bécasse

WD 2-8-0s wouldn't have been the only locos on the list to have had inadequate braking, Q1s wouldn't have stood a chance of stopping an unfitted goods on some of the banks, although they would have been OK, albeit a bit rough, on a short passenger set or on fitted ballast hoppers. There is no evidence, however, that Q1s ever got closer to the S&D than a very rare servicing visit to Templecombe shed after working the Monday morning pick up goods from Exmouth Junction.

Way OT - but I wonder why LMS-designed tanks 42687-42699 weren't allowed? They were part of the same Derby-built batch as 42673-42686 which are included in the "authorised" list. And they were nowhere near the last ones built, so it's not as if the list was mistakenly copied over from an LMS list made up when the class was still incomplete.

 

As I say, way OT. Just an observation.

As a guess, given that those locos that were permitted were subject to special speed restrictions, the non-permitted locos were marginally heavier, either overall or in maximum axle load, and that was sufficient to get them banned.

What do tram locos taste like?

Well smoked.

 

 

The O2 appears to have an extra 7" in bunker length.

 

Which is easily encompassed in 2FS by soldering in some 1mm square section brass when assembling the kit. If it is soldered in so that it is just proud it can be filed back to be all but invisible. It is a long while (like 50 years) since I last did a comparison in detail, but I think that there may be one or two other very minor differences but nothing that can't either be overcome or will be all but invisible in such a small scale.

At the suggestion of Ian Barefoot (scanman) I am working on an etch for a LSWR/SR G6 0-6-0T, hopefully to use with the N Brass body kit. This will have the correct wheelbase for this loco. Just the balance weights to do - always the tricky part as they tend not to be shown on GA drawings. Or perhaps I won't bother as it looks like they didn;t have balance weights in SR days, and the BR photos show various different sets.

 

Given the shortish length of the tanks on these locos (although these also seem to vary between examples)  I'm going to propose having a direct worm drive onto the wheels as any sort of two stage reduction is going to put the motor far back into the cab and bunker.

 

Chris

None of my various reference books make any mention of variations in the lengths of the tanks of G6 class locos. Given that their use was normally restricted to shunting town yards, shunting Southampton Docks and banking trains between the two stations at Exeter, all duties where regular access to water supplies would not have been a problem, there would seem to have been no need to consider making alterations to the tanks. Even the loco that was trialled (unsuccessfully) on the Portland branch in 1922 and which did have some minor alterations to better fit it to the task, had no changes made to the tanks. The quoted water capacity was always 1000 gallons.

The most obvious variations between locos of the class related to whether an Adams or a Drummond style boiler was fitted (which varied with time), whether an Adams stovepipe or a Drummond chimney was fitted and whether the loco braking had been converted to vacuum (when a cast weight was added to the front buffer beam). The other variation was, as you have noted, the balance weights which was certainly not just an issue of period as photos exist of locos in LSWR livery with balance weights on the centre driving wheel - in fact, among the various photos that I possess, no two locos have identical sets of balance weights, so obviously best omitted from the chassis kit, but the need to check photos mentioned in the accompanying notes.

I've a G6 to build (courtesy of 'N Brass', but that means tackling the chassis ......

Surely a G6 is inappropriate for a layout like this, they were town yard shunters and didn't normally venture out on the road - which is why there were so few of them (and why, without travelling around the system, they were so difficult to "cop").

The last 10 "high cab" O2s were visually similar (but not quite identical) to the G6s from the running plate up and were (both passenger and freight) road locos for lines with low axle-load limits. But then, if you are worried about an 0-6-0 chassis, an 0-4-4 is ......................

Immediately post nationalisation, there was a weekly SO permanent way materials train from Redbridge to Exmouth Junction which was worked by one of Eastleigh-allocated Q1s (C14-C22 at that period). The return working of empties was on Tuesdays with the loco "resting" over at Exmouth Junction shed on Sundays and Mondays. In practice it was utilised locally on those days, particularly the Monday, and it wasn't unknown for it to work the Templecombe pick-up goods. The loco in the photo is almost certainly being serviced at Templecombe shed before returning to Exmouth Junction in the course of working this duty. These Q1s were slowly renumbered into the 330XX series, with C19 being the first in April 1948, but the earliest renumbered locos would not have initially carried the early BR crest, either having a blank tender or the actual words "BRITISH RAILWAYS". Eventually the Redbridge materials train was extended to Okehampton curtailing Exmouth Junction's abilities to "borrow" a Q1.

