Wright writes.....

[micklner]

Super model of a controversial - to say the least - prototype!  You resisted the temptation to paint it GE blue?

 

One on the bench at the moment. I have already done another two Blue versions  for commissions.

 

That's a great model, Mick.

 

Should the A1/1 not be better than an A10? There were over 20 years of development/progress between the two types. The best parts of it came from Gresley, anyway; the boiler and firebox (A4) and the double Kylchap chimney (four A4s, five P2s and HUMORIST). The divided drive and independent valve gear were Thompson's idea (and they gave as many, if different, problems as the conjugated gear) and the 'chassis', which was entirely Thompson (apart from the best bit - the back end, which was Gresley) was dreadful. Better than an original Gresley A1 it might (and should) have been, but better than a double-pot A3 with an A4 boiler? I think not. The irony is, had ET not altered it, that's what it would have become, and, in all probability, been preserved. 

 

Keep up the good work!

Not said by me but Peter Townsend in his excellent East Coast Pacifics at Work  book. He also praises the A2/3. Personally I like Thompson's Pacifics, simply for the variation in the looks they provide.

As to Thommo some strange decisions sums him up, the thinking/logic behind some of his new designs and some pointless rebuilds of  a D49 and D20 and others spring to mind .

[Corbs]

Corbs,

 

Many thanks.

 

What a remarkable piece of photo-trickery. Does it come out as the same length as the P2, or is it shorter? I think the latter.

 

After my A2/2 was defeated by Hornby's P2 in the haulage stakes, I added extra weight to it. Honour is now satisfied. 

 

 

Good to hear the A2/2 has come back better than before, Tony. Believe it or not I have not changed the overall length of the loco from the original photograph, but you are not the first to ask that question. Having said that, building the model should give a better idea as to relative sizes, as perspective does not come into it as much.

[dibber25]

With some notable exceptions I think that's the way of most journalism these days. Some years ago I was acquainted with a person who has made a good career out of special interest journalism. He always talked about "keeping things at Sun reader level".

 

I have several hobby interests and buy the occasional magazine. Sadly, 50% of the time I end up thinking to myself "what a waste of money that was...".

I see it's 'blame a journalist time' again. Someone asked if the people who write articles in model magazines are modellers. He obviously doesn't read the mags. I'm sure Tony knows the background to his fellow journalists only too well, but he's too polite to respond. I think, in a roundabout way, I'm to some extent responsible for all the current mainstream model railway magazine Editors. 

Steve Flint wrote a letter to MRC asking why there were few 'blue diesel' layouts on the exhibition circuit. I published the letter. Someone wrote and challenged him to build one. I published the letter. Steve built Kyle of Tongue and I featured it in the mag, and then commissioned Steve to photograph layouts for me. Mike Wild cut his journalistic teeth in our railways department (on Steam Railway) and did photography for Model Rail. Ben Jones, of BRM was my deputy on Model Rail and then took over as Editor. Mike is a serial layout builder and Ben has a layout under construction. Every member of the current Model Rail editorial team has a project layout under construction, with regular features in the magazine - that's Richard, George, Mike and me, plus our freelancers, Chris Nevard and Peter Marriott. Dave Lowery, of course, is a seven days a week model-maker. 

However, I do think if you are classifying 'real modellers' as folk who build locos, then, yes, I would have to agree that there aren't so many of them these days. However, model-making in the railway hobby has changed and has become much more rounded. No longer is it acceptable to build beautiful locomotives and have them haul crummy carriages on a bare baseboard. Now, the locomotive may come out of a box but the train and the scenery will be of matching high quality. I don't know that it necessarily makes for better modellers but maybe it reflects much broader interests. At the recent Warley show I noticed that there was a queue to spend money on the Petite Properties stand - great laser-cut building kits that require some fascinating techniques to obtain lovely convincing finishes. Can't say I noticed any queues to buy at the ready-to-run loco retailers. 

