Wright writes.....

[jwealleans]

I think the 6 wheeler is either LMS or a constituent.

 

Are the tender axleboxes Iraciers? I know the H & B used them on both locos and stock. It looks to me as though it's in departmental or internal use.

[Headstock]

 

 

York #1186.jpg

 

And the six-wheeled van in this freight? 

 

Many thanks. 

 

I don't think it's a 6 wheeler, it looks like an outside frame bogie CCT.

[Headstock]

York shed in 1952. I've read somewhere about those odd-shaped axleboxes on some GC tenders, but I can't for the life of me remember where. They were made in Wolverhampton. Anyone know what they are, please?

 

York #740.jpg

 

And what the carriage is behind this Austerity?

 

 

I'm not certain but it has features of LNWR / WCJS 12 wheelers, possibly with the lower beading removed.

 

With regard to the 6 wheel van I may be confusing a mark on the print for an extra wheel, either way, I don't no what it is, sorry.

Edited May 13, 2017 by Headstock

[gr.king]

Definitely Iracier axleboxes on that tender pictured above.

 

Look at the rear corner - is the tank actually fixed to that underframe, or just standing on it awaiting further attention (scrapping perhaps)?

[coachmann]

Looks like a GCR  chassis with MR tender body (ex. M&GN) slapped on it to make a sludge wagon.

[micknich2003]

The tender looks very much to be ex Hull & Barnsley Rly. See the attached, Iricer axleboxes, were invented by a H&B Driver.

[micknich2003]

Here are a few details.

[Tony Wright]

Definitely Iracier axleboxes on that tender pictured above.

 

Look at the rear corner - is the tank actually fixed to that underframe, or just standing on it awaiting further attention (scrapping perhaps)?

Thanks Graeme, and Jonathan and Larry and Andrew and Mick. 

 

I'm sure I read about the Iracier axleboxes in a book describing GC locos. So, were any GC tenders fitted with them?

 

 

This is a tight crop of another picture which shows the tender, and another. Both were, it seems, in use as sludge carriers and had buffers at both ends. They look like GC tenders to me. 

 

On to modelling matters. Just occasionally, something occurs which makes me feel my 'efforts' have really been worth while. Today has been one such occasion.

 

Over a year ago, Tom Rance arrived with a loco he was building seeking just a little help with it. It just needed a tweak here and there, not much. 

 

 

He brought it back today. Would you believe, this is the first loco he's made? I think it's exceptional, it's all his own work and it runs beautifully. I hope the first loco I made has long since been buried!

 

 

This is the second one he's built, this time with not the slightest bit of help from me (apart from a clean this afternoon). Another beauty.

 

 

And the third. This one just needed the cylinder drain cocks adjusting, but only a twitch to enable it to negotiate 3' radius curves with ease. It, too, ran superbly. It's his first attempt at valve gear. 

 

With (younger) blokes like this keeping the craft of loco-building alive, then this aspect of the the hobby should have a great future, as long as enough take it on and continue.

 

We ran the railway, Tom doing all the driving - very well. In over two hours of intensive operation we had two derailments!!!!!!!!! A pair of wagons buffer locked and that J6 driving wheel came loose again. Both are now cured, but, oh the sense of shame!

 

Thanks Tom.  

Edited May 13, 2017 by Tony Wright

[Headstock]

 

York #740.jpg

 

And what the carriage is behind this Austerity?

 

 

Before I depart for the night, I'm now pretty certain this is one of the WCJS 2 pm carriages, I'm not certain of the diagram. Something like this

 

http://www.rocarmodelcarriages.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/DSC_2090.jpg

[grob1234]

Tony, 

 

First and foremost my sincere thanks to you and Mo for a really really enjoyable day. Its always a pleasure to visit and the enjoyment I get from seeing the progress made on LB is fantastic.

 

Today we did indeed run the entire sequence (Tony is being kind saying I did well - I'm slowly learning the difference between up and down lines...!) and what I saw was locos gliding through a beautiful station and scenic area at scale speeds (and then some) with no stalling, stuttering or any other fault whatsoever. I'm not just saying this because I visited Tony today, but this is what I aspire to in my own modelling, and I find seeing layouts of this quality inspirational. The two derailments we had were by no means the fault of the layout in my opinion. In the case of the two freight wagons that derailed, a locked buffer was the culprit, I think because of a slight mismatch in buffer height between the two wagons that may occasionally on certain moves and with a south easterly breeze cause derailment - however I'm sure it has been thoroughly scrutinised since I left. A loose wheel on a locomotive (I think not made by you is that right, Tony?) - I certainly couldn't be critical of that, I put that down to normal wear and tear caused by playing trains.

