rapidoTom

I don't have regulatory requirements on hand, but according to one drawing initial charge pressure was 200psi, and the reservoir would be proof tested to 350psi before sending the loco to the customer. Cylinders and pipework would be tested to a slightly less stringent 240psi. Several early locos had no safety valve at all (!) but by the time of the "Caledonia" type they had one on top of the dome. For those without safety valves, the pressure may have been regulated externally, on whatever boiler the location's steam supply was using. They would often be single-manned, which was part of the cost-saving appeal - although given the industrial sites they worked on there would almost always be workers about to lend a hand if needed. Unless you want the Bowaters site in Northfleet, Kent... research was a little tricky sometimes when a photo is just labelled "Bowaters" and you can't tell which is which!

The drawings refer to the sliding panel on the left hand side of the ends, as simply "door" - the reference book calls it a "sliding flap". So it seems to be a door rather than a vent, but what for is not explicitly mentioned. I shall leave that up for debate!

The blue lined loco represents an earlier example - the features on it were typical of locos built in the 1920s. The red lined loco has features typical of the 1940s, so either (or both!) would be suitable for the 1950s. Both types were in use for decades afterwards as well. Having said that, the differences are minimal - it's testament to the original design that it was built for so long with very minor alterations! We had similar difficulty finding exactly when Croda ceased rail operations - one commenter (on Twitter of all places) says it was used right up until the track was lifted, but doesn't cite a source for that info, so we've not called it definite. Multiple sources say the track was lifted and the loco moved to Telford in '94 so we're confident it wasn't used past that! The fireless at Glaxo was used a couple of times a week up to 1991 according to an article from mdrs.org.uk, when a Class 08 was adapted for use inside the factory and took over its duties - that loco went to Steamtown so I'm not sure if it's still extant.

No plans to at the moment - we were concerned that making it robust enough to withstand general handling would have meant overscale details and losing some of the fidelity, but we have managed to incorporate separately fitted elements such as the lower door rail. 10ft 6in - enough for some to get BR XP markings! You could spend a fair while spotting the differences, I certainly spent a while CAD modelling them all! Van No. 266 left Cadbury's in 1967 but we think it was still in this livery in 1977 if the photo is dated correctly. Van 278 was preserved at the same time, I don't know when they were originally sold to Cadbury though. Traffic is not entirely clear, some vans on site were used to store ingredients, others were used as permanent way tool storage. Cadbury had at least 4 of these ex-CR vans and as they were ventilated, my guess would be ingredient storage - there are hints to that in various places online but I can't say for certain!

In the older photos it appears to have a thinner pipe, with lagging over the section near the valve - in preservation it looks like the whole thing is metal, so may well be cosmetic only. Apologies, but I can't post the older images on here as I'm not sure what the copyright is on those, wouldn't want to offend the original owners who have kindly lent us their photos to help develop the models!

Heysham No.2 was works no. 1950, delivered in 1928 - as such, it carries the features of the earlier locos, including the earlier short buffer guides, and the vertical reservoir supports/covers. It has no reducing valve. The closest one in the range is probably 965002 or 965003, though both have a reducing valve fitted. For No.2, you may wish to add cab front handholds, a whistle, and of course the alternative routing of the charge pipe - though looking at how it's constructed (scalloped sections of straight pipe with lots of joins) I'm not sure I'd want to be standing too close to it when it was under pressure! That might be a preservation thing as "in-service" photos of it show a thinner pipe. (my photo)

Not as our primary source, but it did provide some very useful photos of the reducing valve, seen in front of the cab - they were always covered on the historic photos! We also had works drawings for a number of locos, and photo surveyed a couple of others at other sites.

For some photos but not others - it very much depends on the archive and/or photographer how in-depth their record-keeping is. We used photos from lots of different sources, some are just the photo, some have notes including locations and dates.

The livery was an experimental one, applied in 1903 to a Class T and to Class H no.898 at Gateshead, described as having blue wheels and blue panels bordered by a pale blue line. Another Class H got a similar livery at Darlington. Meanwhile, another Class T got a black livery with red lining at approximately the same time, which was eventually chosen to be the standard goods livery from then on.

The axles on the latest drawings are plain 2mm dia. rod if that helps. We found one of s1065 in "BRITISH RAILWAYS" Southern-style lettering from 1948, and have included that in our livery list. All the running no./livery combinations we're making have photos of them in the depicted condition.

We think, based on photos of it in '61, that it might have been spruced up a bit before the railtours, including fitting the later buffers with the larger heads. It may have spent less time in this specification, but the reason we chose it is that was famous for doing the Hawkhurst closure railtours - in its final configuration, if you will. As Corbs says, it has been done to the drawings - we can have a look at it again to check. Given how hard the team have worked in the last couple of weeks to get these launches ready, it might have to wait until we have some spare time next week! That CAD will be 65, as preserved. 65 had a rebuilt smokebox at some point in the 1940s, where it lost one set of rivets - this is reflected on the models in several of our liveries. The other "full Wainwright" version (373 in pre-grouping spec) has the extra set of rivets as they were originally built (or originally re-built from Os!), as do most of the models we're offering.

All of the versions of this model were sourced from photos - so slight differences in lettering and position, and things like wheel types come from prototypical evidence. I can't remember if the disc wheels were common practice (it's been a while since I looked at the research for this project), but it was common enough for us to decide it was worth tooling!

I'm glad the time spent squinting at the works drawings to work out the details paid off! I'm not sure our warranty engineer would be happy when people start ringing him up to ask for spare planks when they drop theirs all over the floor...

Hide what?