The magazines have to reflect the current market. The market dictates what the journalists do and we certainly don't have any great influence over the direction that it takes. For myself, I've been a journalist in railways and model railways for 53 years and a modeller for around 60 years and I've just passed my 70th birthday. Currently, I have four layouts in various stages of completion and on my workbench at present I'm indulging in a nostalgia-fest, building a SE Finecast/Wills 'G6' 0-6-0T on the old Hornby-Dublo 'R1' chassis - something I wanted to do when I was 15 but my birthday and Christmas lists didn't come good at the time! (CJL)

[micklner]

Thompsons Wolf of Badenoch A2/2 based on the Bachmann A2 and a Hornby Tender.

 

 

 

 

 

To me it looks so much better than in dire GWR Green !!.

Edited December 22, 2016 by micklner

[t-b-g]

Thompsons Wolf of Badenoch A2/2 based on the Bachmann A2 and a Hornby Tender.

 

 

1 a2.jpg

 

1 a22.jpg

 

 

To me it looks so much better than in dire GWR Green !!.

 

Or, as Malcolm Crawley used to call it, GWR "cowpat green".

 

It doesn't matter how nice a colour you paint those Thompson locos, they still look as though they were thrown together from the contents of a modellers scrap box rather than designed in a drawing office. If you divide the loco at the front driving wheel and cover the front end with you hand on a picture, they look fine. Now cover the back with you hand and the front end just looks the most ill proportioned mess. It doesn't even look as if the outside steam pipes go anywhere near the cylinders!

[5050]

Or, as Malcolm Crawley used to call it, GWR "cowpat green".

 

 the front end just looks the most ill proportioned mess. It doesn't even look as if the outside steam pipes go anywhere near the cylinders!

Never heard Malcolm say that.  I would have been most offended if I had.  

 

But I have used LNER Green for grass before now............................

 

Complete with cowpats in GWR Chocolate.  

 

And as for the second comment, I reckon if someone built a 'freelance' loco with this design it would be dismissed completely as being unworkable in real life.

[LNER4479]

Wow - not only the Thompson argument surfacing again but laced with the great livery debate. This should be good...

 

(Settles back in armchair with bucket of popcorn on lap  )

[CUTLER2579]

No wish to fallout with the t-b-g Gentleman,especially at this time of the year.

 

However Utter Claptrap  "It doesn't matter how nice a colour you paint those Thompson locos, they still look as though they were thrown together from the contents of a modellers scrap box rather than designed in a drawing office. If you divide the loco at the front driving wheel and cover the front end with you hand on a picture, they look fine. Now cover the back with you hand and the front end just looks the most ill proportioned mess. It doesn't even look as if the outside steam pipes go anywhere near the cylinders! "

Indeed beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

  Merry Xmas.

[Clive Mortimore]

Thompsons Wolf of Badenoch A2/2 based on the Bachmann A2 and a Hornby Tender.

 

 

1 a2.jpg

 

1 a22.jpg

 

 

To me it looks so much better than in dire GWR Green !!.

 

Wow - not only the Thompson argument surfacing again but laced with the great livery debate. This should be good...

 

(Settles back in armchair with bucket of popcorn on lap  )

By the way gents, I have always thought any steam loco painted in British Railways Diesel Green looked wrong, even those with G*R on their coal trucks.

 

Real steam locomotives were always painted in that lovely Crimson Lake colour.

[t-b-g]

No wish to fallout with the t-b-g Gentleman,especially at this time of the year.

 

However Utter Claptrap  "It doesn't matter how nice a colour you paint those Thompson locos, they still look as though they were thrown together from the contents of a modellers scrap box rather than designed in a drawing office. If you divide the loco at the front driving wheel and cover the front end with you hand on a picture, they look fine. Now cover the back with you hand and the front end just looks the most ill proportioned mess. It doesn't even look as if the outside steam pipes go anywhere near the cylinders! "

Indeed beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

  Merry Xmas.

 

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, get it out with "optrex", as (I think) Spike Milligan once said.

 

Best wishes & happy new year. 

 

Tony.

