anyway.

Frames cut out to improve clearance for the bogie.

 

Back of coupling rods prior to fettling.

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by 30368

[mikemeg]

Hi Richard,

 

Good to hear you're building an LRM G5 kit. As John Rowan commented, in one of the posts above, I did build three of these kits, concurrently, back in 2019. Each prototype was different and one was based on 67340, which had extended tanks. All three models were built to P4 gauge and I have to confess to making a number of changes and additions to the kits. I also used a number of different (and more recent) castings on the models, from the late Dave Alexander and from Arthur Kimber.

 

The list of changes is quite long and includes :-

 

An additional wrapper layer on the smokeboxes.

Forming and fitting the brass rings between boilers and smokeboxes.

Substitution of much thinner nickel silver boiler bands to replace the brass ones in the kit.

Reducing the depth of the coupling rods.

Addition of piping runs on the boiler and under the valances.

Re-working the outside brake linkage to give a more 3D effect than the etches provide.

Fitting different buffers, tank fillers, Ross pop safety valves, whistles, etc. from those contained in the kits.

Slightly reworking the dome profiles.

Etc.

 

All three models have compensated chassis' and the trailing bogies are also compensated. Anyway, a couple of photos which show the three models immediately prior to priming and painting them and before the final items of 'buffer beam furniture' were added.

 

The three models took around five months, in total, to build.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

 

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by mikemeg

[30368]

Hi Mike,

 

Thanks for your interest.

 

Three lovely pieces of work covering, from my limited knowledge, some of the key variations in the class. The example closest to the camera in the first image is close to 67305 although 305 was push-pull fitted. I have sourced some vacuum push-pull castings from Alan Gibson although they will need some modification. The extended tanks, which are scratch built I imagine, are very well done. Ugly prototype though!

Like you, both bogie and driving wheels will be compensated.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

 

 

 

[mikemeg]

Richard,

 

Thanks for the kind words. As a youthful train spotter, I never did see any of these, though Hull, where I was brought up, had a large allocation of them until their final withdrawals in1958. I am looking forward to seeing the new full size G5, being built at Darlington, once it is completed.

 

I built the model of 67340 - with the extended tanks - because it was one of Hull's allocation for many years. And yes, in doing this 'rebuild' the LNER did succeed in taking a beautifully proportioned ex-NER prototype and making it very ugly!

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by mikemeg

[30368]

On 13/01/2021 at 10:33, mikemeg said:

I am looking forward to seeing the new full size G5, being built at Darlington, once it is completed.

 

Me too, on learning of the project and its connection to my former colleague and friend Ray Goad, I decided to start donating to this project. They seem a good bunch and there is also a connection with the P2 project, to which I've donated for a while - members of the same family are officers in the two projects and why not!

 

I have made a little progress today fitting the crankpins to the drivers and opening out the coupling rods to fit and soldering the brake rod mounting brackets to the frames.

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by 30368

[43129@stainmore]

Hi Richard

 

I'm pleased to discover your thread and the admirable background to your G5 build. I have just started to build a LRM G5, this will be 67305 for my model of Barnard Castle in EM which will work a Darlington to Middleton in Teesdale push pull service.

I was good friends with Ray Goad for many years and he helped me with research for Stainmore Summit  that I built some 20 years ago. I didn't know that 67305 was his favourite G5, so that is a really pleasant surprise. I remember seeing Tees Castle in the late 1970s at a couple of exhibitions and it and Ray's enthusiasm instilled the inspiration for my Stainmore line interest ever since. Hopefully Ray is looking down on us from above.

I'm awaiting the wheels for my G5 so hopefully you will keep ahead of my progress.

 

Meanwhile here is a view of the almost finished Barnard Castle station building on my evolving layout.

 

Richard N

 

[30368]

14 hours ago, 43129@stainmore said:

Hi Richard

 

I'm pleased to discover your thread and the admirable background to your G5 build. I have just started to build a LRM G5, this will be 67305 for my model of Barnard Castle in EM which will work a Darlington to Middleton in Teesdale push pull service.

I was good friends with Ray Goad for many years and he helped me with research for Stainmore Summit  that I built some 20 years ago. I didn't know that 67305 was his favourite G5

 

Hi Richard,

 

It's really good to know that Ray's lagacy lives on in your really superbly modelled Barnard Castle. The buildings are really well modelled and the track in the foreground of the second image is very prototypical with variation in colour, material and texture. Bravo!

