Wright writes.....

[Tony Wright]

52 minutes ago, John Besley said:

9f - Spaceship 

Class 800's - Cucumbers 

 

And on another point did the LNER / ER ever double head with 60041 and 60039...

Or 60043 and 60108?

 

Or 60054 and 60508 (needs some thinking about). 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, lezz01 said:

Yes but the 4F was known as the "Big Goods" long before it was called a 4F just saying.

When is a bothy not a bothy? When it's a shed or a hut but it's still a bothy or a shed or a hut.

We all call a Fowler 3F tank a Jinty but they were not called a Jinty by the engine men or shed staff they were called Jockos.

So it's Yes but! No but! Yes but! add infinitum.

Regards Lez. 

 

On the Somerset & Dorset, the 3F tanks were known as "Bagnalls", after the builders of those produced specifically for the line, but including any subsequently transferred in, whatever their origins.

 

At most Southern sheds, the well-liked Ivatt 2MT 2-6-2Ts were simply "Midland tanks".

 

John

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, 30368 said:

 

I think you may be correct Peter, Coffee Pot was surely a Southern Q1 0-6-0? A "Flat Top" was an original Bulleid Pacific.

 

Kind regards,

 

30368

AIUI, the term "spam can" was first applied to the Q1 class, though staff usually just called them Charlies after the original numbering scheme. 

 

Air-smoothed Bulleid Pacifics were also referred to as "squeeze-boxes" in certain circles.

 

John

[MJI]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Any idea why as I never heard the term until recently?

 

I though a gronk was a cuddly toy!

 

 

Jason

 

That can be arranged.

 

I have seen pictures of cuddly toy locos and one was an 08

[Mike 84C]

At Bescot all the 350hp shunters were called Jocko's. Diesels were Type 1/2/4,EE/Brush/Cromptons +the Number.

At Banbury an LMS engine was an ellofamess  5/8 or heaven forbid a 4f, WD's were Austerties + the Number.

Western engines were 38's 49's,69's you get the picture!

[lezz01]

The truth is all locomotive nicknames were area and time sensitive.

The American civil war confederate General Tomas Jackson had many nicknames Uncle Tom, Old Tom, Tom Fool etc until the first battle of Bull Run when another General, Bernard E Bee said "there is Jackson standing like a stone wall" even though he was sitting on his horse not standing and he stayed that way despite being shot through his right hand and that one stuck, henceforth he was known as Stonewall Jackson, because his act of staying where he was in spite of a wound and overwhelming odds the confederates won the battle.

Regards Lez.    

[Davey]

3 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I think a 4F was always a 4F, and an 8F an 8F. (From someone born and bred in Derby...)

Around the West Midlands, 4F's were Duck 6's as opposed to the ex LNWR Super D's which we referred to as Duck 8's.

 

Davey

[90164]

6 hours ago, Kirby Uncoupler said:

 

Hi Tony and All,

      I'm confused here. back then why did you refer to Black 5s as "Mickeys", I thought they were always "Black 5s, Class 5s, 5s, 5000s, 5MTs or Ten-Wheelers"? To me a "Mickey" is a 2MT 2-6-0 or tank (Mickey Mouse, cos the front silhouette looked like the cartoon character ears), or were you talking Chester General slang?      BK

 

 

It was a scouse thing, too. We always called them Mickeys. The house I grew up in overlooked the Langston Dock branch, a rather obscure Midland outpost in Liverpool and one of the namers was seen quite regularly on there, so I presumed it was shedded at Aintree then.

[LNER4479]

22 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

 

Any more Jamieson kit-builds out there? 

 

 

Evening Tony,

 

Here's my only Jamieson kit build to date:

 

No idea whether this was a standard or special kit. I do seem to recall the coupling rods being lengths of rail with holes drilled in them. I added bosses either side to improve the looks.

 

This was 20 years ago. Not too shabby?

 

Meanwhile, I have a few in stock, thanks to our recent work. One of the earlier ones with a picture stuck on the box. So what would you expect to find inside a box with a (lovely) picture of an A3-hauled ECML express on the cover?