[coachmann]

When I stood at the end of Kings X station for the first time watching N2's, A3's and A4's; they all looked like I had imagined they would look going off published pictures. Then an A2/3 came out of the tunnels and this really set my heart pounding. What a machine....so long and so impressive. I took a snap then walked as fast as dignity would allow down the platform to have a good shufty at this machine. As I have discovered so often in life, seeing things in the flesh and seeing them as models or in photos are entirely different experiences. Probably the best example is the hum-drum Black Five, the "Oh no, not another" as expressed by many a train spotter. They were everywhere...they were terminally boring. But they make for fine looking models when done properly. I Have yet to see a really well-built A2/3 without masses of non prototypical daylight showing around the bogie and cylinders.

Edited December 22, 2016 by coachmann

[APOLLO]

1969 first time for me to visit the Cross.

 

'Twas Deltics, Brush 2's & 4's, Peaks and Big D's and those horrible noisy smelly Cravens bug boxes !!

 

Wonderfull place though back then. Photos on my link below.

 

Brit15

[Tony Wright]

I see it's 'blame a journalist time' again. Someone asked if the people who write articles in model magazines are modellers. He obviously doesn't read the mags. I'm sure Tony knows the background to his fellow journalists only too well, but he's too polite to respond. I think, in a roundabout way, I'm to some extent responsible for all the current mainstream model railway magazine Editors. 

Steve Flint wrote a letter to MRC asking why there were few 'blue diesel' layouts on the exhibition circuit. I published the letter. Someone wrote and challenged him to build one. I published the letter. Steve built Kyle of Tongue and I featured it in the mag, and then commissioned Steve to photograph layouts for me. Mike Wild cut his journalistic teeth in our railways department (on Steam Railway) and did photography for Model Rail. Ben Jones, of BRM was my deputy on Model Rail and then took over as Editor. Mike is a serial layout builder and Ben has a layout under construction. Every member of the current Model Rail editorial team has a project layout under construction, with regular features in the magazine - that's Richard, George, Mike and me, plus our freelancers, Chris Nevard and Peter Marriott. Dave Lowery, of course, is a seven days a week model-maker. 

However, I do think if you are classifying 'real modellers' as folk who build locos, then, yes, I would have to agree that there aren't so many of them these days. However, model-making in the railway hobby has changed and has become much more rounded. No longer is it acceptable to build beautiful locomotives and have them haul crummy carriages on a bare baseboard. Now, the locomotive may come out of a box but the train and the scenery will be of matching high quality. I don't know that it necessarily makes for better modellers but maybe it reflects much broader interests. At the recent Warley show I noticed that there was a queue to spend money on the Petite Properties stand - great laser-cut building kits that require some fascinating techniques to obtain lovely convincing finishes. Can't say I noticed any queues to buy at the ready-to-run loco retailers. 

The magazines have to reflect the current market. The market dictates what the journalists do and we certainly don't have any great influence over the direction that it takes. For myself, I've been a journalist in railways and model railways for 53 years and a modeller for around 60 years and I've just passed my 70th birthday. Currently, I have four layouts in various stages of completion and on my workbench at present I'm indulging in a nostalgia-fest, building a SE Finecast/Wills 'G6' 0-6-0T on the old Hornby-Dublo 'R1' chassis - something I wanted to do when I was 15 but my birthday and Christmas lists didn't come good at the time! (CJL)

Thanks Chris,

 

It's rare that anyone suggests I'm 'polite', but more thanks for that. 

 

Congratulations, too, on beginning your eighth decade. 1946 was a great year!

 

It's my experience that most model railway journalists are modellers - that is making things, whether it be whole layouts or individual items for themselves. Whether it's a prerequisite to be an editor/sub-editor/assistant editor, etc, of a model railway publication, I don't know, but it must help. During my years as a free-lance contributor, I only did work for one journalist in the model railway field who wasn't a modeller, and, although he was an experienced (and successful) journalist, I'm not sure he fully understood the hobby. I enjoyed his company and he was a most amenable guy but he would completely rewrite pieces. In one case, one of my submissions was so altered that the point of it (it required soldering prowess, which he wasn't sure about) was rather lost, as far as I was concerned. Nobody has the sacrosanct right to have their work published verbatim without the editor's blue pencil being used to fit space, etc, but the piece was effectively useless, or even misleading as printed. I'm afraid he didn't last long.

