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7 hours ago, MarkC said:

The L & Y 2-4-2T is possibly Cotswold, Tony? Looking at the leading and trailing wheels, it's that sort of vintage.

 

Mark

Tony,

 

I agree with Mark. I have a Cotswold kit of the L and Y 2-4-× T and the box and it looks familiar. Cannot do detailed check at the moment as they are packed away.

 

Tom D

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1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

Castle and Kings etc didn't have 8 beats either - the cylinders exhausted together .  The Nelsons did have 8 though!

 

That's all foreign talk to me  :)

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15 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Thanks again, Clive.

 

I was told the front end (and rear end, which is which?) had been extensively modified. 

 

Does Dapol produce such a loco today? Not that you've got one, I'd imagine - have you scratch-built one? 

 

Though they were originally employed on the southern end of the ECML, I never saw one in reality. I believe they were rapidly removed to 'home waters', much further north, such was their unreliability. I did see several examples of the WR hydraulic equivalents. Were they any better?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Dapol produce a very fine model of a Class 21/ D61xx. It was released just before Covid so pretty recent. Here is mine running on Gresley Jn. I’m not sure if this is prototypically accurate as I can only find one picture of the real things running on the GN  - and that was on a railtour!

 

2711936E-F3AB-44E5-9B19-7AC264FBF44A.jpeg.f9a4ca3e897e4d12432dd9cdad360964.jpeg

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15 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

 I did see several examples of the WR hydraulic equivalents. Were they any better?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

All the diesel mainline locos supplied by North British had according to most publications a poor reputation. These included  class 21,22,29,43(Warship) and the A1A A1A original warships. In MLI no197, The North British Type 2s, the writer, Hugh Dady writes ‘......but the diesel hydraulic, perhaps ironically, proved itself to be a pretty good well-built machine.’ 
Incidentally the Blue Pullman sets  had NB/MAN engines but the issue you hear most about with them was there ride characteristics.

Robert

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There's a very detailed feature by Tim Shackleton on the Hush Hush in MRJ Compendium No. 3, which includes (IIRC) a build of the SEF kit and changes/corrections to make it more accurate

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4 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Dapol produce a very fine model of a Class 21/ D61xx. It was released just before Covid so pretty recent. Here is mine running on Gresley Jn. I’m not sure if this is prototypically accurate as I can only find one picture of the real things running on the GN  - and that was on a railtour!

 

2711936E-F3AB-44E5-9B19-7AC264FBF44A.jpeg.f9a4ca3e897e4d12432dd9cdad360964.jpeg

Hi Andy

 

The first 10 were all Hornsey locos. When new they had the two part radiator grill as per the Hornby model, by the time they were hidden from public view they had received the one part grill as per the Dapol model. Your model is correct for its last days of operating in England.

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I have a Playcraft Class 20 something or other in my beloved box of tat.

 

It still runs, like a bat out of hell  - and like a cockroach, you can't kill it !!!!!!!!!!!

 

image.png.aa43ec3384d2cb94eecf88f4bf575028.png

 

Brit15

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30 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Andy

 

The first 10 were all Hornsey locos. When new they had the two part radiator grill as per the Hornby model, by the time they were hidden from public view they had received the one part grill as per the Dapol model. Your model is correct for its last days of operating in England.

That’s good enough for me.

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32 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Andy

 

The first 10 were all Hornsey locos. When new they had the two part radiator grill as per the Hornby model, by the time they were hidden from public view they had received the one part grill as per the Dapol model. Your model is correct for its last days of operating in England.

Here are some GN views:

 

8298130108_9805621877_c.jpgD6103_Holloway_17-6-59 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

 

5977552080_50da0ddff8_c.jpgD6108_KingsCross by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

 

5977551928_e9bf5ae8a6_c.jpgD6105_KingsCross by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

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45 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

All the diesel mainline locos supplied by North British had according to most publications a poor reputation. These included  class 21,22,29,43(Warship) and the A1A A1A original warships. In MLI no197, The North British Type 2s, the writer, Hugh Dady writes ‘......but the diesel hydraulic, perhaps ironically, proved itself to be a pretty good well-built machine.’ 
Incidentally the Blue Pullman sets  had NB/MAN engines but the issue you hear most about with them was there ride characteristics.

Robert

Out of the five "prototype" AC electric classes (AL1-5, or 81-85), the North British-built AL4/84 were also those with the most reliability issues and  hence withdrawn first.

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47 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

All the diesel mainline locos supplied by North British had according to most publications a poor reputation. These included  class 21,22,29,43(Warship) and the A1A A1A original warships. In MLI no197, The North British Type 2s, the writer, Hugh Dady writes ‘......but the diesel hydraulic, perhaps ironically, proved itself to be a pretty good well-built machine.’ 
Incidentally the Blue Pullman sets  had NB/MAN engines but the issue you hear most about with them was there ride characteristics.

