Wright writes.....

[2750Papyrus]

Many of us in our youth learned to call Princess Coronation locos "Duchesses" after the Hornby Dublo model.  As a child, I had books and pictures showing the streamlined version, but the sloping smokebox left when they were defrocked was a detail I only learned later.

[Tony Wright]

Another day, another loco started!

 

For a time, there were three BR Standard Fives shedded at Kings Cross. Though their diagrams tended to be from Kings Cross to Cambridge or Peterborough, there must have been a chance they worked through Little Bytham.

 

On that assumption, I've started a DJH kit for the Class........

 

 

 

Progress last evening and (early) this morning (I find I'm most creative early in the morning - 5.00 am today!).

 

Though I have a prejudice against the Portescap whine, over the last year I've acquired what must be early ones (at a good price) because they're very quiet. 

 

A little bit of modification was needed to the cab (which is just sitting in place) and the footplate in order to accept the porcine Portescap, but it's now a snug fit (and it runs beautifully). 

 

There is another DJH BR Standard Five on Little Bytham............

 

 

 

Built by the great man himself, Roy Jackson, and painted/weathered by Geoff Kent. 

 

It was built in OO for a chap Roy knew, on a 'sort of' commission. When complete, Roy tried to get in touch with the bloke, but he'd disappeared off the face of the Earth! Despite trying for ages, no trace of the chap could be found (he'd moved at least twice from the address Roy had). So, by way of some horse trading (my building EM frames and what have you), Roy gave it to me (it's now a treasured possession).

 

Oddly (for a Roy-Jackson-built loco) it didn't run all that well, because of its open-framed motor and ordinary Romford worm/gear - noisy and not smooth. I assume this was the brief Roy was given, for his locos are renowned for being quiet and smooth-running. No matter, I just substituted a DJH AM10 combo and it's now as smooth as silk. 

 

I know it stretches credibility to have a Leeds (Holbeck) allocated loco passing through LB (though I did see 55A's 70054 at Retford on the main line one day), but Rule 1 applies here. 

 

It does get a run on Shap from time to time............

 

 

 

Borrowed by Carlisle control having run into Citadel from the S&C? 

 

I did a detailing/renumbering/weathering job on a Bachmann Standard Five for Ian Wilson, making it represent one of the 34A trio....

 

 

But Ian has now sold this.

 

A very successful Bachmann BR Standard Five...........

 

 

Was CITY OF PETERBOROUGH, produced as a limited edition partnership between BRM and the Nene Valley Railway. It sold out! 

 

 

[Captain Kernow]

Lovely to see BR standards on here!

 

I started building examples of some of the BR standards for my S&D layouts, before the Bachmann models appeared.

 

Here is my 73051 (Bath Green Park shed) built from a DJH kit, but with (as far as I can recall) some elements of Comet valve gear and a Hornby tender (the kit had the wrong kind of tender):

 

 

 

 

[PMP]

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

A very successful Bachmann BR Standard Five...........

 

 

Was CITY OF PETERBOROUGH, produced as a limited edition partnership between BRM and the Nene Valley Railway. It sold out! 

That was one of the incorrect releases in terms of detail configuration that Bachmann released, and subsequently resolved by producing replacement locomotive bodies. The cab is incorrect in that it is one of the first batch with cab doors and rear handrail, where it should have the later version of the cab. It has the incorrect earlier tender too. Concurrent with that release there was this one below :

This was supplied with an incorrect cab/tender combination too but the other way round, early cab, late tender. For it’s time early noughties, it’s an excellent model and still stands in it’s own right today. The core dimensions and shape are all correct, so they’re worth working on to get a bit of extra finesse to them. I’m converting the one above to a first batch locomotive so the tender is being modified and a few details on the engine. 

 

 

Edited February 9 by PMP

[chris45lsw]

The Brighton I3s were, in fact, splendid engines and the performance of Nos 23 and 26 on the 'Sunny South Express' between Rugby and Brighton in 1909 outshone LNWR saturated Precursor 'Titan' and demonstrated the benefits of superheating.  It was the I1, I2 and I4 classes which were pathetic!

