Edwardian

Ah, brought to the screens of British children as Hector's House. Toutou always makes me think of the RN gunboats, Mimi & Toutou, named by the frankly odd Lt-Cmdr Spicer-Simson, and sent to sink the Kaiser's battleships on Lake Tanganyika, events that inspired C. S. Forester's 1935 novel, The African Queen.

Kikki will set you free...

Yes, I went onto the Kernow site just to double check my re-order was there, and in the list of orders was my original pre-order of 2020, and these will have been a decade in the making. It's nothing short of thrilling to think that we shall have these very soon.

Yes, the houthis, bless their little jihadi socks, may well be of some actual use here. Fortunately, they have not managed to intercept the Kernow GW steam railmotors, due chez Kernow today I believe.

Yes, indeed, though the decision in this case was based upon the fact that the Oak Hill Works Fletcher Jennings body was designed to fit the Hornby chassis, which it does perfectly (once a bit's sawn off). While I daresay it would probably fit over the Rails/Dapol chassis, there would probably be filling, packing and creating new fixing points etc, which is the kind of unnecessary faff I am too lazy and not perverse enough to contemplate. While I don't love Hornby's hex nut crank pins, most of my issues are with the Hornby Terrier body. The only other poor feature of the Hornby Terrier chassis is the clunky guard irons to the wrong shape, but this is not such a factor when the chassis is not being used as a Terrier's chassis. In other words there is no real need to prefer the Dapol chassis for the conversion. Nevertheless, I fear Hornby will continue make Terriers faster than I can buy them for chassis!

I note the following on Kernow's project page: Project update – 11th January 2024 We are pleased to advise that the large quantity of GWR Steam Railmotors will be fully with us this Friday (12th). We will undertake all the necessary inspections and checks and aim to start sending customer orders, in payment date order, from Monday 15th January. Obviously with such a large number of orders to process some customers will receive theirs before others, so please be patient, we will get to everyone's order as soon as we can! Please note that the Sound Fitted versions are being fitted and tested with the decoder in our own workshop facility, so these versions will take a little longer to onward despatch.

It must be a symptom of something or other that this topic was halfway down page 2 and has seen no activity since November! Once upon a time we were more excited when small industrial locos hove into view. Perhaps it's that lately Dapol has presented us with an embarras des richesses. Dapol's website, so far as I can telI, last updated us on the Hawthorn Leslies in July last year, at which point it said "We expect these models to be in shops Q4 2023", so clearly that is out of date. I had these on pre-order with Hattons, the retailler at the point of demise was still showing them as due this month. Obviously I've re-ordered them now, but am curious as to whether anyone knows when they're due. Please understand I'm simply trying to plan my budget here, and I'm not expressing impatience! It may be that they are already on a slow boat from China. Perhaps the houthis, bless their little jihadi socks, have sent them the long way round. Does anyone happen to know? EDIT: Ahem, I may have answered my own question: Rails is showing "Expected Delivery Q2 2024"

I easgerly anticipate these. On pre-order with a retailer, they continued to be shown as due January 2024, however, Accurascale's website states they are at the decoration stage currently and due for release in Q2 this year. On that basis I imagine we will see decorated samples break cover sooner rather than later. But que sera and all that.

Well, there's a real place not that far from me called Neville's Cross. No one knows what happened to upset him so. Tarring, possibly.

I was recently in a position to compare a Hornby Terrier directly with the Rails/Dapol treatment of the same prototype. The pictures may be of interest.

Both run absolutely fine out of the box, so no concerns there. Neither is run in, however. The Hornby chassis is new and the Rails/Dapol has been in a box all this time. I can give them both a good run over the weekend and report. To make it a fair comparison, I'll put the Hornby body back on!

