Compound2632

O dear that's dangerously close to being highly relevant to our current political situation - better ease off before the Mods move in on us. Better still, divert their attention with a few more home-made explosions...

There's a fundamental reason why internals are a no-go on Slater's MR opens as will be revealed in due course...

Very kind of you. Now, if anyone's modelling post-Great War and wants LNWR lettering without diamonds, I might be able to help you out...

North Western round-up – or Earlestown rodeo? The imminent arrival of Aston shed’s Coal Tank No. 1054 has got me back on track with my small fleet of LNWR wagons, half-a-dozen of which have finally emerged from the paint shop. First, the D53 four-plank 8 ton coal wagon, converted from the Ratio D54 five-plank 10 ton wagon, along with the D4 four-plank 7 ton open, the latter directly from the Ratio kit: The two D3 two-plank dropside wagons – on the left, my second attempt with correct square-ended headstocks and cranked brake lever: The D12 timber wagon and the D2 two-plank wagon with scratchbuilt sides and ends, started last July: These close-ups show some wonky tare weights and one or two numberplates that need a bit more bedding down – Microsol? I need to crack on with the D16 brake van! I still have material for another ten more LNW wagons! First up should be three Mousa Models resin kits, as previously advertised: D1, D2 and D32.The hold-up here is getting the top off my bottle of Roket Max thick cyanoacrylate… There’s a D1 single-plank wagon already assembled from parts of the Ratio 575 kit that yielded the D2 two-plank wagon with scratchbuilt body and the two D3 dropside wagons featured above – this D1 is intended to be fully sheeted over, hiding the bodywork (such as it is) but I’ve not sourced a suitable sheet yet. I picked up another Ratio Permanent Way set from a local second-hand model and militaria shop for just £8 – that’s £2 per wagon including wheels an bearings! It must be a very early example as it’s numbered 755 rather than 575 (see posts #123 and #130) and comes with lengths of bullhead rail as load for the bolster wagons rather than the plastic moulded girder sections in the current kit. Also, what I’m sure I’ve not seen before, two sets of Pressfix transfers rather than the usual waterslide transfers – but identical in layout and content. These have already been pressed into service for numberplates and the “TONS COAL WAGON” on the D53 – the “8” along with the diamonds came from the HMRS Pressfix sheet. My plan for this kit is to build a dumb-buffered D13 twin timber wagon pair (is that two wagons or one?) to join my D12 singleton. The D12 used the longer solebars; the D13 pair will use one pair of long solebars for the dumb-buffered end and one pair of short solebars for the inner ends, which have conventional headstocks. The wagon body (such as it is) is asymmetrical about the centre-line of the wheelbase and bolster: This will leave solebars for one 15’6” wagon and one 16’0” wagon but sides and ends for two 16’0” D62 ballast wagons (or more conversions to D3 dropside wagons). I’m mulling a plan to modify one set of sides and ends as another way of making a 15’6” D2 wagon. Finally, I’ve been making up for my recent lack of modelling time by indulging in the dangerously compulsive game of ebay bidding, which has resulted in a stockpile of Slater’s MR wagon kits. (I intend to re-assert my credentials as a Midland modeller!) However, I couldn’t resist Ratio kit 753 – another D54 5-plank coal wagon (to be converted to D53) and a D64 4-plank loco coal wagon, which takes me back to where I started this excursion into Ratio LNWR wagon kits back in post #123.

You're pushing the boundaries there... The curtain wall BLOCKS the view.

By mail to the address on the website?

The French enceinte is in this sense roughly equivalent to the obsolete English sense of confined as pregnant and therefore not let out of the house. The enceinte wall is thus the outer wall of the castle, confining the occupants.

Years ago I bought some excellent 4mm scale MR wagon sheets at an exhibition. The maker, Thomas Petith of Cardiff, still has a website www.wagonsheets.co.uk/ but I've had no response to email - does anyone know if he's still trading? I confess I've not yet tried good-fashioned post.

The Teutonics were apparently superb engines for their intended task - Jeanie Deans was a "show" engine like the Jumbo "Charles Dickens" - rostered to the same high-profile express day-in-day-out. I'd have though a Jumbo would be a much more likely RTR proposition - a class surviving well into the grouping era and represented by "Hardwicke" at the NRM.

Exquisite excreta! Your method certainly does the job...

I'll be looking forward to a detailed description... How did you do the straw, btw?

How had the Colonel come to have abducted a Midland Railway Stores Sleepers wagon? Maybe not so light a railway after all but a cunning Derby plan to push a finger deeper into the Great Eastern's pie?

Great minds think alike once again - it dawned on me last week that this is the way forward for my Huntley & Palmers 6-plank wagons so have a couple on the way!

Elegance is of course in the eye of the beholder. The outlines and proportions of Johnson's engines seem to me to be particularly harmonious; as far as I'm aware there's no evidence that they were unsatisfactory for the work they were designed to do. What I will say in favour of Crewe is that I have yet to see a photo of any locomotive in LNWR lined livery (call it BR mixed traffic livery if you will) where that livery looked out of place.

Well, that's hardly like-for-like - Deeley-fied Compound v. George V would be more reasonable. My post that started off this little round of comment on Midland engines was rather specifically comparing Johnson's engines with Webb's - i.e. up to 1903, before the heyday of double-heading on either line, brought on by increasing passenger train weight per passenger with the proliferation of corridor carriages and dining cars. Size: the characteristic Webb 0-6-0 / 2-4-0 wheelbase was 7'3" + 8'3" as against 8'0" + 8'6" on the Midland - both inherited from their predecessors, Ramsbottom and Kirtley. More elegant: well, that's in the eye of the beholder. I'll admit that Webb's engines have a certain appeal - the Teutonics especially for me - but not the harmonious artistry of a slim-boilered Johnson 4-4-0. The Belpaires and the Smith-Johnson compounds in their original form moved on to a new plane of big-engine elegance where the Precursors were just big Jumbos. Better engineered: the dubious features of Webb's engines in general have been overshadowed by the arguments surrounding the compounds - Whale, who as running superintendent knew all about these had had his work cut out to sort them out. Johnson was at the fore-front of technical development as an early adopter of piston valves and, of course, collaborating with his friend W M Smith to produce an effective compound locomotive.