 

Chris KT 

[Kirby Uncoupler]

17 minutes ago, chris45lsw said:

The Brighton I3s were, in fact, splendid engines and the performance of Nos 23 and 26 on the 'Sunny South Express' between Rugby and Brighton in 1909 outshone LNWR saturated Precursor 'Titan' and demonstrated the benefits of superheating.  It was the I1, I2 and I4 classes which were pathetic!

 

Chris KT 

Thanks Chris, I couldn't remember exact details, LBSCR was not my line, but a book was published back in the 1980s (IA?), regarding locomotive nicknames, and a century ago,  the offending non-efficient Brighton class were given the slang name of "XXXXXXs",  which rhymed with merchant bankers in the Cockney world.       BK

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

Here’s my DJH standard five - also one of the KX three. I bought it on eBay and then had to make it run (as with 95% of eBay kit built purchases!). It tends to work Cambridge services on Gresley Jn, although I believe that they did work some of the Grimsby fish turns.

 

Andy

 

 

 

[Kirby Uncoupler]

Ten years ago, or whenever it was, your's truly was embroiled in the great Bachmann 73050 debacle, and we had a right old ding- battle about it , in the RMweb Bachmann section.  If you study the BR Standard classes for long enough, the penny eventually drops, and you realize that many tender classes (but not all), had a change of footplate arrangement, halfway through production. The original design was copied from American practice, involving an extended footplate and semi-open cab doors, and no traditional British-style fallplate hinged on the tender front. The idea looked good on paper, but in practice on the main line, disturbing cold draughts rose up between loco and tender. 

    To try and rectify the problem, unwieldly concertina curtains were added to the cab rear, this improved things, but was not the perfect cure. So the later builds were changed to a shorter British style footplate, now with added hinged fallplate on the tender front. This also did away with the side doors and rearmost vertical handrails, and added short side panels to the tender front.  As far as I know, all the originals remained as built, none of these were rebuilt to the later style, and the two styles could not be mixed, and that partly explains why there were so many versions of the tenders.  This affected classes 70xxx, 73xxx, 75xxx, and 76xxx, but 9Fs came later so were all built with the later arrangement. All high-sided tender locos were built with later cab arrangement and fallplates.

     Bachmann had already produced their magnificent 73xxx Standard 5s, for many years, and had already produced early and late cab/tender variants, so no new mouldings were required. The BR footplate change occurred between the end of the 73000-49 batch and from 73050 onwards. Bachmann had announced a black 73050 (73050-73052 batch for the S&D), which was correctly illustrated by a mock-up in their latest catalogue, except when the models arrived in the shops, something had gone wrong, and the factory had produced 73050 from the early cab mouldings. None of the magazines had spotted this, and when I criticised Bachmann, they went into complete denial, and couldn't see any problem?

     The heated debate on RMweb went on for days, with Bachmann repeatedly stating there was no problem, some RMweb members started attacking me, for daring to chastise the company, others were panicking that Bachmann might pull out of the UK market. As if? Eventually we asked Graham Hubbard and team, to compare a 73050 from the shelf, with the mock-up in the catalogue, then at last the penny dropped at Bachmann in Barwell. They now confirmed that there had been a factory mix-up in China, and they announced a product re-call from the shops, for re-bodying/re-issue, but some had already been sold and got away. So beware next time you buy a secondhand 73050, but then again the dodgy ones might have become collector's items?   🙂

 

                                                               Cheers, Brian.

Edited February 11 by Kirby Uncoupler
Missed out the word "-"!

[Barry Ten]

I find the gearing on the Bachmann Std 5s to be a bit on the slow side for express passenger service.

[Retro_man]

4 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

A very successful Bachmann BR Standard Five...........

 

 

Was CITY OF PETERBOROUGH, produced as a limited edition partnership between BRM and the Nene Valley Railway. It sold out! 

 

 

 

The real 73050 in steam at Newton Heath getting ready for its nighttime run to Peterborough on September 11, 1968 - my picture.

