Wright writes.....

[Tony Wright]

Good afternoon Mark,

 

The A2s I showed were mostly the English-allocated ones in 1958. 60533 was at New England, and 60538 and 60539 were on Tyneside. 

 

The only other English-allocated one was 60526 SUGAR PALM, at York. 

 

 

 

Which I should have included in the last set.

 

However, at the moment it doesn't run on Little Bytham...............

 

 

It now runs on Retford, after I built a set of EM frames for it (its OO ones are still here). 

 

I built it from a DJH kit, and Geoff Haynes painted it.

 

The other A2 I have is...........

 

 

 

TUDOR MINSTREL. 

 

I never saw this loco (60532 was the only Scottish-based A2 I ever 'copped'), but its 'justification' on Little Bytham is that it's operating on a Donny Plant running-in turn (typical of the period). It also gives me the excuse for running a single-chimney A2.

 

I built it from a DJH kit, and Ian Rathbone painted it.

 

Recalling a time when the classification 'A2' meant this...........

 

 

 

A Raven A2. I built this from a DJH kit, with a South Eastern Finecast eight-wheeled tender.

 

Geoff Haynes painted it (he later repainted the tops of the front frames lined-green, as they should be).

 

I now runs on Woolmer Green, Jesse Sim's layout in Australia.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

[Tony Wright]

I must admit to never having heard of left-hand and right-hand buffers on LNER stock (every day is a school day).

 

I did once convert a French-outline loco into an early-NER 0-6-0. It had convex and concave buffer heads on opposite sides. How common was this?

Edited January 14, 2023 by Tony Wright
to add something

[MJI]

A Swindon DMU in paintshop.

 

 

MR 2P in paintshop as well.

 

 

Add files is broken.

 

 

Edited January 14, 2023 by MJI

[Bernard Lamb]

46 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

I must admit to never having heard of left-hand and right-hand buffers on LNER stock (every day is a school day).

 

I did once convert a French-outline loco into an early-NER 0-6-0. It had convex and concave buffer heads on opposite sides. How common was this?

Good afternoon Tony.

Fairly common in parts of Germany at one time. A lot of 1920 era machines had them and kept them to the end. The latest new build I have seen at a quick glance is from 1958 ish. The left buffer when facing the machine was the domed one. German loomotives tended to have one domed and one flat rather than concave.

Bernard

[jwealleans]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

It had convex and concave buffer heads on opposite sides. How common was this?

 

The GNR went through a phase of doing this on wagons, I think before Nigel Gresley was appointed C & W Superintendent.

[MikeTrice]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

I must admit to never having heard of left-hand and right-hand buffers on LNER stock (every day is a school day).

Only on vestibule stock:

[t-b-g]

Seeing the drawing, I am now wondering if the castings for the buffer housings were actually the same for left and right sides. That looks symmetrical about the horizontal centre line, so other than having a different fixing bolt to secure the other end of the chain, the casting might work for either side by just turning it upside down. The mounting for the collar on the buffer beam is a separate part (made from hardwood) rather than part of the main casting.

 

I wonder how many folk have put such details on their model carriages?

 

I bet somebody has!

[robertcwp]

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

The other A2 I have is...........

 

 

 

TUDOR MINSTREL. 

There is also a Tudor Minstrel on Retford, but it has been heavily weathered. This might have been by mistake as I think Roy intended it to be ex-works and running in but one of the Retford crew weathered it along with several other locos.

[MikeTrice]

39 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

Seeing the drawing, I am now wondering if the castings for the buffer housings were actually the same for left and right sides. That looks symmetrical about the horizontal centre line, so other than having a different fixing bolt to secure the other end of the chain, the casting might work for either side by just turning it upside down. The mounting for the collar on the buffer beam is a separate part (made from hardwood) rather than part of the main casting.

 

As you say the casting is the same however when the buffer includes a head with the flat top, common on the LNER, you need left and right hand versions.

[Tony Teague]

6 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Good morning Tony,

 

Apart from my taking out of the background on the shot of the WC, I can't see any difference. 

 

Which, to me, rather illustrates my point regarding 'stacking'; that is, with suitable lenses (the F. stop for my picture was F.36), it's simply not needed.

 

Tony. 

 

I tend to agree but there aren't too many lenses that will get down to F36 !

[t-b-g]

2 minutes ago, MikeTrice said:

As you say the casting is the same however when the buffer includes a head with the flat top, common on the LNER, you need left and right hand versions.

 

If the buffer head would go into the housing either way up, then you could just use a single type for both sides. I haven't studied the drawings well enough to see if that is the case.

 

For modelling purposes, some cast buffers may have the head and the body cast as one part. In that case, it may be worth having two different castings but in truth, the differences are tiny and quite difficult to see on an end vestibuled 4mm model.

[t-b-g]

41 minutes ago, robertcwp said:

There is also a Tudor Minstrel on Retford, but it has been heavily weathered. This might have been by mistake as I think Roy intended it to be ex-works and running in but one of the Retford crew weathered it along with several other locos.

