Devo63

2120 & 2140 (2021 class 0-6-0ST/PT) and 517 class 0-4-2T's 533 & 833 were fitted with the overall body cladding in about 1906. It tended to collect a fair amount of ash deposits which were hard to clean out so didn't last very long. Also the cabs were reported to get very hot and uncomfortable to work in and they were converted back from 1911 onwards.

Dave R, 

A couple of years ago I picked up a couple of sets of plates for my "Watford" tanks from London Road Models. It may pay to drop them an email and see if they have anything suitable for the coal tank as they have a kit for these in their range. From memory they were priced at £2.50 per set.

Dave R.

The "Craftsmanship/Clever" button does not give full justice to the quality of these models!

I have been using shellac on and off since the 1970's for both card models and for sealing wood for sanding and finishing. I've successfully used it on the old style BSL wooden roofs to assist in preparation for painting and on thin balsa sheets used to construct coach and wagon bodies. I think I first used it after reading my father's ERG card models book when I was nine. I found that once a piece of card had been coated with shellac on both sides you could easily be sanded with very fine sandpapers. I would sometimes emboss plank lines and rivets on the cards when the shellac was dry then give them another coat before painting.

Dave R.   

We had 25 PM's in the first 106 years, then 5 since 2010..  On those rates we will all get a go at some point.

I'll need to skip my allocated term as PM as I have no intention of cancelling my British (dual Australian) citizenship.

As I've posted before there is an unmade K's Dean 0-6-0 outside frame for sale in California. It hasn't sold in four months, not surprising at $199!

 

Anyway my question is, did K's do an inside frame Class 2301 Dean Goods, and is this Class 2361 just the same kit with outside frames? Apparently the Class 2361 had a different boiler and longer wheelbase.

Hi Jeff,

The K's 2361 is the same kit as the regular Dean Goods just with the added outside frames and extended axles. These were produced in the days when "near enough is good enough" for modellers starved of variety without having to create all new tooling. The 2361's had wheel spacings of 7'9"+ 8'0" for a total of 15'9" while the 2301's were 7'3" + 8'3" for a total of 15'6".

Dave R.

I've only just noticed this thread today (don't know how I missed it!) having recently used a set of the Peter's Spares replacement parts on a Mainline pannier tank. The hardest part of the operation was, as mentioned above, to get the wheels correctly quartered. I took my time with this continuously checking the alignment before pressing the stub axles firmly into place and then checking the back to back measurements. The chassis ran perfectly for the first time in years when placed on the test track. All was done in about 15 minutes. My only problem after that was that I had misplaced the body fixing /  coupling screws after removing the chassis and had to search through 40 years of accumulated screws and fixings to find suitable replacements. I think it is about time to have another sweep of the railway room carpet with an extra strong magnet.

Dave R 

So that would be the same as Nile's London & Mid Western Railway then!

 

Add to that the fact that it is also identical to the Furness...

That's about the sum of it. I was looking for a livery which was a contrast from the other South Wales companies. The scheme for the coaches is as outlined above. The goods stock (mainly old Triang, Lima, Mainline etc.) is a mid grey with all ironwork in black, dark grey or white rooves and a large white G R identification mark. I have two brake vans which are painted in vastly different finishes. One is similar to the rest of the freight stock but with the lower end panels painted a pale red. The other is in a paler blue with a white roof. I haven't decided yet which of these is in the final finish. The locomotives are painted in a shade similar to LNER Garter Blue with black & white lining - the passenger engines have red wheels and the freight locos black. I'm currently hacking up a Bachmann 'Emily' into a 2-2-2 to head up my coaches. It has a GWR Dean stack, 517 class dome, Ross Pop safety valves and a modified cab and I'm thinking about using a spare Triang B12 tender. It does look a bit like the outcome of a midnight encounter by a Dean Single and a LNWR Problem class. I'm planning on naming it 'Castell Coch' but haven't yet decided whether to commision etched plates or to have a painted name similar to LBSC locos.

Hmmmmm, well having slept on the matter (until 11am, which I think is my body shouting at me that I need to get more sleep!), I'm coming around more and more to the idea of "off-the-peg" coaches. This may or may not be due to my (relatively small) freelance company, the rolling stock designers of which seem to have been trained on the GWR, looking at my clerestory stock! (I'm justifying the use of the Tri-ang clerestory stock as it's not *quite* any GWR design, and at 46'6" is a nice short length), but which in its earlier days (as the Linton and Bagshot Railway, and the Guildford and Surrey Railway) would most likely have bought in stock from builders. I imagine the bogie stock is mostly used for the prestige London-Linton services, while 4- and 6-wheel coaches would be more likely for shorter distance trips.

