“BEYOND DOVER”

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Northroader said:

 

I have amended my post.

[Northroader]

Mind, I think the preceding class, the P class Atlantics, are the Danish engines which really make your breath come in short pants. As they started to appear in 1907, they’re more suited to this thread too.

[pete_mcfarlane]

There are a few Danish steam locos in this Country, I know nothing about them but this one at the Middleton Railway is rather nice. 

 

[Mikkel]

I like Busse's K machines, of which 100 were built from 1894 onwards, a very high number by Danish standards. Here's one of the preserved examples as seen a month ago on a siding outside Græsted at an annual vintage fair.

 

 

 

The first batch was built by Neilson, but later they were supplied by other builders. No 582 was built by Italian Breda in 1900.

 

 

Sadly the photos decieve, as the loco's boiler ticket has expired and funding is sought for repairs. The loco and its train were propelled into the siding for the crowds to behold by, er, this:

 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Mikkel

[burgundy]

À propos nothing that has gone before - other than that it is beyond Dover (by quite a margin), I found this website while indulging in a bit of googling.  Go to the right hand sidebar and click on "watch" to get the most amazing slideshow. 

For geographical orientation, Polesie seems to be the marshland surrounding the river Pripet in the border area between Ukraine and Byelorussia, so the railway is being built by one of the constituent companies of the Imperial Russian railway system. I find the detail and the colourisation absolutely amazing. 

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Northroader]

A TRIP TO POLESIA.

 

Thank you, Eric, a visit to one of those places which had another name back then, rather like Galicia that we got to a while ago. Well, we’ve managed to get as far as Egypt before now on here, so why not Polesia?

Links into Wiki to find a bit more about where it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polesia

By the time railways came along, it was all firmly placed in Russia, so most likely five feet gauge. Some of the pictures look fairly conventional civil engineering construction, like the river bridge, then you get rum goings on like a ballast train being propelled into the bog. Would they have pushed a track panel in, rolled the trucks down, then shovelled out spoil in the pious hope it might firm up? You read about the Stephenson’s exploits on Chat Moss with woven mats of brushwood and faggots, is this similar? I suppose you could wait for a harsh winter to come, then pile spoil up on the ice and wait for a thaw? Birch forests, bogland, and a very shaky single line through the middle, why not?

For inspiration, there’s a preserved station at Bielowieza, now in Poland: (it seems this was originally built for the Russian Czar to visit his hunting forests)

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by Northroader

[Northroader]

Stacja kolejowa Białowieża Towarowa. There’s some good structures and scenery there:

 

(I don’t seem to be able to get this to form a link, sorry)

Edited July 10, 2022 by Northroader

[burgundy]

15 hours ago, Northroader said:

 

Some of the pictures look fairly conventional civil engineering construction, like the river bridge, then you get rum goings on like a ballast train being propelled into the bog. Would they have pushed a track panel in, rolled the trucks down, then shovelled out spoil in the pious hope it might firm up?

 

I seems to have been an occupational hazard........

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Northroader]

More questions? How did they get any lifting gear firmly engaged on an engine when it was submerged in ice cold water? Where did all the jacks which were erected at the start disappear to? My minds boggled.

The engine on the rescue train and the recovered loco both look like class O, an outside cylinder 0-8-0 which was the commonest loco in Russia at the time. (It only weighed a few tons more than a GWR pannier tank)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_locomotive_class_O

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by Northroader

[Northroader]

If you’ve been able to pick up on the Bialowieza pictures, there’s the making of a nice little layout infrastructure there. An attractive wooden station building, now in use as a restaurant, and a tall brick water tower, which had to be done as a tank above an enclosed building with a stove inside, given the severity of the winters. Any open spaces filled in with birch trees, and a forest backscene. Simple track layout, running line and siding, also suitably bosky. It’s set right out on what’s now the Eastern edge of Poland, and what bits of rolling stock are lying about are all PKP castoffs, so it looks like its now standard gauge, but most likely formerly five foot gauge. I think it would be best done in standard gauge, why fight over three and a half inches?

So what of trains 120 years ago? Here’s a photo of a Russian slow train of the era, and you’ll see it’s a long boiler outside cylinder 2-4-0, very like the Carl Ludwigs Bahn one we were looking at a few pages back, and a type scattered all over Europe in Victorian times. Russian features are the ginormous oil headlight, the safety railings all round the running platform which could get covered in ice, a capacious cab at a time when British enginemen could still get attenuated weather boards, also down to the climate, and the extended tender rails suggest its a wood burner. Behind there’s a standard van, a high roofed sixwheeler, and a variety of four wheelers.

 

You could just about put together a train, although the information is a bit scanty. Digging around on the web I can’t find much for the pre revolution trains, generally the museums at Rostov on Don and Ekaterinburg have more recent stuff rusting away, but here’s a four wheel coach and a standard van.

youll see the coach is much like the German style of that era, but with enclosed vestibule entrances, again down to the climate. The van came in two varieties, symmetrical, the most numerous, and with an extension at one end for a brakemans platform.

I did do a drawing for an Ob 0-8-0 loco, which was used for all kinds of trains when it wasn’t used on fishing expeditions. This was lifted from a German site, https://www.o5m6.de/redarmy/_menu.php?cat=Rail&navtit=Rail

where you’ll find beautifully clear drawings, ones for 1900 period being three sets for the Ob, the standard goods van of 1877 design, and a dropside four wheel open. (The original O’s had joy valve gear, then later versions Walschaerts, but in Cyrillic “Joy” comes as “Dzhoi”, and “w” becomes “v”,written as “b”, hence “Od” and “Ob”.

