Identification 0-8-0 Tender Engine

[Dieselbob]

Hi

This is an N Gauge 0-8-0 tender engine that I am not sure about. I thought it was an LMS 7F but there are too many differences.

Can anyone help as I am not a steam modeler and inherited this loco, Photos attached

Cheers

Bob

[Michael Edge]

Looks like a Fowler 7F to me.

[woodenhead]

Looks like a Midland 7F to me too.

[Il Grifone]

Me too.

 

N gauge kits weren't renowned for 100% correctness to prototype. 'It looks vaguely like it' was near enough!

 

The tender is clearly supposed to be Midland.

[A Murphy]

Is that a GEM 7F kit?

[RexAshton]

It's a GEM Fowler 7f and was designed to fit a modified early Farish 08 chassis. Not a bad model for it's day but needs the number changing really.

[kevinlms]

3 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Looks like a Midland 7F to me too.

It's an LMS 7F, as the Midland Railway didn't own anything bigger than a 4F (except for Big Bertha - the Lickey banker).

 

But you know that!

 

[The Johnster]

Depends on your definition of 'not bad for it's day', but the essentials of an 'Austin 7', never a particularly complex shape of a thing, are there.  It's let down by the chassis and the crude wheels, but could be worked up a bit with blackening of the rims, coupling rods (how often did you see a clean 7F?) and the brass worm.  The problem is the driving wheels, which force the running plate too high.

Edited October 7, 2019 by The Johnster

[Compound2632]

One hundred and seventy-five of the things - some would say too many by that much - Nos. 9500–9674 built at Crewe 1929-32. Basically the last design of LNWR 0-8-0 - G2/G2A - redrawn by the Derby Locomotive Drawing Office. Apparently, in some quarters (Crewe?) they were moderately officially Class G3 rather than Class 7F.

[The Johnster]

They seem to have been universally disliked but probably made sense on paper.  I've always thought of them as an enlarged Fowler 4F but the idea of them as an LNWR loco made out of Derby standard parts makes sense.  The Stanier 8F was the answer to the problem, but the LMS was still building new 4Fs during WW2, which seems inexcusable...

[Joseph_Pestell]

Can they have been that bad? Perhaps more a case of being oversold as a 7F when perhaps only really a 6F.

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Can they have been that bad? Perhaps more a case of being oversold as a 7F when perhaps only really a 6F.

The problem was the standard Midland bits below the running plate. Bearings etc. inherited from much smaller locos, and which became marginal even on a 4F if worked hard, just weren't up to the job on a loco that would inevitably be rostered alongside its pre-group forebears, and (quite reasonably) expected to handle similar work.

 

The early and rapid withdrawal of the class, concurrent with the survival and continued upgrading of considerably older ex-LNWR locos that they should have replaced, says it all.  

 

The same weaknesses, incorporated despite warnings from Beyer Peacock, ensured that the abilities of the LMS Garratts were almost equalled by the much smaller Stanier 8F when it came out and wholly outclassed with the advent of the Riddles 9F.

 

John

Edited October 7, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

the LMS was still building new 4Fs during WW2, which seems inexcusable...

 

A relatively small number, at a time when there was a desperate need for additional locomotives. I don't know the details but I imagine most of the components were on hand or very easily prepared - cheap and quick to build and adequate for the jobs they would be asked to do. Not every mineral train gained by having an 8F at its head.

[TheSignalEngineer]

12 hours ago, The Johnster said:

the LMS was still building new 4Fs during WW2, which seems inexcusable...

The LMS had in excess of 2000 0-6-0 tender locos of 2F, 3F and 4F classifications. After the initial build  finished in 1928, 15 were added in 1937. When the last 30 of the 4F locos were ordered (late 1938?) some of the earlier classes were approaching 70 years old, so building a few replacements to an existing design with which most of the workshop and shed staff were familiar and a good stock of spares available would seem logical rather than starting out on a new design when war preparations were being ramped up.

[TheSignalEngineer]

12 hours ago, The Johnster said:

but the LMS was still building new 4Fs during WW2, which seems inexcusable...

Hey Johnster, the GWR was still building 2251s in 1948 and Swindon was still turning out replacement pannier tanks to old designs into the 1950s, some of which were scrapped after 5 years service.

