Grantham - the Streamliner years

[Jesse Sim]

well two operators are visiting Oz soon... Tony Wright and myself....

When are you down under Baz?

[Barry O]

Barry when is your visit and is Adelaide on your itinerary?

 

Andrew Emmett

Andrew, PM sent

[DougN]

Well so far there are contacts in Sydney, Adelaide and I can throw my hat in the ring for Melbourne, between, Andrew, Jesse and I you have south east Australia contacts! If your through Melbourne be in touch and we can arrange contact with BRMA meetings and see some interesting stay at home layouts!

[LNER4479]

A close shave...

 

Been dreading this moment. Turned up at the van hire garage this morning to find that my booking for a 'LWB Transit' resulted in the Vauxhall equivalent of a Ford. Very nice vehicle - but not a Ford Transit.

 

Members of the Grantham show team will appreciate the significance of this as the packing arrangements are down to a finest of millimetres in places with a carefully-rehearsed packing sequence. Guess what? A Vauxhall thingy is NOT the same dimensions internally as a Ford Transit (principally, it seems to be about 6 inches shorter in length).

 

But with the patient assistance from Tom D of this parish, we eventually worked out an alternative packing sequence and all is well.  Phew! Might even adopt it for future shows as it's actually better in some respects...?

 

See you over the weekend if you're able to attend. Otherwise, I'll try and remember to take a few pictures

 

[Edit 'cos it initially showed picture rotated 90deg to landscape. Anyone else notice that with iPhone pix? They seem to be so elongated that the software insists on turning the round 90deg. Solution is to crop top and bottom slightly - unless anyone knows more elegant way?]

Edited October 20, 2017 by LNER4479

[jwealleans]

Soon as I saw that I thought "that's not how it goes in". Good job it wasn't lower rather than shorter, or my knob might have been in peril.

[St Enodoc]

Soon as I saw that I thought "that's not how it goes in". Good job it wasn't lower rather than shorter, or my knob might have been in peril.

Too much information there Mr W.

[Barry O]

Hope Harvey fitted in ok.

Baz

[LNER4479]

Soon as I saw that I thought "that's not how it goes in". Good job it wasn't lower rather than shorter, or my knob might have been in peril.

Don't worry - we took good care of your knob.

 

Harvey had a vital role to play as well.

[Mallard60022]

I saw Lord Hereford's Knob once. Thought you needed to know that.

Phil

[St Enodoc]

I saw Lord Hereford's Knob once. Thought you needed to know that.

Phil

I climbed up it once.

 

Only once though...

[LNER4479]

So, another show under our belt.

 

We were in a very agreeable location within the college building.

 

The unusual sight of Mr 3279 wrestling with the controls on the mainline. It didn't last long.

 

Back stage, the cast awaits. The Scotch Goods is prominent, whilst Barry O marshalls things into position at the North end

 

A sight not normally visible to the punters. The considerable mainline passenger allocation that gets rotated round as the sequence progresses, hopefully offering constant variety out the front.

 

In the south end dead end sidings, Roy Mears' magnificent Flying Scotsman set is ready in the 'Up' direction with a rather grubby silver A4.

 

Too much of a temptation to recreate THAT picture. Here is 'Sir', giving it a go. Hopefully his end result will grace the thread in due course.

 

Picture duly snapped, the Flying Scotsman sets off for the last leg to London

 

A general view of the north end, with the venerable J54 paused in platform 4, waiting for the 3pm to Nottingham - K2-hauled today - to depart.

 

Depot operator's view of the MPD. Mr King's neverwazza Ivatt Prairie puts in an appearance.

 

The 6pm 'rush' at Grantham, always one of my favourite phases of the schedule. The northbound Coronation having shown it a clean pair of heels, the combined Leeds/Newcastle that departed King's Cross at 4pm simultaneously with the streamliner arrives at Grantham some 30 minutes later (6.2pm). Note the unique leading Brake Composite twin, lovingly recreated by Jonathan. One of Graeme's freshly out-shopped Cocks has just unhooked and is about to be replaced by a grubby Gateshead pacific, returning back up north. Local services to Lincoln (plat.4) and Newark (plat 5) wait to follow.

