MartinTrucks

My two SR 3-packs which I ordered on 28th. Feb arrived in good order via DPD this morning.  Very pleased with them. 

The question now is........ what has happened to the two different 3-packs that I ordered in October last year?  🙂

Martin

Sorry to be repetitive, but I too am shocked and saddened by the announcement.  I have used Hattons over the past 35 years and have found their website photos of stock really useful when making choices. They even maintained the archive pages which proved equally as useful when buying used stuff on ebay.

I started my OO DCC and sound experience with them and found their customer service excellent for advice.  Their Youtube channel must have provided so much help to both established and fledgling railway modellers.

Although I have spent far more with RoS than Hattons over the past few years  (despite a large order of Rapido wagons when Hattons had some of them ''on sale' last year), I think that the former has a lot of work to do to equal what we are losing with the demise of Hattons.

I can only wish the best for the future to the Hatton family and their employees.

Regards,

Martin

8 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Sorry, my mistake, came out in 1995 so nearly thirty years!

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/directory/versiondetails/6120/hornby_oo_3_plank_open

 

I haven't got one of the TT versions to measure.

 

Can someone confirm they are actually wrong, or are we listening to uneducated guesses from those on YouTube and other social media?

 

 

Jason

All you have to do, Jason, is look at the photo in Hornby's latest TT:120 magazine!  It is on a steel underframe - LOL!

BTW, keep your insults to yourself.

Martin

4 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

You do realise that Hornby have had an accurate 9 foot wheelbase PO Wagon chassis in their range for about twenty years!

 

https://uk.Hornby.com/products/3-plank-wagon-po-era-3-r60156

 

 

Jason

20 years? I will take your word for it!

So why have they persisted with rescaling the foobie to TT:120?

Hornby TT:120 MINERAL WAGONS

If I was a lot younger, I would certainly be tempted to switch to TT:120 and I commend Hornby for being brave enough to introduce the scale to the UK prototype market.

Alas, the proposed range of wagons saddened me when I saw their apology for a coal wagon!  Hornby Dublo were the first culprits, producing a wooden style body to fit their 17'6", 10' wheelbase standard steel underframe. Trix perpetuated this, as did Airfix/GMR. and Palitoy/Mainline/Bachmann (33-xxx series). Bachmann have remedied their error, but not Hornby, having inherited some of the old Airfix tooling. Now the enthusiast is being offered a TT:120 version of Hornby's foobie! Hopefully, Peco's forthcoming (correct 16'6") version will knock the spots off Hornby's. 

Martin

4 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

How were the floorboards on a D1892 wagon retained? The ends show under the side sheeting with no curb rail to keep most of them from working their way out sideways.  Surely fixing to a steel underframe wasn't an option?

Not sure why you consider bolting to a steel underframe not to be an option?

As built, the D1892 vehicles had most of the boards bolted through the solebars. Those in the door area were possibly bolted through the curb rail.  In BR days, some of the floorboards were retained by bolting steel strips to the bottom sideboards to retain the ends of the floor boards. Those floorboards in the door area still had to be bolted down.

I have attached a photo of a BRCW-built. originally vacuum fitted D1892 which is ex-Port of Bristol Authority but illustrates the BR practice of using steel sheets to retain the floorboards. Sadly, this wagon was deemed beyond economic repair and has been broken up.

Regards,

Martin

39 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:

If you look to the bottom of the page you will see that it is a conventional 5 pole can motor.Not a coreless .

Which page?

Martin

2 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Steam-hauled passenger trains on subsurface lines ceased in September 1905. (Steam and electric locos were changed at Paddington thereafter.)

 

Thanks.

Martin

2 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

 

The GWR was joint owner with the Met from Paddington to Smithfield. London transport did not take the underground system over until the 1930's but the GWR retained their running rights.

 

The GWR jointly owned the 6 car Hammersmith and city units until they sold their half share to the Met at the 1923 grouping.

 

Mike Wiltshire

How far did the GWR passenger service run on the Met? - Moorgate, Liverpool Street, Aldgate?