 

The hobby is always changing, and the magazines have to reflect that. Without appearing too sycophantic, BRM is a much more successful magazine under Ben Jones' editorship than it was when I was full-time on the editorial staff. 

 

Folk have told me at shows that, in their opinion, the mainstream model railway magazines have been 'dumbed-down'. I'm not so sure that's altogether fair, though I personally see a diminishing in guys/girls actually making things, especially locos and rolling stock. Why this might be so (if it is so) has been discussed at length on this thread. 

 

Another thing I've noted of late is the rise in the type of layout where a great deal of expertise in modelling has been 'bought-in' so to speak. I suppose if folk have the cash, then that's up to them, but the 'personal story' aspect gets diminished in my view if most of the model(s) are provided by professionals. Yes, it keeps top modellers in work (and it has done in the past as far as I'm personally concerned, but I don't count myself among the tops) but the owners of the models can only report second-hand about what they own. I'm much more interested in how the models were built, not how they were bought. A personal point of view, of course. Encouraging folk to have a go at making things themselves (however humble the results) is far more important to me than than the acquisition of things. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Edited December 22, 2016 by Tony Wright

[gwrrob]

Another thing I've noted of late is the rise in the type of layout where a great deal of expertise in modelling has been 'bought-in' so to speak. I suppose if folk have the cash, then that's up to them, but the 'personal story' aspect gets diminished in my view if most of the model(s) are provided by professionals. Yes, it keeps top modellers in work (and it has done in the past as far as I'm personally concerned, but I don't count myself among the tops) but the owners of the models can only report second-hand about what they own. I'm much more interested in how the models were built, not how they were bought. A personal point of view, of course. Encouraging folk to have a go at making things themselves (however humble the results) is far more important to me than than the acquisition of things. 

 

 

I could easily be put in that bracket. However I do have the abilty to finish a 'kit of parts' that come from in my case,David Amias skilled hands.My job is then to blend it in on the layout.I'm always up front and would never lose the intregrity of the provenance of the model.There are lots of skills needed to build a layout and not everyone has all of them.

Edited December 22, 2016 by gwrrob

[Tony Wright]

Thompsons Wolf of Badenoch A2/2 based on the Bachmann A2 and a Hornby Tender.

 

 

1 a2.jpg

 

1 a22.jpg

 

 

To me it looks so much better than in dire GWR Green !!.

More fine model-making Mick, my compliments. 

 

You won't be surprised to learn that I much prefer all the LNER Pacifics in BR (GWR) green. It's said that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', but when I beheld any LNER Pacifics in apple green (as I must have done), it can only have been through the eyes of pre-school small boy, so I have no memory of them.

 

When I saw them in BR green, they had to be reasonably clean to tell what colour they were, anyway.

 

 

Apologies for this having appeared before, but it shows what I mean. Even though this picture is only in B&W, I think it's safe to say that the livery is 'BR Standard Grime'. Apologies as well for such a grimy picture. It was taken by an 11-going--on-12-year old (me) in the August of 1958, with a Brownie 127. It's actually 60506 WOLF OF BADENOCH, though you'll have to take my word for it, please.

 

 

 

 

Whatever the merits (or more often non-merits) of the Thompson Pacifics, they do make interesting models. Here's my current 60506 (I've made five models of WoB) built by me from a DJH kit and painted by Ian Rathbone. It's not just the livery which is different from yours; this example has a Peppercorn boiler.

 

 

 

This is my (third) model of 60504 MONS MEG, built from a Crownline kit and painted, as usual, by Ian Rathbone. This example (like 60503) retained its original boiler and full 'V'-fronted cab. In model form, my three A2/2s have no problem in hauling heavy trains. Here, MONS MEG has 13 bogies - 11 Bachmann Mk.1s and two kit-built Gresley catering cars. 

