Wright writes.....

[glo41f]

I can fondly remember the August 1960 issue of the Modeller which had a reveiw of the Trai ang R59 Brit. I got one that Christmas. It was not as good as the Trix version in a lot of respects but it was a Brit. (Why th TT version got the see thrugh whees first I have no idea). I saw them daily on the GE until suddenly they were all gone. I still love them and as been commented here, the whistle was THE thing. I have one in 7mm and have another semi built. They are too large for my layout sadly. I also have fond memories of the Bury St Edmunds Club layout  called the Broadland Railway where a large number of Brits hauled suitably long trains around the large layout. I just hope my earnie bonds pay up so I can acquire one of the Korean built ones which are due in the not too distant future.

 

Thanks for the memories

 

Martin Long

[Mallard60022]

I can fondly remember the August 1960 issue of the Modeller which had a reveiw of the Trai ang R59 Brit. I got one that Christmas. It was not as good as the Trix version in a lot of respects but it was a Brit. (Why th TT version got the see thrugh whees first I have no idea). I saw them daily on the GE until suddenly they were all gone. I still love them and as been commented here, the whistle was THE thing. I have one in 7mm and have another semi built. They are too large for my layout sadly. I also have fond memories of the Bury St Edmunds Club layout  called the Broadland Railway where a large number of Brits hauled suitably long trains around the large layout. I just hope my earnie bonds pay up so I can acquire one of the Korean built ones which are due in the not too distant future.

 

Thanks for the memories

 

Martin Long

Oh, I'd forgotten the whistle. What a dawk I am. Lovely tone and almost as good as a Spam or Packet or perhaps an A4..........

P

[Andy Reichert]

The Brassmasters 0-8-4T is now complete and will be subject to a full review in BRM. 

 

DSC_1757.JPG

 

I note on another thread some comments regarding compensation/springing. This chassis was designed to be sprung at source. This, in my view, is wrong. It should be designed as solid and leave any compensation/springing to those who are clever/intelligent/bright enough to succeed in getting such things to go. I 'solidified' it, made new one-piece rods and it now runs beautifully smoothly over hand-made track in EM. With jointed rods, it ran dreadfully.  SNIP

 

Just as it is not possible to lay a straight plank flat on a spiral staircase, any truly rigid and "square" chassis will still rock to some extent on track laid on a curved gradient. For those using finer flanges there is usually a need for some form of working suspension.

 

Speaking for myself only, I would see any chassis in a loco kit that is designed to be rigid only, as being 90-100% unusable, if some form of working suspension is desired or required. As are just about all the solid chassis of RTR models.  And given the financial impact of such a waste on those who do wish for or require working suspension, I would see a major chunk of the intended market size for the kit being lost, even to the extent of the kit never being produced in the first place.

 

OTOH, making a suspension capable chassis rigid, should be comparatively simple and does not necessitate scrapping most of the chassis parts.

 

Andy

[Gavdownunder]

The Brassmasters 0-8-4T is now complete and will be subject to a full review in BRM. 

 

DSC_1757.JPG

 

I note on another thread some comments regarding compensation/springing. This chassis was designed to be sprung at source. This, in my view, is wrong. It should be designed as solid and leave any compensation/springing to those who are clever/intelligent/bright enough to succeed in getting such things to go. I 'solidified' it, made new one-piece rods and it now runs beautifully smoothly over hand-made track in EM. With jointed rods, it ran dreadfully. The bogie carries nothing but its own weight and runs equally smoothly. Because the whole thing is now fully-ballasted, it now runs better than when it ran at the Stafford show in January (where its good-running was commented on at the time). 

Mike Sharman's name was mentioned, and I couldn't resist a smile recalling one Missenden weekend where he built a 'flexichas' item and I built my Stone Age rigid type. Mine was much quicker to build (jig-assembled) and ran more smoothly without any tweaking. I think Mike considered my approach to chassis-making beyond salvation! 

 

DSC_1767.JPG

 

Ready for Geoff Haynes to paint her (Ian Rathbone is taking on no new 4mm work as far as I know). Boiler bands are PVC self-adhesive insulation tape and the balance weights in the spokes are Plastic Padding.

