Hornby Announce L&MR 0-4-2 "Lion"?

[Edwardian]

7 minutes ago, 5Dublo2 said:

While the tall firebox on Hornby's Tiger might not be historically accurate it does mean Hornby's HM7000 TXS decoder will fit (which would not be the case if the firebox was shorter) 

 

Understood, but a poor reason for a non-DCC user and, of course, there is the tender for that sort of thing, and anyway is it a justification for introducing a body component that, on any honest appraisal of the evidence, is pretty hard to justify? 

 

Upon reflection, I think this model loco is a bit of a con, indeed, every bit as much a con as the accompanying 'coal wagons'. Hornby seem to be hiding behind both the lack of a contemporary drawing/plan of Lion/Tiger as built and the idea of an early rebuild at the insistence of John Dewrance in the 1840s, the result of which appears wholly unrecorded. There is nothing at all to suggest, however, that at this or any stage Tiger emerged looking like the rescued Lion, with its 1865 boiler and tall Manning Wardle/Leeds firebox (according to Ruston of this parish). So this is all just, frankly, smoke and mirrors on the part of Hornby. The model of Lion might not look much like anything that was actually run by the L&M, but at least it is a model that conforms to a prototype. Not so Hornby's Tiger.    

 

I think it pays to watch the Anthony Dawson video to linked to above by Flying Pig. For an investment of under 7 minutes, it rather lays the fakery of this Hornby Tiger bare; actually, we have a pretty good idea of what the real thing looked like.

 

Thus, based on this video, and on Dawson's book, I would take issue with the excuse made by some that no one knows what Lion and Tiger originally looked like because no works drawings for them survived.

 

Dawson, taking as his starting point the standard Stephenson Large Sampson and adding details from the description of Edward Woods, the L&M's chief engineer, who gave the boiler length and described the firebox as a Planet type only slightly raised above the boiler barrel, and who noted each of the multitudinous boiler-top fittings, we arrive at this (a still taken from the video):

 

 

I'm not suggesting Hornby should have re-tooled both boiler and firebox to look like this, though that would have been nice - but I am suggesting that Hornby might have avoided a situation in which the only two changes Hornby did make - the chimney and a the super-tall firebox are inconsistent with any reasonable interpretation of the loco's actual appearance and which, in some ways, take the model even further away from the 1830s and '40s than the Lion reconstruction does. 

 

This model, and the way Hornby has chosen to present it, is disingenuous to say the least. 

 

So, err, no, not Tiger 

 

[Steamport Southport]

Yawn.

 

The fireboxes were altered with the change over to coal from coke. All early locomotives had the haystack fireboxes replaced very quickly. It's basic knowledge.

 

So hundreds of real experts never said a word for 100 years and those that probably saw Rocket and Lion working in real life didn't know that it was Lion?

 

Total nonsense. It was physically a few hundred yards from it's old stamping ground.

 

Even Liverpool Museum/Science Museum and The Old Locomotive Committee has debunked the claims.

 

They even named the pub after it long before it "was discovered". Everyone knows it's Lion apart from someone in Manchester trying to sell a few books and a few deluded followers. Historical rewriting of the worse kind with no basis in fact.

 

To suggest it isn't Lion is an insult. 

 

 

 

 

Jason

[Edwardian]

12 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Yawn.

 

The fireboxes were altered with the change over to coal from coke. All early locomotives had the haystack fireboxes replaced very quickly. It's basic knowledge.

 

So hundreds of real experts never said a word for 100 years and those that probably saw Rocket and Lion working in real life didn't know that it was Lion?

 

Total nonsense. It was physically a few hundred yards from it's old stamping ground.

 

Even Liverpool Museum/Science Museum and The Old Locomotive Committee has debunked the claims.

 

They even named the pub after it long before it "was discovered". Everyone knows it's Lion apart from someone in Manchester trying to sell a few books and a few deluded followers. Historical rewriting of the worse kind with no basis in fact.

 

To suggest it isn't Lion is an insult. 

 

 

 

 

Jason

 

 

I am just going to quote this, not because I think it warrants any response, but because I'd hate it to be deleted as I want a permanent record of what must be the dumbest post I've ever read on RMWeb in all these years. Quite an achievement given the strength of many other entries. Well done!

[Schooner]

56 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Historical rewriting of the worse kind with no basis in fact.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Schooner
Y'sure...?

[PaulRhB]

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Instead Hornby decided to back-date Tiger to the condition of Lion as a pumping engine, with both the chimney and the firebox clearly inspired by the later additions to Lion seen at the time of its rescue for preservation. That makes no sense and means the model really has nothing to offer me. 

So are you saying the boiler was only added when converted to a pumping engine? As we have no accurate record of the modifications to any of them isn’t it likely all were modified with similar? Remember Lion was first heavily rebuilt after just three years and it’s likely that rebuild was a near copy or the inspiration for the plans for Tiger? Rocket which we do have a pretty good timeline for was rebuilt on several occasions significantly changing its appearance at least twice. 
I’d be very interested to see some evidence for the modelled boiler first being installed as it’s just as likely it got that in the mid 1800’s rather than it being new in 1875 for disposal. I’d guess it had at least 5-10 years on it minimum before it was disposed of. 
I agree it would be nice to see the early, intermediate?, boiler too but I’m still worried about the dates being used to slate it when we have a photo of that boiler so know it’s original to the loco not just Jerry rigged in for pumping. 

[Edwardian]

7 hours ago, Schooner said:

 

 

 

"Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich, I can see just what you mean, and 'Ukraine ou Pays des Cosaques' is very definitely the French for 'This Really Really is Part of Russia, Honest and for Sure'. I'll stake my life on it [gulp]"

 

"Careful, Valery Dmitrievich, we have all had enough of experts!"

