Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Metropolitan H said:

I think she might be referred to as a "Strapping lass" in some parts? - Is that a vulpine whistle I hear?

 

CH

Or big-boned, as Miss Sarah Layton was described.

[Nearholmer]

I didn’t realise until swotting-up that Miss J H-D was a real person.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I didn’t realise until swotting-up that Miss J H-D was a real person.

 

Having sotted up myself, I see she was at school at Queen Anne's, Caversham. So I claim an association - my younger son is one of only a handful of boys to have received part of their sixth form education there.

[Nearholmer]

19 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Having sotted up myself

Are you now very, veeerrry drunk?

[Nearholmer]

It’s so long since a train departed from Birlstone, and so uncertain when the next one is due, that the passengers have arranged an impromptu carol service to keep their spirits up.

 

 

An Annual State of the Railway Address could be given in one word: static.

 

What little modelling I’ve done lately hasn’t even really been old-fashioned, although it has been a bit nostalgic. Assembling and painting simple plastic kits on dark, wet afternoons and evenings, just like Airfix kits of youth, only twenty times more expensive to buy.

 

 

This is for the Study Plank.

 

There is some possibility, however, that my letter to Father Christmas might result in new, and modern, motive power for a seasonal special. Just have to wait and see!

 

Merry Christmas, and fingers crossed for 2022.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It’s so long since a train departed from Birlstone, and so uncertain when the next one is due, that the passengers have arranged an impromptu carol service to keep their spirits up.

 

Is that the cast of Harry Potter?

[Nearholmer]

And, The Widow Mrs Goginns, who’s taken up with that tall wizard bloke.

[GRASinBothell]

Twenty times???

Would that they only cost forty shillings!

What is the make of that kit, by the way?

Gordon

[Nearholmer]

Oh yes! Four hundred times, not twenty.

 

I somehow turned 2/6 into £2.50 in my head, then went to the current price of £50 for the two kits used. That must be a real "inflation buster", even allowing for the fact that the old Airfix 'box had no interior, and thinner parts. The overall finished size is actually quite similar.

 

Peco kits: Ground Level Signal Box, and Signalbox Interior.

 

I'm well out of practice with plastic kits, so it took me ages to get the paint finish even half-decent.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Metropolitan H]

While over at Gutter Lane, a certain bloke in a red coat has called to refill his sleigh from the front van on the 21.00hrs from Paddington to Market Blandings:

 

A Happy Christmas to all who visit here. May all your wishes materialse - at least all that are legal - but in the current situation that might be a very big ask!

 

Best wishes

Chris H

 

[F-UnitMad]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

my letter to Father Christmas might result in new, and modern, motive power for a seasonal special.

Whaaaat???!!! Modern?? How modern?? Infernal Combustion Engine modern?? What is this sorcery???

 

*splutters into G&T* 

[Nearholmer]

There are already a few diesels on the roster, you may recall, and I'd have more if I had the combination of time and skill to build some more, or could find affordable survivors of those made by Bonds in the 1930s and 40s, but even Father Christmas would struggle to source such exotica.

 

I actually rather like diesel locos from the pre-emmission control and silencing stage of development, likewise electric locos from the pre-power-electronics era.

[Metropolitan H]

He has already got a few diseasels - some of a foreign persuasion from across the English Channel and some of more native types. There is also at least one EMU to be seen occasionally, but bearing in mind his profession I'm surprised there are not more!

 

Regards

Chris H

[F-UnitMad]

25 minutes ago, Metropolitan H said:

He has already got a few diseasels - some of a foreign persuasion from across the English Channel

Indeed. I thought one of them was from across The Pond? A slightly larger puddle than the Channel.

[Annie]

37 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I actually rather like diesel locos from the pre-emmission control and silencing stage of development

 

[Nearholmer]

Ah, but that isn't a diesel. It has an Akroyd-Stuart hot-bulb engine.

 

Although, it is one of my all time favourite machines.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Annie]

20 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Although, it is one of my all time favourite machines.

Mine too Kevin  

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

the pre-power-electronics era

Or even the pre-camshaft controller era - when the motorman wanted to light his fag, he'd gently open the two-point switch to draw an arc...

