Castle Aching

[Northroader]

Belonging to the Latter Day Enthusiasts and Adventist Brethren, I can say the LMS did have a nice line in steam shunters as well.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Northroader

[Edwardian]

10 hours ago, WFPettigrew said:

 

Shame then to hide it permanently in a tunnel. 

 

Now, if you want an engine, to attach to a train, that is afraid of a few drops of rain... 

 

 

That's new Henry, in his Crewe shape. Tunnel Henry is old Henry.

 

 

The problem with old Henry is that he never really worked as a 4-6-0 because his firebox would have been in the way of the rear coupled wheel and he would need a trailing wheel.

 

I read somewhere that the Reverend intended him to be an atlantic, which makes sense of the firebox and of the fact that Henry was supposed to be smaller and less powerful than the Gresley pacific Gordon. Henry probably should have been an Ivatt GNR large Atlantic, with NWR cab and tender. 

 

Dalby, however, drew Henry with 6 coupled wheels, mainly with a trailing wheel, as a pacific, but not always!

 

If he has 6 coupled wheels, as was always the case in the books, Henry really needs to be a  pacific, as his firebox design seems to require a trailing wheel.

 

However, we have to, then, imagine a sort of pocket Gresley pacific in order for him to be smaller than Gordon. 

 

I think it would be fun to depict him as a C2 atlantic, with NWR cab and tender, which is how you could, just about, interpret this Awdry sketch:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WFPettigrew]

7 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Tunnel Henry is old Henry.

Oops.  Hangs head in shame.  Yes, I should have known that...  

[Tom Burnham]

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’ve tried to sell the idea of internal combustion locomotives contemporary with the WNR to Edwardian before.

 

I get the impression that maybe some of them were a little inelegant for his tastes.

 

 

Hornsby Akroyd?  Allegedly the first of the breed, built for Woolwich Arsenal, could be heard working across a mile or so of marshland.

[Edwardian]

38 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

Oops.  Hangs head in shame.  Yes, I should have known that...  

 

To be fair, there is no model of his old shape available.

 

Someone better steeped in Sudrian lore might know whether this Henry is an early Dalby draft or the Reverend adapting to Dalby making Henry a 4-6-2. I suspect the former, if only because of the through running plate!. The outside cylinder casing is still echoing the Ivat atlantics and the pencil sketch of Henry as a 4-4-2.

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Edwardian

[Donw]

Well Hornby did the Flying Scotsman as an Atlantic in 0 gauge maybe the Reverend thought he could use an Atlantic 2. The Ivatt ones were handsome beasts ( this from a GWR fan).

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

9 hours ago, Edwardian said:

whether this Henry is an early Dalby draft

No, it’s by Middleton, the very first artist used, whose work wasn’t considered up to scratch and was replaced in later editions by new drawings by Dalby.

 

Between the two came Payne, who was the one who produced the definitive images of Thomas, but he only lasted one book before departing for his own reasons.

[papagolfjuliet]

16 hours ago, Northroader said:

Belonging to the Latter Day Enthusiasts and Adventist Brethren, I can say the LMS did have a nice line in steam shunters as well.

 

Narrow Minded Railworks produces a model of that, albeit in OO9. https://narrowmindedrailworks.com/collections/009-locos/products/oo9-009-doble-sentinel-steam-7192-locomotive-fits-the-kato-chassis-11-109_304828119424_

[WFPettigrew]

32 minutes ago, papagolfjuliet said:

albeit in OO9

Oooh mixed gauge on the turnback and cassettes!?! 😈

[Edwardian]

This has come up somewhere before, but there were other engines originally seen in The Three Railway Engines. Given the need to run the system, I never found the Reverend's answer to enquiring fans that they went subesquently 'sent away' to be satisfactory. 

 

Enlarging the final Dalby illustration, we see three locomotives between Henry on the left and Gordon with his famous rectangular buffers. To the right of him is little Edward. BTW, the inside cylinder red engine is probably not James. The scene predates the arrival of James (originally painted black) and the loco here has a front bogie and window in the cab side sheet, neither of which James had.  

 

 

 

I think elsewhere I mused on the possible basis for some NWR classes. Of course, these early Dalby illustrations lack a certain prototype literacy, so attempts exact copies probably wouldn't make sense, but I do wonder if something like the LNER B17 might not capture the design aesthetic of these NW engines reasonably well. 

 

 

With the older inside cylinder B12 (Holden's GER S69) as the basis for the red engine pictured.

 

I wonder if, extending the running plate and boiler of a B17 to add a GNR firebox and a trailing wheel would get you a smaller pacific than the A1/A3 variety, and, thus, a Henry that sat somewhere in power and size between the B17s and Gordon?  I suspect not. They are both three cylinder 6-coupled designs using 6'8".  There might be something like a millimetre height difference at scale, I suppoe, but, put another way, was Gresley's B17 dimensionally anything but a sawn-off Gresley pacific? 

