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Urie H15 "Chonker"


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There's a book, if you can find a copy to borrow: "LSWR Locomotives: the Urie Classes", D. L. Bradley, Wild Swan 1987.

 

It has an "official drawing" (General Arrangement) of an H15 at the back.

 

Good luck with the search!

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Thanks Guys,

 

I'm keeping an eye out for the excellent Bradley LSWR loco series, but they dont appear secondhand very often, and they fetch a high price!

 

The South Western Circle hadnt occured to me, but I guess its high time I joined.

 

Many thanks,

Dave.

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Thanks for all the help Gents, and especially to Michael for his drawing.

Its looking likely that a Chonker will be featuring in my program shortly, using the excellent looking PDK kit for the 33 series, with the stepped footplate. These were all shedded at Salisbury I beleive throughout the postwar period.

Thanks again,

Dave.

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Good looking design, but the trailing bogie wheel and leading and centre driver are very closely posiitioned; something of a challenge in model form, especially if the brake hanger and block are to be modelled on the leading driver. Might suit a solution I have seen employed to deal with a similarly crowded layout on the Ivatt Atlantic, with the leading bogie wheel in a pony truck arrangement, the trailing bogie wheel in the main frame.

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Thanks for all the help Gents, and especially to Michael for his drawing.

Its looking likely that a Chonker will be featuring in my program shortly, using the excellent looking PDK kit for the 33 series, with the stepped footplate. These were all shedded at Salisbury I beleive throughout the postwar period.

Thanks again,

Dave.

Bear in mind that the 33x series had a different coupled wheelbase to that of the PDK model, which is one of the "Chonkers", the pukka Urie H15s, and that the 33x had a Drummond tender except for 30331 from April 1956 when it received an N15 tender from 30744, also different to the tender supplied in the kit. The cab was also shorter on the 33x and the footplate straight. (Of course, PDK may be happy to supply you with a different tender to that normally supplied with the kit, and you may be happy to ignore the wheelbase, footplate and cab discrepancies). Only 30335 had the stepped footplate and it also had a unique tender, which I have never seen a kit for.

 

JE

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Bear in mind that the 33x series had a different coupled wheelbase to that of the PDK model, which is one of the "Chonkers", the pukka Urie H15s, and that the 33x had a Drummond tender except for 30331 from April 1956 when it received an N15 tender from 30744, also different to the tender supplied in the kit. The cab was also shorter on the 33x and the footplate straight. (Of course, PDK may be happy to supply you with a different tender to that normally supplied with the kit, and you may be happy to ignore the wheelbase, footplate and cab discrepancies). Only 30335 had the stepped footplate and it also had a unique tender, which I have never seen a kit for.

 

JE

Thanks JE,

 

You can probably tell that I havent got far with familiarising myself with the loco yet! As ever, once you start delving you come accross almost infinite variations, even within a relatively small class.

So perhaps I should leave the choice of numbering till a later date.

 

Many thanks for the info,

Dave.

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Thanks JE,

 

You can probably tell that I havent got far with familiarising myself with the loco yet! As ever, once you start delving you come accross almost infinite variations, even within a relatively small class.

So perhaps I should leave the choice of numbering till a later date.

 

Many thanks for the info,

Dave.

Hi Dave,

 

The H15s were indeed a very varied bunch for a class of just 26 machines, so, to give you a head start, here's a bit more info:

 

They are often described as a forerunner of the final British standard mixed traffic steam locomotive, having two outside cylinders with Walschaerts valve gear and a 4-6-0 layout. In this they foreshadowed the BR Standard classes 4 and 5. They divided into three groups, two having sub-sections.

 

The first (Group 1a) were the 10 built in 1914 to Urie's design, which became known as the "Chonkers". PDK do a kit of these. They were numbers 30482 to 30491. They had dropped running plates. The last of this batch became the "1b sub-group" as 30491 was fitted with a Maunsell "King Arthur" boiler in 1927 and remained unique in the class. All these engines had a 5,200 gallon tender, until 30482/4/8 received ex-S15 or N15 tenders of the standard 5,000 gallon pattern in 1954/55. Thus from 1955 onwards there were just a few of these machines in original form, and 30489 was the last to run with its original tender, withdrawn in 1961.

 

Group 2a consisted of one locomotive, a 1914 rebuild of a Drummond locomotive, numbered 30335. This had a one-off Drummond 4,500 gallon tender and dropped running plate.

 

Group 2b was 30331-4, five locomotives rebuilt from Drummond's F13 class in 1924. These were similar to the singleton 30335 but had a straight footplate and standard Drummond tenders fitted with well tanks to have a capacity of 4,300 gallons. 30331 latterly ran with an ex-N15 tender

 

All six Drummond "rebuilds" (little remained of the original machines) had a 7" longer coupled wheelbase to accomodate the old Drummond flat grate firebox and a shorter cab. These were all allocated to Salisbury for most of their existence, where crews became used to their idiosyncracies. No kits are suitable for them.

 

Group 3 was made up of ten locomotives built in 1924 to Urie specification but ordered by Maunsell. These had N15 coned boilers and straight running plates. PDK do a kit for these. There appear to have been no changes to these throughout their lives! These last 10 engines were hard to tell apart from the S15s and N15s except by their livery. The earlier "Chonkers" were very different with their massive smokeboxes.

 

Although the S15s were the principal Southern freight engines the Bournemouth line freights were normally handled by the H15s beyond Eastleigh at least in the 1950s, S15s being used on Feltham freights and on the West of England main line. In BR days the H15s were painted in BR mixed traffic lined livery (although a somewhat dubious claim has recently been made that some ran in Express Passenger Green!).

 

JE

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Thanks very much JE,

 

Thats a very clear and concise summary of the variations, and a huge help. I had been getting confused with the numbering, with the later locos having lower numbers.

 

Best wishes,

Dave

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  • 9 years later...
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Hi Keith,

You are right, the motion bracket is too far forward. 

This is discussed on page 63 of my Workbench topic here:  https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2359-dlts-sr-locos-urie-h15-chonker-pdk-kit/page/63/

Its an issue with the kit, but we decided to live with it as everything fits together well, and changing it would cause a lot of other issues.

All the best, Dave.

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Well worth the wait. You were lucky Bachmann hadn't made an RTR one in the meantime. I always wanted one of those. I ended up with a Maunsell S15 with H/D chassis and Duchess cylinders and valve gear and a body carved from a King Arthur.  An H15 is just the thing to clunk into my station with a freight off the Southern.

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