North London Railway 4-4-0T, class 1-10, O/C

[Adams442T]

  Well following some exchanges on the North London Railway topic I have decided to bite the bullet and (re) start my scratchbuild of a Class 1 tank loco. 

 

I managed to dig up some reference I sorted out in 2005.  I also found the white-metal pattern parts which I made at that time, chimney, dome, safety valves and a smokebox door 'blank', which will need strapping and hinges attached to it, but is otherwise OK  (it looks the wrong way round but this is a problem with scanning instead of getting off my rear and going for my camera!).

 

I originally intended to use a Gibson chassis but found it was so badly adrift that it set me back for a while.  Then I found both the Kenneth Leech 1940 drawings, and a photograph, on page 14 in The North London Railway - A Pictorial Record, which shows Bow Works Wheel Shop in 1898.  On the back wall are the frame templates for both types of 4-4-0T.

 

I scanned and enlarged that section, and using the known dimensions I was able to 'fill in the blanks' successfully and then reduce it to 4mm scale.  There are some discrepancies between the Leech drawing and the other.  Partly explained by No48 being an unrebuilt loco and the other being the later enlarged cab version.  Though I am inclined to trust Leech more in the smokebox side-on dimensions when I compare these with Bow Works originals from the NRM.

 

Anyway, I've started and I may put the build out as a blog if anyone's interested, though I must warn that progress will be tempered by available time!  I will also be remoulding my 4mm Vic/Ed Period NLR & LTSR Train Crews, Staff, etc. and I'll add these too.

 

[t-b-g]

I will look forward to this one with great interest! If you don't mind knocking up a pair while you are at it, we could do with one for the NLR set on Narrow Road! I did hear tell that a kit is under discussion from London Road models but I am not sure which version they will do and how long it may take.

 

The loco crews sound interesting too. Did you make your own masters or modify commercial figures and use them as masters?

 

Tony

[Adams442T]

Hi Tony,

 

I spoke to LRM some years ago now at an Expo EM about the possibility of them doing a Class 1, but I think it's very much a 'back-burner' with them unless Jol knows better of course!

 

No I make my own.  I've been a figure maker for some 40 years, including a long period with Britains making mostly military figures for them through the 90s (along with Andrew Stadden who I got to do some of our Ceremonial series then)

 

I've long despaired about the poor quality of figures available, Monty's/Dart Castings and Andrew's being some of the few exceptions, so it's about time I extracted the digit and fettled up some of my old patterns.  I originally made LTSR staff & crews and later NLR ones taking my large archive of early photos as the source.  It's fortunate that 'posing around the new engine' seemed to be a highlight in the day at Bow Works! 

[garethashenden]

Looking forward to continued progress.

[Adams442T]

I've copied, cropped, flipped and spliced Leech's 1940s drawings to give me a working front and rear layout for the unrebuilt No 1 class.  I decided to go for that as I'm not so keen on the slab-sided appearance of the rebuilds.  More work of course........ In conjunction with the copious photographs I took of the works model of no. 60 at York I think I've got all I need to make a start.

 

Ordered from Guilplates the numbers for 60 and 48, plus some destination boards; CAMDEN TOWN, CHALK FARM, POPLAR DOCK, BOW Jn., KILBURN and ALDERSBROOK