 

An overall assessment? Basically a sound kit but let down slightly in my view by over-complication in the chassis department and a lack of simplicity in much of the bodywork. By the latter I mean, why provide the bunker in three separate pieces? Why no tabs and slots for ease of construction? Why provide a boiler in thick-walled brass tube where a lathe/milling machine is necessary to remove the space for the motor and provide positions for washout plugs? Why not a pre-rolled (or even flat) piece of brass for the boiler? Have you ever tried soldering thick-walled brass tube? It's clearly been designed by a clever bloke, but clever blokes should never assume that only other clever blokes will build what they've designed. The DJH Klondike (which is almost ready for painting), is much more user-friendly, even in EM, though not for P4. 

 

All the above said, any reasonably-experienced loco-builder should be able to make a decent job of this kit. It'll never be available RTR (never say never?) and is the product of an individual's handiwork. I've never seen another example made-up. Does anyone out there have one they've got pictures of, please? If you want one, other than scratch-building, this is the way to go. 

Hi Tony, I've converted a Bachmann Super D into one of these machines that I think comes up well all things considered. I can post some build photos if needed.

[t-b-g]

I find it a bit frustrating when kit designers try to force people to adopt either a rigid or a sprung/compensated frame construction. It is so easy to produce one that can be easily adapted to suit the builders own tastes.

 

I am very much with TW on this one, especially for OO or EM. One thing that I have learned from "Buckingham" is that the notion of needing dead flat track if your mechanisms are built rigid is pure myth! The track is all over the place height wise. There is one loco that was built for the layout to replace one that went missing that has "modern" wheels from Markits, with small flanges. This can only run on certain duties as the flanges sail over the top of the rail on some of the more uneven pointwork.

 

Yet the locos with original Romford, Hamblings and Reidpath wheel work as well as, if not better than, many a modern loco.

 

There are a few reasons why my personal preference is to built mechanisms rigid. Firstly, it is much easier to clean wheels and test during construction if the wheels can't move about. It is very difficult to prop a "floppy" mechanism up on blocks or upside down to run it as the wheels will not be in the same place as they are when it is weighted and on the track.

 

Secondly, you can have tighter clearances with valve gear, brakes and splashers if your wheels can't move about. Also the distance between your crankpins doesn't alter as much so you can have smaller crankpin holes in the coupling rods.

 

Thirdly, you can have less fore and aft play in your axles, as most "floppy" designs have two lots of clearance (axle to axlebox plus axlebox to frame/guides).

 

As for pick ups, I find that it is pretty much impossible to get all the wheels on one side of a loco off the rail at the same time and that as long as one wheel is touching and it has a pick up and your track doesn't have great lumps of muck on it, then the loco will run perfectly well. Tender/bogie pick ups are a bonus and if I wasn't so lazy I would fit them but I haven't found them necessary.

 

Yet others really struggle to build frames rigid and reckon that they can only get locos to work well if they are "floppy". My good friend Malcolm Crawley was in that camp. So I am happy to respect that not everybody will agree with me. I used to kid him that it took him twice as long to build a mechanism and when he finally got it running you couldn't tell the difference between his and mine!

 

It just goes to show that anybody who says that there is only one way of doing things in this hobby is rarely right!

 

One final note about Mr Crawley! He once, in the course of his railway career, did a tour of all the main loco works to see what "best practices" could be adopted at Doncaster Plant. He never enjoyed admitting it, but he told me that the engineering standards at Swindon were way above everybody elses and a number of techniques were subsequently adopted. Crewe, on the other hand, was dreadful. The locos coming out of Crewe "ex works" had worse tolerances and slop in them than the ones going into Swindon for attention!

 

Tony (G)

Edited May 28, 2015 by t-b-g

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

..With regard to the Brits, they revolutionised the 1950s' GE timetable in a manner impossible with any other class. Trains previously 5MT-hauled, now had 7MTs at the head. Someone mentioned the V2s as equivalents but they were too heavy for the road ...

It's been observed before by a railway officer that the Gresley A1  - lighter than the Britannia - might have been tried once BR had done the line upgrade work that the LNER could never afford, to permit a 20T axleload locomotive on the GER mainline. But that of course would have robbed Mr Riddles of the 'showground' for his new design...