Robert

I thought that the Blue Pullman engines were made by MAN in Germany, and they were also 1,000 hp rather than 1,100 hp as on most of the NBL locos. They worked better as a result. I read somewhere that when NBL made the engines under licence, they converted the drawings from metric to imperial and the two ended up not being identical. Also, MAN had more experience of making diesel engines than NBL did. 

 

Although MAN engines were I believe used in some early V200 diesels in Germany, the production ones had Maybach or Daimler-Benz engines, which suggests DB did not have a great deal of confidence in the MAN product,

 

The 22s were not as bad as the 21s partly because they seemed to lead more sedate lives but also because some of the 21's problems stemmed from electrical equipment that the 22s did not have. The engines were the worst bit though, hence re-engining of 20 of the diesel electrics with Paxman engines.

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5 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Out of the five "prototype" AC electric classes (AL1-5, or 81-85), the North British-built AL4/84 were also those with the most reliability issues and  hence withdrawn first.

Might that have been partly due to their electrical equipment, which was a different make (GEC) to the other four types, which were AEI or EE?

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Re “battleship grey”, the following is from the HMSHood.com website, which is about as authoritative as you can get:

 

Hood was painted in the Royal Navy's Home Fleet standard dark grey shade for the bulk of her service. During the first few years of her career, this was a pure dark grey. The formula was changed in the mid 1920s to include a tinge of blue. The paint was somewhat glossy during peacetime years due to the inclusion of enamel. A matte variation of the colour (known as Pattern 507A) was introduced around the start of the Second World War. This variation was less reflective than the standard 507B which it ultimately replaced. 

Regardless of official designation, Hood wore the contemporary versions of the Home Fleet dark grey colour for her entire career except for her 1936-1939 assignment with the Mediterranean Fleet.”

 

Consequently, if people were associating the colour of this locomotive in the early 1930s with that of contemporary warships (not just ‘battleships’ of course; that is no more correct than that all vacuum cleaners are Hoovers!) then THIS is the analogy they are making. The Mediterranean Fleet ships were a much lighter grey, more akin (though not identical) to modern RN warships today. The original early 20th Century concept seems to have been to make ships based in home waters more difficult to see against the ‘grey sea and skies’ typical of the North Sea and Eastern Atlantic; ironically WWI demonstrated that the German ships in a lighter shade were actually better for that, but it took almost a generation for the lesson finally to sink home. 
 

The site goes on to suggest suitable paints of the appropriate shade for model warships, which presumably would also translate across to the locomotive.  Indeed for anyone with even a remote interest in naval history, and Britain’s greatest (yet fatally flawed) warship, it is a fantastic resource. 

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Lord Armstrong liked "Battleship Grey". He had ships painted with it, bridges painted with it, car painted with it, cranes painted with it... as in everything was "battleship grey". An old hand at Vickers on Scotswood Road had been involved in mixing " battleship grey" during his apprenticeship.. it varied depending on who made it and how much it was thinned to cover the object in question...some bridges in Newcastle still sport grey paint.. it fades badly in the sun...

 

Baz

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9 hours ago, Headstock said:

 

Good afternoon Tony,

 

I'm not sure if there was an official description. I would have to go trawling through tons of stuff to check. I recall it was a mix of two colours, one was a 'named grey' and I think the other was charcoal. I know that Laurie Loveless examined the Darlington apprentice model and found evidence of the original paint work, the repaint is well documented in the insurance claim. There was talk raising money to restore the Darlington model to its original condition but nothing seems to have come of it.

 

I think that the term 'Hush Hush' predates the completion of the locomotive, this would fit as there was a great deal of secrecy surrounding its design and construction. However, there is no doubt the locomotive had a very distinctive 'whispering'  exhaust, one that would fit with the onomatopoeia nature of 'Hush Hush'.

 

There is a clip of colour film of the locomotive, traveling with the dynamometer car at perhaps thirty or forty miles per hour and prior to the fitting of the double chimney. The exhaust is unlike any other LNER locomotive, having eight beats (more like pulses) to the turn of the wheel. Those on a thread in another place, wishing to equip their high pressure 4 cylinder compound, with DCC sound from A4, seem to have little understanding of either locomotive.

Had a look through 'Hush-Hush The story of the LNER 1000' by William Brown. Page 73:

The colour is made of lead colour in paste with a mixture of common black paste mixed with varnish and turpentine.

 

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1 minute ago, zr2498 said:

Had a look through 'Hush-Hush The story of the LNER 1000' by William Brown. Page 73:

The colour is made of lead colour in paste with a mixture of common black paste mixed with varnish and turpentine.

 

 

By lead colour, does he mean white lead as the primary pigment?

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1 hour ago, robertcwp said:

Here are some GN views:

 

D6103_Holloway_17-6-59 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

 

D6108_KingsCross by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

 

D6105_KingsCross by Robert Carroll, on Flic

Thanks Robert,

 

One ECS and two awaiting their next duty - that might summarise how they were regarded by the powers that be!

