t-b-g

Hello Tony, I have only ever built one "Little Engines" GCR tender, as most of their kits were too modern for my period. I would think that the tender in the J11 kit was based on the same castings and moulds as those in the other kits. I don't recall there being any problem, other than the castings being a bit chunky in places. The frames and steps could be assembled in the correct places and I had room for EM wheels. I think the one you have there has just been put together incorrectly. The diagrams and instructions provided were not great and it would be an easy mistake to make for anybody not too familiar with the real tenders. If you don't fancy taking it apart to fix it, have you considered substituting a different tender? If you are looking for accuracy, that tender won't ever satisfy that criteria looking as it does. Or maybe I am being too picky, as I tend to be sometimes. Regards Tony

If you want to make the model more accurate Tony, you might like to have a look at the outside frames on the tender and the tender footsteps. I think the assembly arrangements may have been misinterpreted when the loco was built as the frames shouldn't be just behind the valance. They should be set further back. In turn, that left no room for the steps to fit where they should and they have been put on the outside, rather than behind the valance under the footplate. This has led to them being too high up and nowhere near in line with the loco steps. For a GCR enthusiast, it rather spoils the look of the tender. To me, it is a rather bigger departure from accuracy than some of the ones you mention. Tony

I still have the photos and can put them on again if people would like to see them. The GCR tenders certainly are a nightmare of very non standard "Standard" types. A further variation concerns the height of the timber platform at the front of the tender, which varied depending on the height of the footplate on the loco it was to be attached to and the short wider portion of the footplate at the front. The small side sheets at the front varied too. Some had the beading on top (supporting the top of the handrail) straight and others had it curved out. After an in depth trawl through what we know about the tender behind Morayshire, I revised my thoughts and I am now pretty sure that it isn't an ROD tender but a modified Pollitt/Parker type. Lots of early 4-4-0 and 0-6-0 tender locos were being withdrawn at the time the D49s were being built and I think they reused a tender from a withdrawn loco.

Lovely stuff Frank. Ken Hill and I once visited Roy and took a few locos along to try out. We put Ken's GEM Midland Compound on the "Boat Train". It has a genuine Triang X04 (in the body - no fancy tender drive), old Romford wheels, with mazak tyres one side and Triang gears, with the drive gear bushed to fit a 1/8th inch Romford axle. It was at the time Roy was struggling to get his B17 to pull the train. He was genuinely not very amused when the Compound romped away with it! Why Roy struggled so much was a mystery to me. He was quite capable of building good hauling locos but he just had a blind spot with that train. It was always lack of adhesion rather than power that was the problem. He even used some "Bullfrog Snot" on the loco driving wheels, which created a sort of traction tyre. That enabled his B17 to pull the train but it was always a less than ideal fix as it reduced the pick ups and the loco didn't run as smoothly.

It is pretty much really the same reason. When a worm gear drive loco is started or stopped, the motor shaft can be pulled hard against the bearings fore and aft. The bearings on the motors used in Portescaps were not man enough for the task but the bevel gears took away the loadings on the bearings when a loco started or stopped. So the bevel gears minimised the fore and aft movement of the motor shaft within the bearings. The motors now sold by High Level Models have beefed up bearings to take the extra end thrust associated with a worm drive.

That is why Chris (High Level) has introduced his range of coreless motors. He has had them made to his own specification with improved bearings, especially so they can be used on a worm drive. It also explains why the Portescap motor and gears used a bevel gear rather than a worm and wheel. It is not only more efficient mechanically but it puts different loadings onto the motor bearings. So your words of warning are well founded. I have also known people who used the motor from a Portescap with a worm drive and they worked superbly well, just not for very long before they failed.

I think your memory may have let you down on this occasion! The L1 had 5ft 2ins wheels, correct for a K4. 6ft 8ins is more your Gresley Pacific size.