 

Anyone interested in this class who hasn't already read Bill Harvey's excellent summary account of the time he spent with the Brits at Norwich should do so. He was well pleased with them as maintainable tractive units for the GER line turns, but on the evidence presented it is perhaps fortunate that the end of steam came when it did, for this class' reputation. He observed that the lack of a cylinder block between the frames deprived the locomotive - uniquely among UK types for one of its power class - of a massive and very efficient frame stay just where it did most good, with some already observable effects on both the frame and engine components.

[Tony Wright]

Hi Tony, I've converted a Bachmann Super D into one of these machines that I think comes up well all things considered. I can post some build photos if needed.

Brilliant stuff!

 

Many thanks indeed.

[Tony Wright]

Just as it is not possible to lay a straight plank flat on a spiral staircase, any truly rigid and "square" chassis will still rock to some extent on track laid on a curved gradient. For those using finer flanges there is usually a need for some form of working suspension.

 

Speaking for myself only, I would see any chassis in a loco kit that is designed to be rigid only, as being 90-100% unusable, if some form of working suspension is desired or required. As are just about all the solid chassis of RTR models.  And given the financial impact of such a waste on those who do wish for or require working suspension, I would see a major chunk of the intended market size for the kit being lost, even to the extent of the kit never being produced in the first place.

 

OTOH, making a suspension capable chassis rigid, should be comparatively simple and does not necessitate scrapping most of the chassis parts.

 

Andy

Thanks Andy,

 

I agree with you about chassis being designed with 'rigid-only' in mind being unsuitable for the most fine standards. Kit chassis should be designed with springing/compensation/rigid facilities at source. But, it's my view that they should be designed as rigid initially. Thus, for those with greater skills, half-etched horn-guides can be exposed and springing or compensation installed. Comet (in many of the chassis) does this, SE Finecast does, PDK does, but they're supplied rigid. DJH doesn't have any provision for springing/compensation, but for finescale OO and EM it isn't necessary in my experience. The Klondike I'm making is now almost complete and that has a rigid chassis. Several RMWebbers have seen it in operation on Retford and (I hope) they'll testify that it hauls a full prototype-equivalent load, runs smoothly, sweetly, waddles a little bit (just like the prototype) and doesn't derail or stutter at 1 mph or 100 mph over some of the most complex trackwork there is. As supplied, the Brassmasters' 0-8-4T  chassis had to be modified to make it rigid and new rods made to make them rigid. I tried to build it as supplied but it ran like a lame dog! With everything rigid, it just purred round Retford - smooth, powerful and no chance of derailment. Others witnessed this, too. 

 

I've got a PDK B16 which is compensated (built by PDK). In exchange, I built another B16 for Tom Foster, making that rigid. I've also recently run another PDK B16 which also has full compensation. Which of the three runs the best? I'll leave it up to the independent witnesses who've visited to decide. 

 

I accept that I don't have the skills required to make a sprung/compensated set of frames. Perhaps others who've seen my OO and EM rigid locos work will say whether they think they run all right. 

 

I'll also admit that I'm considered a Philistine and even a dinosaur by several most-accomplished modellers!

[coachmann]

The sprung-chassis contingency seem to have overlooked the fact that proprietary chassis are designed to perform on rails laid over rugs, carpets, linoleum floors, hardboard baseboards, planks, double beds as well as on well built baseboards, and they are rigid!   

Edited May 28, 2015 by coachmann

[unclebobkt]

Wun I dun earlier, as they say. Dunno when it went through the shops here but probably in the early 1990s. Coming on the eve of the steam finale, I think the 'Britannia' outline is up there amongst the classics.... 

WEB Iron Duke.jpg

 

      'Iron Duke.' - not the most diplomatic name for the Golden Arrow, I fear!

     

[unclebobkt]

  ... .

 

  One final note about Mr Crawley! He once, in the course of his railway career, did a tour of all the main loco works to see what "best practices" could be adopted at Doncaster Plant. He never enjoyed admitting it, but he told me that the engineering standards at Swindon were way above everybody elses and a number of techniques were subsequently adopted. Crewe, on the other hand, was dreadful. The locos coming out of Crewe "ex works" had worse tolerances and slop in them than the ones going into Swindon for attention!

