richard i

i can confidently say yes with over three thousand miles of water between us.

Chicken

Look at the size of coupling rod holes as they might bind on the crank pins at certain stages of the rotation.Richard

The states are fine, there is a lot of discussion of the change of president. I avoid it by claiming as a foreigner I shouldn't have an opinion on it. I continue to work through the list of models I need to do the GCR through the ages. I have to kit or scratch build all the pregrouping stuff so I just brought city of Nottingham from Hornby to save time. This years work is to complete a full and an empty private owner coal train and to build carriages. Thankfully GCR trains were about 5 coaches long

ok will do, only did it to keep the comment with the image it is about. Richard

Here is my fight wih the crosti 5. I have to disagree i think it has a certain presence about it, much as the standard 2-8-2 also does richard

I think you can see the extra 3mm in the valve gear , it might benefit from shorter rods to bring them parallel . I hope you can see which rod I mean near the top and the union link(?)Richard

Great to see them, but i am sure there were other members of the class which are crying out to be modelled

You can pm him on here and very politely ask him if he would make you a set. He has been a true Gent in all my dealings with him, and he does not know me from Adam. Richard

True, and not true. Station masters wives did work along side them. But crossing keepers were given quite often to railway widows as a way of keeping them going after husband been killed. Nice to see a bit of corporate responsibility going on. Wojtczak has over 400 examples of female crossing keepers on the system in 1913.

All the above observations have some truth to them. The very good book "railway women" by Helena wojtczak is a good read and shows women as porters and crossing keepers as far back as the 1840s there were even a couple of navvies and signal women in pre ww1 days. However it is true that most were in catering or administration.

Where is the single chimney from please, or did you hack back a GBL one?

GCR had 417 women on the books in 1914 rising to 5395 by 1918 which did not entirely drop back to prewar numbers as 3633 were still employed in 1919 Lnwr had 2123 prewar and 9154 during war as a comparison. By 1916 they were 7% of the railway workforce Pre war there were approximately 13046 traceable women working on the railways out of a total work force of 625559. So women made up 2.08% of the workforce. Got to be honest got to be slightly chuffed that my top of the head guesstimate was 2%. So if you have 50 railway workers one should be a woman. Pre war. If showing ww1 then approximately 25% were women! This dropped to about 15 to 20 % post war. So rising to 1 in 4 or 5 figures on the layout doing railway jobs. For the GCR that included signal women fitters, cleaners on shed. At the very least I feel a figure being converted to acknowledge this aspect of the railways. Richard

Like the idea and the standard of modeling. Most impressed. One question though. As narrow firebox locos would the streamlining have looked different at the back end?

How about modeling in black and white to make a model that feels right?

Probiblly true but not necessarily. The gcr work force was 2% female prior to 1914 if the numbers I have in my head are right, I will check and edit if not. Richard

I have to agree about liveries The modern image whilst nice Is not quite as nice as earlier colour schemes. I suppose it all depends on perspective. Richard

To prove it has not totally strayed from pre grouping, i have been trying to teach myself phot colourisation. It is so i can give myself a flavour of what the real thing really looked like. Both interestingly of the same scene but different angles The first i am less happy with the second more happy with this one Interestingly it shows a woman working on the railways....can i prompt Andrew stadden to model one so that my model can reflect the truth that women worked on the railways? Richard

This all hinges on: There is a niche in the market but is there a market in the niche? That is the simple economic judgement producers have to make. If we as modellers believe there is but producers do not then we can crowd source funding. If there is a genuine market, enough will subscribe. I model pre grouping so am pretty certain this epitaph applies to most models I would like rtr but have to accept will be kit built by me. Richard

A1 finished Just need to weather it. A light soot dusting as it has been prepared to run the master cutler. The train is already ready. Thank heavens that is the lining done. Especially the thin red line. (No Crimea references please) And now for something different. Making a start on the coal wagons. Richard

But then I have to do the lining on it, and the amount I have sworn at lining out the A1 for my lner era master cutler has put me off lining for a while, hence my projects for the year require few transfers and even less lining. Richard

You are just goading me, well I do have a spare pacific chassis and Robinson cab and tender, just need the cylinders and cross head.You are not helping me stay on task

The GWR steam rail motor? Is the valve gear still the stumbling block?

More transfers Finishing the milk van, or as far as I will go. I am delighted that quanton road models do still sell the r&e transfers but mine seem to come off a letter at a time so lining up " fruit and milk van on the side did take a fair amount of patience. The A1 is progressing but it is the red lining left which I find does not hold its shape and breaks so I need to take it slowly.....for my own sanity. As it is now 2017 the three jobs I intend to do do this year are. 1. Work through all the coal wagons to bring all the detail up to spec. 7 down 40 to go. 2. Complete all the half made kits kindly given me to help the project get of the ground by Clive. 3. Make coaching stock...I say that every year and I so far have two carriages made, so we will see. That's if I don't get distracted by the idea of making the proposed Robinson pacific or more wagons. Richard

It would make sense as the cross country route due to the connection at banbury.