 

Why - a LMS 4F goods loco, of course 😆

One day, I might have a crack at it, just for the hell of it ...

 

Finally (for now), did someone say that Jamieson didn't do BR standards? Was this a 'special', therefore? (body only)

 

Available to anyone interested at a very reasonable price!

 

[Kirby Uncoupler]

What I was trying to say was, I never saw any BR Standard Jamieson kits in stock, during my time at KX, from around 1973 to 1986. By that time the range was being run down, although the Reading shop were still supplying ready made and painted kits from time to time, notably LNER pacific variants (not A4) and V2s, many by David, son of Ted Morris the boss, who later took over. Did anyone ever see the golden LMS Coronation in our showcase?

   Judging by the fully-printed instruction sheet on your 80xxx, that would suggest it was from the regular range. I remember the list of kits in our counter price list books, but by then a lot had been ruled/crossed out as no longer available, but obviously after 50 years I cannot remember many details. Another oddity was individual classes were available as body kits, frame kits, and/or chassis kits, whereas most examples shown on this thread, appear to be complete kits in one box? By the 1970s, we had a certain mis-match of remainder stock, i.e we had the body, but not chassis, and vice-versa. The frame kits were a simplified version of the chassis kits, for scratch-builders, or those working to EM gauge. 

                                   Cheers, Brian.

[LNER4479]

Interesting. Yes, I seem to have acquired a few chassis only & body only kits along the way; seemed to be a feature of the range. That 4F is body only; I'd probably use a Comet chassis if I were to make it, adding suitable detail to the body until I was (reasonably) happy with it.

 

But not just yet awhile!

[Jon4470]

There was an article in Model Rail Feb 2003 about the Jamieson range. The author was Robert Forsythe (who, I think, produced a book about kit ranges) and photographs were by…..Tony Wright.

 

The article lists 30 plus kits in the main range at one time or other. It also lists a similar number of hand cut kits. The Standard 2-6-4 appears in the main range list and it gives a breakdown of the costs to acquire this kit as £5 2s 6d in 1954. This included wheels but excludes the motor and purchase tax!

[Tony Wright]

1 hour ago, Kirby Uncoupler said:

What I was trying to say was, I never saw any BR Standard Jamieson kits in stock, during my time at KX, from around 1973 to 1986. By that time the range was being run down, although the Reading shop were still supplying ready made and painted kits from time to time, notably LNER pacific variants (not A4) and V2s, many by David, son of Ted Morris the boss, who later took over. Did anyone ever see the golden LMS Coronation in our showcase?

   Judging by the fully-printed instruction sheet on your 80xxx, that would suggest it was from the regular range. I remember the list of kits in our counter price list books, but by then a lot had been ruled/crossed out as no longer available, but obviously after 50 years I cannot remember many details. Another oddity was individual classes were available as body kits, frame kits, and/or chassis kits, whereas most examples shown on this thread, appear to be complete kits in one box? By the 1970s, we had a certain mis-match of remainder stock, i.e we had the body, but not chassis, and vice-versa. The frame kits were a simplified version of the chassis kits, for scratch-builders, or those working to EM gauge. 

                                   Cheers, Brian.

Good evening Brian,

 

When I was buying Jamieson kits all those years ago, I used to buy the body kits and the frame kits as separate items (they were sold in separate boxes). I didn't bother with the chassis kits (which, I believe, came complete with Romford/Jackson wheels) because the 'crankpins' were brass tacks. The Romford drivers were 'blind' - non-tapped - and the idea seemed to be to drill a hole where the pin should go and then 'nail' in that pin through the holes in the coupling rods; rather like contemporary Hornby Dublo. No thank you; I just drilled and tapped the drivers to take a standard Romford crankpin. 

 

I'm probably (in a tiny way) responsible for a certain mis-match because I bought several Jamieson A3 frame kits to go underneath Wills A3s and A4s I was making at the time. I bought three from the Model Shop in Newcastle! And, is this model railway plagiarism? To get more, I sweated one frame to a 'sandwich' of brass blanks of the same depth and copied the profile by filing and sawing, drilling through the bearings during the process. I employed the same technique with the rods. 

