Methuselah

LOL - thanks Mikkel. I'm guessing that most will be OK if I constrain the gradient to 1:100.....but I need to dig out some more kit - which is all rather buried at the moment. All the locos will have to use the gradients - even the smaller Tenbury Branch locos....but of course, they won't be needing to pull a dozen bogie coaches or more. You may wonder at some of the oddball locos that will appear here, but the non GWR/LNWR-LMS are really just meant to run on the line out into the garden....that will also have a gradient, so the same potential for problems. I'm still trying to find my digital scales - and I've ordered a digital angle-finder too.

My next mini-test will probably to try and quantify what rolling-resistance value to attach to the various types of coaches. I'm ignoring the added resistance of curves, as I can make all the gradients straight.

2 hours ago, Silver Sidelines said:

Thanks Methuselah for the comments.  If Bachmann had offered a maroon livery coach at the start I may well have chosen to buy that one. However rereading my potted history above suggests that the coach was withdrawn in Decemeber 1954 so I am thinking to myself why was it painted in all over maroon - and when., since blood and custard would have been the standard coach livery up until 1956 or more.

 

As to your questions I am sorry but I know not the anwers.  I wrote the Post in 2018, so five or more years ago.  There will probably be more information on the web.  You might find that the LNER Coach association can help  https://www.lnerca.org/home/about-us/  They have a list of drawing sources.  They should have someone more knowledgeable than myself.

 

Regards  Ray

 

 

     Thank you Ray.

     Quoting from the history earlier in this thread ;- 

     'Designed and built by the North Eastern Railway, at the railway's York Carriage Works to diagram 10IA at a cost of £1500, the dynamometer car entered traffic in March 1906 in the NER's Crimson Lake livery with the running number 3591. The vehicle's first working was on the 6th March 1906 behind R class locomotive No. 2109.'

     I'm really focussed on the GWR & LNER, but I like to create set-piece trains from other pre-grouping companies too. The NER loco's seem to have been green - very much like the subsequent LNER livery. Frankly, I had no idea that the NER coaches were Crimson Lake....! A colour-change is no biggie, but the lining-out promises to be challenging. There is also a shortage of transfers available for some of the more obscure pre-grouping companies.

     Hopefully I can dig sufficient info' up.

I have ended-up with both versions of this coach. I'm considering converting the first version into the original NER configuration. Livery aside, the details to change seem to be the removal of the duckets and alterations to the bogies.

• What are the correct bogies - and where might they be obtained I wonder....?
• Is there any known information source for the coach as built.....drawings...........and livery....?

Any info' gratefully received.

Just a few details left to be added to Tenbury's eastern signal cabin..... The smaller western signal cabin left to do, then on to Eastham Court, before attacking Woofferton Junction. It feels like the project is starting to come to life at last....!

28 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

Thanks. I am familiar with Abe. I have just ordered a rather niche volume from them - Flying for Fun in the Southern Marches - £4.25 inc.p&p . My great uncle Percy was a gliding enthusiast in Herefordshire between the wars, having been a despatch rider with the RFC in Egypt, in the latter years of WW1. In the second world war he trained assault glider pilots. So I will be interested to see if he is mentioned.

The Archive is something I need to explore. So thanks for that.

Bromyard Downs....?

Most splendid Mikkel...!

1 hour ago, phil_sutters said:

I favour Dart castings for horses. The white metal makes them more - oh dear! - I was going to say stable. 

I've bought a selection of 4mm whitemetal figures. They are in period clothing and are quite nice. However......there is just something intangibly more real about 3D figures produced from whole-body scans. They just look spookily real. At the moment, these are still rather expensive. This may change, as a single dataset from a scan can be used to produce an infinite number of printed figures. Hopefully, the actual printing will get cheaper. I have a laser-scanner, but at some point, I can see I'm going to have to buy a printer. Thankfully, the printers get better and cheaper every year.

.....I think we need a ModelU horse in harness....!

Here is a very similar horse bus/carriage that was used to shuttle passengers between the Swan Hotel and the GWR station at Tenbury. I have no idea whether it was owned by the GWR or the hotel - or both. It famously plied this trade until I believe the 1920's. As can be seen in this image, it was also dressed-up for the annual carnival. These type of carriages alway look to me like truncated hearses....! 😊

Some of the few colour images that have survived of Tenbury.

     Thanks Mikkel. Yes - I love those chimneys too...! There wasn't much at Easton Court, but Woofferton Junction will be the biggest challenge. Whilst there is nothing left at Tenbury, apart from the Clee Hill Road bridge, at least at Woofferton, a lot still remains to examine for reference purposes, including the splendid signal cabin - which amazingly, remains in use.

     I'd have dearly loved to do this project in P4, but I've started too late in life. At least all the track on the scenic areas will be hand made Bullhead, albeit in 'OO'.