Whilst on Cyrillic, I came across this van, which would make a nice model, but god knows what it says.

 

Well,  I’m talking about creating an attractive little layout set in the Eastern Europe of 120 years ago, but I’m afraid right here, right now, anything to do with a Russian influence is tainted. Let’s all hope there’s the sudden dramatic change we’re all longing for, and you can revisit this post for ideas with a clear conscience.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Northroader

[Andy Hayter]

Not sure that the script on the wagon is Russian - although it looks very similar with the use of Cyrillic script.  My reason for saying so is that the first word on the right - which is pronounced vagon (wagon) has the "soft" b at the end whereas Russian would be without it - вагон.   Google translate suggests that Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Serbian also all use the Russian spelling.  Maybe its an old spelling form.

 

As for the rest?  Well I failed Russian at school and have never subsequently had a need to revisit it.   So like you - no real idea. 

[Schooner]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

I’m talking about creating an attractive little layout set in the Eastern Europe of 120 years ago

 

It's good chat and I've enjoyed it, so thank you for sharing. Whilst I also share your judgment on the joys of Russian influence under current circs, the area and era your posts illuminate is so radically disconnected from what now exists that it might as well be the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway.

 

It has the makings of a delightful layout. If you feel the itch, go for it!

[burgundy]

When you put up your photos of Bialowieza, I almost commented "did it only have one name?". The serious point behind this remark is that eastern Europe in the Austrian, Prussian and Russian Empires was a multi-lingual community, with very mixed populations. I have found towns that seem to have had four different names in two different scripts!  You could therefore have areas of Russian ruled Poland where lettering might have been in both Roman and Cyrillic script and I think the railways to the west of Warsaw were built to European standard gauge although Russian operated. (I am still digging on that one!).

If you wished to do a model that made a point about Russian expansion, you could set it in Finland, Poland, the Baltics, Byelorussia, etc. It would be a fascinating exercise! 

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Cunningham Loco & Machine Works]

Those drawings are wrong; note that the air pump is connected to the reverse rod, and that the artist failed to ascertain that the O class was a cross-compound. Here is some better Russian (and, for what it's worth, Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Moldovan, Armenian, etc.) material. Attached are some proper scale drawings from the link (it's not as if we need to respect Russian copyright law by now...)

 

[Johann Marsbar]

I don't know the age of this 4-wheel van of Russian origin, but its preserved at Tornakalns station, Riga, Latvia, as part of a memorial to the Latvians forced east to Siberia by the Russians on 14.6.1941 (15,424 persons) and 25.3.1949 (42,125 persons).........

 

[Northroader]

Thanks to everyone for joining in with some useful ideas, comments and pictures. I just done a trawl on the two museum sites, I found a nice picture of the obvious predecessor of the O class, could have used the same base drawing almost? A “B” class:

then a tank car, described as late 19c chemical transport (more intriguing Cyrillic lettering) note there’s also a raised number painted over:

Edited July 13, 2022 by Northroader

[Johann Marsbar]

A couple more of the older items of stock on display at the Rail Museum in Riga,   a grab fitted crane and match truck combination......

 

 

and this rather longer 4-wheel van in WW2 era markings......

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

Weirdly, you can get quite a few Russian wagons in military modelling scales. I've not seen any locos though (although you can get 1:35 German locos)

 

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/MT39002?result-token=ioJME

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/UMMT643?result-token=3BZii

 

Things like this Hungarian loco in 1:72 are also quite tempting. All static of course. 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/hunor-product-72208-mav-377-locomotive--1079467

 

(There was also a supplier on eBay offering static resin kits in 1:87 scale of Russian steam locos, although they seem to have vanished after the start of Putin's latest daft military adventures. Like all resin models from Eastern Europe they looked really good.) 

[Northroader]

If only they were 1/43, ah well, and they’ll have plastic wheels, too.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Or even 1:32. They torment us with all these plastic railway kits in not quite the right scales. 

 

 

[Compound2632]

On 13/07/2022 at 03:03, Cunningham Loco & Machine Works said:

Those drawings are wrong; note that the air pump is connected to the reverse rod, and that the artist failed to ascertain that the O class was a cross-compound. 

 

from the very limited amount I've read, some were two-cylinder compounds, others simples. Or were some converted from compound to simple - or vice-versa?

[Northroader]

I gather the original design was a two cylinder compound, and it seems generally that compounding was popular in the 1890s on several designs, but simple versions were built as well. There’s a vast site on the link, kindly provided by Mr. Cunningham L & M Works, for the O class, if your Russian is up to it. I attempted to get it into Google Translate, but not sufficiently skilled to do this.

Anyway, hey, tender 0-8-0s are still a bit large for a microlayout in the woods, so looking for something a bit smaller, neater, and more typically Victorian, I hit on the subterfuge of going down the threads, which luckily usually give the wheel arrangement in the title, seeking “1-2-0” or “0-3-0” and so obtained some really nice prototypes:

 

            See below:

 

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Northroader

[kitpw]

29 minutes ago, Northroader said:

really nice prototypes

...and, apparently, a really nice trojan on the link you quote!  From Russia with love?

 

[Northroader]

Tell me more, Q, is it something I should delete?

 

edit addition: better safe than sorry, I’m ditching that link, and adopting a policy of sticking this side of the old Iron Curtain for now. 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Northroader

[kitpw]

38 minutes ago, Northroader said:

is it something I should delete?

...probably.  I run Malwarebytes on this system and it flagged up a trojan when I clicked that link.  It might be as well to run a check on your own system just in case.