 

I also bought loads of Jamieson bogies, ponies and spacers for my scratch-building projects of the time. 

 

As you question, most of the Jamieson kits I've acquired much later seem to be both body and frames in one box. 

 

Without Jamieson kits, I don't think I'd have become competent at building metal locos. Contemporary cast metal kits' mechanics were dire, K's especially, and Wills' kits just went on RTR mechanisms or hopeless cast metal lumps; as did the early Nu-Cast ones. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

[cctransuk]

3 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

..... hopeless cast metal lumps .....

 

Not necessarily - I have a fair few STILL giving good service.

 

CJI.

[john new]

7 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Any idea why as I never heard the term until recently?

 

I though a gronk was a cuddly toy!

 

 

Jason

Wasn’t that kids cuddly toy a Gonk?

[john new]

7 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Weren't Q1s called 'Buckets'? Or 'Charlies'?

 

Never having seen one until after I'd changed from being a trainspotter to a railway enthusiast, I don't know.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Where I lived on the ex-LSWR main line they were coffee pots to enthusiasts but I have a feeling it was crews that called them Charlie’s. Origin IIRC the C1 number on the first of the class.

Edited February 7 by john new

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Confession time. 
I once wrote, in my spotting book, some very disparaging comments about an old steam loco that I'd seen passing (many times) through Spondon, but was very enthusiastic about copping a new Brush 4 running from Loughborough to Derby. 
Never quite got my priorities right...

[Richard_A]

3 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Evening Tony,

 

Here's my only Jamieson kit build to date:

 

No idea whether this was a standard or special kit. I do seem to recall the coupling rods being lengths of rail with holes drilled in them. I added bosses either side to improve the looks.

 

This was 20 years ago. Not too shabby?

 

Meanwhile, I have a few in stock, thanks to our recent work. One of the earlier ones with a picture stuck on the box. So what would you expect to find inside a box with a (lovely) picture of an A3-hauled ECML express on the cover?

 

Why - a LMS 4F goods loco, of course 😆

One day, I might have a crack at it, just for the hell of it ...

 

Finally (for now), did someone say that Jamieson didn't do BR standards? Was this a 'special', therefore? (body only)

 

Available to anyone interested at a very reasonable price!

 

My next purchase is a fairburn tank from Tony, otherwise I would have been interested in the standard 4 kit. 

 

Oh well. 

[Steamport Southport]

33 minutes ago, john new said:

Wasn’t that kids cuddly toy a Gonk?

 

Probably. It was a long time ago since I last heard the word....

 

 

Jason

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I think a 4F was always a 4F, and an 8F an 8F. (From someone born and bred in Derby...)

I have heard Black 8 but that may be a recent appellation.

 

8 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

20s sounded like helicopters so Choppers.

Fifty years ago, some of my mates called them H-bombs.

[billbedford]

7 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

When it's a shed or a hut but it's still a bothy or a shed or a hut.

But a shed's a 66

[lezz01]

1 minute ago, billbedford said:

But a shed's a 66

Only if it's got wheels and an apex roof.

Regards Lez.

[St Enodoc]

4 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

Only if it's got wheels and an apex roof.

Regards Lez.

Yes. If it had a flat roof, it would be a caravan.

[Michael Edge]

44 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

I have heard Black 8 but that may be a recent appellation.

 

Fifty years ago, some of my mates called them H-bombs.

Black 8 is a nonsensical modernism, there couldn’t have been such a thing since there were no red 8s - LMS power classification only went up to 7.

Since I come from a little way north of the Mersey I concur with Tony about loco names, they were always Mickeys snd Semis, although our “coffee pots” were LNW 0-8-0s. I am (and was) aware that the enginemen had their own nicknames and rarely understood ours.

[St Enodoc]

33 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

Black 8 is a nonsensical modernism, there couldn’t have been such a thing since there were no red 8s

Quite - but I have certainly heard it used.