 

Of course, reducing the dimensions all round is a possibility, but I doubt anyone would have built a pacific with the 6" coupled wheels Henry presumably had in his Black 5 guise.

 

He remains somewhat problematic!

[Compound2632]

30 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Enlarging the final Dalby illustration, we see three locomotives between Henry on the left and Gordon with his famous rectangular buffers. To the right of him is little Edward. BTW, the inside cylinder red engine is probably not James. The scene predates the arrival of James (originally painted black) and the loco here has a front bogie and window in the cab side sheet, neither of which James had.  

 

All three have the characteristic reverse curve drop of the running plate to the front buffer beam, which James, along with Edward, lacks. Thomas has it too, but not at the back, which makes the creation of a prototype-literate model problematic, as Bachmann found:

 

[ChrisN]

I understand, (*citation needed), that Edward, at least in Awdry's mind, was a Cambrian large Bogie, 4-4-0 in its final form.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, ChrisN said:

I understand, (*citation needed), that Edward, at least in Awdry's mind, was a Cambrian large Bogie, 4-4-0 in its final form.

 

Yes, or Furness Large Seagull, K2, the same Sharps design

 

A 3D print 'freelance' version exists, with Edward's cab style.

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

All three have the characteristic reverse curve drop of the running plate to the front buffer beam, which James, along with Edward, lacks. Thomas has it too, but not at the back, which makes the creation of a prototype-literate model problematic, as Bachmann found:

 

 

Yes, the B12 running plate is not right for the red engine, but I suspect the B12 is the closest basis for a conversion, and certainly so in terms of RTR donors for OO.

 

A pacific Henry could be cobbled from certain GCR 4-6-0s, but without a belpaire firebox, and instead with an extended boiler, GNR firebox and trailing wheel.

 

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Edwardian
Spelling!

[Nearholmer]

This is very interesting, even if the researcher/narrator does have a very unusual way of pronouncing Reigate. On you tube, search for:

 

The Search for Reginald Payne: Thomas' Forgotten Artist

 

15 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

Hornsby Akroyd? 

Sort of. Built by Hornsby, almost certainly to a design cooked-up between them and engineers at the admiralty, and the engine used the Akroyd-Stuart hot-bulb ignition arrangement. IIRC, this particular loco had two cylinders in ‘boxer’ format, driving a central crankshaft, although some of the others had opposed-piston engines ….. I’ll try to check to be sure later. Whether Akroyd-Stuart himself had anything to do with these developments of his engine, I don’t know. This particular one was a ‘not success’ for multiple reasons, being one of those things which included way too many innovations all at one, and I suspect that the admiralty were really using the exercise to learn about and experiment with internal combustion for ship propulsion.

 

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

Knuckles has made an 'A0' pacific!

 

Here is the freelance cabbed K2

 

And the freelance L&YR mogul:

 

 

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

And the freelance L&YR mogul:

 

 

Unconvinced:

 

 

[Embedded link.]

 

James' coupled wheelbase is rather short (note the unfeasible splashers) and the inside cylinders are over the axle of the carrying wheels, which I read as being radial, rather than a Bissell or pony truck. The front frame and running plate extends no further forward than is necessary for opening the smokebox door. (I'd like to see a picture of that being done!)

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Unconvinced:

 

 

[Embedded link.]

 

James' coupled wheelbase is rather short (note the unfeasible splashers) and the inside cylinders are over the axle of the carrying wheels, which I read as being radial, rather than a Bissell or pony truck. The front frame and running plate extends no further forward than is necessary for opening the smokebox door. (I'd like to see a picture of that being done!)

 

I take the point, but IIRC, history is against you inasmuch as I think Awdry himself identified James as a L&Y 0-6-0 that had been coverted to a 2-6-0. 

 

I think that the Vulcan Foundry 2-6-0s built for the Indian Midland Railway (therefore to the Indian gauge of 5'6") in the 1890s are a better visual match to the illustration concerning the points you make. It would need a sandbox mounted under the running plate and an English style cab, but otherwise the Indian locos have the look of James more than the fictional Hughes-Aspinall mogul.

 

 

I have seen Neilsons for India and Ireland that are similar, but I think the Vulcan configuration is the closest to the illustrations.

 

However, Aspinall's 5'1" diameter drivers are probably more suitable for a late Victorian British 6-coupled goods engine converted to a mixed traffic mogul than the 4'6£ of the Vulcan design. 

 

 

[Edwardian]

On 14/11/2023 at 09:42, Schooner said:

With apologies to James for what's been done to his initial sketches for Birchoverham Market Station...

 

Given the space, possible traffic requirements etc etc etc I think the most functionality I can fit without it looking too out of keeping with the rest of the railway is something like

that.

