Brassey

Here is the cab from my as yet unfinished early DG which uses some spare Martin Finney sides. One would assume that MF got this shape right: To quote the Martin Finney instructions: "The cabsides of the first sixty engines had a large sweeping cut-out whereas the later engines had a standard two arc opening. With the fitting of Belpaire fireboxes the cabs were raised to allow the spectacle windows to be refitted..."

Hi Mikkel Note also that the earlier DG no. 2397 in http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrls836.htm has a straight reversing lever rather than the hockey stick shape of later DG's. 2309 would have had this too

Does the range include the 4 wheel GWR coach chassis?

Oops missed out the 44. but I knew there was a 67 in there! Memory playing tricks. I'll shut up from know on.

From West the route North went Exeter, Weston-s-Mare, Bristol, Severn Tunnel Junction, Newport, Pontypool Road, Abergavenny Junction, Hereford etc.

LNWR locos would have been those shedded at Abergavenny or Shrewsbury at the time. Abergavenny had a large number of coal tanks and various 0-8-0's. As these are the only LNWR locos available RTR anything else would need to be scratch or kit built. These would include 19" Goods and 0-8-4 tanks. Passenger duties would be down to George V's. All this varied over the years so depends on the period under consideration.

You can see from his thread that Gordon uses Templot extensively for track planning. You can see printed templates in the pic. I use it too and the track centres are set in Templot at 67mm which is prototypical but I build in P4. Not sure if OO is the same but it should be as the stock is the same widths. Presumably you could set it differently in fiddle yards.

I have ordered from Narrow Planet if what you require has to be made bespoke. No connection just a satisfied customer.

In pre-grouping days the line from Shrewsbury to Hereford was joint LNWR/GWR and later LMS/GWR. The LNWR had running rights to its line at Abergavenny Junction thus going through Pontrilas. These rights probably only extended to their own trains so "joint" trains would have been under the charge of GWR locos south of Hereford. GWR 4-6-0's were not allowed over the joint line which is where the 4-4-0 Counties came in most running between Bristol and Shrewsbury. The main feature of the express traffic was that it was made up almost entirely of mixed through carriages from either company going between such destinations as Liverpool, Manchester, Birkenhead, Bristol, Newport, Cardiff, Plymouth, Truro, Penzance; there was even a through Caledonian carriage from Glasgow to Weston-super-Mare. Significant goods traffic ran south from Birkenhead in express freight trains. Some Coal traffic went North from the South Wales coalfields though most of that was destined for the ports. I have seen Hope-under-Dinmore on a couple of occasions and it is a club layout, Some of the members are here on RMWeb and I have shared data with them on the line. There is a GWR Working Timetable online for 1936 and there was not much difference between that and pre-grouping days.

Thanks Jim, I posted this in response to a blog I had answered but couldn't work out how to post an image in comments. I see the button now; doh! I use these drawings primarily to check kits for their accuracy so dimensions are not so fundamental but I take your points about adding in the horizontals and scans in the gutter. The tender on the County suffered distortion from being in the spine. Thankfully that kit has a 4mm Malcom Mitchell tender so hopefully that one should be true. No I have not tried a 94xx as it is out of my period being strictly pre-grouping. My whole layout is being built on a scaled up and wrapped scan of an old o/s map! I have also scaled a massive full size copy of an LNWR Wolverton Carriage diagram before now, in parts, pasted together in photoshop, saved in .pdf and sent that off to the etchers. Still not built it though. Cheers Peter

I might have mentioned this but could have been overlooked it, but Pontrilas was a mainline station with North to West non-stop expresses. Going South you have the trains going onto a single line into Ledbury after going through Pontrilas. To be prototypical, all these trains would have had destination roof boards. Such trains would not have gone through Ledbury and on the plan going North they have to do the same. (This would also include mineral trains coming out of South Wales). Such express trains could be up to 12 coaches long. The traverser is not long enough to accommodate trains of that length; but you do have the luxury of the room to include a fiddle yard that would. So I the suggestion of a double line all the way round makes sense. I wish I had the room to run 12 coach trains.

The Coal Engine chassis is at a stage where it is ready for painting before the wheels are fitted. I put some scrap 5" wheels on to see what size spacer I would need to eliminate side play. I also thought I would have to reposition the holes for the stretchers for the brake hangers because the frames are out. But surprisingly they are in the correct position all lying close to these oversize wheels. So the brake stretchers are correct to the rods! My best performing loco has no side play on the fixed axle. I am aiming for this but, with my new P4 B2B gauge set at 17.75mm, it's working out that I need 0.5mm of spacers each side on this Coal Engine. Of course I don't have any spacers to that size. The closest are some Gibsons at about 0.4mm. Once it's bedded in there will be a bit of wear so chances of a bit more side play. High Level gear boxes also specify no side play on the driven axle but sometimes it's unavoidable. Anyway, I've managed to remember to remove the bearings prior to final cleaning and painting: Still got to drill out the holes for the crankpins on the H spoke wheels. Not looking forward to that.

For reference, here's an example of a drawing image I have scanned and scaled using a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop. I know the wheelbase so drew a line to that dimension and scaled the drawing to fit. On the pasteboard above this profile of the loco is another drawing from a different source but showing the other side of the loco. That is scaled the same way and hopefully both match (well at least the wheelbase will, which is fundamental) Simples.

When scaling in Photoshop, I have drawn and added over the scan a straight line of something I knew the exact dimension of, such as the wheelbase. I did this in Illustrator and that allows you to set that line at a precise figure in mm such as 34mm. I've then scaled the scanned drawing to fit exactly the drawn line. You can save the scanned image without the line and print it out. I have used Photoshop professionally and have the full Adobe Suite which includes Illustrator. You can probably drawn lines in Gimp too but whether you can dimension them is another matter. I have an example but can't post here in comments so will stick it on my blog.

In P4 AFAIK the only choice is Gibson so getting them swapped with the kit at a show is a no brainer. Coopercraft stated in some packs that Gibson would swap the 00 wheels but not unsurprisingly they don't honour that! Now I have a large box of unused 00 wheels

Parkside used to swap out the wheels for P4 at shows. Most helpful and a valuable service.

Thanks Jol; it's not just me then. Surprised that no OO builders have picked this up.

Previous posts have suggested that they are all family members

GWR loco, LNWR carriages, northern passengers

Hey my allegiance is nailed firmly to the railway room wall: Note the authentic GW orange chrome wall

My SDX will probably end up looking more like this:

LNWR five compartment 6 wheel third to D297; 827 built. Versus L&YR eight compartment third to Diagram 34; 808 built. Source: Philip Millard London & North Western 30ft 1in Six-Wheeled Carriages.

I think the LNWR holds the record for carriage construction too

Superbly beautiful. Gives me the motivation to finish off mine before the RTR version comes out!

There is a study on here that has been reported on "Wright writes...." which currently shows that less than 10% model pre-grouping and slightly more would prefer to. Food for thought?