 

As time passes, the opinions regarding Edward Thompson's full-sized Pacifics become even more entrenched, and it's really down to personal points of view. Mine are well known - I see little merit in his big engines, compared to what went before or came after. 

 

To conclude, may I ask a few questions about ET's Pacifics (of everyone), please? 

 

1. When rebuilt as A2/2s, could the class do the same work on the Edinburgh-Aberdeen road as it did as P2s?

 

2. Though the 'odd' arrangement at the front end might have been forced on Thompson in the case of the A2/2s and A2/1s, why adopt it for the new-construction A2/3s and the 'rebuilt' A1/1?

 

3. If this arrangement were any good, why was it not perpetuated in the Peppercorn Pacifics? Effectively, why did the A1s and A2s revert to the 'normal arrangement? 

 

4. If the rebuilt GREAT NORTHERN had been really successful, why did Peppercorn introduce a radically-different design for his own A1s? Apart from the divided drive and independent valve gear, the A1s owed much more to Gresley than Thompson. 

 

5. Though it's granted that the A2/3s were powerful locos, why (with one exception) were they allocated to depots with little Class One main line express passenger work? 

 

6. Why was (almost) every single class of locomotive (not just his Pacifics) designed by Edward Thompson outlived by types they were supposed to replace/supersede? The notable, and noble, exception being the B1. 

[Willie Whizz]

By the way gents, I have always thought any steam loco painted in British Railways Diesel Green looked wrong, even those with G*R on their coal trucks.

 

Real steam locomotives were always painted in that lovely Crimson Lake colour.

 

Nay, lad, nay ... If there was one colour that really did suit practically anything painted in it, it was Blue.  Well, while the paintwork was still fairly fresh anyway - unfortunately it didn't wear well, apparently.  And it certainly went better with red carriages than "Brunswick green" or whatever you want to call it.  We got used to that clash in the end and no doubt remember it with nostalgic affection of a sort;  but in truth it was never a pretty sight.

[5050]

Congratulations, too, on beginning your eight decade. 1946 was a great year!

Oh, it was, it was!  I too am now 3 days into my 8th decade.  So long as I don't think about it TO much, I suppose I'll cope with the shock of actually making it this far.  This is despite the fickle finger of fate pointing in my direction far to often during the past 18 months!

 

I reckon I'll have to go on to at least my 9th decade to get through the stash of kits I've got salted away.

[Tony Wright]

I could easily be put in that bracket. However I do have the abilty to finish a 'kit of parts' that come from in my case,David Amias skilled hands.My job is then to blend it in on the layout.I'm always up front and would never lose the intregrity of the provenance of the model.There are lots of skills needed to build a layout and not everyone has all of them.

Robin,

 

I don't know whether you entirely fit the description. The fact that you do a lot of your own work or finish things off means you're a real modeller in my book. 

 

That you always acknowledge the provenance of a model is without dispute. That's clear from your (extremely interesting) article in BRM. Please, when you next see David, pass on my regards. 

 

I certainly don't have all the skills needed to build a model railway. That's why I've always been involved with groups building model railways, where abilities have been pooled, and we all help each other. Where I have 'commissioned' work, the costs have been offset by my providing pictures or making a DVD. 

 

All the above said, I still return to my original 'like'; that of discussing with a modeller how they've built something by/for themselves. I just find that much more interesting, but that's me.

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

[Willie Whizz]

The hobby is always changing, and the magazines have to reflect that. 

 

...

 

Folk have told me at shows that, in their opinion, the mainstream model railway magazines have been 'dumbed-down'. I'm not so sure that's altogether fair, though I personally see a diminishing in guys/girls actually making things, especially locos and rolling stock. 

...

 

 

 

I'm not sure the people who are telling you that have it quite right, Tony.

