Compound2632

Going by its number, the engine on the left is intended to represent an "Improved Cleator Tank" - the last stage in the series of Furness Railway 0-6-2T tank engines, one of a pair built by Kitson in 1914. For all the evident crudity, it does look something like, though the shape of the cab cut-out is a bit off.

At least Airfix made / Dapol make their LMS corridor coaches in both 57' and 60' lengths, unlike the exquisite Hornby coaches which are all 57' - so no composites or brake composites, at least of the Period II and III styles. So with the Comet sides there's plenty of scope for ringing the changes, though the steel roofs are only appropriate for Period III coaches. The Airfix / Dapol lavatory non-corridor coaches are Period II designs, with only 25 built to each design - so a much rarer coach in reality than on model railways! However, the fully-panelled Period I versions were a bit more numerous - 145 composites and 248 brake thirds. The challenge for the LMS period modeller is that, with their late 20s build dates, the Period I coaches could well have retained the Midland-style fully lined livery up to and through the war (in common with the majority of wood-bodied stock). With their wood and canvas roofs, these models are good for conversion to other 57' Period I and II coaches. Is there any evidence that Stanier himself was directly involved with coach design? The so called Stanier coaches, or Period III as Essery & Jenkinson termed them, seem to stand in a steady line of evolution from the late Midland and LNWR designs.

I think those were, on the whole, a post-grouping innovation. Someone will pop up now with a rural Great Eastern example from the 1880s...

Which one are you referring to? In either case, the person(s) in receipt of the cheque(s) has/have done an exquisite bit of modelling. (Same goes for those long Great Western thingies but they do look just a little garish.) It's modelling of the highest standard that is what one goes to MRJ for, irrespective of whether one can achieve such standards oneself or indeed afford to pay for them! What I did like about the T&D article was the casual mention that many of the components and stock had been built over forty years ago, even though the diorama itself is more recent - there's hope there!

I've exchanged PMs with Ian - my memory is at fault: the L&Y Dia 5 coal wagon is not his; he agrees that it is probably early Cambrian. The NBR brake van was originally tooled by Pete Westwater as a "Westykit"; Ian adapted it for mass-production and it did then pass to Colin Ashby - Ian explains that he passed his wagon kits on as demand for his coach kits was taking up all his production time. Ian also explained that the outside-framed Great Western Mink was originally intended as a grounded body kit but he was persuaded to supply some as complete kits despite his GW underframe being too modern. All this history is a little academic but I do feel its right to be able to give the credit to the true originators of these kits. Alas I do not have the early Cambrian Midland gunpowder van. Was this the early D384 or later D385 design? The latter were more numerous (as such things go - 15 vs. 60,000!) but being built in 1904 are on the limit of my target date range.

Harold Hairbrush and Halfacanute surely?

The lack of good jokes about time travel is sufficient proof that it won't ever be invented.

Yes, in the long term there's plenty of Great Western stuff... But to be fair, there are always techniques that are transferable to other regions.

Subscription copy arrived here too - but GWR-heavy for my tastes but there are a couple of nice photos of 2-6-4Ts - one of which is based on a Hornby product, in addition to the GWR brake van. LNWR Wagons Vol. 3 "coming soon" which has become a bit of a leitmotif...

I'm still looking for a definitive account of this. Which coalfields produced the best coal for which purpose? For instance, where did the best coal for gas production come from? I realise the question is complicated by individual coalfields or even collieries producing a variety grades of coal. Where is "Coal and how to burn it?"

We use a squeezy horn that once adorned my younger son's tricycle, sounded three times. Highly effective.

Interesting. Actually I've a very distinct recollection of it being in packaging branded Ian Kirk when I bought it (not Colin Ashby) - but that was thirty-five years ago - I have good reason to believe I built it before the summer of 1983 - and I've no way of proving its provenance. Did Cambrian inherit some of Ian's kits?

I thought that was the Triang M7?

If the layout is operated as if the locking is there, then it as good as is. One sees exhibition layouts where the locking is clearly defective.

I'm not sure that really works! If you were only going to post it, your trip to the future wouldn't tell you whether it was liked. Better, or at least more logical: I posted a joke about time travel but none of you liked it, so I've deleted my post...

They didn't just complain: they did the necessary leg-work to change the culture.

I'm sure there's at least one mirror involved here - to say nothing of smoke...

As a Midland modeller, with vast published resources to hand courtesy of members of the LMS Society and Midland Railway Society, backed up by the primary archive material held by the Midland Railway Study Centre, I'm sometimes shocked by how little material there seems to be on the Great Western prior to c. 1900. The situation is almost as good for a number of other companies that have active line societies: the LNWR, L&Y, Caledonian and Great Northern and indeed North Eastern. I'm sure entusiasts for other lines will be quick to point to the material available to support their interests.

