Castle Aching

[brack]

Maybe we're all sleeper GRU agents, we just don't know until we're triggered by something as our programming has been buried deep within our psyche.

 

Certainly there are times late at night when I find myself listening to

 

And strange memories rise to the surface - riding a horse around in the forest with my top off, fancy parades and buildings with onion domes. For days afterwards I'm left with an urge to visit cathedrals.

[Caley Jim]

Nearholmer, I really want to know!

 

Where's Caley Jim when you need him? Very Scottish, your wingplates.

i have always thought that wingplates were an aesthetic continuation of the Crewe Type, where the smokebox wrapper curved out onto the outside cylinder wrapper, giving a very distinctive front end profile.  Something that was perpetuated by Drummond and his successors with wingplates.

 

My desktop wallpaper

 

Jim

[Northroader]

Did wing plates form a later continuation of the bracket which a load of early engines had to form a support between the front of the boiler/ smoke box / cylinder block and the outside frames? Here’s a cross section of an old GWR broadgauge with such a bracket:

Presumably it was felt that the curves would enhance the frontal appearance. In this connection I have to state it wasn’t me, sir, what posted green sisters of mousey on your shed. I haven’t watched Doctor Who since they got rid of that nice Peri:

[Hroth]

PS, please tell me that, when I feel better and go back over the recent pages, I won't find green-glowing Cat-Nuns or semi-naked fruit-toting red-heads.

 

I am rather hoping that was all part of the delirium.

I'm afraid it's All True.

 

The Cat-Nuns are a bit much to get used to, but the red-head is fine by me!

 

 

e.g. Lord of the Rings. Allegedly the result of a bet JRR took whilst imbibing at the Eagle & Child in Oxford.

 

The effect of said bottle on a pair of Art-School types in the Swinging Sixties was, to my mind, infinitely preferable:—

 

 

You have to remember that JRRs drinking mate was CS Lewis, which is enough to drive anyone to the hard stuff.  I wonder who Sauron was based on......

 

At least the Clangers had a Soup Dragon and spoke Swannee Whistle, which is much more child-friendly.  Though if you listen to some of the swanneeing, you can interpret some phrases in a manner unsuited to the aforesaid children, which is pretty 60s art-school too...

[Hroth]

Presumably it was felt that the curves would enhance the frontal appearance. In this connection I have to state it wasn’t me, sir, what posted green sisters of mousey on your shed. I haven’t watched Doctor Who since they got rid of that nice Peri:

0FA9389E-628F-485A-9A31-180759CA702B.jpeg

GULP!

 

But if you want more Peri

 

 

though I think it might drive Edwardian into further delirium.....

 

Or perhaps this one?

 

 

Run Peri, RUN!!!

Edited October 5, 2018 by Hroth

[Edwardian]

GULP!

 

GULP?

 

Sounds like the acronym for yet another sinister organ of the Russian state.

[Hroth]

GULP?

 

Sounds like the acronym for yet another sinister organ of the Russian state.

We'll just have to see what the Daily Wail comes up with tomorrow.  Saturday is always a good day for two page spreads spitting with fear and loathing....

[Edwardian]

We'll just have to see what the Daily Wail comes up with tomorrow.  Saturday is always a good day for two page spreads spitting with fear and loathing....

 

The Daily Hate has it's own approach.  My preferred tonic against unpleasant dictators and their incompetent minions is to laugh at them.  After all, they are doing such a good job of making themselves ridiculous.

[phil_sutters]

i have always thought that wingplates were an aesthetic continuation of the Crewe Type, where the smokebox wrapper curved out onto the outside cylinder wrapper, giving a very distinctive front end profile.  Something that was perpetuated by Drummond and his successors with wingplates.

 

DSCN0696.JPG

My desktop wallpaper

 

Jim

Talking of wing-plates some of you may have missed a French visitor to the Festival of Britain. A friend of ours asked me to find out about a couple of photos showing a relative of hers firing on an old 2-2-2 (I suppose there aren't many 2-2-2s that aren't old). As usual RMweb members came up with the info  - that it was Ouest No. 3 which had been brought over to represent the Crewe type, as there was nothing of the type in working order over here. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/122580-can-anyone-identify-this-2-2-2-loco-please/ There is some delightful footage which a RMweb member unearthed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=424&v=cUUl9wA9bLg  There are interesting details that can be glimpsed in the background, showing rail and road vehicles in the Bricklayers Arms depot.

[Martin S-C]

 the farcical incompetence of Putin's GRU as evidenced by a series of failed missions that we knew all about,

What shocked and infuriated me was that because they had diplomatic status we let them go. I just wonder where the heck diplomatic status ends? Might a Russian army assassin carrying a "diplomatic" passport murder our prime minister and just smile and walk back to his CD plated limo? How long does the civilised world put up with Putin and his clearly evil and psychotic regime?