Were the passenger trains hauled by steam all the way?

Thanks ,

Martin

As a matter of interest, what type of motor is the 16xx fitted with?

Thanks,

Martin

16xx Question

As a matter of interest, what type of motor is the 16xx fitted with?

Thanks,

Martin

49 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

Those Bluebell photos show both how difficult it is for conservationists to reproduce colour accurately - they have used the same colour for the BR PIPE behind, and the natural light altering the colour very markedly. 

 

The PIPEFIT is painted in Williamsons BR Freight BROWN, or a match thereto.

Martin

19 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

This:

 

 

[Embedded link to Bluebell Railway stock lists page.]

Or:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LMS_Banana_Van_570027.png

Martin

1 hour ago, Pre Grouping fan said:

 

I always thought LMS bauxite was similar in colour to what BR ended up using. That looks very similar, if not the same as SR brown to me?

The LMS Banana Van at Kingscote is in LMS bauxite.  Assuming they did what I advised them to, they prepared a 2 foot square plywood swatch using Precision paint, let it weather for a fortnight and then got a Brewers colour match for it.

When you next go to the NRM (or online within screen colour limitations) look at the colour of their LMS 3-plank.  LMS Bauxite (which is actually called 'bauxite') is more of a brown than a red oxide although it faded to a colour more akin to Indian Red (as used by the Santa Fe RR on their freightcars.

There is a fair amount of confusion over LMS bauxite as, IMHO, the old Humbrol never produced it in a tinlet, so modellers have nothing to use as a guide.

Whatever you do, DO NOT try to match it to anything on BS381C!!!!

Cheers,

Martin

7 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

And only a stone’s throw from where Graham Farish had their factory, long since a station car park. 

Please pardon my ignorance, but I always thought that GF was based at Holton Heath, Dorset. 

Best regards,

Martin

On 25/08/2023 at 19:34, Wickham Green too said:

Well, the Southern and Western vans had conspicuous diagonals from new ............ the LNER kept theirs hidden but you can often see an 'X' of bolts !

The other factor IMHO is that GW and SR designs had a steel cantrail. I cannot speak for LNE types as I have never dealt with them.  The LMS seemed to like to use a hardwood board the length of the vehicle to hold the body together with all the problems that produced.

Martin

45 minutes ago, RapidoCorbs said:

Pre-order your LOWMAC here for £39.95:

https://rapidotrains.co.uk/lner-lms-25t-machine-wagon/

 

 

This humble LOWMAC design dates back to the Great Central ‘MAC N’ 20t implement truck. With a few revisions to the original concept the LNER upgraded the design in 1938 into the diagram 143 ‘MAC NV’ wagon, this improved the wagon’s carry weight to 22 tonnes. Pressures of the wartime era evidently called for an even greater load weight, so prior to production another batch of improvements were carried out. The design was refined by replacing the 12in by 6in main longitudinal sections with 14 in by 6in equivalents, this increased the load to 25t, and thus created the diagram 173 ‘MAC PV’ we know today.

 

 

Shildon Wagon Works received its first order for diagram 173 ‘MAC PV’ Implement Trucks in 1943, and by 1944 production was complete. The first batch of 60 wagons rolled out just in time to assist with the heavy freight traffic that was heading to the South Coast in preparation for the liberation of Europe. 30 wagons went to the LMS and the LNER retained 30 for themselves, however, in the last year of the war, and first year of peacetime, the LNER ordered a further two batches of 25, taking the Shildon built quota up to 110 vehicles.     

 

The 173 ‘MAC PV’ Implement Trucks were reclassified as LOWMAC EP. Having proven successful throughout its working life under the Big 4, British Railways decided to build even more of them – giving them the diagram number 2/242 in their number system. Passing the contract to P & W Maclellan in 1950, a further 38 vehicles were produced. Incredibly, the LOWMAC continued serving Britain’s railways as an engineering vehicle way into the 00’s.