 

What do we reckon?

 

It's quite modular, so would be easy to remove elements deemed surplus to requirements, but I've tried to keep some idiosyncracies which hopefully hint at an original trackplan* and fit in everything we've discussed so far without loosing too much of the flow the station itself has.

 

3D from SCARM:

 

 

*Would be fun to work out, another day.

 

Anyway, this looks good.

 

I do not know how it stacks up operationally or prototypically, but it looks like I get my own little inglenook puzzle to enable me to marshal goods trains. 

 

On 14/11/2023 at 15:33, Schooner said:

For further ponderings, one crossover* gives us a fully functional AC Jnc South:

 

If

• CA main line is kept on the flat, reducing the visual separation with the AM branch and increasing the gradient to the AC cassette (very) very slightly.
• One is happy for traffic to/from AC to reverse along the off-scene track to the cassette
• One can lose a little of the visual main line run out of CA

then, assuming one even wants a representation of AC Jnc South, I think it above could be a goer...?

 

*British Finescale B7s used as the longest, shallowest available as a stress test.

 

Full view:

 

Originally AC Jnc South existed so that traffic could come from The Rest of the World and The Rest of the WNR directly to CA.

 

Brother Nearholmer, I know, has just concerns over enough hours in the day for everythin else going through CA without this. So, when it started to clutter track plans, I sighed and resigned myself yto living without it.

 

Thanks to Brother Schooner for his continued efforts.

 

 

[nick_bastable]

sorry but is CA in a slow race with HS2 to be built ?  and track down ?

 

[Edwardian]

10 hours ago, nick_bastable said:

sorry but is CA in a slow race with HS2 to be built ?  and track down ?

 

 

Well, I haven't cancelled it yet.

 

And the risk assessment is due as early as 2028.

[Northroader]

“Happiness is not the arrival, it is the journey itself”.

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

“Happiness is not the arrival, it is the journey itself”.

 

Not my experience on South Western Railway when wedged between two fellow-passengers of the girth depicted.

[Edwardian]

So, looking at the low level cassette yard, I should think about the maximum length of descending line would be 30'.

 

If I want, for the sake of kit built models of very small Victorian locos, to stick to my preferered maximum of 1 in 80, that will result in the cassettes lying just 4 1/2 inches lower than the track on the scenic level. I think on the current plan it is 4" below the Acjingham trackbed. There is not much scope for a climb to Achingham, so the assumption is that the tracks there will be more or less at the same level as the mainline junction.  

 

I wonder, then, if the cassettes behind the Achingham board are best 'out in the open' rather than under the board. They would be screened from view from the Achingham side much in the same way the mainline junction to the lower level is, by rising ground and trees to the front of it. 

 

 

Otherwise, if steeper gradients were required, I note Hattons has just announced....!

 

[Schooner]

14 hours ago, Edwardian said:

I get my own little inglenook puzzle

 

The inglenook puzzle, a traditional pair of 3-wagon sidings off a 5-wagon running line as works best IMO, is actually related to the shed 😎

 

Goods sheds, to my mind, are best suited to such a puzzle predicated on a randomised order as loaded and empty vans look identical, and even sheeted opens can quite plausibly go in or out full or empty. So:

 

 

14 hours ago, Edwardian said:

just concerns over enough hours in the day for everythin else going through CA without this.

Quite...but if the 'solution' is seen to cause problems at BM, then there is at least a fairly low impact method of replicating AC Jnc South traffic flows. I'm generally of the view that the modelled scene is quite complicated enough without having to fuss about with the off-scene too, but the strength of this method of planning is that iterations cost nothing :)

 

As previously noted (by @WFPettigrew?), one could have not just a spur of that junction, but a second hidden falling line to another cassette location. Juice and squeeze may well be out of sync, but it's an option.

 

 

31 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

I wonder, then, if the cassettes behind the Achingham board are best 'out in the open' rather than under the board.

Almost certainly I'd think, given my mucking about with Intentio 2' cassettes.

 

FWIW pulling numbers from SCARM:

• Fall of 15mm (2/3 inch) from CA to DA - aesthetic reasons only, for visual separation of branch and mainline out from CA
• c.30' useful run for gradient between junction and cassette but
  • c.17' 6" run to get under CA goods yard, giving
  • vertical clearance of 2 2/3 inches/66mm (worst case) between tracks at 1:80...doable, but tight.

 

General points for consideration/discussion

• DC/DCC - I'm sure the answer is DC, but until build commences I think it worth weighing up the pros and cons of each.
• Couplings - could there be some compromise of autocouplers on things like the ends of branch line rakes and brake vans, with 3-links on the semi-permanently coupled/easily accessed (ie in BM's goods yard) stock?
• Updated timetable, to see if current layout plan can cope with it?!

 

 

14 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Thanks

Thanks for the continued entertainment!