     The biggest change to my plans since my previous blog, is to dump the idea of open central operating areas. The biggest reason for this is simply that getting under a diorama in two areas - one of which will have track at several levels underneath, is too problematic. Added to that, my aged back is a factor sadly. Now, the plan is for a walkway on three sides, though, the central 'countryside' areas will be loose lightweight drop-in modules to lift-out for access when required, as it'll all be too wide to reach-over otherwise.

     The building/shed will basically have Woofferton down one side and Tenbury down the other, Woofferton takes-up 50', Tenbury quite a lot less. I'll have around 14' widthwise to play with.

     I'll blog again when the rest of the railway buildings are complete.

12 hours ago, meil said:

The question was: "I wonder what a Whirlwind might have been like with two Merlins?" and I gave an answer in relation to the Hornet which was powered by Merlins.

Like I said, the Merlins were too big and two heavy. The CG would have been buggered and the whole machine needing re-stressing - and with the available wing area, higher take-off and landing speeds, as well as, doubtless, a serious degradation in turn radius etc etc. The Hornet was a clean-sheet design, intended, from the outset for the special 2,000hp version of the Slimmed-down low-fat Merlin, each engine turning in opposite directions to counteract engine-torque.

23 minutes ago, toboldlygo said:

 

I suspect to get a Typhoon or Tempest V in the air - it may well be fitted with a Griffon or a Merlin (both of which will fit the air frames - I know Ian was mentioning that as an interim measure for his Typhoon). Though with modern design and engineering tweaks we might see a Sabre engined one fly.

The RR engines have been mooted as a stand-in for a long time - and there is much merit in that option to at least see a Typhoon in the air. As for regenerating the Sabre - the prognosis isn't great. A vast effort to get - probably at most three Typhoons into the air..... The Sabre is a pretty fiendish engine. I knew mechanics who'd worked on them in the war - and they found them a nightmare. Still - if money is no object....

On 10/06/2021 at 15:55, toboldlygo said:

 

I've had a number of conversations with Ian at Typhoon Legacy.

 

And there's a few other Tempest's on the go and I can remember seeing a pair of Tempest II's in the private hangar on the opposite side of Dunsfold Aerodrome that were recovered from Burma or India.

 

 

Kermit Weeks has possibly got more Sabre engines than anyone else of the planet. His Tempests II & V are being restored to airworthy standards - but for static display. ( I think he possibly has eight Sabres.).  Kermit has excellent resources and facilities - and is better positioned than probably anyone else to get a Sabre-engined Tempest into the air. One might argue that the FAA is perhaps a tad more adventurous than the UK's CAA. Even so - I wouldn't put money on his Tempest V flying.

On 10/06/2021 at 13:35, MPR said:

Typhoon projects

https://hawker-typhoon.com

 

https://www.typhoonlegacy.com

 

Tempest (nearly there)

https://www.scramble.nl/military-news/tempest-roll-out

 

and of course

https://www.whirlwindfighterproject.co.uk/brochure/

 

The Whirlwind is a strictly static build. The Tempest - being a Centaurus - is a bit more practical - but still a Herculean effort, and I very much look forwards to seeing it fly. The Typhoons.....well, it's fair to say that anything with a Sabre in it is in quite another league - rather an understatement..... I don't think ANY Sabre has even ground-run since the 1950's. There are few engines, very few spares - and nothing to compare with the infrastructure that sits behind, for example, the Merlin. No one alive was involved with the design, development or servicing of the Sabre. The Sabre was always a highly problematic engine, and the RAF got rid of them all  as soon as the war ended - for exactly that reason. Napiers only half-decent engine was the Lion - and that took them decades to get right. We may well get to see a Sabre-engined Typhoon ground run, but the odds are stacked very heavily against it flying.

On 10/06/2021 at 10:59, Fat Controller said:

Thanks for explaining that; presumably the thinner wing was the 'laminar flow' one?

I think so. I didn't realise how different - or how big they were until I stood under a (Non-airworthy.) Fury in Florida some years ago. (Even chunkier than the Fw190 - a beefy machine too.). They even re-engineered the Tempest's main u/c - presumably to fit into the thinner wing, so the apparent similarities actually belied what was really quite a different machine.

12 hours ago, meil said:

Well the DH hornet was basically a Look-a-like produced 4 years later, which was fitted with Merlins. That could do 475mph.

Nowt to do with the Whirlwind. The Hornet was a spin-off from the Mosquito - both superb machines.

12 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

The Typhoon was also troubled by its power plant at altitude, IIRC,  but came into its own at treetop height. I wonder what a Whirlwind might have been like with two Merlins? It would have been pretty nippy, I'd imagine, given the Peregine-engined one could manage 360 mph.

