Wright writes.....

[Leander]

41 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Thanks Pete,

 

It must be 1959 (if the tender is not part-welded), since she only towed a riveted tender between June and December of that year. 

 

The hot summer of 1959 as well, as she awaits departure from (what looks like) Locking Road. The loco was at Agecroft at the time - a fair distance from home.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Thanks for narrowing the date down Tony. It must be a riveted tender as it has a higher row of close spaced rivets along the top of the tank. Part-welded enders didn't have this feature but did have the lower horizontal row. One can clearly see the differences between the two here; part-welded leads riveted. Is this the LNER Royal Train by the way?

Edited December 3, 2020 by Leander
Typo

[Tony Teague]

On 02/12/2020 at 20:20, Tony Wright said:

The Model Loco Black Five is now complete.............

 

 

 

 

Tony

When you use a plastic RTR tender with a kit-built white metal loco, do you add weight to the tender?

I find some RTR tenders are extremely light, even compared with their RTR locos and so I wondered whether the tenders might be inclined to lift or de-rail when a heavier load of kit-built coaches is placed behind them.

Tony

[sandra]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

In what way, please?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Tony,

 

The slide bars bend up and down at the ends, probably to clear the connecting rod. In the real thing the slide bars are straight albeit they do taper behind the support bracket. It’s rather a strange mistake which I would have thought should have been avoided as GW slide bars are quite distinctive and the way it has been done seems to spoil what otherwise appears to be a good model.

 

Sandra

[Chuffer Davies]

1 hour ago, sandra said:

Tony,

 

The slide bars bend up and down at the ends, probably to clear the connecting rod. In the real thing the slide bars are straight albeit they do taper behind the support bracket. It’s rather a strange mistake which I would have thought should have been avoided as GW slide bars are quite distinctive and the way it has been done seems to spoil what otherwise appears to be a good model.

 

Sandra

Hi Sandra/Tony,

I'll try and summarise the general reaction to the new Dapol Mogul.  In many ways this is an excellent model and the best GW Mogul from the RTR manufacturers.  There are one or two disappointments that prevent it from being at the top of the game:

 

The shape of the slide bars has already been mentioned here but to summarise they are too close together and as a result Dapol have chamfered the ends of both the top and bottom slidebars to clear the connecting rod.  This was a problem in the prototype which the Great Western got round by milling a slot in the end of the bottom slidebar to clear the connecting rod.   I have previous experience of building a Perseverance chassis for a Mainline Mogul conversion and with correctly spaced slidebars I only needed to chamfer the very end of the bottom slidebar to obtain the required clearance.   

 

The front of the crosshead is flat and lacks detail.

 

The loco is quite light and so will dissapoint those wanting it to pull anything like prototypical length trains.

 

The gearing is very low (16/1) which makes control at slow speeds a bit 'iffy' and it also results in an excessive top speed.

 

Otherwise there are many positives including dimensional accuracy, excellent detail,  nice looking wheels (and centres) and a good paint job.  One contributor mentioned a lack of rivet detail on the valances but these could be added with rivet transfers.

 

I look on it as an excellent candidate for Hungerford as the first thing I'll do is throw away the chassis and replace it with a bespoke etched chassis of my own design including utilising my 'motor in tender' system to allow me to completely fill the loco's body with lead.   This will get rid of almost everything negative that has been said about the model in one fell swoop.

 

One last point to Tony:  The chassis is released by removing three screws, one under the pony truck and two under the cab.  The chassis will only finally drop out once you have unplugged the DCC PCB by pulling it out through the smokebox door.

 

I think that about sums it up.

 

Frank        

[john new]

7 hours ago, Chuffer Davies said:

Hi Sandra/Tony,

I'll try and summarise the general reaction to the new Dapol Mogul.  In many ways this is an excellent model and the best GW Mogul from the RTR manufacturers.  There are one or two disappointments that prevent it from being at the top of the game:

 

The shape of the slide bars has already been mentioned here but to summarise they are too close together and as a result Dapol have chamfered the ends of both the top and bottom slidebars to clear the connecting rod.  This was a problem in the prototype which the Great Western got round by milling a slot in the end of the bottom slidebar to clear the connecting rod.   I have previous experience of building a Perseverance chassis for a Mainline Mogul conversion and with correctly spaced slidebars I only needed to chamfer the very end of the bottom slidebar to obtain the required clearance.   

