gr.king

Those were the days when that magazine attempted to show and encourage quality hand-made modelling, and was therefore well worth buying, most of the time. Much better than a big red banner on the cover and ultra basic articles on topics such as "how to use glue, for beginners" - presumably beginners who never even did any cutting and gluing in their pre-school years. I suppose such things save me the expense of buying it though... By the way, I don't think Bachmann/Hornby have covered all of the ECML Pacifics bar the A2/1 and A1/1 class. There's no RTR option for the A2/2s with original cut-down Mikado boilers, nor, if modelling-period blinkers are removed completely, is there an RTR Raven Pacific.

Mid-way between the coupled wheels, on each side of the chassis, small enough to be in-board of the sweep of the rods, a small right-angle bracket is added, with a plain scew-hole in the portion that projects out (in the horizontal plane) from the frames. Just above the level of the running plate if possible, or higher if it has to be, a similar right angle bracket or a simple block is fitted within the splashers, immediately above the first bracket. There's normally enough room even with separate splashers, as there's usually at least a shallow link between the splashers to accommodate the coupling rods. I either solder a nut to the top bracket, or tap if I've used a block. Machine screws driven in from below, but not tightened fully, leave the four-coupled unit free to see-saw slightly. The screw holes in the brackets on the frames obviously need to be the minimum size to clear the threads of the machine screws. If they are too large the four-coupled unit has too much freedom to crab or waddle. The portion of the frames ahead of the leading coupled wheels is completely separate from this unit, and fixed firmly to the body. Unless you have track like a WW1 battlefield, the rocking of neither the four coupled drive unit nor the leading bogie is likely to be enough to result in flanges fouling frames or splashers. The method may not be applicable if you have very tight track curves. It depends on whether a slot across the full width of the frames will allow the bogie pin to move far enough to the side. You might consider this set up as half-way to compensation, although you can take it all the way if necessary by allowing one axle in each four-wheeled portion to rock on a centre-pivot, but for a OO loco that might find itself running on "universal" track with large gaps at the frogs / crossings it can be an advantage to keep the axles rigidly mounted within each four wheeled truck so that "fine" wheels cannot drop into the crossing gaps. In the image I've now added below, the underside of one of my D7 models, you should be able to see the bright heads of the "pivot" screws for the drive unit, between the coupled wheels and inside the line of the rods, on each side. In this case they screw up into a block (also inside the line of the rods) in the low section of the splashers alongside the firebox. The bogie slide slot and screw are also visible, plus the connections to extra pick-ups in the tender. The front, riding on the loco drawbar, could be arranged to bear either on the body or the rear of the chassis, the former putting even weight on both coupled axles, the latter maximising weight on the rear.

It may be thought to be a faff to arrange in some cases, but the approach I now prefer for the building of 4-4-0s, especially those with large leading wheels and flat running plates, avoids that fouling problem and guarantees no nodding of a heavy front. I let the front of the body ride on the bogie (pin in slot to allow the bogie to move sideways as well as turn/rock) and the rear of the body is mounted so as to be free to rock on the tranverse mid-line of the four-coupled drive unit. The front of the tender can if necessary still be arrange to ride on the drawbar at the rear of the loco to give more adhesive weight which is equally loaded onto the two coupled wheel sets.

Generally true for those who want the same product as everybody else, straight out of the box, but for those of us willing and able to do some work, there's the alternative strategy of waiting to see whether the prices of the un-popular left-over versions eventually tumble, with a view to re-finishing or re-building them as different / better versions. It's a risk of course, as is every course of action, but it can pay off.

Thanks Paul - were those the only ones surviving in service in any of the years after 1922?

I regret that the resin V2 body I used to produce is no longer available. The prospect (and the very eventual reality) of a more-nearly correct Bachmann body persuaded me that once demand for the resin item dwindled from initially encouraging levels, and the original mould ceased to be useable, that it would not be a good use of my time and money to renew the mould. I did renew the mould for the cab / firebox section for the A4 to W1 conversion, barely a fortnight before Hornby announced their RTR W1 and extinguished any prospect of further demand for that. They also announced the A2/2 and A2/3 models at about the same time, rendering most of my provision for conversions to produce those locos obsolete, and for good measure announced new versions of the P2 too, eliminating an alternative use for the same etched valve gear and rendering my P2 "nose" moulds almost redundant. To be honest though, I had been starting to find the production of most of those parts somewhat boringly repetitive.

Yet I would only have been willing to go to a show that did insist on mask wear by all at this time last year...

I have several chunks of what I believe to be High Dyke limestone/ironstone which I used to produce loads for my own 1930s App-Frod train. Unless anybody beats me to it, I'm happy to pass on a chunk to you, if and when a convenient opportunity arises, either if I'm in that part of Lincs or if we are at the same show some time. As I'm in Grimsby it shouldn't be impossible to find an opportunity.