The Sabre was problematic at any height, and in the early days, the Typhoon's airframe also gave many problems - all very stressful for the MAP at the time. The Whirlwind's airframe was built around the Peregrine, which was a much smaller engine than the Merlin - so the Merlin was never an option, they were simply to big and heavy. All the time and effort went into developing the Merlins, so the Peregrine and the Whirlwind both withered on the vine. The Typhoon never made the grade as a fighter, because, quite apart from the problems with the Sabre's reliability, the Typhoon's wing was very thick. Great for strength and housing cannons, but it had a very low Critical Mach Number - a problem many other types of that period suffered from, such as the P38. The similar-looking Tempest had an entirely new, and much thinner wing, and was a much better machine that used the Sabre and the Centaurus. The Tempest was developed into Centaurus-powered the Fury and Sea Fury, both excellent machines, though the Centaurus was also not without it's problems.

     Hi Dave,

                       This is all new to me too, returning to railway modelling after over forty years. For what it's worth, I think the expensive chips and all the bells and whistles are over-kill for most people. I'd never be interested-enough to learn all the commands - and seriously - since when could one hear coal being shovelled from quarter of a mile away...? Naaah. Some compromises would be necessary - but one three cylinder Gresley Pacific sounds much like any other etc.

     I still see videos of locos with fancy chips in them - with a complete mis-match between the sound and the speed of the train. Chuffing, overrun and maybe a whistle is really all that's needed.

     You are right - I think we should have cheap chips and a little PC interface to set wheel size and number of cylinders and whistle type. Nothing more is really required.

ATB.

Ian commented;- This leads to the notion of a small country railway yard handling Cadbury traffic during pre-grouping times! 

Oddly enough, the famous Cadbury site at Bournville had it's very own private railway system - like a 1:1 train-set.....!

I worked on site as an outside contractor in the early 1970's. By that time, the internal railway system was mothballed, but as well as steam shunters still in the engine shed (I believe the locos have survived to this day.), there was a fascinating collection of very old covered and open wagons, almost all of which were already well over a century old even then. I presume they were sold off cheap by the railways. Sadly - I did not possess a camera in those days. These old wagons never left site even when in use, as there was also a canal transhipment dock called Waterside on the other side of the canal and LMS mainline;- (Originally the old single-line Birmingham West Suburban Railway, that terminated at Granville Street Station.). To access this canal dock, the Cadbury's shunters took the wagons up an incline and over a bridge which, I think still survives, then down another incline via a reversing headshunt.

The headshunt and the dock sites are now built-over with housing. I believe the wagons were all scrapped on site, but I always wondered if any of these most venerable vehicles made it into preservation.....

 This image, of the internal GW driveway ;-

- is taken from here, looking North West.

52°29'20.70"N    1°54'50.44"W This is the south eastern end of the whole site, SW of the Ickneild Street road tunnel.

     If you look at google Earth, the masonry/revetments there are original GW, and there is a short tunnel under still in-situ I believe. Flip into the older 1945 imagery, and you can see the curved revetment in both 1945 and modern images.

     The canopied loading-dock and driveway/road, between the building in this image can also be seen from the opposite direction here, both looking south-east. That's Pitsford Street to the right with all the parked cars, with Vyse Street crossing at the top of the hill;-

The gable-ended building behind the now demolished arc-roofed sheds can still b seen in Google Street View;- 

2 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

Also visible from the other side (through wire netting), where the roof ventilators can be seen

Well spotted...

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrhd719.htm

The Top Shed being rebuilt, showing the entrances to the Wagon Hoist up to Hockley Port canal wharf.

The structure for the hoist mechanism sat over the shafts;-

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrhd720.htm

.....the building is still there on the left with a white roof, as it that wall next to the road.

Wow - his stuff is amazing..... Love the way he used the table. Oddly enough....I had a vague theory swilling around in my head that, my main outside section of track, with falling ground behind, would, when correctly photographed with a small aperture for depth of field, seem seamless. Here is the view behind where it will run - the immediate foreground would be hidden....;-

     Mikkel,

                    I don't think I'd be satisfied only with the railway in the garden - but it's a whole different game. You can run scale length trains..and have scale curves - and there are no 'rules'.... I can run any companies train out there, most of which wouldn't look 'correct' on my indoor diorama - when it's done. I'll also be able to sit-out alfresco and enjoy watching them too. The other thing is the light.....no matter how good indoor lighting is - or the models, nothing really compares with natural light - it's a funny thing.

     The 'mangle' was in the old brew-house when I bought the farmhouse, but sadly, the old copper for brewing the beer had long been sprited-away...! I couldn't quite find the heart to ditch the mangle - maybe I'll grow some flowers around it in the end.... :-) I have the original water-pump too, and it's stone basin. I'll make that into a water-feature.

     The old cider mill used to have a stone mill in it to crush the apples. It would have been powered by a donkey or mule, again - missing when I bought the place.

     It would have looked like this;-

So much work - sooo little time..... :-P