 

DSC_1287.JPG

 

The main question is which builder's off-the-peg coaches should I do, which would be determined by popularity and, more importantly, availability of drawings!

The paint scheme on that clerestory is identical to my fictional Glamorgan Railway except that I use Ratio Midland suburbans in that livery. I have also done "cut & shut" jobs using pairs of the Hornby four wheelers to make short six compartment bogie coaches as a bit of variety and a couple of shortened Triang clerestories as four wheelers (with the clerestory removed) painted plain blue for workers trains.    

All this discussion about the eyesight of the members of this parish have led me to the opinion that CA (or the immediate environs) require the services of a Doctor of Optometry. I have it on good authority that Dr Ignatius Cuthbert Spotts is currently seeking a rural placement and would consider any approaches to this end favourably.

So here is my old style History Theory essay question

Wellington famously described Waterloo as "a devilish close run thing" - Discuss.

This all comes down to the time when Wellington was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. On leaving Apsley House one morning he told his driver to quickly take him to the station. In error he was dropped off at Waterloo. The dash from Waterloo to London Bridge Station was "a devilish close run thing" but he still made his train for Dover. 

A little vignette I've always wanted to reproduce on my 4mm scale layout was one I saw either on a 7mm scale exhibition display or in a magazine. If it was a mag I've never been able to find it since. It must be between 20 and 30 years since I saw it but it has alway stuck in my mind.

The scene was set up in front of the town hall with the mayor and aldermen in their official attire, a small gathering of onlookers and representatives of the local press. The focus of the gathering were two cars parked at the kerb. One was a brand new Morris Minor van, with a well dressed (new looking overalls) man, labled "Council Health Controller". The other vehicle was a scuffy little Austin 7 with hand painted signs front and rear saying "Rat Catcher". The driver standing next to this was equally as scruffy as the car, had a couple of fox terriers at his feet and was painted with quite a sour look on his face.  

Thanks, I'll look out for this.  My father's collection of RMs stops just short of Beeching, so I have no copies for the period between then and my own 1970s collection. 

My collection of RMs goes the other way. I have volumes 1* & 2 ('49-'51) bound which my father brought out to Australia when he emigrated in 1954. He left his 1952 - 1954 issues with his parents to bring out with them later that year but for some reason they left them in Cardiff. He did not start buying them again regularly until the end of 1960. We did have bound volumes from 1961 to 1976 + 1979 but '64-'65 and '72-'73 were lent to someone and never returned. I have since managed to get hold of replacements for those years but have not, as yet, had them bound. I also need to get '77 & '78 and 1980 to 2004 bound when I can afford to do so. One thing I'm planning to do before getting any of them to the book binders is to scan any drawings I may require in the future. As this facility was not available back when my father had the older copies bound he photocopied all of CJF's drawing of Great Western locos - most of those copies still survive and have come in handy at times. I would love to be able to get hold of the years 1952 to 1960 to make a nice complete run but most of those are very hard to find these days. Even when you find affordable copies the postage to Australia ends up being the deal breaker.

I also have bound copies of MRC for '65, '68, '69 & '70.

* I have extra copies of issues 1, 2 & 3 from vol 1. Don't know where they came from. 

I had an old Superquick shop built up (may still have it somewhere) labelled "Rene Pogel - Importer of French Wines & Spirits". My mother had looked at the model for about twenty years before she finally worked out the name and declared "That's disgusting!". She still went away laughing. 

The plan for Lovatt Eames is from the November 1966 Railway Modeller. Unfortunately the way the volume is bound I can't get the lower half of the page scanned.

It would have looked quite colourful at the time. The livery is described as: "Dark brown and lined in gold; chimney top, vermilion. The fillet between the smoke-box and boiler, the boiler bands, firebox bands, polished metal presumably brass. The cylinder end-covers similarly. Cylinders, smoke-box headlamp appeared to be black, whilst the valve chests remained the same colours as the loco. The illustrations upon the sides of the tender depicted the Eames Works, whilst the large circular plate on the smoke-box announced the fact that the loco emerged from the Philadelphia works as the 5000th locomotive."