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, Kirby Uncoupler said:

Thanks Chris, I couldn't remember exact details, LBSCR was not my line, but a book was published back in the 1980s (IA?), regarding locomotive nicknames, and a century ago,  the offending non-efficient Brighton class were given the slang name of "XXXXXXs",  which rhymed with merchant bankers in the Cockney world.       BK

 

 

 

I never had that book but I found the nickname in a reissue of a SR Loco Spotters ABC from 1942 which ISTR I bought from the NRM in about 1980.

 

I had assumed that the word had a different meaning back in the day. Seems not!

 

 

 

 

Jason

[60526]

3 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Another day, another loco started!

 

For a time, there were three BR Standard Fives shedded at Kings Cross. Though their diagrams tended to be from Kings Cross to Cambridge or Peterborough, there must have been a chance they worked through Little Bytham.

 

 

Std 5's at 34A has got my attention, I've the Bmann model but it looked out of place for a southern ECML stud. I've just looked at brdatabase.info and found 4 allocated although the latter 3 are more relevant to your modelling of LB -

73071 - 02/56 to 05/57, BR1C tender?

73157 - 11/57 to 11/58, BR1B tender?

73158 - 11/57 to 11/58, BR1B tender?

73159 - 11/57 to 11/58, BR1B tender?

The tender information was obtained from a Dec 2005 Model Rail article.

 

Would any of the Sheffield std 5's have come past Little Bytham?

[John Tomlinson]

2 hours ago, Kirby Uncoupler said:

Ten years ago, or whenever it was, your's truly was embroiled in the great Bachmann 73050 debacle, and we had a right old ding- battle about it , in the RMweb Bachmann section.  If you study the BR Standard classes for long enough, the penny eventually drops, and you realize that many tender classes (but not all), had a change of footplate arrangement, halfway through production. The original design was copied from American practice, involving an extended footplate and semi-open cab doors, and no traditional British-style fallplate hinged on the tender front. The idea looked good on paper, but in practice on the main line, disturbing cold draughts rose up between loco and tender. 

    To try and rectify the problem, unwieldly concertina curtains were added to the cab rear, this improved things, but was not the perfect cure. So the later builds were changed to a shorter British style footplate, now with added hinged fallplate on the tender front. This also did away with the side doors and rearmost vertical handrails, and added short side panels to the tender front.  As far as I know, all the originals remained as built, none of these were rebuilt to the later style, and the two styles could not be mixed, and that partly explains why there were so many versions of the tenders.  This affected classes 70xxx, 73xxx, 75xxx, and 76xxx, but 9Fs came later so were all built with the later arrangement. All high-sided tender locos were built with later cab arrangement and fallplates.

     Bachmann had already produced their magnificent 73xxx Standard 5s, for many years, and had already produced early and late cab/tender variants, so no new mouldings were required. The BR footplate change occurred between the end of the 73000-49 batch and from 73050 onwards. Bachmann had announced a black 73050 (73050-73052 batch for the S&D), which was correctly illustrated by a mock-up in their latest catalogue, except when the models arrived in the shops, something had gone wrong, and the factory had produced 73050 from the early cab mouldings. None of the magazines had spotted this, and when I criticised Bachmann, they went into complete denial, and couldn't see any problem?

     The heated debate on RMweb went on for days, with Bachmann repeatedly stating there was no problem, some RMweb members started attacking me, for daring to chastise the company, others were panicking that Bachmann might pull out of the UK market. As if? Eventually we asked Graham Hubbard and team, to compare a 73050 from the shelf, with the mock-up in the catalogue, then at last the penny dropped at Bachmann in Barwell. They now confirmed that there had been a factory mix-up in China, and they announced a product re-call from the shops, for re-bodying/re-issue, but some had already been sold and got away. So beware next time you buy a secondhand 73050, but then again the dodgy ones might have become collector's items?   🙂

 

                                                               Cheers, Brian.

 

One wonders if the "first fifty" built one way was misinterpreted to think that included 73050, whereas of course fifty on 73000 gets to 73049. Something that wouldn't have been a problem under the TOPS numbering scheme, with every series starting at "1". Just a theory!