 

The Rapido Trains UK design of this long-serving wagon will be the most detailed version of the LOWMAC to date, featuring a combination of die-cast metal and injection moulded plastic construction, brass bearings, moulded lashing rings, and a rather nice optional load that represents a set of 4 replacement wheels and their carriers. These wheelsets will feature scale axles and are ideal for scenic use if not required as a load.

Eleven versions will be produced that cover liveries from the original 1944 design to its most modern engineering guise, and everything in between.

The LNER/LMS 25t Implement Truck is due Q2 of 2024. The model is currently in tooling and we hope to have samples shortly.

Very nice, but is this not the same prototype as the old Airfix/GMR/Hornby tooling?

I don't have my books to hand, but were the ones produced by or for the GWR to the same drawing?

Martin

Please pardon me for being thick, but does the 'twin cities' livery pre-date the shirtbutton?

Thanks,

Martin

Please pardon me if this sounds dumb, but I have just received my Rapido 925006, the GW O21 No. 73691 in small (wartime) lettering. In addition to the missing promised bag of bump plates, there is only one set of brakegear. Is this correct?  I assumed by the 1940s a second set of brakegear would have been fitted?

Best regards,

Martin

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

For now... Talking to the guys on the Rapido stand, I gathered that their thining is that this is a model that can run and run.

 

 

I'm not sure I'd see the one as more familiar than the other?

 

The change you mention was followed within a couple of years by the change to bauxite, in May 1936. I wonder how many D1666s would have been repainted in that period? They were built at a steady rate over the period 1923-1930. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that one believes that wagons were repainted on average once every seven years.* Then wagons built in the period 1927 to early 1929 might be repainted in the later shade of grey, roughly two-sevenths of the D1666 fleet, at most.

 

A much greater variation in the shade of grey would arise from the chemical weathering of the white lead-based grey paint used up to the change to zinc white.

 

*I don't, myself; I think it more likely that the first time most of these wagons saw fresh paint it would have been bauxite; I would not be surprised if many of them received the 1936-style lettering without a repaint. 

As you say, in excess of 15,000 of these wagons *might* have been repainted in the later LMS grey. However, just because there is not a photo of one (hardly surprising as most photos taken of wagons in that era are official ones) in Essery's LMS Wagons Vol.1, that does not mean that *none* of the 15,000 plus wagons were repainted either!

My original post was purely to remind those who may not know (and even though you and I know, there are many who do not) that there were two distinct LMS wagon greys.

Regards,

Martin

I assume that Rapido is/are aware that LMS grey changed in 1934 from a mid grey to the lighter bluey grey with which we are all familiar?

Regards,

Martin

Just now, Graham_Muz said:

 

They are on a ship at the moment and due during September.

Thanks, Graham.

Regards,

Martin

When are the Bachmann dancehalls due to arrive?  I am sure I have seen it in writing somewhere but cannot find it now.

Thanks,

Martin

4 hours ago, jafcreasey said:

 

If I've read this correctly, it's worth noting that 940009 No 30004 is 'as preserved' - as per @Graham_Muz's overview, it is modelled with freighter breaks, however the Bluebell Railway discovered that the original No 30004 was built with the Morton-type - as the PBA kept no record of the original numbers, a "suitable" number was chosen after purchase from Bristol in 1980...

 

I note that the Rapido model of Bluebell's 30004 will be fitted with disc wheels.  The wagon did come from the Port of Bristol Authority with 3-hole disc wheels but was retro-fitted with a more appropriate pair of LMS 1924-made open spoke wheelsets about 7 or 8 years ago.

Regards,

Martin

Does the Diagram 1400 tooling allow for both SECR and RCH axleboxes?  As built, the vehicles would have had SECR wheelsets and axleboxes but some vehicles acquired RCH type axleboxes (still with SECR wheels) later in life.

How does the Diagram 1400 body vary from the later Diag 1377 (SR new build) vehicle? I know the last 250 of Diag 1377 had Trader doors and the centre solebar bracket replaced by a gusset plate but the previous 750 appear identical, body-wise, with the Diag 1400.

Regards,

Martin