The article states that the loco was shipped to the UK in 1881 and re-erected in the L&YR works. It was fitted with L&Y headlamps and the main lamp was moved to brackets in front of the smoke-box. The cab was reprofiled (I've seen a photo of the loco before leaving the US with a more usual squared off cab shape) and extension pieces were fitted to the buffers to clear the pilot. The driver sat in the almost totally enclosed cab with the fireman exposed on the rear as on Camelback types.

On the subject of US locos in Britain, how about someone making this magnificent beast. It was demonstrated on the L&Y and GNR from 1881 - 1884. 

In the early days of the South Australian Railways they even rebuilt a couple of US built locos into a more British style. 

The elegant lines and the clean outlines of British-designed locomotives do set them apart from practice elsewhere. 

 

Is the native design tradition especially beautiful, or am I merely conditioned to think so?

Before the big American inspired locomotives were built for South Australia we had some local designs which were very British in appearance. Three of these F class "Dolly" tanks have been preserved but only one has been returned to steam since retirement. Last I heard it was sitting in storage requiring new tyres for the driving wheels.

BTW the first US style 4-8-2, 2-8-2 and 4-6-2 were built in the UK by Armstrong-Whitworth

This thread reminded me that I had one of the M&L Star body kits in my stash so I pulled it out to have a look at it. Most of the castings are fairly neat but a close examination of the two boiler halves show a lot of surface pitting. Also when putting them together I notice that the left hand side is about 1 mm shorter than the right. When the boiler bands are lined up in the centre the band on the firebox is out of alignment and there is 1/2 mm difference front and rear. I'm assuming that these castings may have been made when the molds were getting towards the end of their lives.

The listing in post 17 of the ex M&L kits in the Gibson range shows that they made quite a few kits at the time. Can anyone list the full range including the time expired kits? Also does anyone remember who made the white metal kits of the Scott Atlantics and Lady series Saints and what became of that range?

Dave R.  

I thought I'd revive this thread with a few drawings.

A bit of background to the sketches - these were done by my father while working as a sherriff's officer in the Adelaide Magistrates Court (after being a police officer for close to forty years). When things were quiet he would draw various things such as motor vehicles, ships, buildings and especially trains. Most of the drawings were given to a couple of the Magistrates with one of them covering the walls of his office with them. Unfortunately my father didn't keep copies of a lot of the drawings and most of what we still have are some of his more fanciful renderings. He is now 82 years old but still occasionally draws new pictures but his hands are a bit shaky these days.

Dave R.  

My bet is that Hornby have seen the success of RTR O gauge by the likes of Dapol and Heljan etc, and are going to jump on the band wagon. They have dusted off the drawings from the archives and will be re-introducing the Big-Big Train in time for Christmas (no year specified).

Dave R.

Press Release:

Jones, Evans and Sprong of Rhiwbina and the Cayman Islands, the official receivers of the Glamorgan Railway (1834) Inc. have voted in favour of the proposal. After beating her partners into submission Dame Euphonia Sprong stated that more young females should be encouraged to take up such important senior positions.  

Works out at £262. Not cheap... but not as expensive as some HO models.

I picked up my set for £49.95 (plus postage to Oz) on Ebay. Listed as a non-runner but a quick clean and service had it up and running within half an hour of delivery.

Dave

My pal, Nick Gillman has exhibited such a layout at several exhibitions using commercial products - the various Bachmann locos, the old K's kit for the 0-4-2 "Lion", the Trix "De Adler"  Piko "Saxonia" the "Triang "Rocket", K's Mataro coaches, Smallbrook chaldrons and a modified 4 wheel version of "Lion".  Preiser figures and the old Triang rubber buildings plus a few whitemetal kits for vehicles. 

This list of locos (& the Mataro coaches) matches my collection almost exactly. I also run Bachmann's 'Prussia' & 'John Bull' but missed out on getting the 'Lafayette' model when it was released. I'm planning on assembling a few more of the Mataro models and fit some form of power bogie into the 2nd class kits to push some of my other small models around. I use a lot of the Kitmaster/Airfix/Dapol 'Rocket' kit for conversions including a 'Northumbrian' type called 'Vulcan' as the first engine acquired by my fictional Glamorgan Railway. I'm currently working on a model of a 'Planet' type and thinking about making some form of early 0-4-0 to add to the collection.

Dave R. 

I would have thought that a little Manning Wardle might have a name like 'Cheery Littlebottom'.

Dave R.