 

Playing trains. Yep, that's what we did all afternoon and is was great fun. The variation in the stock present provides a really nice mix of stoppers, shunting moves, slow freight trains, and of course the 'blue ribband' expresses that thunder through. Of course, we all derive our fun in different ways, but the operation of the layout is to me just as important, if not more so than the construction of things for the operation.

 

It is very nice for me to be able to return to LB with a completed model. A long way back in this thread I asked what loco I should try for a first attempt. The J69 was suggested, and with lots of help from Tony and folks here, the odd smattering of robust Anglo Saxon, and a good deal of luck, I'm able to run something that I made on a layout. That gives me a huge amount of satisfaction and I really hope others will get involved in the loco building scene - though I'm probably preaching to the converted on this thread! 

 

Right - best get back to writing the complaint letter about those two derailments...

[richard i]

Thanks Graeme, and Jonathan and Larry and Andrew and Mick. 

 

I'm sure I read about the Iracier axleboxes in a book describing GC locos. So, were any GC tenders fitted with them?

 

York #490.jpg

 

This is a tight crop of another picture which shows the tender, and another. Both were, it seems, in use as sludge carriers and had buffers at both ends. They look like GC tenders to me. 

 

On to modelling matters. Just occasionally, something occurs which makes me feel my 'efforts' have really been worth while. Today has been one such occasion.

 

Over a year ago, Tom Rance arrived with a loco he was building seeking just a little help with it. It just needed a tweak here and there, not much. 

 

J69.jpg

 

He brought it back today. Would you believe, this is the first loco he's made? I think it's exceptional, it's all his own work and it runs beautifully. I hope the first loco I made has long since been buried!

 

C12.jpg

 

This is the second one he's built, this time with not the slightest bit of help from me (apart from a clean this afternoon). Another beauty.

 

W1.jpg

 

And the third. This one just needed the cylinder drain cocks adjusting, but only a twitch to enable it to negotiate 3' radius curves with ease. It, too, ran superbly. It's his first attempt at valve gear. 

 

With (younger) blokes like this keeping the craft of loco-building alive, then this aspect of the the hobby should have a great future, as long as enough take it on and continue.

 

We ran the railway, Tom doing all the driving - very well. In over two hours of intensive operation we had two derailments!!!!!!!!! A pair of wagons buffer locked and that J6 driving wheel came loose again. Both are now cured, but, oh the sense of shame!

 

Thanks Tom.

 

Quite a few GCR tenders had them, certainly the bigger classes, they were left polished brass in GCR days so can be clearly seen even in black and white photos. The GCR after all kept its front line locos in top condition, even after ww1. Prior to the war even freight locos could be found bulled up, or did photographers ignore dirty subjects thus slanting the historical record?

Richard

[manna]

G'Day Gents

 

Easy to work out what line is which at Little Bytham, when your going up the hill, your on the down line, when your going down the hill, your on the up line............simple 

 

Terry aka manna.

[St Enodoc]

Here are a few details.

IRICER AXLEBOX - Copy.jpg

The final item on the page, regarding GNR suburban coaches, is very interesting.

[46256]

An enquiry, studying the photograph on the front cover of On Great Northern Lines by Mr Huntriss. The photo depicts V2 60862 in green.. I am using this photograph as a reference for my own model based on one of Mr kings resin bodies, comet chassis etc. On close inspection of the photograph it appears to show the firebox band lined out in with orange black lining. I have not seen this before on BR green locomotives, and not modelled in that condition by Bachmann when they bought out their version of this same loco. The loco looks in excellent condition recently shopped? Was this a little bit of individual flair by the works responsible? I look forward to the responses on this excellent thread . Best wishes Brian....46256 is in recognition of my favourite loco not any attempt to emulate the great man who it was named after....in hindsight should have chosen 46235...

[Tony Wright]

An enquiry, studying the photograph on the front cover of On Great Northern Lines by Mr Huntriss. The photo depicts V2 60862 in green.. I am using this photograph as a reference for my own model based on one of Mr kings resin bodies, comet chassis etc. On close inspection of the photograph it appears to show the firebox band lined out in with orange black lining. I have not seen this before on BR green locomotives, and not modelled in that condition by Bachmann when they bought out their version of this same loco. The loco looks in excellent condition recently shopped? Was this a little bit of individual flair by the works responsible? I look forward to the responses on this excellent thread . Best wishes Brian....46256 is in recognition of my favourite loco not any attempt to emulate the great man who it was named after....in hindsight should have chosen 46235...

Brian,

 

This lined-firebox feature was not uncommon on V2s later in their lives. I believe it was something Darlington Works did, towards the end of its shopping of V2s. It was certainly not on the BR painting spec' for other classes, though right at the end of their lives A4s 60019 and 60024 (and possibly 60034) received lining on their 'box bands. This was not works-applied but something painted at depot-level. The same thing was done to 60532's firebox band in the year prior to its preservation. There might have been others. 