I know of no trials of a Q1 on the S&D and suspect that, given the gradients, a trial would have been unlikely. Q1s had little difficulty climbing but, being very light, often experienced problems stopping heavy trains on down grades. It was, in fact, apart from the working described above, very rare to find a Q1 west of Salisbury.

These may be of some use. First is an aerial view of Bembridge, undated, but presumably 1930's. showing at least 4 covered vans and a brake I would guess. Second pic is of one of the two most famous 00 models of Bembridge, showing the covered coal staithes. Incidentally, , whilst Medina was a much bigger operation, I don't see any mention of St Helen's Quay in the histories recited above. My father worked there for Pickfords, who were the SR's agents, in the 1930's. It was very busy with rail borne, mostly coal traffic, and he told me that it was the main entry point for the Island's coal at that time. Not sure if that was true - it seems unlikely. Maybe he meant for the eastern end. It included a train ferry dock (from Langstone on Hayling Island), although this was supposed to have ceased use many decades before. I have an aerial shot of St Helens showing several rakes of open wagons in the complex of sidings there, which I will try to find.

The Aerofilms aerial photo of Bembridge station dates from the summer of 1937, and the vans standing in the siding had probably been, or were about to be, used for PLA traffic (of which there was a lot on the Island). There was very little van-borne general goods traffic in the Island at all (after the grouping anyway) and certainly not to Bembridge, where virtually all the goods traffic comprised domestic coal for the two merchants based there. The goods propelled in in the early morning all the way from Brading, usually leaving the brake van at St.Helens (the guard riding on the loco), the wagons were left at Bembridge all day as the loco returned to Brading with the 2-set that had been stabled in the platform road all night. After the last passenger turn at night, the loco left the 2-set in the platform, collected any (empty) wagons, called at St.Helens to shunt and collect the brake and then ran to Sandown to leave the wagons (which were worked back to Medina the next day via Merstone), before returning to Ryde LE. The PLA vans were probably worked in and out attached to passenger workings at timings that coincided with the working of PLA specials on the Ventnor line, facilitating shunting at Brading.

The model pictured, by the way, was P4 not 00. Study of the way in which the layout was effectively made up of three long curved points which ran into each other demonstrates why a scale model of Bembridge is only possible if the track gauge is also to scale. Virtually everything that can be seen in the photo, bar the track, loco and rolling stock, was my own handiwork, now almost half-a-century ago. It was the very first P4 layout to be completed, first being exhibited at the MRC's show at Central Hall at Easter 1971. Like the aerial photograph, the model was set in the summer of 1937, although certain liberties were taken with the trains to provide variety.

Covered coal bins seem to have been an Isle of Wight feature at a period when any sort of bin for domestic coal was rare elsewhere (where they tended to be WWII-built). As well as these bins at Freshwater, Orchard's (plus another merchant whose name escapes me at the moment) bins at Bembridge were covered with a corrugated-iron roof, and at Ventnor most of the merchants kept their coal in caves going back into the chalk cliffs.

The South Eastern was and is two railways combined from 1923.

Actually, to be a little pedantic, they were effectively combined from 1 January 1899 when the joint managing committee was formed. Although legally they were still two independent railways until the grouping, they effectively did everything as if they were a single combined railway from that date - the junctions in the Bickley/Chiselhurst area being an early witness to that fact, even if they have been rebuilt (twice) since.

According to my notes, all the high-window diag.2101 4-compt. brake thirds were in sets throughout their lives with the sole exception of the three odd vehicles 4095-7, which I suspect were built to provide overhaul spares for the other 4-compt. brakes as many of the workings these sets performed needed the large van capacity meaning that the temporary substitution of a 6-compt. brake wasn't an option. Eventually even these 3 vehicles found themselves allocated to regular sets, 4095 from 1946 and the other two from 1954.

