AlfaZagato

Honestly, it does only seem to be the UK and the US that tried to keep axle counts to a minimum. Need we discuss the Soviet 4-14-4 again?

Yeah, the corners aren't 'soft' enough. Window arcs need to be much more prominent.

Which sprays are you using? Black looks a bit like Citadel Chaos Black, which is ass.

Which can't be had for nearly twice the list.

I should get my preorder in at Kernow for the Sudrian one.

These are looking very good.

Could envision something like a Yorkshire boiler, or two parallel boilers. Maintenance on two boilers would be a pain, but two 3.5' boilers I'd wager could make plenty of steam for huge cylinders. The high-pressure water-tube boilers might have worked in a Brunelian gauge, too.

Would the UK loading gauge have increased with a wider track gauge, though? Brunelian gauge notwithstanding, y'all didn't do much to stretch the space available from the 1850s. If 5ft had been adapted in place of 4'8.5", would the existing UK loading be the nominal 3.5" wider, too?

Honestly, I was meaning to type inside-framed. In contrast to actuality, which saw them outside-framed.

Experience has also shown that, where narrow gauge was built in Great Britain, gauging around 2 feet was entirely suitable for the traffic encountered. As a note, though, my understanding for the loading gauge on the Lynton & Barnstable was based on the contractors using a 3-foot gauge for the work train. I pose that could have resulted in, at least, the Manning-Wardle locos being 3ft gauge outside frame.

Since Ireland was mentioned, what might have been the next step from the GSR 800 class? The few 800s were already built to the max width of the Irish broad gauge. Understandably, there wasn't much demand for the 800s when they outshopped. Still, could an Irish 'Pacific' been the next move?

You probably have. Given the supplier, they probably are fine with it. Probably happy.

For your sake, I hope your building is more competent than Zenigata.

Probably tricky to cast or mold, too. Also, there would be immediate complaints that they're too regular or repetitive.

I could see the railway worker's unions taking issue with automatic couplers. Probably under some claim that the work loses meaning. Gives the railway a reason to pay the union boys less.

Looks very nice. I'm surprised at how square the windows are. Is that prototypical for Thompson stock? I'm not well versed on LNER designs.

The pound is screwing you over, too. I show $38 to the USA

Wheels were probably only replaced if necessary. As much as wagons were the lifeblood of a railway, railways seemed reluctant to truly invest in them.

Always great to hear a company man chime in.

Two other problems with Garratts in the UK were interference from the companies ordering them. LNER's U1 had six cylinders at Gresley's insistence. Compounded, too. Offhand, I'm not aware of any locomotive that was able to reliably feed six cylinders to any great effect, the U1 included. Basically restricted to banking, as it was built for. The LMS Garratts were infamously fitted with then-standard LMS axleboxes, with woefully insufficient bearing surfaces. Worse, this was never corrected, even when the issue was identified. Trains being tendered to the Garratts were also normally unfitted, leading to issues with controlling trains of such length on some of the hills on the LMS mainlines.

Very quick math shows just under a 15-ton axle loading with two added axles to make a Hudson/Baltic. That, of course, doesn't account for the weight of extended frames, bunker, water, or the new trailing bogie itself. Is it known how much a GWR bogie weighs?

Back to imaginary locomotives. An idea I know we've covered before, with no point other than it sounded neat. A King-class Mountain tank. Call it the Queen class. Maybe for heavy London expresses?

Still is in the US. Our railway unions had some sort of trick deal going, though. I've been told tales of five crew on a double, killing a case to a man on a 8-hour shift.

Yeah, that was, what the 1880's, at least?

We had a thread for that. It died after circular notions about how SWB PO wagons were the bane of operating existence. You English needed to slap your coal industry in the face and tell them to line up 30 years earlier than you did.