 

I've been buying one or two model railway magazines each month, different ones each time, for about 30 years now - even during the couple of decades I was unable to do any serious modelling at all.  In my view the overall quality and content of what might be called the 'basic' or 'introductory' and the 'developing skills & ability' levels of articles has risen enormously over that period.  That has been aided in particular by the widespread adoption of the style in which there's a brief introduction, followed then by a dozen or more 'show and tell' photographs and descriptive captions of each stage.  This lends itself especially to scenic work, and may help to explain the clear rise in quality of that aspect of our hobby that has become evident in recent years.  At that end of things it doesn't look like 'dumbing down' to me; if anything the opposite.

 

But what seems to feature so much less frequently in the mainstream magazines these days is the more 'advanced' or 'technical' article - including, but not by any means confined to, those on building and modifying loco kits (most especially those that need a lot of work to get an accurate and acceptable result that runs well).  If we use Model Rail's "screwdriver" system of difficulty rating as a proxy for all the mainstream magazines including BRM, and apply it fairly, I would suggest it is relatively uncommon lately to find "four screwdriver" articles on any regular basis; and "five screwdriver" ones are as rare as hen's teeth. 

 

That isn't 'dumbing down', it's outright 'omission' - perhaps indicating that the magazines just don't see advanced and technically highly-competent modellers as a market segment much worth targeting or servicing.  They may have a point; and they are certainly entitled to take that view if they wish, being business ventures that aim first and foremost to make a profit by maximising sales.  But what it does mean is there's probably not as much handholding support for mainstream modellers who aspire to become advanced modellers as there used to be. (Though by the time they get to that point they may prefer to develop their own skills anyway, often by trial and error, if some peoples' comments on here are anything to go by!). I suppose this could mean there's a gap in the market these days for a magazine primarily offering "four and five screwdriver" articles, but I seriously doubt it's a commercially viable one.

[TrevorP1]

I see it's 'blame a journalist time' again. Someone asked if the people who write articles in model magazines are modellers. He obviously doesn't read the mags. I'm sure Tony knows the background to his fellow journalists only too well, but he's too polite to respond. I think, in a roundabout way, I'm to some extent responsible for all the current mainstream model railway magazine Editors. 

 

Chris, Tony and all. I was not the person who suggested that model railway journalists were not modellers but if the comments I did make caused offence please accept my sincere apologies. That was not my intention and for this reason I deliberately did not so much as mention even the field my contact worked in.

 

My comments were borne of frustration with current day journalism, TV included. My parents brought me up to read. It is something I still enjoy and find relaxing. In fact I can just remember reading about Chris's model of Culkerton in the old MRC when I was about 10 or 12. I shall probably remain frustrated and have to accept that if a title were to be produced that satisfied me the staff would soon find themselves down at the Job Centre.

 

For what it's worth, the residents of this household often have to suffer me venting my spleen at the lightweight stuff on the TV. Perhaps I should calm down and continue reading Wright Writes!

 

Trevor

[micklner]

More fine model-making Mick, my compliments. 

 

You won't be surprised to learn that I much prefer all the LNER Pacifics in BR (GWR) green. It's said that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', but when I beheld any LNER Pacifics in apple green (as I must have done), it can only have been through the eyes of pre-school small boy, so I have no memory of them.

 

When I saw them in BR green, they had to be reasonably clean to tell what colour they were, anyway.

 

A2-2 small.jpg

 

Apologies for this having appeared before, but it shows what I mean. Even though this picture is only in B&W, I think it's safe to say that the livery is 'BR Standard Grime'. Apologies as well for such a grimy picture. It was taken by an 11-going--on-12-year old (me) in the August of 1958, with a Brownie 127. It's actually 60506 WOLF OF BADENOCH, though you'll have to take my word for it, please.

 

60506 04.jpg

 

60506 05.jpg

 

Whatever the merits (or more often non-merits) of the Thompson Pacifics, they do make interesting models. Here's my current 60506 (I've made five models of WoB) built by me from a DJH kit and painted by Ian Rathbone. It's not just the livery which is different from yours; this example has a Peppercorn boiler.

 

60504 04.jpg

 

60504 05.jpg

 

This is my (third) model of 60504 MONS MEG, built from a Crownline kit and painted, as usual, by Ian Rathbone. This example (like 60503) retained its original boiler and full 'V'-fronted cab. In model form, my three A2/2s have no problem in hauling heavy trains. Here, MONS MEG has 13 bogies - 11 Bachmann Mk.1s and two kit-built Gresley catering cars. 