Thanks Mick, I accept that. I always forget about the NER vehicles, probably because I'm usually thinking in the post-grouping context (inevitably if we're discussing here the "LNER" versions of the fantasy-model coaches) and my impression is that the NER had wholly (or almost wholly) eliminated its fleet of in-service passenger carrying six wheelers before 1923. Perhaps somebody might enlighten us on any survivors still in revenue service post-grouping?

I suppose it might be the case that some of those who bought the "LNER" versions of the carriages following an initial rush of blood to the head may now be thinking that they are not such good representations of an LNER vehicle as they really ought to be, so an improvement procedure could be a useful thing to demonstrate. There's always the possibility of doing a proper re-paint from some of the other liveries too, if those are still available. My view on the Hattons carriages is that the choice of GN section running numbers on the supposed LNER versions is wholly silly, as neither the panelling nor the roof style is anywhere near to correct for a former GNR six wheeler. I feel the brown is rather dark too. Those are just the most blindingly obvious faults, not a complete list. I'm slightly more inclined to accept that with a change of running number, the coaches do bear some passing similarity to a GER vehicle, and therefore (due to similarity of the real things) to an LD&ECR carriage too, although partly thanks to "influencers" campaigning for changes after the first drafts of the designs were revealed, the ends, the guard's ducket styles / positions, and the provision of separate guard's doors are not as they might have been. If you turn a very blind eye to the panelling style of the whole of the lower half of the coach, the resemblence to a GCR / MS&LR style can be seen too. I reckon the Hattons vehicles are possibly good enough as a temporary stand-in for later / better kit or scratch-built examples of coaches from one of those pre-group companies, or as the nearest available option for those who can't or won't build. If a way can be found to put a three-centre-round roof on to the body, then they might do as NBR, near-enough, too.

I have a feeling that you must have done, as I believe I saw it on here prior to buying it from you and giving it a little TLC. I believe the "Genesis" coaches are actually the Hattons items, not the Hornby examples that you bought. I hear a number of the latter have appeared (pre-owned?) at reduced prices since the Hattons coaches appeared. I'm saying nothing about the quality or authenticity of either type, as I'm sure you don't want the disagreements erupting on here...

I greatly appreciate the effort that is put in by the organisers of good shows, especially in a world of high costs and insufficient volunteer helpers, but with the exception of very local shows which I try to support as a matter of course (even if they have no layouts / traders to suit my specific tastes) I am certainly not going to use up considerable amounts of time and money to travel to distant shows, no matter how grand, unless their pre-show info tells me very clearly that there's enough there to suit me. My financial resources are not unlimited, and I do have other demands for my time outside of railway modelling. I'm not going to spend ages trawling the internet trying to find out the specific details of vaguely listed layouts either. If I don't already recognise the layout names, and there's no indication in the publicity of the supposedly modelled location and date, I generally assume that they are not to my specific taste or are not good enough to be "known" widely. A statement only that a show has say 10 layouts is even more useless. Why some organisers, and others, seem to think it a railway modeller's duty to support shows blindly, regardless of theme, quality and cost, I cannot imagine. There's no law that says we must. We don't all find every form of model railway from every location and date irresistibly attractive. Why should we? What may be good enough to attract the non-discerning, any-trainset-admiring, general public isn't automatically good enough for me. If the organisers value only the non-discerning, all-admiring visitor then they probably won't be receiving an admission fee from me. For my most local 2023 show, a fairly modest affair, I picked up a leaflet five months before the show date, telling me exactly what the layouts will be, so it seems such things can actually be done, in the right circumstances.

I limit my enthusiasm to only the very best examples, and that standard is not achieved by many. They are only ever as good as the humans involved, the quality of equipment, the material chosen, and the selected methods...

Oh go on, you know you want to.

I suggest that remark might over-simplify things. Squires are very good, better still for some of the stuff now visible on their Finecast stand, but they don't have everything a kit or scratch-builder might need, and the Finecast range of kits is not vast and has been more or less the same for years. A selection of second-hand / discontinued kits from such suppliers as WM collectables is certainly not a substitute for a supplier of an organised, comprehensive range of new, current, steam loco kits and components in the popular scale, including wheels, gears and motors. I do however, realistically accept, that with former key businesses no longer doing shows, or forced out of business, asking for full coverage of all possible desired purchases is like asking for the moon - probably futile. I assisted with the LNER Society stand, upstairs, on the Sunday. It never got really busy / crowded up there on the Sunday, in fact at times I had to put my fleece back on as there was no crowd to warm the place. I'm told it was busier and warmer upstairs on the Saturday. If some people failed to realise that there was a show section upstairs, does it need better signage, for those who bother to look at signs? When I got chance to go downstairs late morning on Sunday, it certainly was not uncomfortably packed down there either. The usual rule of Sundays being less busy seems to apply. Those who dislike crowds should always consider a Sunday visit instead of Saturday if possible. I'm not convinced the trying to be first-in on the Saturday at shows really achieves a great deal - you can't be first to choose / buy from every trader in the building. Oddly, although it wasn't madly busy upstairs on the Sunday, the society stand received plenty of visits / enquiries, and signed up new members, two to three times the number signed up on the Saturday I believe. I'm not sure whether that in any way says anything about the kind of people who attended on the two different days, and the numbers of those who managed to find their way upstairs.

