Raised On Steam Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 Good question, Ozzyo! The Bachmann BR1B came with the engine with real coal already glued in behind the divider by the previous owner, and the other older Bachmann tender was a cheap secondhand item as a spare and has rather unrealistic plastic coal right to the brim. Not my preference I have to say. I'm rubbing my chin about somehow opening up the back compartment on it but that could be a world of pain and I'll probably leave it as is until something better presents itself. I'm thinking I'll eventually try to marry it to the Hornby tender chassis in the absence of anything better to hand. The blue-un is totally empty just now and will have some real coal in the right place eventually. I scratchbuilt the innards and top valances of this one using the Dapol/Airfix BR1G as a starting point. There is no way it would have been allowed out of Crewe works in the state it's in but it'll do for me ha ha. Why all the BR1B's? They're all going to be Tyne Dock engines every one of which were hooked up to that version. I originally only set out to have one example of the Tyne Dockers and bought the Railroad engine to convert. Then I bought the Dapol kit to practise on and try stuff out without worrying too much about ruining something nice. Then as these things happen, the Bachmann popped up with single chimney and BR1B for a good price that would (theoretically) take less work to convert. Plus I figured the old Tyne Dock workhorses deserved the best tribute I could give them so bought the Bachmann. I know a kit build would be better but I'm not skilled enough (or wealthy enough) to contemplate one of those just yet. The plan was to then sell the Hornby but I'm not in desperate need to get rid of it and am getting to like the idea of a BR blue 9f that actually moves and can haul things….so it may well be turning blue in the future….. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 The KAD 9F plastic kit still has a lot to recommend it. The cabsides and roof in particular are as good as Bachmann's rendering despite being 50-yr-old mouldings. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 I haven't had time to do much to the guinea pig but here're a couple of (blurred alas) detail pics. Scratch built AWS box and tank: I chopped up and added to the injector pipes to make them a bit more '3D': Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcyg Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 A few years ago, someone wrote a whole scenario (sp) about what if steam hadn't been killed off so early. It involved vaccum braked 9Fs running with rakes of HAAs etc... I think it summed up that steam was kept on as diesel wasn't seen as the way forward and more electrification was carried out, the steam locos were there to fill in the gaps until the wires went up. I'll see if I can dig it out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Londontram Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 A few years ago, someone wrote a whole scenario (sp) about what if steam hadn't been killed off so early. It involved vaccum braked 9Fs running with rakes of HAAs etc... I think it summed up that steam was kept on as diesel wasn't seen as the way forward and more electrification was carried out, the steam locos were there to fill in the gaps until the wires went up. I'll see if I can dig it out. Yes please Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylvian Tennant Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Great work and nice to see someone just getting with a somewhat popular what if project. I was thinking of something similer but involving retrofitted/psuedo-modernised steam locomotives. i.e airbraking, modified enclosed cabs and tenders, giesl ejectors, mechanical stokers, headlights and the obligatory BR blue schemes I shall look forward to seeing more of this Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 A few years ago, someone wrote a whole scenario (sp) about what if steam hadn't been killed off so early. It involved vaccum braked 9Fs running with rakes of HAAs etc... I think it summed up that steam was kept on as diesel wasn't seen as the way forward and more electrification was carried out, the steam locos were there to fill in the gaps until the wires went up. Just a glance at what was then West Germany and France as a good example of a more rational transition from steam. Where there was a coal and coal based heavy industry district, steam continued in service, mainly for the heavy haulage of bulk commodities. With everything in the locality to operate and maintain steam, the full economic life of the last builds of large locomotives could be exploited. Translate that to the UK and base your remaining steam on the large scale coal mining districts, with power generation near mines, and quarrying and imported ore movements to steel production centres. Investment in efficient bulk hauls of coal, ore, limestone, oil and steel using new high capacity wagon sets which can load a 9F to capacity. If the 250 9Fs aren't quite enough to cover the traffic, recyle all the Brits' boiler's, cylinders