 

 

        I am surprised, somewhat, to read this comment about Crewe Works.   I might have supposed that Stanier, coming from Swindon as he did, might have looked into this matter of the products coming out of Crewe, either as new locos. or after o'hauls./repairs.

  IIRC. Cooke, who was posted from Swindon to Doncaster during BR. days, introduced the Leica method of alignement, amongst other improvements,  and the results of tighter tolerances & improved workmanship became apparent  in engines' running and intervals between o'hauls..

  Equally, in the early days of BR., there was talk of using the Swindon-designed Clack Valves, but wiser opinion was that standards of fitting in other workshops were not up to Swindon's and that their fitters would not have been able to make Swindon Clack Valves perform as efficiently as Swindon did. Hence the fitting of other devices for filling & for topping-up boilers.

     

Edited May 28, 2015 by unclebobkt

[jrg1]

        I am surprised, somewhat, to read this comment about Crewe Works.   I might have supposed that Stanier, coming from Swindon as he did, might have looked into this matter of the products coming out of Crewe, either as new locos. or after o'hauls./repairs.

  IIRC. Cooke, who was posted from Swindon to Doncaster during BR. days, introduced the Leica method of alignement, amongst other improvements,  and the results of tighter tolerances & improved workmanship became apparent  in engines' running and intervals between o'hauls..

  Equally, in the early days of BR., there was talk of using the Swindon-designed Clack Valves, but wiser opinion was that standards of fitting in other workshops were not up to Swindon's and that their fitters would not have been able to make Swindon Clack Valves perform as efficiently as Swindon did. Hence the fitting of other devices for filling & for topping-up boilers.

     

Whilst I can understand poor standards being tolerated in an engineering works, the idea that a piece of machinery would either not be understood or incapable of being produced/overhauled/tested by the staff is difficult to accept.  Clack valves are basically non-return valves-and fitting as a skill is the same the world over.  If management wanted to export Swindon expertise to the various works, they would have prepared a programme for it to be achieved.  Staff with the necessary knowledge and skills would be delegated as instructors to pass on the ability to deal with the equipment concerned. 

[cctransuk]

......Kit chassis should be designed with springing/compensation/rigid facilities at source. But, it's my view that they should be designed as rigid initially.......

I'll also admit that I'm considered a Philistine and even a dinosaur by several most-accomplished modellers!......

 

Another dinosaur here !!

 

I have tried most variants of springing and compensation, and had some success with them, but I have never convinced myself that what is, to me, a load of extra work and fiddling is justified by any minor improvements in running; (if any).

 

It is no coincidence that my longest running "Must get that finished" project is a Brassmasters Black 5; lovely quality kit components but, to my mind, grossly over-engineered.

 

OK, if you have scale inspection pits by means of which you can gloat over the largely-prototypical but normally invisible underpinnings, you may think that the mechanics are justified.

 

For my money, though, the chassis is too fiddly a flimsy for a loco that will have to work hard for a living.

 

I know - I'm a Luddite !!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[islandbridgejct]

      'Iron Duke.' - not the most diplomatic name for the Golden Arrow, I fear!

     

Yes, but have you seen what they called the terminal station?

 

"Typical English," as the Frenchman remarked on arrival, "to name a station after a defeat."

[Andy Reichert]

I find it a bit frustrating when kit designers try to force people to adopt either a rigid or a sprung/compensated frame construction. It is so easy to produce one that can be easily adapted to suit the builders own tastes.

 

I am very much with TW on this one, especially for OO or EM. One thing that I have learned from "Buckingham" is that the notion of needing dead flat track if your mechanisms are built rigid is pure myth! The track is all over the place height wise. There is one loco that was built for the layout to replace one that went missing that has "modern" wheels from Markits, with small flanges. This can only run on certain duties as the flanges sail over the top of the rail on some of the more uneven pointwork.

 

Yet the locos with original Romford, Hamblings and Reidpath wheel work as well as, if not better than, many a modern loco.

 

SNIP

 

 

Tony (G)

 

Running using the engineering principle of "deep enough for anything" flanges is quite sound, but their noticeable appearance apparently no longer sells small scale RTR or kits successfully.