 

The front of the crosshead is flat and lacks detail.

 

The loco is quite light and so will dissapoint those wanting it to pull anything like prototypical length trains.

 

The gearing is very low (16/1) which makes control at slow speeds a bit 'iffy' and it also results in an excessive top speed.

 

Otherwise there are many positives including dimensional accuracy, excellent detail,  nice looking wheels (and centres) and a good paint job.  One contributor mentioned a lack of rivet detail on the valances but these could be added with rivet transfers.

 

I look on it as an excellent candidate for Hungerford as the first thing I'll do is throw away the chassis and replace it with a bespoke etched chassis of my own design including utilising my 'motor in tender' system to allow me to completely fill the loco's body with lead.   This will get rid of almost everything negative that has been said about the model in one fell swoop.

 

One last point to Tony:  The chassis is released by removing three screws, one under the pony truck and two under the cab.  The chassis will only finally drop out once you have unplugged the DCC PCB by pulling it out through the smokebox door.

 

I think that about sums it up.

 

Frank        

What a ridiculously over complicated way to attach the body.

[t-b-g]

One thing that looks a bit wrong with the Black 5 is the valve gear.

 

On the real thing, the whole of the valve rod is visible but on the model, it goes behind a brass strip with slots in it, which looks like an extension forward of the motion bracket.

 

The valve rod should be clearly visible below that, so something is amiss there but it is hard to tell which bit or bits are wrong without a drawing and measuring. It may be the valve gear or it may be the bracket or perhaps both.

 

The Hornby valve gear, in that respect at least, is actually better for once.

 

Edit to add that I have had another look and it seems that the mounting for the small crosshead for the piston valves is too near the footplate, so it is likely that the rod is too high up. Yet I can't see any easy "just move that bit" type fix, so there may be more to it than that!

Edited December 4, 2020 by t-b-g
To add content

[LNER4479]

11 hours ago, Leander said:

Is this the LNER Royal Train by the way?

I think that's the LMS (ex-LNWR) Royal Train. If so, some of those vehicles are now in the NRM.

 

The LNER Principal vehicles had the distinctive 'fish belly' underframes.

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

One thing that looks a bit wrong with the Black 5 is the valve gear.

 

On the real thing, the whole of the valve rod is visible but on the model, it goes behind a brass strip with slots in it, which looks like an extension forward of the motion bracket.

 

The valve rod should be clearly visible below that, so something is amiss there but it is hard to tell which bit or bits are wrong without a drawing and measuring. It may be the valve gear or it may be the bracket or perhaps both.

 

The Hornby valve gear, in that respect at least, is actually better for once.

 

Edit to add that I have had another look and it seems that the mounting for the small crosshead for the piston valves is too near the footplate, so it is likely that the rod is too high up. Yet I can't see any easy "just move that bit" type fix, so there may be more to it than that!

 

Photo 6 on this page shows the valve gear well.  You're right about the valve crosshead - on the model it doesn't line up with the valve spindle.  I think that's at least partly because the casting for the valve crosshead and its support is not level - it's tilted up towards the back.  The valve end of the radius rod is thus too high.

 

However, the front extension of the motion bracket appears to be too deep compared to the prototype photo and set much too near to the running plate valance.  It should be much shallower and set further back in the gloom; indeed the entire bracket is rather two dimensional.  The prominent and characteristic cover over the expansion link spindle held on with four bolts is also missing - I wonder if this part was lost from the kit?

 

 

[65179]

Does this help?

Proportions may be slightly different as this is 44806.

 

Simon

[Northmoor]

14 minutes ago, 65179 said:

Does this help?

Proportions may be slightly different as this is 44806.

 

Simon

I dare someone to make a scale model of the string......

[jrg1]

9 hours ago, Chuffer Davies said:

Hi Sandra/Tony,

I'll try and summarise the general reaction to the new Dapol Mogul.  In many ways this is an excellent model and the best GW Mogul from the RTR manufacturers.  There are one or two disappointments that prevent it from being at the top of the game:

 

The shape of the slide bars has already been mentioned here but to summarise they are too close together and as a result Dapol have chamfered the ends of both the top and bottom slidebars to clear the connecting rod.  This was a problem in the prototype which the Great Western got round by milling a slot in the end of the bottom slidebar to clear the connecting rod.   I have previous experience of building a Perseverance chassis for a Mainline Mogul conversion and with correctly spaced slidebars I only needed to chamfer the very end of the bottom slidebar to obtain the required clearance.   