The records suggest that 3668 and 3669 weren't allocated to sets between June 1957 and June 1958. It is possible that they were just stored somewhere but my suspicion is that they were actually working in a set but that the paperwork failed to record that fact. (I suspect that if they had really been out of use for twelve months, either they, or another pair of 4-compt.brakes in worse state, would have been condemned.)

Very nice to see a model of a Southern signal with the lattices modelled correctly (and very well)!

It wasn't just the painted set numbers that used only the last four figures of the "official" six-digit number, much internal SR documentation continued to use just the four figures too.

One possible answer is that it isn't the original Shillingstone instrument. If the original had become faulty in the early 60s, it might well have been replaced by a redundant (from line closure) machine held in the Elephant House at Wimbledon. Record keeping wasn't necessarily a strong point with BR at that period, particularly if the exchange took place just before this stretch of line was handed back to the WR.

Since they remained relatively loose even with the clips correctly positioned either side of the rail, I ended up soldering them to the rail - which actually turned out to be a simple and quick task which didn't distort the sleepering in any way. It is probably as easy to solder a wire direct to the rail - but since I had bought the clips, I thought that I might as well use them.

Is there anyone out there that lives close enough to a preserved line with an un-rebuild Bullied who could pop over and measure the distance between the sand fillers for us. I'd do it myself, but at the moment I'm 2 hours away from the Bluebell line and I'm working 7 days a week too. I don't trust drawings, they're often unreliable.

And measuring up preserved locos is even more unreliable! 

However, if you measure up a preserved loco and take a photo of it from exactly the same angle as the original photo was taken from (and preferably with the zoom adjusted to roughly match the focal length of the original camera lens), you are in a much better position to start making reasoned judgements on the issue. It isn't easy though!

 

On fitting the worms to shafts, (if you do), they must never be pressed home, the force is amazingly high, the worm should be reamed out with a fine taper reamer, the long tapered clockmakers broach type will do it. A tiny spot of Loctite will hold it to the shaft.

And if you need to remove the worm subsequently, just dip it (the worm, not the whole motor) into a plastic cup of boiling water, the heat of which is quite sufficient to break the loctite bond.

I should add that this tip isn't original - I was once very puzzled at an exhibition to see someone seemingly dipping a motor into a plastic cup of tea, so puzzled, in fact, that I asked why and all was explained to me. I use the trick (without the tea or coffee flavouring - except in extremis) myself now, it works a treat in freeing loctite bonds not only on worms but on flywheels - and on gear wheels mounted on axles. It is also very useful if you should manage to get a trace of loctite between an axle and a bearing.

In the interests of science I tried it with the Chinese motors and it turns out that the one in the Pannier has a very small dead spot on it: at very low speeds (and I mean 1 wheel revolution every 5 seconds) it sometimes stops dead and needs a shove to get it moving.  Not a pickup issue, it's actually the motor itself. 

 

If the motor always starts whether cold or warm then there isn't a dead spot in it. Even with the smallest dead spot the motor will tend to apparently come to rest there and won't restart without help, (actually what happens is that the motor starts to rotate but doesn't have enough momentum to get past the dead spot on the first revolution, so it stops again having done no more than one partial revolution, and, of course, since it is now on the dead spot it won't restart itself again). If this is the case, then the problem is mechanical, a tight spot rather than a dead spot, and if this is within the motor itself, running it in both ways with low power and no load should eventually clear it.

If the motor starts cold, will continue to run (especially with no load) but won't restart warm after being stopped, then the problem is a dry joint somewhere within it. Putting a resistance meter across the terminals after the motor has stopped itself can be quite informative as, if it is a dry joint problem, you will see a rapid countdown in the number of ohms resistance on the meter's display. This sort of problem isn't really solvable on motors this small.

Those signals are on the Widened Lines but they were owned by the Met and the signalling system, including the boxes, was common to both lines.

The colour light signals, and the slides that worked them, were supplied by the British Power Signal Co. The points seem to have been worked mechanically using frames "home-made" by the Met.

Visiting Ventnor station in October 1965, I was very surprised to see a goods arrive, shunt the yard, and depart again. Travelling back to Ryde on the next passenger train, I was even more surprised to find the goods tucked away on the siding at Wroxall, where it had deposited a wagon and was now waiting to continue towards Ryde once the single line was clear. I have often wondered whether that was the final occasion that a wagon was dropped off at Wroxall, the line closing 6 months later.