 

As time passes, the opinions regarding Edward Thompson's full-sized Pacifics become even more entrenched, and it's really down to personal points of view. Mine are well known - I see little merit in his big engines, compared to what went before or came after. 

 

To conclude, may I ask a few questions about ET's Pacifics (of everyone), please? 

 

1. When rebuilt as A2/2s, could the class do the same work on the Edinburgh-Aberdeen road as it did as P2s?

 

2. Though the 'odd' arrangement at the front end might have been forced on Thompson in the case of the A2/2s and A2/1s, why adopt it for the new-construction A2/3s and the 'rebuilt' A1/1?

 

3. If this arrangement were any good, why was it not perpetuated in the Peppercorn Pacifics? Effectively, why did the A1s and A2s revert to the 'normal arrangement? 

 

4. If the rebuilt GREAT NORTHERN had been really successful, why did Peppercorn introduce a radically-different design for his own A1s? Apart from the divided drive and independent valve gear, the A1s owed much more to Gresley than Thompson. 

 

5. Though it's granted that the A2/3s were powerful locos, why (with one exception) were they allocated to depots with little Class One main line express passenger work? 

 

6. Why was (almost) every single class of locomotive (not just his Pacifics) designed by Edward Thompson outlived by types they were supposed to replace/supersede? The notable, and noble, exception being the B1. 

 

Some guesses on some of the points

1.No idea.

2. Because he could ? and thought his ideas were better?I have read he designed Locos around the Coupling Rods.

3.4. Peppercorn was a Gresley man and followed his designs and ideas. The A1 and A2 are evolutions of the A3/4.

5.Better at hauling Goods ?

6. When BR was getting rid of steam, all the small classes were culled including Gresley's W1. I am sure other small classes suffered the same fate not just Thommo's.

[Focalplane]

Living, sometimes, in the land of the old GWR amd having trainspotted at numerous ex-GWR locations, i am of the belief that there were two different greens, one the GWR green and then the BR green. The older green has a bluish tone to it, the younger green does not. Didcot is the most reliable source for perpetuating this and not some of the heritage railways that exist on the old Western Region. So it may be confusing for those on the other side of the country to be unable to distinguish the difference.

 

Having never seen an Apple Green locomotive may I offer an olive green branch and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

 

And a great New Year of building locomotives, etc.

[New Haven Neil]

Harking back, if I may, to 113 - did she only carry GE blue when she had the funny little cab?

[micklner]

Harking back, if I may, to 113 - did she only carry GE blue when she had the funny little cab?

 

Yes, still as 4470 and then the standard Cab shape as below. This a PDK kit version I much prefer the results of using the Graeme King Resin kits added to Hornby base versions.

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2016 by micklner

[Tony Wright]

Chris, Tony and all. I was not the person who suggested that model railway journalists were not modellers but if the comments I did make caused offence please accept my sincere apologies. That was not my intention and for this reason I deliberately did not so much as mention even the field my contact worked in.

 

My comments were borne of frustration with current day journalism, TV included. My parents brought me up to read. It is something I still enjoy and find relaxing. In fact I can just remember reading about Chris's model of Culkerton in the old MRC when I was about 10 or 12. I shall probably remain frustrated and have to accept that if a title were to be produced that satisfied me the staff would soon find themselves down at the Job Centre.

 

For what it's worth, the residents of this household often have to suffer me venting my spleen at the lightweight stuff on the TV. Perhaps I should calm down and continue reading Wright Writes!

 

Trevor

Trevor,

 

There's no need to apologise to me. I believe very firmly in freedom of speech and personal expression. In many ways, I've altered my views after the errors in my opinions were pointed out. Whether I've ever altered those of others is a different question. 

 

For what it's worth from this end, I vent my own spleen at much of current TV, disturbing all, including the cat! 

 

Regards,

 

Tony.