 

The front of the crosshead is flat and lacks detail.

 

The loco is quite light and so will dissapoint those wanting it to pull anything like prototypical length trains.

 

The gearing is very low (16/1) which makes control at slow speeds a bit 'iffy' and it also results in an excessive top speed.

 

Otherwise there are many positives including dimensional accuracy, excellent detail,  nice looking wheels (and centres) and a good paint job.  One contributor mentioned a lack of rivet detail on the valances but these could be added with rivet transfers.

 

I look on it as an excellent candidate for Hungerford as the first thing I'll do is throw away the chassis and replace it with a bespoke etched chassis of my own design including utilising my 'motor in tender' system to allow me to completely fill the loco's body with lead.   This will get rid of almost everything negative that has been said about the model in one fell swoop.

 

One last point to Tony:  The chassis is released by removing three screws, one under the pony truck and two under the cab.  The chassis will only finally drop out once you have unplugged the DCC PCB by pulling it out through the smokebox door.

 

I think that about sums it up.

 

Frank        

Can you describe your motor in tender system and etched chassis, please?

[LNER4479]

3 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I dare someone to make a scale model of the string......

You'd need to work out how long it was first ...

[t-b-g]

1 minute ago, LNER4479 said:

You'd need to work out how long it was first ...

 

We would also need somebody with some knotty knowledge (as in sailing - not North Staffordshire Railway) to identify and teach us how to create that knot in authentic fashion.

[Flood]

There was a Horizon programme nearly 10 years ago where Alan Davies asked "How long is a piece of string?".

I think the conclusion was "how ever long you like".

Edited December 4, 2020 by Flood

[MikeParkin65]

3 hours ago, john new said:

What a ridiculously over complicated way to attach the body.

3 screws and move a PCB out of the way is too complicated? 

[john new]

2 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

3 screws and move a PCB out of the way is too complicated? 

Provided you have the instructions to hand now then I would agree no, lose them down the line and at some point in the future (a likely issue) things like pulling out a PCB through the smokebox are likely to be forgotten with resultant damage. 

[Chuffer Davies]

55 minutes ago, john new said:

Provided you have the instructions to hand now then I would agree no, lose them down the line and at some point in the future (a likely issue) things like pulling out a PCB through the smokebox are likely to be forgotten with resultant damage. 

Whilst the model comes with quite a detailed hand book, no where does it describe how to drop the chassis from the superstructure.  I had to work it out for myself but it was fairly obvious when all was said and done.  Personally I had to admire the ingenuity of the design particularly the use of the drawbar as a four way electrical connector.  Two wires are to bring the current from the tender pick ups, and the other two are the loudspeaker connection running from the DCC chip in the smokebox to the loudspeaker in the tender.  The loco is therefore not permanently coupled to the tender.

Frank   

[Chuffer Davies]

1 hour ago, jrg1 said:

Can you describe your motor in tender system and etched chassis, please?

Hi,

I am still at the CAD design stage.  I have all the design for the gubbins in the tender sorted and am now working systematically through the design of the replacement locomotive chassis.  I still have to draw up the cylinders, slidebars, crossheads, etc.  as well as the pony truck and then I'll be ready to arrange all the components into their respective etch frames before sending it off to the etchers.

 

I have described my design work to date on the Dapol Mogul's dedicated blog so rather than repeat myself here I'll provide the following link to the first entry and then you can scroll a couple of pages to find the 2nd entry.       

 

Frank

[PMP]

1 hour ago, Flood said:

There was a Horizon programme nearly 10 years ago where Alan Davies asked "How long is a piece of string?".

I think the conclusion was "how ever long you like".

The length is always twice the distance from the middle to one end.

[Flood]

3 minutes ago, PMP said:

The length is always twice the distance from the middle to one end.

I'll sleep better knowing that.

[PMP]

15 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

In what way, please?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Hi Tony, as others have mentioned, the first thing I saw that

looked off when seeing a picture of Modelu’s and Geoff Taylor’s Moguls was the flared ends to the slide bars. You’ll note from your recent prairie images that the Hornby 61xx varieties, have the correct shape, and the con rod misses contact with the slide bars. That may be because the piston rod centre line of the Hornby 61’s is a fraction lower.