 

I honestly sometimes wonder if I should turn off the computer, the TV and radio, cancel the papers and lock myself in my railway room and keep painting, smiling and driving trains. Its a head in the sand reaction but even so...

[Martin S-C]

PS, please tell me that, when I feel better and go back over the recent pages, I won't find green-glowing Cat-Nuns or semi-naked fruit-toting red-heads.

 

I am rather hoping that was all part of the delirium.

Sorry, no...

 

[St Enodoc]

I dedicate this song to those invisible and undetectable operatives of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (just as soon as they have any, that is). 

 

With profound apologies to Flanders & Swann

 

We’re GRU

We’re GRU

The G-Rubbish spies G-Russia sent to you

We’re GRU

How did we do?

We learnt the height of spires all over the EU

We’re GRU

Spelt S-N-A-F-U  

We’re g-really g-recognisable it’s true

So let us now deny

And give the West a big fat lie

Oh, g-nyet, g-nyet, g-nyet, we’re GRU

"I had taken furnished lodgings down at Birchoverham-on-Sea..."

[Regularity]

I honestly sometimes wonder if I should turn off the computer, the TV and radio, cancel the papers and lock myself in my railway room and keep painting, smiling and driving trains. Its a head in the sand reaction but even so...

Isn’t that the point of a hobby, to allow an individual to escape the worries of the outside world?

If that’s a “head in the sand reaction” then I’m off to buy some sand tomorrow!

[drmditch]

Please may I support Radio 3. It has, since 2016 and events it is best not to talk about, become my 'default' radio station.

 

Also, please can anyone tell me where can I obtain medical certification stating that I am allergic to the 21st Century, and should be exposed to it as little as possible? 

(At the same time, I am glad that I was not exposed to the reality of  late 1930s/40s, which is the period in which my railway is set.)

 

If I have a complaint about this very interesting thread, it is that it takes up time which I should be spending working on the said railway.

 

In the morning I will get back to the construction of a cardboard version of the trough girders with which the LNER strengthened an 1870s NER truss girder bridge and allowed it to carry ballasted track.

However, I also need to test the tracklaying in the mid-level storage sidings. I have just solved one problem with the persistent derailment of an LNER Dia77 Loco coal wagon in one particular place.

 

Please may I also call attention to an excellent book by Andrew Dow, entitled 'The Railway - British Track since 1804'  ISBN 978 1 47382 257 3

Excellent, absorbing, and highly informative - if quite expensive.

I was lent a copy, and must now save up to buy one for myself. Christmas contributions perhaps.

 

I am sure it would be of great benefit to 'proper modellers' such as post on this thread and build proper track.

Perhaps at some future time I might be tempted to relay all my Peco FB rail with something a little more prototypical. I will have to be careful with ash ballast though. Apparently in addition to being corrosive it could also be electrically conductive and interfere with track-circuiting.

[drmditch]

My preferred tonic against unpleasant dictators and their incompetent minions is to laugh at them.  

 

Exactly! As in PG Wodehouse, and Roderick Spode, and the 'Black Shorts'.

(Has this subject been mentioned before?)

[Regularity]

(Has this subject been mentioned before?)

Quite possibly.

Quite possibly indeed.

Unless the cat-nuns have got to it...

[wagonman]

Please may I support Radio 3. It has, since 2016 and events it is best not to talk about, become my 'default' radio station.

 

Also, please can anyone tell me where can I obtain medical certification stating that I am allergic to the 21st Century, and should be exposed to it as little as possible? 

(At the same time, I am glad that I was not exposed to the reality of  late 1930s/40s, which is the period in which my railway is set.)

 

If I have a complaint about this very interesting thread, it is that it takes up time which I should be spending working on the said railway.

 

In the morning I will get back to the construction of a cardboard version of the trough girders with which the LNER strengthened an 1870s NER truss girder bridge and allowed it to carry ballasted track.

However, I also need to test the tracklaying in the mid-level storage sidings. I have just solved one problem with the persistent derailment of an LNER Dia77 Loco coal wagon in one particular place.

 

Please may I also call attention to an excellent book by Andrew Dow, entitled 'The Railway - British Track since 1804'  ISBN 978 1 47382 257 3

Excellent, absorbing, and highly informative - if quite expensive.

I was lent a copy, and must now save up to buy one for myself. Christmas contributions perhaps.

 

I am sure it would be of great benefit to 'proper modellers' such as post on this thread and build proper track.

Perhaps at some future time I might be tempted to relay all my Peco FB rail with something a little more prototypical. I will have to be careful with ash ballast though. Apparently in addition to being corrosive it could also be electrically conductive and interfere with track-circuiting.