It was a "grand day" as they say around these parts. One of the biggest benefits I get from having Buckingham is days like yesterday. I have had all sorts of wonderful visitors from all over the world, who I probably wouldn't have ever got to meet if the layout wasn't here. You weren't counting well though..... There are 69 levers at Buckingham and I may issue a written test on what each lever does later! I am not sure quite when we came back from the pub but if we started running trains between 2.00 and 2.30 then we were operating for about 3 hours, maybe a bit longer. It is like a time machine in that it really did seem like about an hour. That is the magic of Buckingham. Best wishes and thanks for taking the time and trouble to come and see the old trainset. Tony

Both Crispin and Stephen Denny still have an interest in model railways. Stephen has just finished rebuilding the old "TVLR" garden railway in his garage and garden. Crispin had built an N gauge layout a while ago. During our time exhibiting Leighton Buzzard, there were several occasions when they both came along as operators and that included at Railex. Watching the layout being operated by Crispin and Stephen was quite special to me. It was lovely to have them along and I think they were quite touched by the number of people who were telling them how much Peter had influenced their own modelling. I think they were a bit taken aback at just how much people still remembered and appreciated all that he did. I get to operate Buckingham whenever I like and I usually have a couple of friends round once a week for a good operating session. It is still quite magical to me after running it for around 12 years now. I am such a lucky sod to have it!

Thanks Tony. Most interesting. It almost gives them more of a Gresley like appearance. Not a look ET would have been going for, I am sure. I can see why it is, on those doors with the hinges too close together to fit the plate but a couple of those illustrated have the wider spaced straps with room for the number plate under it. There must be a story behind why some were different.

Did many B1s run with the numberplate above the top hinge strap? It is a variety that I don't think I have seen before. It just looks a little odd to my eyes.

I was honoured to be part of the St Enodoc UK tour 2023 today. The official photographer recorded the visit, which included a couple of other familiar faces. It was a most enjoyable afternoon and a great reminder to me as to why I enjoy this wonderful hobby so much. Please consider yourselves welcome for another session on Buckingham any time. Tony

I see it often in the hobby. I have had some good friends who were some of the worst offenders. Malcolm Crawley would often look at a decent OO layout and say that it was a pity it wasn't done to finer standards and you must remember some of Roy's comments on P4! Your own comments suggest that as P4 modellers don't build "proper" layouts with "proper" locos that pull long trains really fast (as happens on your layout) that they still haven't really proved themselves. You also keep going on about P4 layouts not running well, when I have seen plenty that do. Perhaps you are looking at the wrong ones. I could find plenty of OO and EM layouts that don't run well too if I try. I have no figures to back me up on this, so I will put it out there for discussion. What percentage of modellers in OO model pacifics doing 100mph on 12 carriage trains? What percentage of EM modellers do? When you look at how many larger P4 layouts there are, compared to the number of P4 modellers, I am not sure that there is any lack of larger layouts. By the time we have Kings Cross, Grantham, Preston, Tring/Euston (New Zealand) Mostyn, Southwark Bridge, Adavoyle and no doubt others, there are big layouts around. The extended London Road was not exactly a small layout although the period meant smaller locos and shorter trains. As I said, I have seen a Gresley pacific with 12 on doing a scale 100mph on a P4 layout. So it has been proved that it can be done. Do lots of P4 modellers want to do that? No, they tend to have other, perhaps more interesting tastes. I had the opportunity to visit Southwark Bridge a couple of years ago. It had a huge range of locos and stock, all in full pre-grouping glorious liveries. From memory, the trains were up to around 8 bogie carriages long, quite appropriate for full length trains of the period and it had a wonderful station approach with lots of complex trackwork. P4 modellers tend to be the sort of people who like making things and many like to go their own way and not do what everybody else does. So perhaps that explains the small number of 1957/58 ECML P4 projects. Yet we have London Road, Southwark Bridge, Dewsbury and Semley

I am aware of a P4 layout that is of the ECML, has pacifics that belt along at high speeds on long trains and runs superbly. It is pretty much a private layout, being built "off the grid", although at least one loco that runs on it (maybe more), appeared in MRJ a while ago. I have also seen photos of some LMS steam locos with outside cylinders and valve gear pulling scale length trains on Preston. There are probably others like that. Not all modellers feel the need to put what they do in the magazines or on the internet and are happy modelling for their own enjoyment. Large P4 layouts tend to be home based and not for exhibiting and they tend to be the sort of projects that develop slowly with a great deal of care and precision. I think that many P4 modellers accept that their layout will take them longer than the equivalent in OO or EM and so don't try to be quite so ambitious in terms of size and complexity. It doesn't make P4 better or worse than EM or OO. It is just that people set out to achieve different objectives. It is the difference between building something the closest to the real thing that you can or building something that has greater compromises to make it more easily achievable. All this "My version of modelling is better than yours because........." is just pathetic to me.