 

And that's all I managed. Thanks in equal measure to fellow Grantham conspirators and the Hartlepool show team for a very enjoyable, easy-going weekend.

 

Edited October 22, 2017 by LNER4479

[gr.king]

And it's only a good two years since my original intended date for having the livery finished on the streamlined P2 in that final picture. I must set more realistic targets in future!

 

What a very pleasant show it was. Amazing how well the layout ran after more than seven months in pieces, and we even managed to stay reasonably relaxed, organised and civil on the operating side, as far as I could tell. Could we be in danger of becoming good at the job?

[Tony Wright]

Sir's results from the weekend. 

 

Perhaps other Granthamites might like to comment on what's what..............

 

 

The result of my activities in one of the pictures.

 

 

 

I built this V2.

 

 

And I built the C12 and B16/1 in this shot.

 

 

I have no idea what this is, other than it's very interesting. 

 

Thanks Graham and team for such a good weekend. 

 

More on Wright Writes..............

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mallard60022]

I wonder how many folk would notice that Ivatt and decide it was unusual (as did Tony)?

Looks like you all had a good time.

Phil

[jwealleans]

Top photo is the up 'Scotsman' - I forget what move that is, but I remember putting the dirty silver A4 onto it just before close of play on Saturday.

 

I think Lord President is on the 13:40 York/Newcastle/Ripon  - that's a heavy train which is usually a Cock duty.  The meat/fish is still in the loop to the right, so we're in the early part of the sequence.  The leading brake seems to have a flat, or something very heavy has been loaded in the van section.  I must have a look at that.

 

Though I built it all, I do like the 'almost but not quite uniform' profile of the stock down the Scotch Goods behind Tony's V2.  That kind of small variation in stock makes a train look much more interesting than a rake of 15 Bachmann (or Parkside) vans.  Both the V2s I was able to deploy, the other being a GK resin version, are just as capable as their prototypes.

 

We see the B16 and meat/fish train again - I like this view across to the maltings and goods sidings.

 

The last shot really deserves an explanation from Mr. King as it was he who channelled Henry Ivatt's fevered imagination.

Edited October 23, 2017 by jwealleans

[micklner]

Looks like the camera playing tricks on the P2 photo, the Tender and Platform Roof behind the P2 is a bit wayward too. Lovely pictures and stock .

Edited October 23, 2017 by micklner

[Tony Wright]

Looks like the camera playing tricks on the P2 photo, the Tender and Platform Roof behind the P2 is a bit wayward too. Lovely pictures and stock .

Thanks Mick,

 

The camera is not playing tricks at all. What's probably happened is the P2 has been reversed for the photograph, thus pushing the tender slightly out of line. The leading carriage (built by whom, I don't know; Jonathan?) is not level either; again, probably caused by the train being reversed. This sort of thing is always highlighted in 'perspective' shots, and is not usually noticed by the naked eye. The roof is askew, as is the station nameboard, but the atmosphere is all there, I hope. 

 

Cameras being blamed for 'banana-shaped' carriages is a common excuse given by those who run 'banana-shaped' trains. If railway vehicles are 'wayward' in pictures, it's because (unless the lens is a fish-eye type) they are in reality.  

Edited October 23, 2017 by Tony Wright

[gr.king]

Something is certainly amiss in that P2 photo. The K2 in the bay platform also seems to be sitting "on the slosh" compared to its pony truck's axle. I'm not sure if that loco is the one that spat its valve gear out on the Sunday and received emergency surgery. If it is the same one, the problems may be related.

 

Here's another picture of the same P2, but not of Sir's quality and not in such tight perspective, but it too suggests that either the tender may be slightly nose-down, or that the loco has cab-droop, assuming that the track is level and straight. I've never suspected a significant problem until now, but I'll look again at the loco on a flat surface with a very critical eye.