[The Johnster]

I certainly wouldn’t absolve God’s Wonderful of similar laxity and lack of progress, and the LMS was doing much better post-war.  The 2251s were particularly pointless, being an attempt to modernise the Dean Goods that failed to match that loco’s lightweight versatility, or steam as well. 

[TheSignalEngineer]

 

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Basically the last design of LNWR 0-8-0 - G2/G2A - redrawn by the Derby Locomotive Drawing Office.

I thought they were far more akin to the Hughes L&Y Class 31 with Walschaerts valve gear and rubbish Derby bearings. After all, Fowler was a Horwich apprentice and worked under Hughes there for a few years in the Testing Department.

 

 

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The 2251s were particularly pointless,

Even worse when they added tanks and a bunker but no trailing wheels.

[The Johnster]

They'd sort of already done that with the rebuilt Taff As, one of the locos that the 94xx were intended to replace.  The rebuilt As were well regarded, so you might be on to something there!  Incidentally, there was also a proposed 0-8-0 that looked similar to the 94xx; that would have made an interesting comparison with an Austin 7...

[DCB]

On 08/10/2019 at 01:31, The Johnster said:

They'd sort of already done that with the rebuilt Taff As, one of the locos that the 94xx were intended to replace.  The rebuilt As were well regarded, so you might be on to something there!  Incidentally, there was also a proposed 0-8-0 that looked similar to the 94xx; that would have made an interesting comparison with an Austin 7...

I thought the 0-8-0 was a churchward desig for a goods version of the 45XX, like the 4-4-2T it would have been medium pointless so perhaps its a good thing it was never bodged together.   It would have needed some non standard motion parts so would have been a non starter.

 

The 7F looks like a deliberate and successful ploy by Crewe to make Derby look stupid.   No Vacuum brake, no steam heat, no bearing surface, a plodding mineral hauler replacing LNWR Mixed Traffic locos with decent bearings, steam heat and vacuum brakes. Even the 8Fs didn't match the LNWR locos for passenger hauling.     

 

Churchward realised in about 1900 that you needed outside cylinders for a decent power output.  His Kreuger was unsuccessful for many of the same reasons as the 7F, too much power for a crank axle, though I think the Kreuger was a long throw crank.  Such a shame Charlie Collett made the same mistake with the 2251 when he could have knocked out a batch of 57XX with no pannier tanks, a foot or so lopped off the back of the cab and a tender bodged on, should have taken at least 10 minutes for Churchward/ Holcroft to come up with that solution.

[Steamport Southport]

Definitely the GEM kit. I had one years ago when I dabbled in N gauge.

 

 

These were built to get rid of the need for MR 0-6-0s double heading. Originally conceived pre grouping so nothing to do with the LNWR/L&Y or Crewe, although built later. But they were useless and most of them were gone by 1951. Well before the locomotives they were meant to replace.

 

They did consider a batch of S&DJR 2-8-0s instead but they weren't deemed suitable.

 

Stanier tried to cancel the order for 4Fs to no avail. I think we can safely say that if WW2 hadn't occurred then most of the 0-6-0s and 4-4-0s would have been scrapped and replaced by 2-8-0s and 4-6-0s like what had happened at Swindon with just a few used for lighter routes.

 

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

I think the neverwazza 0-8-0 pannier had the same no.10 boiler as the 2251/94xx/15xx, a Collett design post dating Churchward's day and originally designed for replacement of boilers on South Wales absorbed/constituent locos; the GW rebuilt Taff A used it.  It had 4'1" wheels and the obvious use would have been heavy shunting, but 350hp diesels were already being employed in that role and the thing was clearly pointless, and thus never built.

 

Some would say the same about the 94xx, but there was a perceived use for these as replacements for time expired pre-grouping South Wales 0-6-2Ts, part of the GW's ongoing program of dealing with these non standard items by scrapping those too far gone and replacing them with 56xx, standardising those worth saving with Swindon boilers, and eventually replacing them with new GW standard locos.  These turned out to be 8750s, the 94xx, and 5101s for passenger work to replace Taff As and Rhymney Ps.  

 

An 8-coupled pannier with that amount of front overhang and small wheels would have been very rough at any sort of speed and the PW wouldn't have liked them.  

Edited October 9, 2019 by The Johnster

[Dieselbob]

Thanks very much for all the input.

A GEM 7f Kit, Probably why there are a few discrepancies.

Cheers

Bob