 

4 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

So are you saying the boiler was only added when converted to a pumping engine? As we have no accurate record of the modifications to any of them isn’t it likely all were modified with similar? Remember Lion was first heavily rebuilt after just three years and it’s likely that rebuild was a near copy or the inspiration for the plans for Tiger? Rocket which we do have a pretty good timeline for was rebuilt on several occasions significantly changing its appearance at least twice. 
I’d be very interested to see some evidence for the modelled boiler first being installed as it’s just as likely it got that in the mid 1800’s rather than it being new in 1875 for disposal. I’d guess it had at least 5-10 years on it minimum before it was disposed of. 
I agree it would be nice to see the early, intermediate?, boiler too but I’m still worried about the dates being used to slate it when we have a photo of that boiler so know it’s original to the loco not just Jerry rigged in for pumping. 

 

No I was not aiming for that particular point, and I confess I did not go back to the book in the case of Lion as I was really interested in early condition of the type, but I think it was the case that Lion as rescued and preserved had a later boiler that was not of the dimensions of the original quoted by Woods. I thought Dawson contended that the boiler dated from 1865, with the high waggon-top firebox that the reconstructors covered with the haycock shape in 1930, though when it was thought to be first fitted to Lion I cannot recall, but memory may not serve me well here. Of course your understandable incredulity that "the boiler was only added when converted to a pumping engine" may be relevant to the question of the preserved loco's identify ... hat, coat ...

 

The point I think here is that, if Dewrance caused the pair to be rebuilt following his accession, the suggestion is that it is unlikely that a boiler from 1838 would have been replaced as early as 1841, so Tiger would have its original boiler in the 1840s, with its Planet-type firebox only slightly raised, as would Lion, and Lion would not have yet received the boiler she has now (and was found with). Now this is conjectural, I think, but reasonably sensible conjecture. Given that Dewrance seems to have been interested in standardisation that included retiring Melling patent engines, it seems at least logical to me that these two newest engines were rebuilt to the extent of removing the two Melling patent features, which seems consistent with the Budicom valve gear dated 1840 that Lion has to this day. 

 

Even if one or both of the pair were rebuilt with new boilers in 1841, I recall the present Lion boiler with its firebox was dated by Dawson to 1865. So, if Dawson is correct in this, then almost certainly the high waggon-top firebox could not have been a feature of Tiger's running days on the L&M and Grand Junction in the 1840s.

 

Put another way, Hornby suggest the 1840s condition Tiger has the same boiler and firebox as the preserved Lion, only as that originally appeared, i.e. without the haycock cover created in 1930, but if that Lion boiler-firebox dates from 1865, it cannot sensibly represent the condition of Tiger two decades before, when, in all probability, her boiler and firebox were still as built in 1838 and when they were certainly not of the 1865 type randomly fitted later to Lion. [EDIT: IIRC, preserved Lion has a brick arch firebox, which dates it to 1856 or later, Matthew Kirtley's eventual solution to the smoking poor combusting local Haydock coal]. So, I suspect Hornby is doing some deft wool-pulling here; in other words using the lack of absolute certainty to justify something that is unsupported by evidence and inherently improbable, if not impossible.

 

And, yes, I am over-reliant on Dawson's conclusions, and query the basis for his assertion that the Lion boiler dates from 1865 (I don't recall), which seems to be a key assertion here, [but if it's an 1856 firebox design, it cannot be one fitted in the 1840s, even if one was] but he is better qualified than I am and I have not seen any evidence-based rebuttal of that conclusion. If there is, I'd be keen to take it into account, and my conclusions may be modified accordingly, but I am not aware of such scholarship. In any case, whether Lion is Lion and whether Tiger ever had such a firebox as Hornby maintain are two distinct questions. Lion can still be Lion and Hornby's depiction of Tiger will still almost certainly be very wrong. There is a video of Dawson on the question of whether this even is Lion, but whether or not one subscribes to that theory, there is, I recall, some useful dating of various bits of the preserved loco, so I shall have to re-watch it. Recall is not now what it was.

 

... it's certainly not total ...

 

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Edwardian

[Schooner]

5 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

"...we have all had enough of experts!"

 

🤣

[HExpressD]

To be fair, the Hornby Lion's valve gear detail is much finer than Rapido's lack of any attempt to model it!

[PaulRhB]

6 hours ago, Edwardian said:

And, yes, I am over-reliant on Dawson's conclusions, and query the basis for his assertion that the Lion boiler dates from 1865

That’s fine, I asked for context and that provides it nicely. However logical it seems to assume things it should be stated what that is based upon and many times our logic is found to be way out of step with reality because there was a political or financial incentive or even an experiment that lead to a decision. 
In the narrow gauge world Boyd was regarded as the definitive source for years but it became apparent he had made a lot of assumptions based on opinions not facts. His works are still very useful but any reference needs to be cross checked if modelling from it. The limited sources on these early locos makes that even more difficult even though it’s only 10-20 years earlier on several cases. 

[scots region]

20 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

That’s fine, I asked for context and that provides it nicely. However logical it seems to assume things it should be stated what that is based upon and many times our logic is found to be way out of step with reality because there was a political or financial incentive or even an experiment that lead to a decision. 
In the narrow gauge world Boyd was regarded as the definitive source for years but it became apparent he had made a lot of assumptions based on opinions not facts. His works are still very useful but any reference needs to be cross checked if modelling from it. The limited sources on these early locos makes that even more difficult even though it’s only 10-20 years earlier on several cases. 

 

The perennial problem when it comes to rail history, most of the sources aren't actually historical trained and are often just reporting what they heard or thought at the time. 'Chough O.S.Nock Chough'. 

[Schooner]

You called?