[Metropolitan H]

15 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Indeed. I thought one of them was from across The Pond? A slightly larger puddle than the Channel.

It may have orginated from across "The Pond", but at Birlstone it represents a marginally smaller type that worked en Francais. So I reckon honours are even.

 

By the way, one has to remember that at the time of his invention of the "Hot-Bulb" oil engine the young Herbert Ackroyd-Stuart was working in his family's "Bletchley Iron and Tinplate Works", not a very long cycle ride from chez Nearholmer - so a bit of a local hero! There is a plaque on the wall of the company premises in Denmark Street, Fenny Stratford. Just a pity he never got to developing the engine with the very high compression ratios of the later Diesel engine - which was much more fuel efficient.

 

Regards

Chris H

[Nearholmer]

12 minutes ago, Metropolitan H said:

not a very long cycle ride from chez Nearholmer

 

Very much not a long bike ride. I passed all the great sights in the A-S engine story today: Denmark Street, where the prototypes were built; the places where the protoypes were used; the waterworks where the first Hornsby-Akroyd production engines were used; and, the site of the timber yard where one of those chuffed out its days in semi-retirement. 

 

It has to be said, though, that this is not an industrial tourism trail that is well-beaten, or likely to become popular, because it consists almost entirely of places where things aren't any more.

[Hal Nail]

17 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

it consists almost entirely of places where things aren't any more.

Funnily enough I was in Denmark St in London the other day, a musicians' mecca comprising wall to wall guitar shops. Sadly the above description is equally fitting (apart from the Crossrail station, which is a place that isn't, yet).

Edited December 22, 2021 by Hal Nail

[Nearholmer]

Are all the music shops gone then?

 

Stumbled upon this in my ‘phone, which is good for comparison with the loco photo that Annie posted.
 

It’s a Hornsby-Akroyd engine of about the same size as that in the loco, and you can see that by adding a gearbox that is closely-based on colliery winch design, and putting it all on the chassis of a steam loco, the loco was created. The frame and wheels were bought-in new from the makers of the steam locos used at the Arsenal where the i.c. locos went.

 

 

Major OT ramble, but these locos are sometimes cited as either the first i.c. In Britain, or even in the World, but they weren’t. There were others before, and it seems very uncertain when or where The First was built, it’s not like steam or electric locos where the very early history is well understood.

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Here is the contemporary Deutz loco, which at first is a bit hard to understand, but is actually almost identical in general arrangement to the Hornsby-Akroyd, but with a spark-ignition engine, with the cylinder head facing forward, and the gear array at the driver’s end. It was designed for use in a confined mine, so everything is much more squashed together. It originally had a bonnet over all this gubbins, but that has been lost at some stage since it was first preserved.

 

[Hal Nail]

47 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Are all the music shops gone then?

 

Not all but a lot and half the street is now just boarded up. Has the air of somewhere that is due to be pulled down but I don't actually know what the plans are.

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Are all the music shops gone then?

 

Stumbled upon this in my ‘phone, which is good for comparison with the loco photo that Annie posted.
 

It’s a Hornsby-Akroyd engine of about the same size as that in the loco, and you can see that by adding a gearbox that is closely-based on colliery winch design, and putting it all on the chassis of a steam loco, the loco was created. The frame and wheels were bought-in new from the makers of the steam locos used at the Arsenal where the i.c. locos went.

 

 

Major OT ramble, but these locos are sometimes cited as either the first i.c. In Britain, or even in the World, but they weren’t. There were others before, and it seems very uncertain when or where The First was built, it’s not like steam or electric locos where the very early history is well understood.

 

 

 

So basically taking some preassembled mechanical parts, - engine, - gearbox, - steam locomotive chassis, - and bolting them together.  I can guess it wasn't quite as simple as that, but it very much appeals to me as an ex-second hand Meccano set owner.

 

The Deutz on the other hand looks like a mechanic's nightmare and would very likely be seriously difficult to work on.  True enough being a mining loco doesn't leave much free space under the bonnet, but all the same I think I'll stick with the Hornsby-Akroyd.