Now, in a break from our usual service, Aching Productions presents A Tale of Two Terriers. One can only ever require one Terrier in a given SE&CR livery, as there was only one, SE&CR No.751, acquired for use for goods on the Isle of Sheppey LR. It should become clear from what follows why I have a preference for the Rails version. In terms of the WNR, both these models have relevance. The WNR acquired a Terrier and the Rails SE&CR version (A1 condition, no condensing pipes, vac-fitted) is intended to be the model to bear WNR livery (although I plan to purchase a further model for this, because I am keeping the Rails model to represent 751). For WNR purposes, I am only interested in the chassis of the Hornby model; the Hornby A1 chassis (the one with the wooden brake blocks) is required for the Oak Hill Works Fletcher Jennings Class J, previously featured here. The Hornby model is by no means poor, so it seems a bit harsh to treat it just as a donor, but I believe the Rails model is better for any A1 condition Terrier, so I am never really going to need a Hornby model to represent a Terrier. Let's have a closer look. Rails/Dapol is on the left, Hornby on the right. Going front to rear: Buffers Rails has correctly lined buffer shanks. Hornby omits this. A minor point, but there is a more significant problem in that Hornby fails to understand the construction of the prototype. The Terrier's wooden headstock has raised segmented circles to take the buffers. That gives the appearance of the buffers being counter-sunk or overlapping the running plate. Actually its the buffer casting bolted to the front of a raised curved headstock. Hornby has both the casting and its wooden support proud of the face of the headstock. On the subject of bolts, or rivets, the heads were ground down and filled at this period on Terriers, so Hornby is wrong in showing the rivet heads on the buffer castings. Buffer beam A point to Hornby here for the better livery interpretation. SE&CR practice, as seen on Wainwright locos, was to have a black square around the drawbar, the yellow lining going round it. Though the square is not black, Hornby do line round the drawbar. I absolutely could not persuade the Dapol designer to include this even though he could give no evidence of 751 veing treated differently from the norm! A point to Rails/Dapol, however, in painting the base of the buffers black, also SE&CR practice. The cosmetic drawbar hook is more refined on the Rails model. Smokebox Check this in a side view, but Dapol used an etched part for the wing plates, so it is far closer to scale thickness than Hornby's plastic part. The lubricators on the face are a more prototypical shape, based on the examples I've seen, on the Rails models. The smokebox door hinges and straps are, I suggest, a better representation on the Rails model. Terminal fittings on the smopkebox top have been correctly picked out in brass on the Rails model. Boiler Nice to see the feed pipes in copper on the Rails. The rivets on the centreline of Hornby's boiler top may be a preservation or late condition feature, but are a fiction by Hornby for A1 condition. I prefer the dome shape on the Rails version, and one can see that the arms of the Salter spring balance valves are the correct shape, and not shown as polished brass, on the Rails model. Hornby's golden sticks aren't what these components looked like. The washout plugs on the top of the Hornby firebox may be a preservation or late condition feature, but are a fiction by Hornby for A1 condition. I think Rails' copper chimney top is the better of the two. Tank tops I prefer the look of the Rails fittings here. On a livery point, there is a riveted strip next to the boiler. This is in fact the boiler cladding bent out and rivetted to the top of the tank. As such, and confirmed on Boxhill, it's painted in the same colour as the boiler. Rails understood this and painted it green. Hornby treatrd it as part of the tank top and painted it black. The major mistake by Hornby again proceeds from a failure to understand the way the protoype was constructed. The tank sides on a Terrier are, in fact, cladding panels, hence the 8 prominent bolt heads that secure them. This cladding curves over the top of the tank . Thanks to my failure to dust the Rails model, one can see where the cladding ends and we drop down to the tank top. The Hornby tank tops are flush. This is wrong. The give away is that, if the lip of the cladding is correctly done, there are little curved cut outs to accommodate the base of the tank top fittings. Cab front sheet Lots of redundant holes for fittings on the Hornby model, because its clearly only tooled for the one cab front. Cab roof Here Hornby gets a significant point. It's a nuanced point, but I think Hornby captures the complex curve of the roof better than Rails. However, the rivets are a bit too aggressively overscale in appearance. The Rails ones look better. At the rear we have further problems. Here Hornby to the left, Rails on the right. Backsheet and bunker Working top to bottom, Hornby's cab backsheet is completely wrong. With the double horizontal row of rivets, we see a very late in the day BR condition, where perished back sheets were replaced. Rails show the correct arrangement, with a raised vertical butt plate where the two halves of the original cab sheet met. Rails correctly show the lamp iron on the lip of the bunker. Hornby's is a later variant, I guess repositioned there when coal rails began to be fitted. Tool box This is the biggy and one of the main reasons why I cannot contemplate using the Hornby Terrier. Hornby do a short box. This is a later box. It crops up on the preserved Boxhill. In Brighton days the box was a different profile and longer (it overlapped the IEG lining border). Buffers etc as per the front. The cab interiors are also worth a look. Rails has only the controls that were present in Brighton A1 days. Hornby give you everything crammed into a Terrier cab up to withdrawal by BR. We also glimpse here the quite nasty continuous glazing bar Hornby uses. It's the same for the rear spectacles, where no instruments distract from its clunkiness. Other points Both manufacturers give us the late condition Westinghouse pump fittings, but Hornby gets a point for having a stab at lining theirs. One important point to Hornby is they had a go at lining the wheels, but you really need the Rails model for correct spoke profile, balance weights etc. See the front view below. Rails (on the left) give us etched guard irons to the correct shape and lined (!). Hornby (on the right), a bit cack to be honest.

