Weaselfish

I very much doubt if your question can be answered definitively. 'Locomotive Liveries of the War and Austerity Years' by John Copsey, RC Riley and David Tipper in the Great Western Railway Journal no.7, Summer 1993 edition covers the subject. It starts by stating "The 1940s and early 1950s were perhaps the most disordered period ever encountered in terms of engine liveries" and proceeds to illustrate the point comprehensively. For what it's worth, my guess would be that 6959 would not have been unique in the black livery and G (Crest) W on the tender. It was part of a batch of Modified Halls (6959 to 6970) which entered traffic between March and September 1944. They didn't start to receive names until December 1946. The often cited contention that the G (Crest) W lettering was only applied to green tenders isn't correct - the article I refer to above mentions black tenders with G (Crest) W and Power of the Granges has several photos of Granges in that turnout.

Handsome and imposing engines to judge from the few photos I've seen. Your father's model captures that well. Impressive as always.

Don't drop it on your foot Barry. Am I right in thinking that the K's kit also allowed you to build the version with the straight frames and running plate?

Another impressive and, to my eyes, totally exotic beast. I'm looking forward to seeing the GSWR Baltic you mentioned on your last post. There's a couple of photographs of them in the October 'Steam Days' and they look very imposing.

Looks like your father had a taste for the unusual - I can't even find this one in HC Casserley's Steam Locomotives of British Railways. But as ever with your posts it looks great.

Impressive as ever. Your models have real character.

It answers mine - thank you. They're impressive models. Please keep the pics coming!

Very impressive. Am I right in thinking that the driving wheels on the Q6 are all flanged but the middle 2 pairs on the P2 are flangeless? What are the minimum radius curves they can go round?

I enjoyed your earlier photos and these are very interesting too. The big tank engines are particularly striking. I'm looking forward to the next instalment.

Thanks for the information. They're very impressive models. Is Herculaneum Dock at any exhibitions this year?

That's impressive, even before you do the extra work. Not many people seem to model the post-war period. Are the locomotives kits and what are the prototype classes? (Sorry, I don't know much about LNER constituent locos).

49801 is great. In response to Castle, here's some more models of locos that never were: http://www.gwr.org.uk/galmeadows1.html (scroll down for a GWR Pacific on this link) http://www.gwr.org.uk/galfox1.html http://www.gwr.org.uk/galfox2.html http://www.gwr.org.uk/galparsons1.html

Thank you Frank. I've just taken delivery of a K's Aberdare that I won on Ebay and rather to my surprise it had still got the original outside cranks and pins. On the basis of the box I'd hazard a guess that they're the older Romfords pattern. What type did you use on your Dukedog and how did you get on with them? Mark

This is interesting Frank. Courtesy of Ebay I've built up a collection of Great Western loco kits - a lot of them are K's too and one of them's a Bulldog. I've now got to start some serious building. Is there any chance I could scrounge a copy of the instructions for the Bulldog please? A technical question too - what brake hangars are you using? Mark

This is interesting. I'm looking forward to more with pics at your convenience.

Thank you everyone. This has given me some ideas. It sounds like the solid chassis isn't really suitable for modern motors. The 2021 is so small that even the suggested X04 looks like a very tight fit. I'll give Gibson's a call about their frames. I've also got a Nu-Cast 64XX which has the updated chassis with greater detail. I think the two kits were both originally manufactured by Cotswold, so it may be that the later Nu-Cast chassis will also fit the older 2021 - as Horsetan points out the original locomotives had the same wheelbase. A comparison of the model chassis would be interesting. Thanks again all.

Good evening. I've started to dip my toes in the waters of kit building with, amongst others, an old Cotswold 00 GWR 2021 Pannier tank. It's got the solid brass milled chassis, and a gearwheel. The instructions recommend and X04 or Romford Bulldog. Has anybody fitted a more upto date drive system to the milled chassis and if so, were there any difficulties? Any observations gratefully received.

This is really impressive Coachmann. You said earlier that "My earlier efforts to get the original Cotswold chassis motorised failed". What was the problem? I've got a pair of Cotswold GWR 2021s to build which have the solid brass chassis, hence the interest.