 

John.

[bbishop]

1 hour ago, John Tomlinson said:

 

One wonders if the "first fifty" built one way was misinterpreted to think that included 73050, whereas of course fifty on 73000 gets to 73049. Something that wouldn't have been a problem under the TOPS numbering scheme, with every series starting at "1". Just a theory!

 

John.

Not a problem on the Southern, we sensibly started with a "1".

[John Besley]

5 hours ago, Retro_man said:

 

The real 73050 in steam at Newton Heath getting ready for its nighttime run to Peterborough on September 11, 1968 - my picture.

 

Is that a home made smokebox numberplate... that run must have story somewhere judging by the date

[2750Papyrus]

2 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

 

One wonders if the "first fifty" built one way was misinterpreted to think that included 73050, whereas of course fifty on 73000 gets to 73049. Something that wouldn't have been a problem under the TOPS numbering scheme, with every series starting at "1". Just a theory!

 

John.

More than 65 years ago, my then best friend claimed that my Trix "Britannia" and class V were unrealistic because their numbers contained so many zeroes, which you never saw on the real railway! 

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, bbishop said:

Not a problem on the Southern, we sensibly started with a "1".

 

So did the LMS. No 1 was a Fowler 2-6-2T.

 

Just that the LMS had about 12,000* of the things at one point as opposed to the SR having a few hundred which were mostly randomly numbered!

 

*Even after replacing many older locomotives with standard designs there was still over 8000 in 1948

 

 

Jason

[DenysW]

18 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

So did the LMS. No 1 was a Fowler 2-6-2T.

Doubtless to be corrected, but I thought Midland 1-22 (Kirtley 2-4-0s) became LMS 1-22. including  No. 2  being preserved as its number of 158A (pre-1907) after Stanier decided Midland 1 should be scrapped as clutter and 2 was discovered still in service as a pilot engine at Derby?

[Compound2632]

36 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Doubtless to be corrected, but I thought Midland 1-22 (Kirtley 2-4-0s) became LMS 1-22. including  No. 2  being preserved as its number of 158A (pre-1907) after Stanier decided Midland 1 should be scrapped as clutter and 2 was discovered still in service as a pilot engine at Derby?

 

Started out that way, with the 3P 2-6-2Ts being 15500-69 when built in 1930-1932 but in the 1934 renumbering, they became 1-70 with the surviving ex-Midland 2-4-0s having 20000 added to their numbers - thus the preserved 156 Class 2-4-0, originally No. 158, put on the duplicate list as 158A, renumbered 2 in 1907, became 20002 in 1934. The 3Ps were reclassified 3MT under BR and had 40000 added to their numbers, becoming 40001-40070. It's generally the BR numbers that are remembered by folk such as Jason. Adding 40000 to the engines that had had 20000 added to their numbers in 1934 would have put them in the ex-LNER number block, so they were put in the 58000 series instead.

[Steamport Southport]

51 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Doubtless to be corrected, but I thought Midland 1-22 (Kirtley 2-4-0s) became LMS 1-22. including  No. 2  being preserved as its number of 158A (pre-1907) after Stanier decided Midland 1 should be scrapped as clutter and 2 was discovered still in service as a pilot engine at Derby?

 

That was the early days.

 

The LMS had a massive renumbering to put them all into some semblance of order. Something the LNER also did in the 1940s.

 

 

The SR was mostly based on what Section they belonged to rather than any scheme. 

 

For example 473 to 491 were H15s apart from 479 to 481 being M7s plonked directly in the middle of the series!

 

Why they didn't change the numbers and put them in order is a bit bewildering. Might have been a bit confusing to some of the crews who thought they were getting a 4-6-0 and they find they've got a 0-4-4T instead....

 

 

 

Jason

[DenysW]

30 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Started out that way, with the 3P 2-6-2Ts being 15500-69 when built in 1930-1932 but in the 1934 renumbering, they became 1-70 with the surviving ex-Midland 2-4-0s having 20000 added to their numbers

How odd, when most of the point of the Midland numbering was to put the tender engines in increasing order of power to simplify Train Control. And who cared about the tanks (Midland attitude)?

