Midland Railway Company

[Tricky]

I woke up in the night last night and for some strange reason started to wonder about the following:

One day I’d like to build a Spinner. Working inside motion is a must with all that fresh air under the boiler, but how does one power it as clearly the gearbox can’t mount on the one and only driven axle? Is the tender driven perhaps? But doesn’t feel right pushing the loco…any thoughts or experience? 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Tricky said:

I woke up in the night last night and for some strange reason started to wonder about the following:

One day I’d like to build a Spinner. Working inside motion is a must with all that fresh air under the boiler, but how does one power it as clearly the gearbox can’t mount on the one and only driven axle? Is the tender driven perhaps? But doesn’t feel right pushing the loco…any thoughts or experience? 

 

Steam?

[Jol Wilkinson]

1 hour ago, Tricky said:

I woke up in the night last night and for some strange reason started to wonder about the following:

One day I’d like to build a Spinner. Working inside motion is a must with all that fresh air under the boiler, but how does one power it as clearly the gearbox can’t mount on the one and only driven axle? Is the tender driven perhaps? But doesn’t feel right pushing the loco…any thoughts or experience? 

 

IIRC, some years ago Allan Sibley built a Spinner, driving the rear axle. The tender was weighted onto the loco drawbar. I can't recall what motor/gearbox combination he used but with a High Level gearbox the motor could possibly be located in the boiler over the large driving wheel axle and the firebox filled with lead.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Tricky said:

But doesn’t feel right pushing the loco…any thoughts or experience? 

 

Don't push, pull:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 69343.]

 

Not that there's that much wrong with pushing:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 61647.]

 

Though most of the photos of singles double-heading show them working in pairs, which makes one pine for a Johnson Atlantic...

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 66714.]

Edited April 10 by Compound2632

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, Tricky said:

I woke up in the night last night and for some strange reason started to wonder about the following:

One day I’d like to build a Spinner. Working inside motion is a must with all that fresh air under the boiler, but how does one power it as clearly the gearbox can’t mount on the one and only driven axle? Is the tender driven perhaps? But doesn’t feel right pushing the loco…any thoughts or experience? 

 

I've got a 7mm one that my late friend Tony Bond built for me with working inside motion.  We cheated and put two motors in the tender driving the outer axles plus a lot of lead. The tender will haul 4 clerestories.  It works fine and there are pick ups on the loco to help.  If you want pictures I can post some.  I think that it was a Janick kit. 

 

Jamie

 

 

[Tricky]

37 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

 

I've got a 7mm one that my late friend Tony Bond built for me with working inside motion.  We cheated and put two motors in the tender driving the outer axles plus a lot of lead. The tender will haul 4 clerestories.  It works fine and there are pick ups on the loco to help.  If you want pictures I can post some.  I think that it was a Janick kit. 

 

Jamie

 

 

 

Photos would be great!

[lezz01]

Well you could drive the axle on the outside of the crank via spur gears like a deiseal bogie gear tower. You could even have it drive on the outside of both of the cranks via a layshaft with two sets of spur gears onto the drive axle. It would all depend on how much room you have and how good an engineer you are but it could be made to work. The easy answer is of course to fit a tender drive. Or drive the rear axle and transfer the drive to the driven axle as well using spur gears but you need to work out the ratios so that your driving correctly on both axles. The NRM single I think it's the GN one has this system and it seems to work very well.  

Regards Lez.  

Edited April 10 by lezz01

[Jol Wilkinson]

A bit further research turned up Allan Sibley's article in  MRJ 21, pages 55 -57. 

 

He used a Portescap 1219 motor with an extra drive gear to get the drive to the rear axle. The loco in question was a M&L kit for a Dean Single, not a MR Spinner as I thought (probably something to do with my aversion to the GWR). The single driving axle was allowed some vertical movement by slotting the bearing  holes in the frames.The loco would haul even heavy kit built coaches but top speed was rather low. A HL box with suitable chosen gear ratio should take care of that.

 

 

[Dave Hunt]

My scratchbuilt S7 Princess of Wales class has full working inside motion but is driven by two motor bogies in the tender. Works fine. The late John Horton christened it The Fastest Tram in the West.

 

Dave 

[Caley Jim]

5 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 The late John Horton christened it The Fastest Tram in the West.

What's the driver's name?  Ernie?  😁

 

Jim

[John-Miles]

I have an ex-David Jenkinson 4-2-2 made from a K's kit and it has a tender drive. It will happily pull 6 bogies.

[kevinlms]

13 hours ago, John-Miles said:

I have an ex-David Jenkinson 4-2-2 made from a K's kit and it has a tender drive. It will happily pull 6 bogies.

Not good enough!!!!!

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Not good enough!!!!!