 

I am sure your version of 67305 will be equally superb as your layout work. By way of information my model has/will have:-

 

1. Alan Gibson Wheels.

2. High Level gearbox and coreless motor although this is delayed but I know that Chris is doing his best to resolve.

3. The push pull equipment will be largely scratchbuilt.

4. I shall paint it in BR mixed traffic livery.

 

Judging from your pictures you are also modelling 1950's NER?

 

I have a lot of images of 67305 kindly supplied by the Armstrong Trust - happy to share these with you via a PM or directly via email. Please let me know via a PM.

 

Please keep me posted on progress.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

 

 

 

[Chas Levin]

Hello Richard, very nice work - I shall follow your build with interest. I'm currently building an LRM C12, also using a High Level gearbox (fortunately bought before the current delays, though I have some more on order and like you hope they'll arrive soon). I have another couple of LRM kits in my pile and from what I've seen of their products so far I'm a definite fan ,

 

Best regards, Chas

[30368]

16 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

Hello Richard, very nice work - I shall follow your build with interest.

 

Hi Chas,

 

Thanks for the kind comments. I Have built a LRM K2 with a Scottish cab and whilst it was fairly tricky, particularly the valve gear and motion bracket, the resulting model was a very good representation of the prototype.

 

I have always liked the look of the C12 4-42T something about the GN cab! Good luck with that. I am following your build, looks great so far!

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

[30368]

Found some time to continue G5 build but more importantly whilst checking out the various kits I still have to build I discovered an unbuilt High Level Hiflier gearbox and small coreless motor.

 

The gearbox etch has the 1/8 " axle bearings fitted and the 1mm stregnthening rod soldered in place. The spacer (supplied) in the backgound is used to check that the gearbox sides are at 90 degrees and square.

 

From the top - axle gear wheel and motor worm, first gear spacer and shaft and lastly the idler gear, spacer washers and shaft.

 

Gearbox (mostly) assembled.

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

Edited February 11, 2023 by 30368
picture added

[30368]

Spent some time with the 1/8" reamer today. The axleboxes and the axle gear all needed a fair bit of work to ensure that the axles moved freely in the the axleboxes.

 

Compensation beams and axleboxes move very freely and the leaf spring etches that retain the boxes in position need gentle handling during soldering to the mainframe. Motor now fitted to the gearbox so mesh between worm and 1st gear will need to be checked next. I suspect though that tomorrow I shall be painting the frames.

I have checked the motor position wrt the boiler and backhead and the motor should not foul either for height or legnth.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

Edited February 11, 2023 by 30368

[30368]

Frame is now drying following painting so next week I should have a working chassis for the G5.

 

A few pictures of the frames prior to painting with buffer beam brackets and guard irons added. Some additional rivet detail added. I note that the buffer beams for the G5 are composite - that is a wooden beam with a steel face. I shall use plasticard for the wooden beam.

 

The wires for the brake hangers were added after the pictures were taken.

 

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by 30368

[30368]

Assembled the painted chassis. The hornblocks do increase the friction between axle and bearing surface given the increased area compared to fixed chassis 1/8" bearings which resulted in a fair bit of axle polishing etc. Quartering Alan Gibson wheels always a little tricky compared to Markits wheels but using wheel spokes and the calibrated eye not too difficult. The coupling rods fitted and ran very smoothly without any further adjustment so quartering can't be too far out. Will connect motor after I have figured out how I can add pickups to the bogie wheels - pick-ups on just two axles a bit too risky.

The G5's did have substantial coupling rods but are these a bit two wide??

 

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by 30368

[mikemeg]

20 hours ago, 30368 said:

The G5's did have substantial coupling rods but are these a bit two wide??

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

 

 

Richard,

 

Yes, the coupling rods are too wide. When I built my three examples, I reduced the coupling rod width by around .025" i.e 0.6 mm. The photo, below, shows the difference between the assembled rod, as supplied and the rod reduced in width.

 

However, this isn't quite as simple as just reducing the width by filing, for in so doing the fluting webs on the rod edge can disappear. So the fluting recess has also to be reduced in width by augmenting the insides of the fluting webs.

 

I therefore soldered lengths of .3 mm nickel silver wire to both inner edges of the fluting webs. This was then squared off with very fine files and the fluting cleaned out, again with the edge of a needle file before then reducing the thickness of the rod by filing both outside edges of the rod using a very fine 1" wide file to try and ensure consistency of the width reduction.

 

This process took around 1.0 - 1.5 hours, per rod, to complete - I took this very slowly; any mistakes and the rod's a goner' - but I think the result was well worth the time spent.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by mikemeg