Edited May 14, 2017 by Tony Wright

[asmay2002]

Prior to the war even freight locos could be found bulled up, or did photographers ignore dirty subjects thus slanting the historical record?

Richard

I have seen it said in print that this was the case.  There were so many locos about and photography was expensive.  To get a true picture I guess you would have to look at photos of rare classes where if you wanted a photo you would have to put up with the condition whatever it was.

Edited May 14, 2017 by asmay2002

[TrevorP1]

I have seen it said in print that this was the case.  There were so many locos about and photography was expensive.  To get a true picture I guess you would have to look at photos of rare classes where if you wanted aphoto you woudl have to put up with the condition whatever it was.

 

 

This sounds right to me.

 

A similar situation applies to the weather. The majority of what might be termed 'classic era' photos seem to be taken in good weather. Due to the type of film available, it's cost and limitations of the equipment, they just did not bother to go out unless the sun was shining. So, back in the day, the sun was always out... 

 

On the rare occasions I do any night photography I'm always amazed at what my DLSR can pick up. It will record things that I could not see with the naked eye.

[Barry Ten]

I wonder if photographers were also averse to taking pictures of engines running tender first? 

 

I've also wondered about the weather on my birthday. Over the years I've found numerous photos taken a day or

two earlier/later than the date in question, but none on the day itself. Then I found a monthly weather report from

the Met Office which mentioned dry spells either side of my birthday, but a rain front moving across the country

on the day in question.

 

Alastair

[Bernard Lamb]

I wonder if photographers were also averse to taking pictures of engines running tender first? 

 

 

I suppose that would depend to a certain extent on the particular part of the country.

In the Scottish Borders for example there are quite a sprinkling of tender first shots in the standard works on the area.

In some places you would have had a very long wait to see anything different.

Alnwick, Peebles Loop, Border Counties, Wooler were regularly worked tender first and these lines are certainly not lacking in photographic records.

Bernard

[Clearwater]

There's also relatively few of the rest of tank engines. E.g. irwell press's prairie papers virtually very shot is either front three quarters or side on

 

I'll have to check later but the David Geen et al "GWR in the 1930s" have a fair number of freight trains. From memory, there is a range of cleanliness. For understandable reasons, I think the Severn Tunnel bankers were pretty filfthy!

 

David

[The Johnster]

When I started taking photos as an anklebiter, my dad passed on to me the wisdom he had received from the proper photographer he'd bought his first camera from in the 30s.  Always shoot on a sunny day, as the image will be flat and featureless otherwise.  Never, ever, ever, under any circumstances place the camera so that the sun is shining on the front of it.  Never take a photograph with the sun directly behind the camera, as the only shadow detail in it will be your own shadow in the foreground.  Avoid taking photographs around noon.

 

This is actually good advice to a newbie.

 

A few years later, having graduated from a 127 Brownie to an Instamatic with two apeture settings, sunny and cloudy, I started taking very poor photos of trains, having been told by Mr Salansson, the local camera shop owner and a very knowledgeable bloke who taught me a lot when I bought a camera that you could alter settings properly on, that I should compose my trains from a front ¾ perspective so that the front of the loco filled half the frame and the rest of the train the other half, and for a long time I believed that this 'Derek Cross' approach was the way to do it.  I had one of Derek Cross's books at the time and even he departed from the formula sometimes.  A moving train necessitated bright sunshine in order to use a faster shutter speed.

 

This was meant as good advice to a newbie, but actually wasn't, and hindered me for a long time, and I blamed the camera, which was only partly justifiable.

 

It was a long time before I took any decent railway photos, and the big influence on me was Colln Gifford's 'Each A Glimpse' which simply ignored all the rules I'd ever picked up about exposure, the position of the sun, or composition, and even had photos without locos in them!  But, before that sea change in the way railways were photographed, or at least in which railway photographs were published, the perceived wisdom was very much; sunny day, sun over your left or right shoulder, front ¾, from ground or platform level, or you were committing the cardinal sin of wasting film.  By that time I'd got a Halina 35mm camera with a built in exposure meter and a good range of apetures and shutter speeds, and Mr Salansson's advice started making sense, as did disregarding it!

 

Then I discovered O Winston LInk...

 

I'm still not the world's best railway photographer, but I can pull off the odd half tidy shot.  I'm a pretty good hack landscape phottist, and am useless at people (not just in the photographic sense, either!).  I frequently break all of the above rules, and consider I'm not thinking creatively if I don't break at least one when I squeeze a shutter.  I have wasted miles of film in my time, and am certainly destined to burn for eternity in consequence, so it doesn't matter what I do now...

 

But when I started, them was the rules, and this may explain the prevalence of sunny day ¾ front shots taken in steam days, especially pre 60s

Edited May 14, 2017 by The Johnster

[Tony Wright]

With regard to railway photography, I suppose it's down to what one wants to record and the reasons for it. 