Yes, that is the construction line I had in mind.

Returning to Flat Holm, it seems that you are quite right in recalling it had a military NG line. As in the case of of Steep Holm, this seems to have been a product of the Second World War: A narrow-gauge railway used diesel locomotives and wagons to transport ammunition, materials and provisions across the island. One website claims the railway was of "of World War I German construction", and there was a reference to the Steep Holm line using WW1 rails, so one might suppose these were the spoils of the previous war. Anyway, the fortifications on Flat Holm, including its rather splendid disappearing guns, are a product of the spate in coastal defence spending promoted by a revanchist French Second Empire from 1859. A lot of forts were built, particualrly on England's south coast and are known as Palmerston Forts, as Pam was the PM at the time. Other outcomes of the Gallic threat were the rifle volunteer movement, which has featured in this topic in the past, and HMS Warrior and the ironclads. Now, when the 6mm gauge Busch Feldbahn system came out, I spent a lot of time researching and planning a sort of capriccio layout, riffing on the battery architecture of such 1860s forts. It was to be called "Fort Palmerston" and set sometime later in the 1880s. The conclusion I came to is that in reallty the forts did not have loco-hauled railways, though Kevin's Irish example may prove otherwise. Some were served by such during construction, while some had rails laid so that the men copuld more easily push ammunition carts from magazines to batteries. My plan, though, was to imagine that my "Fort Palmerston" had such a railway, and, with a certain reliance on Woolwich Arsenal's NG system, a little 18" gauge micro layout could result. One day I will build it. My point is one could certainly imagine such a "might have been" Victorian NG line to serve the batteries on Flat Holm, as Phil has proposed.

Yes, Reed has it down as black, and it strionglky resembles that late livery, but, really, who knows!

Alterum in quo: . Not the most likely looking candidate for any (non-funicular) railway! Yet: Steep Holm Military Railway, 1' 11 1/2" - located on Steep Holm Island in the Bristol Channel off Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. Built 1941, closed late 1944, to install and service anti aircraft and naval guns on the island. No locos though: Rails fixed to metal sleepers rumoured to have been stored from WW1, a cable operated inclined railway 2/3 mile long in three separate sections, following an existing zig zag walking path and rising to a height of about 256 feet (78m) above sea level. Gradient 1 in 2/3. Each section had a reversing station with points and a diesel equipped winch house Can one imagine a Victorian precurser? A steam operated inclined plane?

Yes, I think the lettered livery came in before the next Terrier arrived. Not quite. No.11 managed to get photographed in A1 form at Newport in what is apparently the lined black "I.W.C." livery with number on the bunker, yet has an unextended bunker (with blanked coal rails) and the Stroudley copper-capped chimney. It is reproduced in MJE Reed's book, who estimates the date at c.1915. Thus it seems that the black livery was adopted around this time and in No.11's case, the company did not wait until the fitting of the A1X boiler in 1918. It seems likely that the Wheeler and Hurst Chimney and extended bunker come at that point, but this would seem to have been a re-paint of the lined black livery.

The locus in quo:

Great idea in every way. Comme ça!

Thanks, Brian. No clarification required. I was just musing on the fact that at least one manufacturer has been known 'to boldly go' forward regardless of whether someone's else IP is being used without authority!

Which is more than our bloody dogs seem to be able to manage

Problem, what problem?

Let's hope so, otherwise, see you on the other side...

Yes, No.9in red with the garter surrounding the number 9 is my favourite. It may have only looked thus for 2-3 years, but it would be my choice. I suspect No.9 retained its wooden brake blocks at least until overhaul in 1911, by which time it would certainly be wearing the red livery with the ISLE OF WIGHT CENTRAL RAILWAY tank lettering. Another option is No.11 in A1 form, as pictured in the new black-lined "I.W.C." livery (c.1915?), but still with the original copper-capped chimney and un-extended bunker, and with blanked coal rails. All that is do-able with the Hornby tooling.