 

I’m assuming/ hoping they must have worked a suburban train or two before people realised how bad they were

 

Andy

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1 hour ago, robertcwp said:

I thought that the Blue Pullman engines were made by MAN in Germany, and they were also 1,000 hp rather than 1,100 hp as on most of the NBL locos. They worked better as a result. I read somewhere that when NBL made the engines under licence, they converted the drawings from metric to imperial and the two ended up not being identical. Also, MAN had more experience of making diesel engines than NBL did. 

 

Although MAN engines were I believe used in some early V200 diesels in Germany, the production ones had Maybach or Daimler-Benz engines, which suggests DB did not have a great deal of confidence in the MAN product,

 

The 22s were not as bad as the 21s partly because they seemed to lead more sedate lives but also because some of the 21's problems stemmed from electrical equipment that the 22s did not have. The engines were the worst bit though, hence re-engining of 20 of the diesel electrics with Paxman engines.

According to Modern Railways Pictorial, Profile :10 The Blue Pullmans, the engines are NBL/MAN L12V18/21BS which are the same as those fitted to the pilot scheme D61XX. This may be a typo but I don’t have any further books on the Blue Pullmans.

Hugh Dady describes MAN ‘as the ‘Daddy’ of Diesel engine companies’ He doesn’t describe the NBL prime mover department. The  illegitimate son?

Looking at my Platform 5 book of German railways MAN supplied very few Diesel engines for main line locomotives, the V160 family were mainly powered by MTU.

Robert

Robert

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1 hour ago, Willie Whizz said:

Re “battleship grey”, the following is from the HMSHood.com website, which is about as authoritative as you can get:

 

Hood was painted in the Royal Navy's Home Fleet standard dark grey shade for the bulk of her service. During the first few years of her career, this was a pure dark grey. The formula was changed in the mid 1920s to include a tinge of blue. The paint was somewhat glossy during peacetime years due to the inclusion of enamel. A matte variation of the colour (known as Pattern 507A) was introduced around the start of the Second World War. This variation was less reflective than the standard 507B which it ultimately replaced. 

Regardless of official designation, Hood wore the contemporary versions of the Home Fleet dark grey colour for her entire career except for her 1936-1939 assignment with the Mediterranean Fleet.”

 

Consequently, if people were associating the colour of this locomotive in the early 1930s with that of contemporary warships (not just ‘battleships’ of course; that is no more correct than that all vacuum cleaners are Hoovers!) then THIS is the analogy they are making. The Mediterranean Fleet ships were a much lighter grey, more akin (though not identical) to modern RN warships today. The original early 20th Century concept seems to have been to make ships based in home waters more difficult to see against the ‘grey sea and skies’ typical of the North Sea and Eastern Atlantic; ironically WWI demonstrated that the German ships in a lighter shade were actually better for that, but it took almost a generation for the lesson finally to sink home. 
 

The site goes on to suggest suitable paints of the appropriate shade for model warships, which presumably would also translate across to the locomotive.  Indeed for anyone with even a remote interest in naval history, and Britain’s greatest (yet fatally flawed) warship, it is a fantastic resource. 

 

Good evening Willie,

 

Last time this came up I provided a photo of 507A and B, I don't think they would be confused with Hush Hush.

 

Back in the 1930s, people were not associating the locomotives colour with 'Battleship Grey'. That association had to wait until decades after the Hush Hush and HMS Hood were long gone from the eyes of any witness. As for the colour of Hood, how do you know it wasn't painted steam locomotive grey? It's only taken seventy odd years to discover that when she was sunk, the Hull below the waterline was painted steam locomotive black and not red.

 

I'm not convinced on the fatally flawed angle either. If the curator of the Battlship New Jersey museum and memorial, believes that USS New Jersey could have been destroyed in similar circumstances, you have to except that the hit that sunk Hood was the luckiest shot in Naval history.

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44 minutes ago, zr2498 said:

Had a look through 'Hush-Hush The story of the LNER 1000' by William Brown. Page 73:

The colour is made of lead colour in paste with a mixture of common black paste mixed with varnish and turpentine.

 

 

Thanks,

 

I was too lazy to look. I should underline all the good bits for easy recall but then I wouldn't find anything due to underlining. Yes, it's that good folks.

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Agreed Barry O . The Caley painted structural metalwork battleship grey. Ah , but it wisnae wan o' yer battleships it wis one of oors ..... 

 

Long ago I took a scalpel to the supporting columns and ballustrade at what was Partick Central. Gently scraping through layers of paint as a historic scotland paint expert had taught me to do.   I was seeking  Caledonian battleship grey .  I even have a reference sample if it is ever needed. 

 

1190791293_Benstcolumn.jpeg.228b862e1ed678d8d209e4a1adfb9a00.jpeg

 

DCP_2120.jpg.aa544b1db98c74baba2b795ca3ab8b69.jpg

 

 

But when it comes to making a model you really don't want to kill the detail . So in the end I reckon halfords grey primer with a wash of burnt umber is as close as I'll ever get . 

 

 

 

 

 

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