That contains an interesting snippet of information. I have discussed elsewhere the practice of the GCR painting the interiors of their tenders "red lead" on black locos. Some folk disagreed and reckoned that it was unlikely. Yet here is a record of the NER and another company in Scotland doing just that.

That is a shame. The market is probably fairly limited and it probably isn't worth their while reducing the artwork and producing castings for 4mm scale. Ace kits can be a bit hit and miss. I have heard that some are quite good and others very challenging. Have you considered scratchbuilding one? I have built a few more obscure locos from scratch and it isn't that difficult and I find it highly rewarding. If you can use a soldering iron and a piercing saw, the world is your oyster.

That is yet another variation. Repainted into LNER Green but still carrying the GCR numberplate and the C suffix, rather than the 5438 number she would have ended up with.

As is often the case, I spotted a couple of details that I had overlooked, namely bending the guard irons and adding some bolts where they meet the frames and also I decided to add the cable/conduit for the electric lights as it shows up as being fairly obvious in photos. She has now had a coat of Halfords "Acid 8" primer on the body (I forgot to prime the cab roof, which is loose to allow the cab fittings to be painted and stuck in, that will be done later). .

Which is why my modelling is set in and around 1907! At least in 1923, there was still a big variety of liveries from many different companies, including some in full livery and some in wartime economy colours. By 1948 by far the vast majority of steam locos were black, very often plain black. Nobody can argue that there was a greater choice of liveries in 1948 compared to 1923. In 1923/4. a GCR loco might be in full GCR livery, simplified wartime livery, hybrid livery with GCR colours and GCR number but lettered LNER, or LNER lettering and LNER number still with GCR lining and livery, or full LNER livery with L&NER or LNER. By 1948, nearly all the survivors were black, mostly plain black. The only change was the new lettering/crest and number. A few GCR locos were painted green after WW2 but it was a tiny number.

I agree and it surprises me that the RTR locos sold in very early BR livery tend to not sell very well and that there are not very many layouts set in the 1948/9 period. Perhaps it is that the railways were pretty run down at that time , not having recovered from WW2. Many photos from that time depict things to be pretty grimy. Not a problem for the modeller who likes weathering!

Indeed but back in the day, they didn't have "photoshop" and fakes were generally quite crude and easy to spot. I have seen enough models in dodgy/fictional liveries to not worry too much about it nowadays. If somebody wants to model a loco based on a "faked" photo then good luck to them. We often model "might have happened" locations, so why not "might have happened" liveries? I am really just saying that if you want to model lots of locos with various and unusual liveries, then 1923/4 is a good time to portray.

That sort of period is a very interesting one as far as LNER liveries goes. That F1 illustrated above is almost certainly still in GCR Green, as it has full GCR style lining. It still has the GCR number on the brass plate and on the tank side. Note the caption describes it as 5594, which is the number allocated by the LNER (adding 5000 to GCR numbers). The B6 is similar too. LNER lettering applied to a GCR liveried loco, still carrying the GCR number. Such liveries may have only been carried for very short periods of time in some instances but if you are modelling 1923, you can have all sorts of rarities. Other companies were in similar situations and there are lots of examples of hybrid liveries on the LMS too. The GWR had little immediate change as the locos kept the same numbers and the company name remained although there may have been some odd liveries amongst the smaller absorbed companies. There must have been lots of hybrid liveries on the Southern but it isn't an area that I have studied.

It says "Airbus" on the side but I am pretty sure it isn't one of those!

It is one of my favourite layouts too. It won't probably appeal to fans of "urban grot" and those who like their model railways mucky and who like to model dull unattractive scenes. For those of us who like to see our railways at their best, with our rose tinted vision, it is a superb example. I can spend ages just taking in all the fine modelling, the design and presentation, which are up there with the very best. It is the sort of layout that can make the difference between me travelling to see a show or not bothering. York is a fixture in my diary anyway but I will look forward to a repeat viewing.

Well, apart from the couplings and windscreen wipers, which will be added after painting and glazing, I think I have run out of jobs on the 04. I have made up some under footplate "gubbins" from brass rod, angle and wire. They are done from the photo of 11111, so I can't guarantee 100% accuracy but they look OK. I am quite pleased with the way she has turned out. A test run on a friend's O gauge model of Framlingham was carried out on Sunday and she can haul the 15 wagon branch goods with no problems, so I may not add any more weight. Thanks for all the help and information. Tony