The only time that the Bembridge branch was worked pull-and-push was in 1936 while the engine-release turntable was being renewed and enlarged, the ex-LCDR 3-set was used. Vehicles from the former Ventnor West branch pull-and-push bogie set did appear on the Bembridge branch after the closure of the Ventnor West line but were always run round.

Oddly, the branch freight was propelled, and apparently often without a brake van, from St.Helens to Bembridge in the early morning, the loco then taking up the passenger service with the carriages which had been stabled in the platform overnight. The process was reversed after the final passenger working of the evening, the loco leaving the carriages in the platform and then working the empty coal wagons (and possibly PLA vans) to Sandown, picking up the brake van and any wagons as required from St.Helens wharf en route. There were occasions when the brake van worked through to Bembridge, where it was stabled in the general goods siding, possibly either when there were PLA vans for Bembridge or when there were no wagons to be dropped off at St.Helens wharf, but the working was still propelled as the stabled carriages blocked the run round.

The through working from London Waterloo to Bristol/Portishead wasn't shown as such in the public TT but was in the Carriage Working Notices. While this may have been understandable while a reversal at Bournemouth West was involved, it looked odder once the West closed and the 3-set was just detached at Central and a new loco attached to work it forward to Bath.

This train also called, un-advertised, at Templecombe Lower Platform, whose only advertised service was a late-evening  terminator.

I've seen a photo of Maunsell stock at Portishead in the early 1960s. I understand that these were through coaches from Bournemouth West.

From London Waterloo (08.35 semi-fast RP) via Bournemouth West. The working involved reversals at Bournemouth West and Bath Green Park. 

I believe they were stored pending repairs during 1947 due to a boiler explosion on one of the class. Perhaps Ian Allan mistakenly believed they had been scrapped.

A boiler explosion in a loco only built in 1924 would have resulted in an investigation by the MoT, doubtless looking for any potential design flaws. The resultant report would have been full of useful information on the class but it must have been mis-filed as searching through the listings of MoT reports published in the years leading up to 1947 failed to find it.

I can now reveal the identity of the the mystery chassis. It is a 'Big Lizzie'. I have burnt the midnight oil so to speak, to get this finished a few hours ahead of its deadline.

 

Those of you of an LMS disposition will perhaps know the history of these locos. A small class of 5 built for heavy shunting in 1924, their large MR style boiler has a clear familial resemblence to the Lickey Banker which preceded it, and the ill-fated 7F that followed, with which it shares its coupled wheelbase. The locos spent their working lives allocated to Toton shed, from where they shunted the extensive freight yards in the vicinity. They survived to nationalisation, but were all scrapped in the early 1950s. Classified as 6Fs, and known variously by railway staff as Big Lizzies, Morris 10s, or Rivers, they shared many components with the 4Fs, including the weakness in their bearings, although with their limited range of operation this did not prove as much of a problem  as they did with the 7Fs.

 

Researching this model has proved a challenge, with little infomation surviving, to the point I began to believe that they may never have existed at all. However I was assured they did by a Mr R. Essery (not 'Midland Bob' but his Italian cousin Roberto). What drawings available proved a trap to the unwary. A certain manufacturer produced a model of the class in the past, but were deceived by an early draft GA showing an 0-6-0T. This was done by an apprentice draftsman, who was soon sent home with a flea in his ear and shouts of 'axle loading' sounding in his memory. Even redesigned as an 0-8-0T, this proved an impediment, with the Chief Civil Engineer only allowing the loco out of Toton yard to make the short trip to Derby for overhauls at a maximum speed of 10mph.  They were banned from the rest of the system, which spelt the end to any thoughts of extending the class numbers.

 

The earlier models were produced in a number of fanciful liveries, one of which is shown in the photos, whereas in reality the locos only ever carried unlined black.

So little known were these locos that they even escaped the eagle eyes of Ian Allan and Uncle Mac (A.B.Macleod) when they compiled the 1947, and final, edition of the ABC of LMS Locomotives, and they were thus excluded from this august and otherwise comprehensive volume. This omission led the class to be known among those few spotters in the know as les poissons d'avril.