 

Like many, my first railway pictures were rubbish. Urchin incompetence, a paucity of funds and cheap equipment meant my first pictures were awful. 

 

 

But then, what would one expect from an 11 year old? This is my first railway picture, taken on December 27th 1957, in typical grim '50s conditions. In fairness this is a scan of a poor print (the negative is sharper) and it shows 45502 ROYAL NAVAL DIVISION just outside Chester General between Westminster Road and Hoole Lane bridges. If nothing else, it shows part of the magnificent L&NWR lower-quadrant gantry which once controlled trains from Manchester (and Crewe if they wished to go into Platforms 13 and 14). Poor light, a Brownie 127 and the inevitable twitch have rendered it no more than a curiosity from my past. The long-demolished City Hospital, where I was born, stands behind. 

 

A year under a decade later (but still in the straps of student poverty - art school/teacher training), I'd improved. This time, a Voigtlander Bessa folding camera was my equipment. Again, this is a scan from a print and the neg' is much sharper. August light is much better, and I think one could use this as a basis for detailing a model of an EE Type 3. Behind, is the old entrance to the Works. 

 

 

By 1975, I was using a Pentax 35mm camera. During the half-term of February, I spent a day with my dad between Retford and Newark, taking shots of the rapidly-diminishing infrastructure on the ECML. The light was poor, but Tuxford 'box was not long for this world, so I grabbed a shot. 

 

By the next decade, I'd graduated to a Nikon F and by the '90s a Pentax 6x7. 

 

Why do I mention all this? Because I'm now into my fourth bookazine for Irwell, using many of the pictures I took in the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s. With the virtual end of the locomotive-hauled passenger train and the loss of interesting railway infrastructures everywhere, I abandoned prototype railway photography, and today's railway is just so dull and boring (at least it is to me). Not dull with regard to (ghastly) colours, but just a dull uniformity. Little did I know that my snaps would one day earn me some money. 

 

Despite a leaning in some areas to 'arty-farty' shots, my brief for my pictures is always the same. Sharp, well-lit (even in duller conditions), well-composed and, in most cases (I hope) a little bit more than just the three-quarter front view. 

 

Edited because I've muddled up the pictures, but they're all there. 

Edited May 14, 2017 by Tony Wright

[Clive Mortimore]

Those look great Clive! Very interesting to see how you go about forming the ends on the scratchbuilt versions.

Hi Steve

 

I do nothing special. They are made from plastic card. I shape them using some very cheap files I have had for years.

 

Where the roof has a domed end I build up layers of 40 thou plastic card and then shape it.

 

To go with the BR North London set I have started a LMS GEC set from Airfix non-corridor lavatory coaches.

Motor Brake Third

 

Trailer Third, ex composite. It has a Replica motor chassis under it.

 

Driving Trailer Third

[coachmann]

Probably because of my artistic nature or because I was an idiot, I took photos in all the "wrong" lighting conditions and from all angles.  Some worked - some didn't. The first camera I could call my own was a Brownie 127 when I was about 13yrs old.  With no settings to concern myself with, i simply concentrated on framing the picture. I took steam for granted along with its normal work-weary appearance and with only a few frames per film, I was definitely selective. There were no ambitions to copy the Eric Treacy's of the era though.

 

In 1976 I bought an Russian SRL and a light-meter. In 1977 I went medium format with a Mamiya 645 with waist-level finder by which time light readings could be guessed as near enough. It was a lovely tool and delivered cracking results on Tri-X. I kept mainly to a standard 80mm lens becasue my preference was for shooting trains in the landscape, but for magazine shots I generally used the 150mm short telephoto for 'impact'. I was in touch with many of the 'names' .....Brian Morrison, Gavin Morrison, John Whitely, Les Nixon, too many to mention, and they all used short telephoto lenses of either 85mm or 105mm. Competitiveness reigned too because we were all members of railway photographic portfoios. It was a good 30-odd years that opened many doors on BR and heritage lines.

[Focalplane]

Despite my web name and web address (focalplane.com) I did not own a camera until the mid 1960s and then only to take cr*ppy photos for my thesis on The Ravenstonedale Limestone of Westmorland and the Furness District.  I had no money for film beyond my NERC funded doctorate so had to stand by at Shap and watch the few remaining steam hauled trains go by.  Over at Kirby Lonsdale I did photograph a 9F on the road bridge but this negative is now lost (who would be surprised since I have travelled the world footloose and fancy free since 1974).

 

I would have given the proverbial limb to scientific research to have had the opportunity to have a camera at Tamworth or Birmingham New Street in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

 

To be honest, though, sometimes it is better not to carry a camera at all but soak up the atmosphere of the occasion and commit the details to memory.  But thn we have the problem of memory retention. . . . .