 

IIRC, Hamblings was gone by 1970, Romford due to unfortunate circumstances not much later,  and all wheels have been "modern" pretty much since.  I doubt any of today's modellers under 55 have actually purchased for themselves a model without "modern" wheels.

 

I would respectfully suggest that the trackwork rather than wheels is the issue that will determine the ongoing successful operations of Buckingham.

 

Andy

[t-b-g]

Running using the engineering principle of "deep enough for anything" flanges is quite sound, but their noticeable appearance apparently no longer sells small scale RTR or kits successfully.

 

IIRC, Hamblings was gone by 1970, Romford due to unfortunate circumstances not much later,  and all wheels have been "modern" pretty much since.  I doubt any of today's modellers under 55 have actually purchased for themselves a model without "modern" wheels.

 

I would respectfully suggest that the trackwork rather than wheels is the issue that will determine the ongoing successful operations of Buckingham.

 

Andy

 

On my own modelling, as opposed to working on Buckingham, I use a mixture of Gibson, Sharman (good stocks bought in with many kits years ago) and Ultrascale. I have to say that my own track is quite a bit flatter than that on Buckingham and I also get more than acceptable results using rigid frames and small flanges on wheels. I certainly wouldn't fancy trying it in P4, although some folk claim to have achieved good running with rigid stock in those standards.

 

Luckily I have obtained enough old style Romford wheels to keep the Buckingham locos going as and when the present ones wear out. There must be many hundreds if not thousands in those "spare bits boxes" that we all seem to have.

 

It is very interesting working in both "old style" EM on Buckingham and more modern standards with my own modelling. There are things on Buckingham that folk have categorically told me will not work, yet here they are, 50 and 60 years on, working as well as they did when they were built. How many of our models will be doing that and if they are, how many of us will be around to see it?

 

As for being a dinosaur, I was once described by no lesser person than Iain Rice as "the worst luddite since Tony Wright". I took it as a compliment!

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not anti springing/compensation in the slightest. I just find that I can get equally good results (and sometimes better ones) with rigid frames, with less complicated "setting up" and constructional processes.

[Tony Wright]

Perhaps, I hope, not to go too much over old ground, the rigid v compensation debate could run on and on...........  What we all hope to achieve is good running. Typically, the very best running in terms of road-holding and lack of derailments at the greatest speed, even over a mixture of carpets, lino, wooden floorboards and via the most switchback of roads could be achieved using Hornby O Gauge tinplate. I witnessed this, with two good friends in a large house in Guilden Sutton near Chester, well over 60 years ago. I've never looked forward since! Seriously, though, 'we' have moved on.

 

Speaking from my own experience, the finest running I've seen recently was at the Huntingdon show on St Melyn (I think that's the right name) in P4. Because it represented a terminus, nothing ran fast, though the overall performance was silky-smooth. Every vehicle (as far as I could tell) was sprung/compensated. The necessary model engineering was way above my capabilities.There was an original Bulleid light Pacific (a perfect runner) and I mused what it would look like at the head of an express screaming through an equivalent of Woking at a scale 90 mph. I saw that in real life, and I can attempt to create that with my own OO MORTEHOE through Little Bytham. I've never seen it done in P4, though. Why not? Or a Duchess, King, A4, etc, etc.......... a dozen and more on, behind an 8P doing 90 mph in model form. I do it all the time and it's seen on Retford all the time - all by rigidity. 

 

It's not really done to name names in criticism, so I won't. However, having once 'fixed' a chassis built by a well-known creator, if that were an example of how to achieve sweet running then I must have been missing something - by miles! Another fleet of fully-sprung/compensated P4 locos built at high-cost by a 'top' man all ran very poorly when I tried to move them into position for photography. The same occurred on an EM layout, where the only thing I could get to run properly was a re-wheeled NRM DELTIC. Yet all these locos had been built following all the principles of springing/compensation. When I put two of my rigid EM Pacifics on, they flew round. 

 

I'm not decrying those who strive to produce the best, but it's way beyond me. As others have done, I've tried compensation/springing; it's taken me far more time, given me far more frustration and used up much more in the way of profane words! Yet, the running is no better - worse in fact. 

