B4 Buffer size

[Fettster42]

I read in a review the Dapol 00 B4 has undersized buffers but can't find the actual dimensions in my limited library or online. What size should they be?

And for bonus points a source of correct size replacements?

TIA

[bécasse]

I can't quickly find a note of the actual diameter of the buffer heads but they are marginally larger, perhaps by 1" top and bottom, than the total depth of the buffer plank. A quick glance at photos of Dapol's models suggests that they got it right on the O gauge model but that they are undersized on the OO gauge one.

[bécasse]

Looking further I still can't find any quoted buffer head dimension but I have noticed that the five so-called K14 locos that were built in 1908 with Drummond boilers and numerous detail differences from the earlier twenty Adams locos, originally had tapered buffers with a smaller buffing head, the earlier locos having had substantial parallel buffers with the larger buffing head. There were then changes over the years with some swapping of buffers and in due course (most of?/all of?) the tapered buffers acquired the larger buffing heads.

 

There is a drawing of 103, the last of the original Adams locos, in late-1920s condition by the late Colin Binnie which shows tapered buffers with the smaller head. I knew Colin well and he was a very careful draughtsman, so he must have had some evidence for his depiction and certainly 94, which was another Adams loco, had such buffers and buffer heads in early SR days; however 102, built alongside 103, certainly had the parallel buffers and large buffing heads, probably throughout its life. I doubt whether any of the locos which worked in Southampton Docks (and which bore names rather than their numbers) ever had the small buffing heads and I haven't been able to find any evidence that any of the locos that survived into BR days had anything other than the large buffing heads even if they were fitted with tapered buffers.

 

It should be added that the B4 class were an absolute minefield in terms of variations, not only were there numerous variations within the class as built but those variations seems to have been added to every time they were shopped.

[Fettster42]

@bécasse thanks very much. Mine is a Southampton one so will need bigger buffing heads. 

[Wickham Green too]

12 hours ago, bécasse said:

... so-called K14 locos ...

Why  "so-called" ? ......... they were built against Works Order K14 just as the others were built against Works Order B4.

[bécasse]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Why  "so-called" ? ......... they were built against Works Order K14 just as the others were built against Works Order B4.

Because they were soon reclassified as B4s and seem to have been used indiscriminately with the earlier locos - and, of course, the boilers, the most obvious distinguishing feature of the K14s, sometimes got swapped with those on other locos (or new builds) on overhaul.

 

Having mentioned 94 and 103 earlier as being Adams locos that spent some time with tapered buffers and the smaller size buffing heads during the pre-WWII SR era, I note that both those locos were then allocated to Bournemouth shed to work on the Poole Quay tramway, however there is a well-known Stanhope Baker photo of 93 alongside the Custom House there in 1951 with the large buffing heads so there can't actually have been a positive reason for the relevant locos having small buffing heads pre-war.

 

The shot concerned is out of copyright so I have attached a scan of sufficient of the front of the loco to enable a reasonable estimate of the buffing head size to be made.

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, bécasse said:

Because they were soon reclassified as B4s ...

What we think of as LSWR 'classes' weren't described as such until the Southern tried to tidy things up - fifteen years or more after the K14s were built ........ even a hundred years later, I'd hesitate to call that 'soon'.

[Graham_Muz]

7 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

What we think of as LSWR 'classes' weren't described as such until the Southern tried to tidy things up - fifteen years or more after the K14s were built ........ even a hundred years later, I'd hesitate to call that 'soon'.

 

In fact it was from 1st Jan 1913 that the K14s were officially known as the B4 class by the LSWR, so the K14 term was only officially used for just over 5 years. 

[bécasse]

4 hours ago, Graham_Muz said:

 

In fact it was from 1st Jan 1913 that the K14s were officially known as the B4 class by the LSWR, so the K14 term was only officially used for just over 5 years. 

That was my understanding too but, many decades ago, I was led to believe that the men on the ground saw no practical difference between the twenty B4s and the five K14s from the moment the K14s were delivered, and they probably called the whole lot something like "dock motors" - I think I actually knew once what the actual vernacular was but have forgotten since and it might well have been different for those locos allocated to the Southampton Dock company. Certainly work seems to have been shared reasonably indiscriminately between the two groups.