Wickham Green too Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 There's a photo of that loco 'at Glasgow before delivery' in Rowledges's book - where he says "No. 7195 was used for tests with armour plating before leaving the maker's premises in Glasgow and spent a short while on test on the Melbourne Military Railway." presumably after it "went directly to the Longmoor Military Railway" ......... later it went on loan to the LNER in 1947 and became BR 90172 - presumably it had lost the armour by that time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johann Marsbar Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 2 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said: There's a photo of that loco 'at Glasgow before delivery' in Rowledges's book - where he says "No. 7195 was used for tests with armour plating before leaving the maker's premises in Glasgow and spent a short while on test on the Melbourne Military Railway." presumably after it "went directly to the Longmoor Military Railway" ......... later it went on loan to the LNER in 1947 and became BR 90172 - presumably it had lost the armour by that time. I think he may have spent some time on the Melbourne Military Railway as well in his WW2 service. I remember him recounting that he was on his way via Canada/USA to the Far East when they dropped the atomic bombs, so he decided to "get lost" in North America for a while, which enabled him to cover a number of eastern railroad operations in the US, some of which he photographed in colour. Unfortunately I'm not sure whether we actually got all of his photo collection, as some of the US colour images I remember from 1980's slide shows seem to be absent from our archive. His collection passed through a third party after his death and it took a lot of work getting them in our archive. The same happened with Dr I.C. Allens photo collection.....not that we have that though! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 1 hour ago, Johann Marsbar said: As we've drifted off topic for the S160's in recent posts - this might be a good place to post this image that I found in our Museum photo archive this morning, whilst actually looking for something else...... It looks more like a plywood dummy than a real loco - but less convincing than the inflatable Sherman tanks used during WW2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSpencer Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 (edited) 25 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said: It looks more like a plywood dummy than a real loco - but less convincing than the inflatable Sherman tanks used during WW2 It was a WD 2-8-0 with armour plating. Though from what, I have never been able to find out. A loco list not likely to meet small arms fire, while the armour would need to be - say - 2 inchs thick to stop aircraft canon shells. Edited May 7 by JSpencer 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johann Marsbar Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 3 minutes ago, JSpencer said: It was a WD 2-8-0 with armour plating. Though from what, I have never been able to find out. A loco list not likely to meet small arms fire, while the armour would need to be - say - 2 inchs thick to stop aircraft canon shells. I just dug out my copy of Tourret and all he had to say about it was.... "WD 7195 left works in September 1943 experimentally fitted with armour plate over the top of the boiler, probably as a prototype in case it was found necessary for these engines to be armour-plated for the invasion of the Continent. In the event the Allied air superiority made such armour plating unnecessary and it was removed from this single locomotive before it was shipped to France" 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ovbulleid Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 2 hours ago, JSpencer said: It was a WD 2-8-0 with armour plating. Though from what, I have never been able to find out. A loco list not likely to meet small arms fire, while the armour would need to be - say - 2 inchs thick to stop aircraft canon shells. Of course that assumes a strafing aircraft is descending vertically downwards, if in near-level flight then 2” armour plate is more effective. Would have been needed across the tender and full thickness on the smoke box door though! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted May 8 Share Posted May 8 Surely even small arms fire would be quite likely had the enemy invaded as was widely expected at the time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickham Green too Posted May 8 Share Posted May 8 But small arms fire isn't going to do an awful lot of damage to a locomotive boiler made of - maybe - 9/16'' plate* ! * only had a 4F boiler drawing to hand 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted May 8 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 8 21 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said: As we've drifted off topic for the S160's in recent posts - this might be a good place to post this image that I found in our Museum photo archive this morning, whilst actually looking for something else...... It is a 2-8-0, but one of the WD variety rather that a USA one and shows the sole example that was fitted with armour plating on the boiler and something I'd never seen a photo of before. It's not excactly a brilliant shot, but was taken by H.N.James, a resident of Ipswich since the early 1950's until his death in the 1990's and one of the photo collections we hold in our archive. He certainly took a number of photos at Longmoor during the war when he was based there, but where this image was taken I'm not sure. We may have details somewhere on our computer system, but he was someone who didn't make good records of where/when he took photos! According to Brian Haresnape's book, which includes an ex-works photo of 7195, it ran on the Longmoor and Melbourne military railways in that form but the armour was removed before the engine was shipped to the European mainland. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ovbulleid Posted May 8 Share Posted May 8 11 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said: Surely even small arms fire would be quite likely had the enemy invaded as was widely expected at the time. By 1943 no-one believed Germany would be crossing the channel, and I think that includes most Germans! The air threat was being assessed partly in the U.K., but mainly for post D-Day logistics in the continent. Considerable effort was put into tactical air defence and offence, but by the time it happened the allies had air superiority. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Fair Oak Junction Posted May 8 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 8 This is some extreme thread drift 🤣 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium RapidoCorbs Posted May 8 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 8 yep Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steamport Southport Posted May 8 Share Posted May 8 Bumped the thread though! With the amount of announcements that occur nowadays sometime you forget what has already been announced.... Jason Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium John Besley Posted May 8 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 8 I've always wanted one... back in the day when I modeled in 4mm.... but in 7/8ths... that's going to mean I need a bigger boat layout Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold adb968008 Posted May 8 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 8 Some 8f’s had armour plated footplate roofs in the Mid East, ive modelled two of them, one in Khaki and another in black. Photos in Roger Tourret ‘s legendary book. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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