 

 

I second your support for Radio 3 though I am growing concerned at the degree of dumbing down that it seems to be suffering, especially mid-morning...

[Donw]

May I suggest a new theme song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsCyC1dZiN8

 

It may well do equally for this thread or the new emergent Enda Sand party something I thought of back when this was first released.

 

Don

[wagonman]

May I suggest a new theme song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsCyC1dZiN8

 

It may well do equally for this thread or the new emergent Enda Sand party something I thought of back when this was first released.

 

Don

 

 

Ye gods and little fishes! Was that really (almost) 50 years ago? It seems like only last week. Where has my life gone?

[Hroth]

The only problem with "living in the past" is getting past the rose-tinted spectacles.

 

For it to be an honest depiction, we need to approach the subject warts'n'all which probably means, even in 1905 Castle Aching, a lot more poorly dressed inhabitants, nasty unclean streets, foetid alleyways and rather run down dwellings.  There's not nearly enough ragged, barefoot children!

 

And in countryside scenes, how about a TB isolation hospital, with beds pushed out onto balconies for a Fresh Air cure?

 

On second thoughts....

[Edwardian]

 

why wingplates?

 

Nearholmer, I really want to know!

 

Where's Caley Jim when you need him? Very Scottish, your wingplates.

 

This relates to a particular brief moment in the long and baffling history of the 517 Class.

 

Frankly, I cannot keep a grip on the subject and have had to produce my own aide memoire in an attempt to do so!

 

During the period 1895-1905 a number of class members repaired or rebuilt at Wolverhampton were given extended smoke boxes with wing plates.

 

These were subsequently removed, presumably on the next re-boilering, if not before, save in the case of 567, which was sold to the Bishop's Castle railway in 1905, and hence remained unmodified in that regard.

 

No.555 makes an interesting study. The picture is reproduced in Russell and dated to 1902 (RCTS has a profile view in the same condition).  She is ex-works at Wolverhampton, having been fitted an R2/3u boiler (don't ask!) with the extended smoke box in April 1902.  555 did not receive another boiler until she was fitted with a belpaire type in 1921.  When, I wonder, were the wing plates removed?  Might they have lasted until 1921 in this case?

 

555 was built as a saddle tank in 1868, with a short wheel-base of 13’7” (7’4” + 6’3”) and with inside bearings to the trailing wheels.  Wolverhampton rebuilt her as a side tank in August 1886, at the same time extending the wheel-base to 15’ (7’4” + 7’8”), which conformed to the wheel-base of class members built 1873-1885. The bunker shown is a type fitted by Wolverhampton in the 1880s (as opposed to the tall straight-back contemporary Swindon bunkers), and has acquired rails. According to RCTS, when rebuilt again in April 1902, she received the 15'6" wheel-base and outside bearings to the trailing wheels.

 

It is interesting to see the livery that Wolverhampton was applying at the time (1902).

 

On rebuilding to side tanks, in 1886 in the case of 555, I would have expected the blue-green Wolverhampton Green to have been applied and for the side tanks to have been lined out in two panels; Swindon lined the 517 side tanks with a single panel.  The Wolverhampton lining in the 1880s was black edged white.  The picture of the model below represents this style (quite why it has wing plates, as it does not feature an extended smoke box .... !).

 

Wolverhampton's independent livery is said to have been abandoned in 1894.  Thus, 555 should be in Swindon's "mid-chrome green" of 1894, with the frames and the prominent splasher in Indian Red.  The lining should be in the familiar black edged chrome orange and follows the Swindon practice of a single panel on the tank side.  However, as has been pointed out, the lining features in-curves to the corners (I love in-curves on lining), which is not standard.  Also non-standard is the border, also with an incurve.  Neither Swindon nor the abandoned Wolverhampton livery seems to have featured incurves, so this is a fascinating example.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Edwardian

[runs as required]

Glad to see the Chairman posting again - and closer to topic than the previous few pages.

dh

 

(Dobroye utro/Good morning

Just to say Дэвид's advice about Asda's £7.99 flu jabs being the cheapest on the market might be a better CA  investment for the winter than a a posh Multimeter tester. Boots offer them @ £12.00) 

[Compound2632]

This relates to a particular brief moment in the long and baffling history of the 517 Class.

 

No.555 ... fitted an R2/3u boiler (don't ask!) 

 

I will. The 517 class do share with a well-known droid a certain cute charm.