 

I will concede that if one can do it (obviously not me), then the results in terms of (particularly) slow, stutter-free running should be better. Citing the burgeoning (and superb) Grantham as an example, I've witnessed a couple of Graeme King's compensated locos just glide over dead-frog Peco crossings without stalling - by the way, don't ask him to explain how he does it, unless you're a fan of Stanley Unwin! I've built two locos for Grantham (building more!), a C12 and a J69. Both are rigid and both initially stalled over the dead frogs. The cure, a set of pick-ups on the C12's bogie and a set of pick-ups on the shunting/match truck attached to the J69. Time? Less than half an hour each. If I'd achieved no-stalling by using springing/compensation, then hours of frustration for me, and probably less-than-smooth running in the end, anyway. As for the 'tosh' about all driving wheels being in equal contact with the rails giving greater adhesion, please look back through Graham's Grantham thread and see where he cites how the C12 out-pulled everything else - even a P1! My 'West Country' is compensated and it just slips and slips and slips under load - most realistic.  

 

Regarding driving wheels, Romford/Markits every time for me. I've had too many of the others out of true, difficult to quarter and the tyres have subsequently come off. A friend left his EM 'Schools' on shed and didn't run it for many months. When he did, the heavy loco had distorted one or two of the plastic spokes in the drivers, so the loco now nods up and down. 

 

Tony Wright - Luddite, Philistine, Dinosaur........................ and glad to be!

[coachmann]

Tony Wright - Luddite, Philistine, Dinosaur........................ and glad to be!

No, I prefer to regard you as a bloke who has years of actual hands-on building under his belt who learned the hard way and became pragmatic through experience and not theory.

Edited May 29, 2015 by coachmann

[unclebobkt]

Whilst I can understand poor standards being tolerated in an engineering works, the idea that a piece of machinery would either not be understood or incapable of being produced/overhauled/tested by the staff is difficult to accept.  Clack valves are basically non-return valves-and fitting as a skill is the same the world over.  If management wanted to export Swindon expertise to the various works, they would have prepared a programme for it to be achieved.  Staff with the necessary knowledge and skills would be delegated as instructors to pass on the ability to deal with the equipment concerned. 

 

      I have not worked in a railway's workshops - my nearet was working on military RADARs. where the general & mechanical tolerances were either +/- 1/64". or +/- 0.005". unless otherwse specified, (in some cases tolerances became +/-0.001".) - and thus cannot comment;  but I find it hard to believe that any reputable workshops would tolerate poor standards.

  But for sure there should be no reason why workers couldn't be trained to work to closer tolerances were Management prepared to make the necessary investment;  possibly Mngmnt. though it better to continue with what their work-forces knew best and with which they were familiar - 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'?

     

[unclebobkt]

      ... .

  Tony Wright - Luddite, Philistine, Dinosaur........................ and glad to be!

 

      Being pedantic, if I may?,  isn't a 'Luddite' a skilled craftsperson who has been supplanted/put out of work by the advent of machinery capable of being operated by the relatively unskilled?

  When large factories with machinery were introduced during the so-called Industrial Revolution in general only two classes of people benefitted:

1.- Management  &

2.- Relatively unskilled operators.

  The people who really felt the crunch were the skilled craftspeoples for whom there was no place in those modern factories.  Hence the Luddites destruction of machines, believing them to be the source of their being on the labour-scrapheap.

  For example, many of us used to laugh at the average, middle-class and Victorian house with its profusion of anti-macassars, lace doilies, shrouded piano. and/or piano legs etc. etc. - but that profusion was only made possible by mass production that only machiney could perform both cheaply and in quantities of which the skilled craftsperson could only dream.

     

Edited May 29, 2015 by unclebobkt

[edcayton]

      I have not worked in a railway's workshops - my nearet was working on military RADARs. where the general & mechanical tolerances were either +/- 1/64". or +/- 0.005". unless otherwse specified, (in some cases tolerances became +/-0.001".) - and thus cannot comment;  but I find it hard to believe that any reputable workshops would tolerate poor standards.

  But for sure there should be no reason why workers couldn't be trained to work to closer tolerances were Management prepared to make the necessary investment;  possibly Mngmnt. though it better to continue with what their work-forces knew best and with which they were familiar - 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'?

     

 

Cost. Finer tolerances require (or used to) better machine tools and/or more highly skilled craftsmen. There is little point in making things to finer tolerances than you need to.