and tenders as a 5'6" wheel 2-8-2 and put them on whatever are the faster and longer distance movements. These can operate the weekend steam enthusiast runs too. Through freight diesel worked, local, longer distance and through passenger services worked in and off the steam districts by diesel(MU) until the wires go up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Absolutely. Sensible and well thought out. Alas not something Britain has been good at over the years what with various financier controlled political forces pulling this way and that with no real long lasting national identity held in place it seems other than nostalgia and tourist gift shop items. Meanwhile industry has dissolved to a large degree and…hell I don't need to go on. Point is what a sensible option retaining batches of steam loco's with plenty of years' service left in them to operate in mineral rich parts of the country. We'd still have seen huge widespread scrapping of older classes but it wouldn't have been the vendetta that the modernisation programme was and the transition would have been less painful knowing that a few of the 'younger' engines were still putting it out there for steam and that the capital investment in their construction wasn't thrown away. Who knows, a few other engines of other standard classes might have survived alongside the 9F's too! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 As I've said earlier in this topic I do like 'what if's and if the basic materials are cheap enough it's well worth a go. If I had the space (and the money) I'd build an entire layout based around a Tyne Yard type location and set it in the 70's with electric signals and concrete buildings and blue diesels alongside blue 9F's. There are plenty of people out there doing a fine job capturing authentic period detail much much better than I could ever do it so I'd basically play ha ha. I'd love it if a club decided to build such a layout - just imagine it! Deltics flying past 9F's on the slow line. I am busy converting my Bachmann 9 into an authentic Tyne Dock engine from the 1960's and as the Dapol kit was meant as a test bed for fitting and dimensions etc I thought I'd have some fun and do something I'd hummed and hahh'ed about for years now but as it's progressed I'm liking it more and more so eventually I'm going to mount it on a base with a few lineside details. As I've said earlier I'm now thinking what about a 70's blue 9F that actually runs and getting the Hornby out of its box and looking it over thinking about a future project. I'd encourage anyone reading this to have a go. There are usually plenty of reasonably priced 9F's for sale that would serve as a test bed then if it wasn't to taste nothing much has been lost and the engine could be blacked out again. Why not play a bit Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted July 31, 2014 Author Share Posted July 31, 2014 The blue beast has air tanks. After a long day I decided to sit and model for a while as I was fed up with looking at a pile of bits. So in the spirit of Crewe works in the 50's I got a production line of air pump gear happening. So now I have two engines with tanks….but no pumps to supply them yet however they're ready to fit. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Corbs Posted July 31, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 31, 2014 Great to see more progress on this! Are you going to go for a TOPS style number? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted July 31, 2014 Author Share Posted July 31, 2014 Indeed I am. Originally it was going to be 98 961, but I may save the 61 identity for the black 1960's engine and move the blue one up to 62 or 66. You see I know from research that 61 definitely had the look I'm going for with the 60's engine whereas the blue one is in complete fantasy land so almost anything goes. Overall I'm trying to use numbers of thoseTyne Dock engines that (to my knowledge via Google) haven't already been modelled. Even though as there were only ten of them I'm sure they've all been represented twice over by now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted July 31, 2014 Author Share Posted July 31, 2014 If all goes well with the black engine I may put a few pics of that up in a separate thread. It's fought me quite a lot so far though…... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 Kinda related, as I've posted elsewhere I found a scan of the original Brighton works drawing of the air equipment on the NRM website. http://www.nrm.org.uk/researchandarchive/drawing?group=British%20Railways%20standard%20classes&objid=SL-BR-1416-Pt1 Small ish but big enough to tell what I needed to know (and what I've got wrong) about the pipe runs and also the shape of the substantial frame stretcher/brackets to mount the pumps. A valuable resource for anyone considering Tyne Dock conversions. I wish I'd found it earlier! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozzyo Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Hello RoS, that is a very good drawing as it shows that not only did the 9Fs have two air pumps but two air tanks on the drivers side under the footplate (not as a lot of models show one tank). To get the best out of these drawings it can be worth spending a bit of money and getting copies from the N.R.M. OzzyO. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted August 3, 2014 Author Share Posted August 3, 2014 Oh absolutely! As I said I wish I'd found the drawing when I first started on my 9F's and if I were to do a number of them would certainly invest in a copy. Hell, it would even look cool framed up on the wall ha ha. I have to add that the Dave Alexander castings I'm using do feature both air tanks. Although there are full instructions the kits do take a bit of head scratching to work out how to set up and attach them (I'm a beginner remember). I bought a back issue of Model Rail with a how-to article by George Dent on converting a Hornby Railroad 9 to a Tyne Docker and studied that as a starting point before I even contemplating marking Dave's card and buying the bits. After I trial and error'd the various bit for the blue test bed the ones for the black engine came together in a fraction of the time as I knew what to look out for. Still, however, because the Bachmann set up is different again I had to rethink and rework. I'm about a third of the way through both engines and the aforementioned drawing is proving very handy indeed! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMartin90125 Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Many years ago, I asked Owen (who did Ficticious Liveries) to have a go at putting the 9F into BR blue. After all, if they were used to the designed lifespan, they might have been in blue (didn't like the Large Logo version or Railfreight I would add). GBRf would look better than Railfreight Red Stripe! I did received another Great British Locomotives Evening Star to repaint (I'm not realy able to do the more acurate remodelling and so on that most of you have mastered) but was thwarted with it being incomplete and I only received one of the two that was ordered, still waiting to hear back from them. Will post how mine turn out (eventually!) but wondered what to do about the yellow. A yellow board in front of the smoke box with headcode numbers/letters pinned on and full yellow end on the tender? VoR style with no yellow at all and red bufferbeams? Let's see how the mood takes me when it comes, probably think of something else for it if and when their customer service pull their fingers out and send me what I ordered... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted August 5, 2014 Author Share Posted August 5, 2014 I'll look forward to seeing how yours comes along! I reckon you'll find (like me) that once you've painted it the engine takes on a whole different persona and is a real eye popper. What a shame they never lived to carry those colours! I did a little research before I started which included the fictitious liveries site that was recommended to me. I thought the stuff on there was damn impressive but not quite to my taste. I wanted yellow but not that much yellow. Then I had one of those slap the forehead moments and looked up the Vale of Rheidol railway which I remembered actually was part of blue era BR. Those engines sadly didn't feature any yellow whatsoever so I decided against it for my experiment. I might however paint the buffer beam yellow to kick off with and see what it looks like before reddening it. I had bother finding a spray can of authentic rail blue but found that Humbrol midnight blue acrylic looks very similar! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted August 6, 2014 Author Share Posted August 6, 2014 Test fit of steam pipe run. I'll fix these on after I've re-supplied with handrail knobs to mock up in line valves. Light bouncing off the brass wire makes it look a lot thicker than it actually is. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMartin90125 Posted August 6, 2014 Share Posted August 6, 2014 Test fit of steam pipe run. I'll fix these on after I've re-supplied with handrail knobs to mock up in line valves. Photo0286.jpg Light bouncing off the brass wire makes it look a lot thicker than it actually is. The Westinghouse Pumps and the lack of smoke deflectors also change the personality of the 9F quite a bit, not just the colour - is it the combination? I know there were a few 9Fs that had the air pumps for (Tyne Docks?) work in their normal service but it really does look rather different. Unless GBL sort their act out, will use one of their Evening Stars, trouble is, a cylinder and valve gear was not fitted (as shown on the GBL thread) so may well have to do a workshop-based loco. GBL version has for some reason (copyright and patents act evasion?) a different cab shape so that it goes straight down, that'll feature the air brake equipment on mine (you can tell that's from a college photography critique, the smell of bulls**t never went away). Where to put the TOPS panel, bottom of the tender, nearest the cab? Which leads us to... What numbers to give them is another issue. TOPS would give us 899xx I suppose, going by what is allocated but never carried by preserved steam. The original numbers would look right but some would say "what about the electrics", forgetting that it's a bit of fun or TOPS Class 98 for steam, I know TOPS 98 was for VoR but we could start with 98901 or 89901 for inststance. Stand back before my head explodes... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozzyo Posted August 6, 2014 Share Posted August 6, 2014 Unless GBL sort their act out, will use one of their Evening Stars, trouble is, a cylinder and valve gear was not fitted (as shown on the GBL thread) so may well have to do a workshop-based loco. GBL version has for some reason (copyright and patents act evasion?) a different cab shape so that it goes straight down, that'll feature the air brake equipment on mine (you can tell that's from a college photography critique, the smell of bulls**t never went away). What or who is GBL? Can up put a link up? You mentioned the cab and that the loco has a different cab shape I don't think that that has anything to do with copyright. That would mean that all models should not look like the prototype. OzzyO. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMartin90125 Posted August 6, 2014 Share Posted August 6, 2014 Unless GBL sort their act out, will use one of their Evening Stars, trouble is, a cylinder and valve gear was not fitted (as shown on the GBL thread) so may well have to do a workshop-based loco. GBL version has for some reason (copyright and patents act evasion?) a different cab shape so that it goes straight down, that'll feature the air brake equipment on mine (you can tell that's from a college photography critique, the smell of bulls**t never went away). What or who is GBL? Can up put a link up? You mentioned the cab and that the loco has a different cab shape I don't think that that has anything to do with copyright. That would mean that all models should not look like the prototype. OzzyO. GBL - Great British Locomotives, a bit part magazine with a model that are frequently poorly made clones of Hornby and Bachmann models. There is a link from rmweb's other magzines section. As for the cab change, there is speculation that it is to evade The Act, two changes are made to, say, a t shirt from an exclusive designer that sells them for £50 for instance. A high street chain with a massive presence, for instance, would take the basic design and make minor changes and sells if for a fiver, you get the idea. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted August 6, 2014 Author Share Posted August 6, 2014 Are those GBL models very cheap? It might be more cost effective to comb ebay for a cheapish Hornby 9F. That's what I did before I found my black Bachmann. I only really started the blue kit as a test bed to try out mods before cutting/drilling/repainting and potentially ruining a decent running model. The bluey will have smoke deflectors eventually - it's easier to leave them off until I've finished fiddling with bits of pipework and such. You're right though, the engines do look quite different without the blinkers, almost express engine profile. A bit like if you sat a jockey on a cart horse. The TOPS numbers are open to interpretation I guess as they are in the realms of fantasy. I'd chosen 98 followed by 9 (power rating) then the last two numbers of the original British Railways identity, figuring that had some 9F's survived as they should have done, there would have been so few of them that there wouldn't have been any real re-numbering clashes. Both my 9's are intended to be Tyne Dock spec engines which is why I'm fitting the Westinghouse gear. The idea being that although in the mid 70's the air equipment would have been redundant due to electric tippling at Consett my engine is in the transition period and still has them attached. I became very interested in the Consett route whilst pedalling many times up the cycle track that it's now become. When stopping for a breather (or a fag when I used to smoke…..) at Beamish or up near Annfield Plain or even further down near Washington Station you could almost hear the ghostly sound of the big black beasts toiling up the incline. I've also had a soft spot for 9F's since I was a kid, something about their impressively great mass coupled with a sort of gracefulness. So I promised myself that if I got back into model trains a Tyne Dock 9 would be the engine of choice. Plus, of course the Tyne Dockers were the only 9's to work in the North East area alongside my other great favourites - Q6's and J27's. The advantage of modelling a 9F over the other two was their availability whereas the other two have to be kit built (not for too long with the Q6 though - hurrah). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Corbs Posted August 6, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 6, 2014 Well when they were in the shops they were £8.99 each Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted August 6, 2014 Author Share Posted August 6, 2014 I guess that is less painful than shelling out for a Hornby. It's about the same as I paid for the Dapol kit and I've had to build that he he. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.