Hum - we both got "funny" from The Stationmaster - I can't think why. You don't suppose he has some other railway in mind? As to double heading on the LNWR...

No, the true Midland enthusiast's justification for having a LNWR engine on hand is to have a reminder of just how much larger, more elegant and better engineered Johnson's engines were than Webb's...

In other words, classification fails because each Peckett is a class unto itself - with the occasional exception where a firm bought two or more in one go (consecutive works nos.) like H&P C and D.

On the other hand, sometimes the enthusiasts' taxonomy (note sp.) can get rather complicated: http://penrhos.me.uk/LewisClassification.shtml. Possibly the reason this hasn't been done for Pecketts is that each individual loco would end up with its own code!

What Budgie is looking for is an enthusiasts' taxonomy - has anyone in the IRS or elsewhere categorised the variants within each Peckett class? We forget that many of the classifications we use were invented by enthusiasts - the classic case being the three 'periods' of LMS coach design, introduced by Essery & Jenkinson.

You had to post the second photo to prove the first was actually of your model and not the prototype!

I have to apologise for quoting lead (II) chromate. I've looked up Midland Style by George Dow and R.E. Lacy (HMRS, 1975), p.47: "Finials and posts were painted lemon chrome (sometimes called banana yellow) which the effect of smoke, dirt and atmospheric action changed to a warmer light Cotswold hue. For about four feet from the ground, however, the bases of posts were painted a chocolate colour known as Venetian red and this was also used for the levers, weights, rods, rod guides, cranks, lamp staging, hand rails, brackets and ladders. Lamp cases were black." (The signalbox colours are also lemon chrome and venetian red.) Lemon chrome is a paler yellow than chrome yellow; the pigment is barium chromate. I have to admit that having seen this followed to the letter on e.g. Bob Essery's S7 layout, the effect can be rather overpowering...

How yellow is a banana after exposure to a late 19th/early 20th century industrial atmosphere? The colour is officially chrome yellow, a pigment based on lead (II) chromate, which supposedly darkens on exposure to sunlight. How it reacted with the toxic mix of an industrial atmosphere requires more research (see various discussions about red lead, lead grey, and Great Western wagon colours elsewhere on here). One thing is certain: your ground frame should be the same shade of yellow as your signal posts, as these were also chrome yellow. I do like the ballast wagons.

Slow progress but in response to that Bachmann RCH 1923 standard 12 ton 7-plank wagon masquerading as a Gloucester Carriage & Wagon 10 ton 6-plank wagon of 1907, here's Huntley & Palmers wagon No.6, one of a batch of five built by the Birmingham Wagon Co. in 1889: More details on my wagon-building thread. Thanks again to wagonman for the prototype info.

It’s about six weeks since I last updated this thread – pressure of non-modelling activities I’m afraid. However, it’s become timely to post progress on the Huntley & Palmer wagon fleet – even though what progress there has been was several weeks ago. Sunny conditions today finally encouraged me to take a photo: Huntley & Palmers wagon No. 6, one of a batch of five built by the Birmingham Wagon Co. in 1889. Construction was detailed in my last post. Paintwork is Halfords red primer with a well-thinned wash of Precision LSWR purple brown – a very old tin; I’ve no idea why I’ve got it. But purple brown is the description of the colour of the Gloucester-built wagon No. 21 of 1907. Ironwork is Humbrol matt black, applied using a small brush and a steady hand but also before the purple brown – it’s easier to get a good straight edge by painting up to the raised ironwork. This being an iron-framed wagon, the solebars are black too. As noted above, I suspect the end pillars ought to be T-angle iron rather than timber… Transfers are POWSides – designed to replicate the diagonal lettering of No. 21. I’ve rearranged the letters, cutting out each letter of HUNTLEY & PALMERS individually to get the right spacing! The L of LTD is cut down from the same height as the main lettering, so looks a bit chunky – I’ll come back to this next time the purple-brown is out to see if I can touch it up. The wagon was sprayed with Humbrol gloss varnish before lettering and Humbrol matt varnish after. There’s some transfer film still visible – not so noticeable in the flesh. Buffer heads are 12” diameter from 51L and need a bit of toning down. I believe I need to add an oval Birmingham Wagon Co builders plate at the right-hand end of the bottom plank, as in this photo. I’m still planning further Huntley & Palmer wagons from the other batches. I have a plan for the dumb-buffered 1873 batch, using another Cambrian kit C74 and modified Gloucester underframe. From wagonman’s information, I had assumed that the 1903 batch of ten steel-framed wagons from the Birmingham Wagon Co were literally ‘same again’ – i.e. four planks, raised ends, but this photo from the Huntley & Palmers collection clearly shows a couple of 6-plank steel-framed wagons, the nearer one having an oval plate on the right-hand end of the second plank – the arrangement of the lettering is clear too, but alas the number is out of sight at the left-hand end. So now I need to track down at least two of the former Slaters kit 4035 for the Gloucester 6-plank side-door only wagon – one for a wagon from the 1907 Gloucester batch and another as the basis for conversion to one of these 1903 Birmingham wagons. The only ones I’ve seen on ebay were pre-printed kits (distressing to repaint!) which went for more than I was prepared to pay. Thanks once again to wagonman for providing the info on builders and dates for the Huntley & Palmers wagon fleet.