And equally, for the 1921 Cowlairs 6-wheeled van, it might be a case of doing a special job in the "old style" for the sake of the photo. In the book, the latest date on a crescent is 24, one on a mineral wagon on hire to James Nimmo & Co, Slamannan - this also has the quaterfoil mark but one axlebox has N. B. RY cast on its front and the other LNE-B; the other on a Dia. 97 iron ore wagon - not by any means a full repaint; the only new paint appears to be the crescent itself! I suppose it's really "date of overhaul".

Railway room? Tidy?

In terms of wheelbase and wheel diameter, that's the same as the 1532 Class built from 1881 onwards (per the Bachmann model); the 6 Class of 1875 had a shorter bogie (5'0") though at the same centre, as did the 1252 Class of 1875/6, though these had 5'7" drivers. So the Avonside engines represent an intermediate stage in the evolution of the Johnson 0-4-4T; evidently sufficiently different (tank height? boiler pitch?) not to be a possible variant of the Bachmann model. Your official photo of No. 10 shows an intermediate "Deeley-fied" condition which, thankfully, the Midland engines were spared - a truly hideous chimney! Well, I think Great Western modellers are not guilty this time - but only on account of that company not having many 0-4-4Ts! I rather had in mind the threads on Hornby's SE&CR Class H and the TMC/Bachmann NER Class O 0-4-4Ts - the latter of which I'm guilty of having contributed to.

Isn't it interesting how little froth the Bachmann 1P 0-4-4T has generated compared to other RTR models of engines of this wheel arrangement? Just goes to show what sober, dignified and patient folk we Midland/LMR enthusiasts are.

Ian, thank you for this, and for reminding us that for many kit & bits manufacturers, what you do is as much a hobby as what we modellers do once we've got our hands on the kit. Reading some threads, ii seems to me that too many people expect one-person manufacturers to operate in the same way as Hornby or Bachmann! Now Eric Hutchinson was writing only three decades or so after Cowlairs last turned a van out in NBR livery; we're now twice as long again after he wrote. It is with some temerity therefore that I, as quite an ignoramus on matters North British, suggest his notes require some interpretation in the light of the photos in the John Hooper book. Firstly, the "medium grey" described as "much lighter than the lead colour" - I wonder what lead colour he was comparing with? The photos of newly painted vehicles in the Hooper book (wagons in general, not just brakes) give the impression of a rather dark grey - certainly much darker than the "lead" colour used by the Midland. For example, the photos of Dia. 88 6-wheel brake No. 601 on p.65 and of Dia. 70 brake No. 580 on p. 66. Certainly the Precision Paints NBR Freight Wagon Grey P679 is a dark grey - if you look back in this thread, you'll see I've been using it for LNWR wagons, for which it is perhaps too dark; the photos of your own builds of your kits on your website seem to me to be this same dark grey. "All ironwork, black" - except after 1914. It seems to me that black ironwork appears randomly on new or newly painted vehicles, irrespective of date. For example, of the two brakes just mentioned, No. 580, photographed in new in 1905, only has ironwork below solebar level painted black, whereas No. 601, with a 1914 paint-date crescent, has solebar ironwork and handrails painted black. Those prominent paint-date crescents enable NBR wagon photos to be dated much more reliably than many photos of other companies' stock; looking at other types of wagon in the Hooper book, one quickly realises that many of the photos were taken in 1923 - there must have been a semi-official campaign to record the old livery before new instructions were handed down from south of the border! Most of these don't have black ironwork; however, there are quite a few photos of newly built wagons with 1921 paint dates, that do have the black ironwork! (Several, but not all, of these are new from Hurst Nelson). On the other hand, there are examples of new mineral wagons with '96 and '06 paint dates that don't have the black ironwork; admittedly, both these appear to be Pickering official photos. However, there's also a photo of a new Cowlairs '04 6-wheel van without black ironwork, followed by a '21-built example with black ironwork. So as far as I can see there's no very hard-and-fast rule! "Duck-egg green": this begs the question, were the insides of the verandahs counted as inside or outside? In the photo mentioned of brake No. 580, the verandah door is open and one can see some detail of the interior partition. This seems to me to be painted a dark colour; the natural inference is that it is body colour. I would suggest that duck-egg green was used for the interior of the full-enclosed central section of the van - this would accord with other companies' practice. A light colour would be desirable where there wasn't much light getting in from outside. In both the brake van photos I've mentioned, red ends etc. are entirely credible - they look darker than the sides and the buffer guides in particular look "black", as one would expect with orthochromic photographic emulsion. Any other North British experts out there willing to comment? The Hooper book states the NBR wagon stock at grouping as 58,970, the fifth largest fleet after the North Eastern, Midland, Great Western and London & North Western - I think that's supposed to be in order of size, though does the L&NW total include the L&Y fleet? Even in pre-pooling days, a good few must have made their way onto the Midland system via Carlisle, so I ought to be able to justify the odd one in the Birmingham area c. 1903. Though this brake van is completely off-piste!

Yes, I've tried making that resolve too...

Which is indeed the direction Bill Bedford (Mousa) has taken.