 

But, "these are not the wingplates you're looking for". My question was more Scottish and directed at Messrs. Drummond (the elder), Stroudley, Smellie, Holmes, McIntosh, & Co. On locomotives with sandboxes forming square extensions to the leading driving wheel splashers, - 0-6-0s, 0-4-2s, 0-4-4Ts, 0-6-0Ts etc. - they neatly unify the front of the sandboxes with the smokebox front. The same applies to the outside cylinder wrappers on the Drummond four-cylinder 4-6-0s, which are a throwback to the continuous cylinder / smokebox wrapper of the Crewe type. But on the classic Scottish 4-4-0, why? 

 

Hence my invocation of Caley Jim.

 

 

It is interesting to see the livery that Wolverhampton was applying at the time (1902).

 

On rebuilding to side tanks, in 1886 in the case of 555, I would have expected the blue-green Wolverhampton Green to have been applied and for the side tanks to have been lined out in two panels; Swindon lined the 517 side tanks with a single panel.  The Wolverhampton lining in the 1880s black edged white.  The picture of the model below represents this style.

 

Wolverhampton's independent livery is said to have been abandoned in 1894.  Thus, 555 should be in Swindon's "mid-chrome green" of 1894, with the frames and the prominent splasher in Indian Red.  The lining should be in the familiar black edged chrome orange and follows the Swindon practice of a single panel on the tank side.  However, as has been pointed out, the lining features in-curves to the corners (I love in-curves on lining), which is not standard.  Also non-standard is the border, also with an incurve.  Neither Swindon or the abandoned Wolverhampton livery seems to have featured incurves, so this is a fascinating example.

 

By-the-by, I assume that the Wolverhampton livery is irrelevant a middle-period 2301 Class stationed at Wolverhampton c. 1902/3 (No. 2390 for example)? Not only is the date too late but even if the engine was receiving heavy overhauls at Wolverhampton rather than Swindon, I'm doubting that it would have been repainted - my reference photo of No. 2399 seems to show a very well-worn finish. Would any of the local saddle tanks have retained Wolverhampton livery as late as the first few years of the 20th century?

Edited October 6, 2018 by Compound2632

[Nick Holliday]

The Simplex shunter could qualify on a pregroup thread, just, the GWR had No. 15 in April, 1923, and anther four no’s. 23- 27 in 1926, and doubtless other main line companies had some as well. These were 40 h.p. Jobs, and lasted into the ‘50s, so must have been useful.

624C5343-5B8E-49E8-BFB1-C80709C6D9F3.jpeg

 

Definitely pre-grouping, as the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway had one in 1920, as per this view

The photo comes from the Chasewater Railway, where I believe it survives.

[Edwardian]

 

I assume that the Wolverhampton livery is irrelevant a middle-period 2301 Class stationed at Wolverhampton c. 1902/3 (No. 2390 for example)? Not only is the date too late but even if the engine was receiving heavy overhauls at Wolverhampton rather than Swindon, I'm doubting that it would have been repainted - my reference photo of No. 2399 seems to show a very well-worn finish. Would any of the local saddle tanks have retained Wolverhampton livery as late as the first few years of the 20th century?

 

I think you can discount Wolverhampton livery here.  These are Dean/Swindon locomotives.  Only a very few from the first Lot were reboilered before the Wolverhampton livery was discontinued, and in any case I assume this was done at Swindon; I have come across no reference to a Dean Goods ever wearing Wolverhampton livery.

 

2399 went from an S2 to an S4 boiler in 1899 and did not acquire a B4 (belpaire) until 1910.  Around 1904 (IIRC) the livery was simplified and green splashers were adopted.  She would have presumably still have been in the full 1894 livery, including Indian Red splashers, in your chosen period of representation.

 

EDIT: You mentioned 2390 as your chosen identity. This was also built with an S2, though in her case she retained it until an S4 was fitted in November 1903.  IIRC, you are depicting a S2 engine, so that's fine and what I say regarding livery for 2399 shouldalso apply to your example.

 

As for saddle tanks, I suppose the question is whether any of the Wolverhampton-built classes would have retained Wolverhampton livery for long enough.  I doubt it, given that the livery was apparently abandoned in 1894, so that would result in a minimum of 9 years without a repaint. That's a long time for a locomotive in those days. Repaints were more like every 3 years. For instance, IIRC, on the Brighton there were only one or two exceptional survivors in IEG by 1914, a livery discontinued in 1905, so you are on the outer fringes of the possible here. 

 

The 2021 class date from after 1894, so you would need to go back to numerous 850 class.  Early ones, built in the 1870s, included a handful re-boilered before 1894, so could have been re-painted right at the end of the Wolverhampton livery, as up to 1894 Wolverhampton boilers were used and most of the work on the class was done there. The later ones were built up to 1895, so an example from, say, 1893 would, presumably, be one of the last to be out-shopped in the Wolverhampton scheme.  I just doubt that it would not have been repainted in the intervening 9-10 years.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Edwardian