Still no spacious mezzanine floor either... If I'm right in thinking that steel undergoes much more thermal expansion than a well aged timber beam, and the idea is to keep the walls upright, then do you have to get up there and adjust the turnbuckles to bring the tie rods back to current lengths if we happen to get more 40C summer temperatures? 🤣

The cabin is all the better for having been hand-built at the required small scale, rather than extruded through the nozzle of a computer controlled machine following a set of instructions created at a keyboard with the luxury of a giant-sized 3D illustration.

I don't use a chassis jig but my home-built locos run smoothly, and I've never seen rust develop on the steel tyres or axles of examples fitted with those. Am I doing something wrong, such as taking care and repeatedly testing when building, using a very occasional spot of lubricant, or keeping models in dry conditions? The re=wheeled J21 looks a neat result. I notice some "silvering" suggesting that the red lining transfers may not be secure. Did J21s retain red lining after the 1928/29 livery revisions put the large LNER on the tender and the loco number on the cab side?

I do not comment or challenge from a position of ignorance, having seen and considered many sources of possible evidence, but I do challenge those who state that a certain thing is so because they (mysteriously) know it is so, when there is in fact no conclusive proof. As for any alleged previous offensiveness on my part, some people clearly cannot differentiate between mildly sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, mock praise, and genuine outright offensiveness. I don't care what colour the Hattons fantasy coaches are, since they are not proper models of anything, but it remains misleading to claim that the shades of teak as represented on those are "correct". Unless they are of identical material to the real coaches under consideration, treated / finished / worn / weathered in exactly the same way as the originals, then the colour / colours will not be perceived in the same way, especially in different lighting conditions, so the whole concept of a single correct representation of the colour is flawed.

And there we have it. The suggestion that GER teak was significantly different from, and consistently paler and less red than say GNR and then LNER is purely the OPINION of some, it is not an established or accepted FACT. Even within one variety of the woods described as teak, colours will vary, and as there are different kinds of teak, with finished colours depending on the materials and processes used, those finishes changing with age, any suggestion that specific shades (such as those used by Hattons) are correct is somewhat fanciful. As I suggested in an earlier post, which miraculously disappeared, the period under consideration is now so long ago that even the memory of the most ancient among us, itself an unreliable record anyway, is simply of no definitive value in this matter.

If you cannot produce the evidence to support your assertions then they carry little weight and certainly cannot be taken as authoritative / definitive.

Whilst the sliding fishplates at board joints may have been largely successful on Grantham's robust Peco code 100 track (save for a few bent rail ends and broken track bases...) and apparently okay so far on Shap, I wouldn't dream of attempting anything similar with universal employment of finescale code 75 bullhead rail, the inevitably flimsier track bases, glued rigid ballast, and the necessarily smaller, shorter, more delicate fishplates. For the boards I'm building at present, even with rail-ends very firmly soldered to several copper-clad sleepers, these screwed to the baseboard, and rail ends trimmed to avoid projection beyond the board ends, when merely moving boards around the house I've had to be very careful indeed - still not entirely without incident. A system for wrapping the board ends in non-fluffy padding and moving the boards around on a cushion of air would seem to be required, unless end-protector boards are fitted for every simple instance of handling or movement.

Thanks Tony, Looking at the same points that you make, from a different angle, I'd say that the very fact that in order to suit "casual/inexpert users" the flange sizes and "delicate bits" have to increase disproportionately in size as the scales get smaller, means that in those smaller scales only the really "finescale" versions can be regarded as reasonable models. That puts the so-far visible versions of Hornby's TT120 models firmly in the toy league, as opposed to being proper models. The body details and decoration may be nice, ignoring the strange combination of chimney, dome and cab heights on the so-called Flying Scotsman, but the pizza-cutter wheel flanges and bomb-proof joints in the valve gear are closer to Triang-Hornby early 1970s (or Lima 1980s) standards than to any of the (long overdue) new-generation refined OO models of the last couple of decades. I suspect I've even seen slightly more convincing wheels on the some of the best recent N gauge RTR items. Given that the suppliers of after-market chassis upgrade parts for "thriving" and well-established 4mm scale seem to be growing ever thinner on the ground and less willing to take risks (such as attendance at shows), I'm not expecting to see a rush of new offerings of finescale chassis upgrade kits for totally un-proven UK TT120. A modeller wishing to make improvements would therefore have a lot of sourcing, improvisation and building from scratch to do. Purely as toy trains therefore, Hornby TT120 items are okay, but they are of no interest or value to me, as I like to at least try to think of myself as a semi-serious modeller. I'm much too deeply into OO anyway, so starting again in another scale is out of the question. Neither time nor budget would even begin to allow such a change.

Whistler?

Look at the huge size of the wheel flanges and the joints in the valve gear. What would they scale up to in OO, or worse still, full size?