 

If one of the members of the "Retford Mob" had taken one of Roy's locos and on our own initiative had weathered it in a way that was not in accordance with his wishes, we would have instantly become an ex member of the mob.

 

We would also probably still be trying to find certain parts of our anatomy that he had removed.

[Dunsignalling]

48 minutes ago, Tony Teague said:

 

I tend to agree but there aren't too many lenses that will get down to F36 !

Also, of course, with fairly normal levels of layout lighting, it's sometimes possible to take stacked pics hand-held (even though the manual says you shouldn't).

 

f/36 will definitely need a tripod.

 

John

Edited January 14, 2023 by Dunsignalling
Photo added

[robertcwp]

31 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

If one of the members of the "Retford Mob" had taken one of Roy's locos and on our own initiative had weathered it in a way that was not in accordance with his wishes, we would have instantly become an ex member of the mob.

 

We would also probably still be trying to find certain parts of our anatomy that he had removed.

You could well be right, but it still seems odd that it's weathered. I can't believe that is what Roy intended but it was one of his engines that came with the layout when Sandra acquired it.

Edited January 14, 2023 by robertcwp
Add a bit.

[pete55]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

If one of the members of the "Retford Mob" had taken one of Roy's locos and on our own initiative had weathered it in a way that was not in accordance with his wishes, we would have instantly become an ex member of the mob.

 

We would also probably still be trying to find certain parts of our anatomy that he had removed.

 

Er, I think there was a slight exception to that Tony. I believe a former editor of MRJ got away with his over weathering on occasions!

 

Pete

[robertcwp]

Deleted.

Edited January 15, 2023 by robertcwp
Update for new information.

[robertcwp]

This Bachmann 9F came from Tony and is now enjoying life after Little Bytham:

 

P1090128am by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

[Bucoops]

3 hours ago, MikeTrice said:

Only on vestibule stock:

 

I *believe* but am happy to be proven wrong, that those coaches fitted with GNR style buffers weren't handed as such. The "clipped top" ones as per Mike's drawing are of course.

 

[MikeTrice]

Correct.

[t-b-g]

56 minutes ago, pete55 said:

 

Er, I think there was a slight exception to that Tony. I believe a former editor of MRJ got away with his over weathering on occasions!

 

Pete

 

That is true and I did "unweather" one or two afterwards but I am not sure Roy ever classed him as part of "The Mob".

 

I genuinely don't think that any of the regulars would have done something like that.

 

Do you know who did "Tudor Minstrel"? I don't even know if it was an old High Dyke loco or a later Retford one.

[PMP]

1 hour ago, pete55 said:

 

Er, I think there was a slight exception to that Tony. I believe a former editor of MRJ got away with his over weathering on occasions!

 

Pete

It’s a distinct style, so would be easy to attribute if so. I offered to do some light weathering and toning, but never got the papal nod. One of the key considerations in discussions were  it would need to be consistent across the entire fleet of stock, and of course there were quite a few ‘loan’ items which wouldn’t be included.

Edited January 14, 2023 by PMP
Addition

[Tony Wright]

A weathered (heavily in 60528's case) Scottish-based A2 would be highly unlikely at Retford. 

 

All the books I've got illustrating Scottish-based big engines on the ER main line show them as being clean; spotless if they were running-in from Doncaster Plant. In fact, looking at my underlinings in my appropriate Ian Allan Combined Volume, I can recall those Scottish-based locos (seeing them at Doncaster) because they were so clean. The 64B A4s on the 'Lizzie' were always clean, of course. 

 

Is it possible that, on receipt of a grubby Scottish Pacific for shopping, Doncaster might have thought there'd still be mileage in it? Thus, it was sent south on a job before shopping? If so, I never saw it. 

 

It's likely that the 'only' time Scottish-based big engines were ever seen on the ER main line was after shopping at Donny, other than those A4s on the 'Lizzie'. The only way I can justify a single chimney A2 on Little Bytham is by having it on a running-in turn, and very clean.

 

I'll dig through my photo collection tomorrow and see what I can find...............  

[Tony Wright]

1 hour ago, robertcwp said:

This Bachmann 9F came from Tony and is now enjoying life after Little Bytham:

 

P1090128am by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

Glad to see it's still running OK Robert.

 

It was a weathered example (with cleaned numbers and totem). All I did was weather it further, particularly on the drivers and motion, where 'shadows' had been left after dirty thinners were squirted at them. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

3 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

 

I tend to agree but there aren't too many lenses that will get down to F36 !

Thanks Tony,

 

I get my 'Micro' Nikon lens down to F.45!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[robertcwp]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

That is true and I did "unweather" one or two afterwards but I am not sure Roy ever classed him as part of "The Mob".

 

I genuinely don't think that any of the regulars would have done something like that.

 

Do you know who did "Tudor Minstrel"? I don't even know if it was an old High Dyke loco or a later Retford one.

I believe someone offered to weather several engines and took that one along with several others, possibly as a result of a misunderstanding.

 

Even if it had run on High Dyke, it would still have needed to be ex-works unless the scenario Tony suggests was the reason it was weathered.