 

 

3016 is mostly put together from resin parts intended for K2 construction and a somewhat altered Bachmann V3 chassis. It represents an imagined Gresley pre-group 2-cylinder simple expansion re-build of a four-cylinder compound that Ivatt genuinely proposed for fast goods traffic. It would have used the large Atlantic boiler. In the end the Great Northern went for the cheaper-to-build larger-wheeled 0-6-0s of what became classes J1 and J2. That decision may not have boiled down just to penny pinching as the claimed fuel and water saving advantages for compounding were not at all decisive in the few compound Atlantics (and in many other British compound locos) while the construction and maintenance costs were higher. The modest grate sizes of the 0-6-0s also allowed them to do menial stop-start jobs economically when not needed or (inevitably) eventually displaced from heavy fast goods work. The larger grate of the 2-6-2 might have wasted coal on easy work, and the greater size/weight might have limited route availability too.

 

Those GN style clerestory coaches lurking in the V2 picture are a source of amusement too, being cheap partial re-builds of Margate Gresley coaches, items which I was once expertlyy informed to be of no use whatsoever to serious modellers. Maybe I'm not serious enough?

 

[Barry O]

The "journey" dirty A4 Silver Link is a Hornby model with additional metal pipework then dirtied as per that famous pic. A bit of added weight in the boiler aids adhesion.  Train name board and lamps courtesy of "Team Grantham".

 

Baz

[LNER4479]

What a delight to open on a Monday morning, a wonderful set of photographs from a great team a super model railway generally pedant free and with a mischievous sense of humour.

This is exactly the approach which may be likely attract new entrants to the hobby rather than arguing about the colour of a tiny part on a particular engine from a specific works.

Well done chaps.

Thanks very much for that - quite made my day.

 

That I have such a wonderful team associated with the project is a constant source of amazement and gratitude, many of whom I have to thank the existence of RMWeb for as it was this website that put us in touch, either directly or indirectly. The sense of humour and 'craic' within the group is second to none and the contributions at times overwhelming. I feel very blessed.

 

Looks like the camera playing tricks on the P2 photo, the Tender and Platform Roof behind the P2 is a bit wayward too. Lovely pictures and stock .

Aha - yes, the North box operator reported a consistent 'funny sound' on the Saturday as trains passed through the Up main. After the passage of the particularly vertically challenged Raven Atlantic, it was diagnosed as a droopy canopy which was swiftly adjusted. It can be seen in its more usual attitude in the last pic on my posting, coincidentally featuring Mr King's same 'Cock'. He is very proud of them. And rightly so.

[Willie Whizz]

Lovely stuff.

 

 

Those GN style clerestory coaches lurking in the V2 picture are a source of amusement too, being cheap partial re-builds of Margate Gresley coaches, items which I was once expertlyy informed to be of no use whatsoever to serious modellers. Maybe I'm not serious enough?

 

Has that re-build ever been "written-up" anywhere, please?  I have a couple tucked away in the loft and I think the novelty of something like that might well offset some deficiencies in pure scale fidelity ... from which you may deduce I may not meet some peoples' definitions of 'serious modeller' - not all the time, anyway!

[grob1234]

Thank you for sharing these images, the P2 is looking superb, and I bet in 'real life' it looks perfectly straight. I find modern imagery really highlights the minutest of flaws, whereas in actual fact there is no real issue what so ever. 

[Tony Wright]

Thank you for sharing these images, the P2 is looking superb, and I bet in 'real life' it looks perfectly straight. I find modern imagery really highlights the minutest of flaws, whereas in actual fact there is no real issue what so ever. 

I think it looks straighter in this view, Tom; though the Up canopy definitely leans. 

 

 

 

I managed to arrange this lovely line-up without too much trouble.

 

 

I think this view sums up what this 'modern classic' layout is all about (I can state that without pomposity, because I've done very little towards it). 

[grob1234]

Tony, I agree, the canopy definitely leans; however the P2 looks perfectly acceptable to me, assuming of course the track at this point is perfectly level. I suppose the only way to check would be to place it on some plate glass and check. I bet it's only 1/2 a mm out at most.

 

Grantham a modern classic - definitely! Maybe it is because it is my chosen period and the stock is superb, but yes, it is great, I'm sad to have missed it this time.

[unclebobkt]

       none of those namby pamby 3 cyclinder engines for expresses... proper engines with 4 cylinders ......

 

 

        Ah so - just like the GWR. has been doing for all of these years - as well as keeping the valve-gear tucked away neatly 'tween. the frames..