 

1 minute ago, Steamport Southport said:

That was the early days.

 

The LMS had a massive renumbering to put them all into some semblance of order. Something the LNER also did in the 1940s.

(As above) How odd, when most of the point of the Midland numbering was to put the tender engines in increasing order of power.

 

However, except for the Midland re-numberings of 1845 and 1907, pre-Grouping numbering was more about accountancy (low numbers: re-used, purchase charged to the Revenue Account, new numbers: Capital Account) than any modern logic.

[lezz01]

5 minutes ago, DenysW said:

How odd, when most of the point of the Midland numbering was to put the tender engines in increasing order of power to simplify Train Control. And who cared about the tanks (Midland attitude)?

 

(As above) How odd, when most of the point of the Midland numbering was to put the tender engines in increasing order of power.

 

However, except for the Midland re-numberings of 1845 and 1907, pre-Grouping numbering was more about accountancy (low numbers: re-used, purchase charged to the Revenue Account, new numbers: Capital Account) than any modern logic.

See everything seems fine and dandy until the bean counters get involved and then it all goes to hell in a handcart. Maybe we should just shoot all the bean counters and life would be good again.

Regards Lez.

 

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

 

One wonders if the "first fifty" built one way was misinterpreted to think that included 73050, whereas of course fifty on 73000 gets to 73049. Something that wouldn't have been a problem under the TOPS numbering scheme, with every series starting at "1". Just a theory!

 

John.

Except that, generally, the lowest pre-TOPS number became the highest TOPS number (e.g. D9000 became 55022).

[Dunsignalling]

12 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

That was the early days.

 

The LMS had a massive renumbering to put them all into some semblance of order. Something the LNER also did in the 1940s.

 

 

The SR was mostly based on what Section they belonged to rather than any scheme. 

 

For example 473 to 491 were H15s apart from 479 to 481 being M7s plonked directly in the middle of the series!

 

Why they didn't change the numbers and put them in order is a bit bewildering. Might have been a bit confusing to some of the crews who thought they were getting a 4-6-0 and they find they've got a 0-4-4T instead....

 

 

 

Jason

Until OVB came along, the SR loco numbering remained almost entirely based on the pre-group origins of the locomotives, particularly in the largest constituent, the LSWR. The basic structure had been determined by new locos taking the numbers of those they replaced; the  typical pre-group (or, at least Victorian) norm.

 

Under Maunsell, locos to new designs were placed into the ex-LSWR section, but his Moguls, having pre-group origins, continued from their places in the ex-SECR series. 

 

Initially, everything kept its pre-group identity, resulting in duplication, which was first dealt with by adding prefixes, A [Ashford], B [Brighton] or E [Eastleigh], with new construction following the above principles. It made little operational difference, as the SR behaved more like a federation of its constituents than a full amalgamation, and few locos strayed from their home turf.

 

An LSWR renumbering might have been desirable but, for whatever reasons, didn't become a "need". The smaller numbers involved and enduring parochial allocations presumably caused less confusion than for those companies that saw fit to comprehensively renumber their locos.  

 

As more mixing began to occur, the discreet prefix was deemed inadequate and a renumbering (of sorts) took place. LSWR (and group designed) locos kept their existing numbers, ex-SECR designs had 1000 added, and those of LBSCR origin, 2000.

 

The same principle was adopted nationwide by BR from 1948, but still nobody seemed to consider it necessary to simplify the LSWR/SR numbering situation.

 

John

Edited February 10 by Dunsignalling

[Clive Mortimore]

11 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Except that, generally, the lowest pre-TOPS number became the highest TOPS number (e.g. D9000 became 55022).

Hang on there Sainty, not always the case, D200 became 40122 and I think there were others that were slotted in gaps. And as for the Peaks, D1 became 44001, the Cromptons (class 45s) were all over the shop, and the Brushes (Class 46) didn't start with a DX00 number so D138 became 46001.