[Chuffer Davies]

55 minutes ago, PMP said:

That may be because the piston rod centre line of the Hornby 61’s is a fraction lower.

As already stated, the reason the Mogul has this problem is simply because the slidebars are too close together.  What Dapol have got correct is the relative position of the piston rod (2 inches above) to the centre line of the driving wheels.  The Hornby model has the piston rod (incorrectly) inline with the centre line of the driving wheels but the spacing of the slidebars is correct.

Frank  

[PMP]

54 minutes ago, Chuffer Davies said:

.  The Hornby model has the piston rod (incorrectly) inline with the centre line of the driving wheels but the spacing of the slidebars is correct.

Frank  

Not sure what point you’re making, you’ve quoted the bit where I said the Hornby piston rod centre was lower. So we’re on the same page as far as I can see.

[Leander]

6 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

I think that's the LMS (ex-LNWR) Royal Train. If so, some of those vehicles are now in the NRM.

 

The LNER Principal vehicles had the distinctive 'fish belly' underframes.

Thanks, I think you're right now I've had a closer look at it. The B&W  photo has rendered the 'spilt milk' colour of the upper sides of the coaches has been rendered to appear rather dark. On zooming on the coaches themselves it's quite clear that they are of LNWR heritage,

[Tony Wright]

16 hours ago, Chuffer Davies said:

Hi Sandra/Tony,

I'll try and summarise the general reaction to the new Dapol Mogul.  In many ways this is an excellent model and the best GW Mogul from the RTR manufacturers.  There are one or two disappointments that prevent it from being at the top of the game:

 

The shape of the slide bars has already been mentioned here but to summarise they are too close together and as a result Dapol have chamfered the ends of both the top and bottom slidebars to clear the connecting rod.  This was a problem in the prototype which the Great Western got round by milling a slot in the end of the bottom slidebar to clear the connecting rod.   I have previous experience of building a Perseverance chassis for a Mainline Mogul conversion and with correctly spaced slidebars I only needed to chamfer the very end of the bottom slidebar to obtain the required clearance.   

 

The front of the crosshead is flat and lacks detail.

 

The loco is quite light and so will dissapoint those wanting it to pull anything like prototypical length trains.

 

The gearing is very low (16/1) which makes control at slow speeds a bit 'iffy' and it also results in an excessive top speed.

 

Otherwise there are many positives including dimensional accuracy, excellent detail,  nice looking wheels (and centres) and a good paint job.  One contributor mentioned a lack of rivet detail on the valances but these could be added with rivet transfers.

 

I look on it as an excellent candidate for Hungerford as the first thing I'll do is throw away the chassis and replace it with a bespoke etched chassis of my own design including utilising my 'motor in tender' system to allow me to completely fill the loco's body with lead.   This will get rid of almost everything negative that has been said about the model in one fell swoop.

 

One last point to Tony:  The chassis is released by removing three screws, one under the pony truck and two under the cab.  The chassis will only finally drop out once you have unplugged the DCC PCB by pulling it out through the smokebox door.

 

I think that about sums it up.

 

Frank        

Thanks Frank,

 

Most-enlightening. 

 

I did find the loco(s) light on its feet, and on anything other than a 'modest' load (20 wagons, some weighted kit-builds) it just slipped.

 

I found it ran quite slowly (even on an ancient H&M 'Clipper'), and I took some moving footage (which will appear in BRM's digital form). In fact, it performed better than other RTR locos of late and is extremely quiet.

 

Regarding the body/chassis separating; I did find it annoying to find that the slidebars are a loose fit in the cylinder ends and that the cylinders are not actually attached to the frames! 

 

Still, as I say, it looks a very fine model. 

 

Another (very) fine model I'm assessing right now is Hornby's forthcoming A2/2. I've been sent a pre-production (proving) model (a perk of having been involved - in a modest way - with the loco's development). I'm writing a report for BRM (which will appear next week in digital form). So, if anyone is interested, please watch this space from next Tuesday/Wednesday.

 

In my opinion, if there is a finer RTR model steam-outline loco out there, I've yet to see it! Who'd have thought a Thompson Pacific (in any form) would receive that accolade?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Tony Wright
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