 

Ed

[Arthur]

Being pedantic, if I may?, isn't a 'Luddite' a skilled craftsperson who has been supplanted/put out of work by the advent of machinery capable of being operated by the relatively unskilled?

When large factories with machinery were introduced during the so-called Industrial Revolution in general only two classes of people benefitted:

1.- Management &

2.- Relatively unskilled operators.

The people who really felt the crunch were the skilled craftspeoples for whom there was no place in those modern factories. Hence the Luddites destruction of machines, believing them to be the source of their being on the labour-scrapheap.

For example, many of us used to laugh at the average, middle-class and Victorian house with its profusion of anti-macassars, lace doilies, shrouded piano. and/or piano legs etc. etc. - but that profusion was only made possible by mass production that only machiney could perform both cheaply and in quantities of which the skilled craftsperson could only dream.

Luddite is generally used to refer to those resistant to change. Yes, the industrial revolution supplanted hand weavers with power looms etc., but at the same time created a whole new class of skilled work, boiler making, turning, pattern makers, tin smiths, foundry men, electrical and mechanical fitting, the list is endless. It did not just benefit 'management' and 'the unskilled'. Skills changed, as they still do. Edited May 29, 2015 by Arthur

[coachmann]

 Skills changed, as they still do.

I remember a cartoon that appeared in a 1949 motoring magazine that showed an ape in a big modern Buick overtaking a bloke in his Austin Seven. The driver of the Austin said to his mate "He wouldn't look so bloody clever if he had to change his own gears". Skill change?  Anyone remember when modellers used to solder bits of tin together to create miniature locomotives, then along came plastic kits and glue. Skill change? Soldering ain't gluing!  

 

I rather fancy I will be joining the Luddite & Dinosaur Club when the Peco arrives lol....

Edited May 29, 2015 by coachmann

[t-b-g]

      I have not worked in a railway's workshops - my nearet was working on military RADARs. where the general & mechanical tolerances were either +/- 1/64". or +/- 0.005". unless otherwse specified, (in some cases tolerances became +/-0.001".) - and thus cannot comment;  but I find it hard to believe that any reputable workshops would tolerate poor standards.

  But for sure there should be no reason why workers couldn't be trained to work to closer tolerances were Management prepared to make the necessary investment;  possibly Mngmnt. though it better to continue with what their work-forces knew best and with which they were familiar - 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'?

     

 

I am not sure that it was a case of toleration of poor standards. It was more a case of particular railway companies adopting different standards and being happy with what they were doing.

 

It is like saying that Ford are guilty of tolerating poor standards because they are not building Rolls Royces.

[LNER4479]

Citing the burgeoning (and superb) Grantham as an example, I've witnessed a couple of Graeme King's compensated locos just glide over dead-frog Peco crossings without stalling - by the way, don't ask him to explain how he does it, unless you're a fan of Stanley Unwin! I've built two locos for Grantham (building more!), a C12 and a J69. Both are rigid and both initially stalled over the dead frogs. The cure, a set of pick-ups on the C12's bogie and a set of pick-ups on the shunting/match truck attached to the J69. Time? Less than half an hour each. If I'd achieved no-stalling by using springing/compensation, then hours of frustration for me, and probably less-than-smooth running in the end, anyway. As for the 'tosh' about all driving wheels being in equal contact with the rails giving greater adhesion, please look back through Graham's Grantham thread and see where he cites how the C12 out-pulled everything else - even a P1!

 

I think it's probably easier just to post the picture here Tony!

 

Having seen other much beefier-looking locos defeated it was indeed truly astonishing to see the C12 walk away with this load. Not immediately apparent was that there at least 10-12 white metal coal wagons in amongst the various plastic offerings.

 

Interestingly, in terms of the 'rigid' discussions, my D2 (a sort of tender version of the C12?) has a simple compensation beam on the front driving axle and has the weight of the tender bearing down on the rear of the loco chassis. Thus configured, it only requires pickups on its four main driving wheels to be able to negotiate the dead frog slips. Big difference though is that it won't pull the skin off the proverbial (she's only required to shuffle around with 3 local coaches!) - albeit not a strictly fair comparison as it is from an etched (LRM) kit.