 

That's an exhibition train "Development of Midland carriages 1883 - 1923":

1. 43 ft arc roof third, 1880s
2. 48 ft square-light clerestory lavatory third, 1898-1902
3. 50 ft square-light clerestory corridor brake composite (ex-M&GSW / M&NB joint Stock), 1899-1900
4. 54 ft square-light clerestory corridor brake third (Bain), 1904-5
5. 54 ft round-light third with reduced height and width of clerestory, c. 1909-13
6. 57 ft elliptical roof corridor third, possibly one of the handful of vehicles built with Reid's angle-truss underframe in 1922 but more likely an early LMS standard vehicle.

 

NB I've not got out of bed and checked Lacy & Dow, so E&EO.

Edited April 13 by Compound2632

[Tricky]

Who makes a decent 7mm kit? I like Princess of Wales but not keen on bogie tenders! Also, who makes a kit of 1757 Beatrice? 

[jamie92208]

10 hours ago, Tricky said:

Who makes a decent 7mm kit? I like Princess of Wales but not keen on bogie tenders! Also, who makes a kit of 1757 Beatrice? 

The kit that Tony built for me was Janick.  I ha e no idea who has those kits now. They did go to Oldbury who went  bankrupt then at least the coaches turned up from some called, Mid, and Carriage a d wagon or similar. They had the 6 wheel tender. 

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

 

Today, 18 April 2024, is the 142nd anniversary of the entry of Drg. 550 in the Litchurch Lane C&W Drawing Office register. This is of course the the drawing for the single most numerous design of British railway rolling stock prior to the BR 16-ton all steel mineral wagons of Dia. 1/108, the Midland's standard 8-ton high sided goods and coal wagon with side and end doors, of which 62,000 were built at Litchurch Lane up to the end of 1902, along with an unknown quantity, almost certainly well over 10,000, at Bromsgrove wagon works over the same period. One can also count in the end door version, of which 9,000 were built at Litchurch Lane in 1890-1901, and probably some thousands at Bromsgrove. When the wagon diagram book was compiled, these wagons were assigned diagrams D299 and D351 respectively. (It's my belief, based on the allocation of diagram numbers, that the wagon diagram book was compiled no earlier than c. 1907; extant copies all seem to be the same edition of c. 1914/15.)

 

I suppose one could consider today as the anniversary of the conception of the D299 wagon, though Drg. 550 was the fruit of several years of development of high-sided wagons. The first lot of high sided wagons to Drg. 550 in the Litchurch Lane lot list was Lot 82 of 1 Oct 1882. Whilst that appears to imply a gestation period of getting on for six months, I think the very first wagons to this drawing were 600 built by Ashburys, ordered in May 1882. Dumb buffer wagons had originally been ordered but this was quickly amended to sprung buffer wagons "which would be available for the general traffic of the Company". Ashburys were slow to deliver, with only 364 wagons delivered by early December 1882; a representative of the company was invited to attend the next meeting of the C&W Committee; he, presumably suitably grovelling, promised the rest by the end of 1883. So I don't think one can say whether the very first D299 was born at Litchurch Lane, Ashbury's Openshaw works, or even perhaps Bromsgrove.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Didn't the MR produce a series of photos showing how/how not to, load wagons? 

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Didn't the MR produce a series of photos showing how/how not to, load wagons? 

 

At least two. One series in 1903 and one on 1920 or so - I think the one i used is from the 1903 series; the 1920 series included a lot of 'foreign' wagons, reflecting the common user arrangements. The thing is, I've not found any publication that makes use of them - except for one that made its way into the Great Western's General Appendix.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Found this when having a spring clean yesterday - taken nearly 45 years ago.

[Dave Hunt]

I remember seeing it run at the Rainhill 150 and it just seemed to float along the track - a beautiful thing to watch.

 

Dave

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Does anyone have a clear picture (sufficient to read the small lettering on it) of the MR/LMS Control Board that was (still is?) at the MRC in Butterley? This shows all the running lines (passenger in red, freight in blue) plus all sidings etc.

I'm particularly interested in the section showing Derby St Mary's Yard. I did take photos of it a long time ago, but didn't cover all of St Mary's. I have found an example on the internet, but the definition isn't too good when you zoom in.

 

Thanks.

[jamie92208]

Sadly Peter I don't have such a picture.   However I can concur with Dave's comments about the apparent silent progress of the Spinner at Rainhill.  Here is the proof.

Jamie

 

 

 

[billbedford]

On 10/04/2024 at 07:05, Tricky said:

I woke up in the night last night and for some strange reason started to wonder about the following:

One day I’d like to build a Spinner. Working inside motion is a must with all that fresh air under the boiler, but how does one power it as clearly the gearbox can’t mount on the one and only driven axle? Is the tender driven perhaps? But doesn’t feel right pushing the loco…any thoughts or experience? 

 

 

A pair of solenoids in the cylinder housings? 

[Compound2632]

 

[Tricky]

Here goes another massive distraction! This is a 5” gauge wagon in the making. Cup of coffee for scale. Who can guess what it’s going to be? Sorry, @Compound2632 you’re not allowed to play!