Unfortunately (as an ex-Folkestonian myself) 752 had a number of unique bits following the SECR rebuild, including the cab - and most K Classes could tell a similar story. The Old I/K actually differ in wheelbase as well as being more difficult to fit all the motor gubbins in. The Ls were more of a souped-up K Class and were "modern"* enough that there was some degree of standardisation which means we can model it more practically. Hope that helps!

Glad to be of service! We hope to have decorated samples before the order book closes, but it doesn't always work out that way depending on a number of things - we do have the renders available already and if we do get painted samples we'll be sure to show them in the newsletter (https://rapidotrains.co.uk/newsletter/), on here, and through various social media channels.

Hi, As you say, the extra lining around the edges of the tanks was not on the preserved example, also the vac pipes and we have modelled the vac pipe controls in the right-hand side of the cab that should be easily removable if you wish to back-convert. The smokebox door is slightly different, we believe it was fitted with the current one (with closer hinges) in NCB days, as our NCB No.6 model also had the same one from the photos we've used as reference. This part is also separately fitted so you should be able to swap it if you're happy taking a small screwdriver to it! The Ramsbottom valves were also fitted from new but the preserved example is missing the arm that sticks out above the brass cover. We spent a lot of time trawling through the photos to get the details right! There's also the thorny question of the correct shade of green (there's a whole thread on this forum dedicated to that), but we're consulting with several experts/groups and should get to a conclusion on that soon. Hope that helps! The design does have hornblocks on both axles, so there should be some movement to allow for point gaps etc. The sort of compensation used on the model in your picture is similar to what I tend to use on my own kitbuilt/scratchbuilt locos, but is difficult to assemble with the sort of speed/consistency needed for factory production so unfortunately isn't easily applicable. I don't wish to ignite that debate again, but the main reason for keeping the flywheel here is that it benefits DC, DCC silent and DCC sound users - we don't want to take that away just to benefit the relatively small proportion of people who use stay-alives. That's no judgement on whether stay-alives are "worth it" or not, just market factors. As for providing space elsewhere for a stay-alive, we'd like to but there's no real standard size, so we'd have to allow extra space for multiple different brands - given how tightly everything in the Y7 is packaged, that wasn't really practical without making bigger sacrifices in this case.

Glad to hear you like it! The GWR like to make our lives complicated - there's so much brake gear in that area and we have to try and settle on relatively few parts to keep the cost down. A replacement part with more linkage detail wasn't really practical in this instance given the relatively small proportion of people who replace tension locks. However, we do like to try and help people who do replace them, hence making the coupling mount block removable - we try and put this feature on many of our wagons, lots of them also have linkages or other detail underneath the blocks for those who like to use various alternative couplings. Regarding your new choice of couplings - the prototypes were marked (at least in GW days) to be marshalled as close to the end of a train as possible, and and to have "GREAT CARE TAKEN IN SHUNTING" (their caps, not mine!) - hope that helps.

By way of a little update, here's one of our hand-painted livery samples! We think it's looking rather nice, but let us know if you have any feedback. 15 versions across LMS, BR and industrial use are available, order book closing soon!

The plain black livery does have a smokebox number plate, sorry to disappoint (but it is accurate)!

You can also renumber these models fairly easily - unfortunately I haven't got a photo of just the wagon to hand, but the first wagon in this rake is a renumber, with the original behind it. @RapidoCorbs did a great job matching the fonts, so replacement transfers blend right in!

Hi Roger, The Hunslets do have coreless motors, so we recommend not using high frequency track cleaners with them. A sample Hunslet does run happily on my layout which uses a HF1, but it might have long term implications so I'm going to install a DPDT bypass switch on my layout for using these and various kitbuilt locos with coreless motors. Hope that helps, Tom

Just to add a bit more background to the coreless motor explanation - in an iron core motor, 3 or more coils are wound around an iron core, which makes the rotating assembly fairly heavy. In a coreless motor, the coils are self-supporting so there is no heavy iron core. Because it doesn't have poles in the same way, you don't get the cogging effect when the poles and magnets line up, so it appears a bit smoother at low speed (if you see "5-pole" or "skew-wound" in the description of a motor, these are ways of mitigating the cogging effect in an iron core motor). It also means the motor is more efficient, so you can fit more power into the same space, useful in something like a Y7 with a very narrow boiler! They're usually quieter and have more linear control than the equivalent powered iron core motor. If I was a marketing person, I'd probably leave it there, but there are a couple of downsides! They have to be made more precisely, so tend to be a little more expensive, and they don't dissipate heat quite so well, so if you like to run your locos at 100% throttle for hours on end, they're probably not the right choice for you. And of course the inertia is lower, so we like to add a flywheel to help make up for it. Iron core motors are by no means bad, I use them in most of my kitbuilds to keep my costs down. But in our experience for a similar cost, coreless motors are better suited to RTR locos, particularly small shunters. Thanks for the stay-alive info @Ruston, I'll have a look at the Y7 CAD and see how it compares. We've got plenty of market research into the proportion of people using DC, DCC, sound etc. but I can't remember if that included stay-alives in the surveys - I might see if our social media team can gather some info on that.

Hopefully I can add a bit of a manufacturer perspective to this debate! Apologies if I re-iterate points from earlier posts but I'm just going through my thought process. Flywheels add angular momentum to the motor, which adds inertia to the loco and helps over momentary disruptions in track power, and they do this on both DC and DCC tracks. Even a small one can multiply the momentum of the motor by several times, particularly with the coreless motors we use (coreless motors have several advantages, but rotational mass is not one of them!). That could take the roll-on time at a crawl speed from, say, 50ms to 250ms, which doesn't sound much, but is more than adequate for minor dust/dirt on reasonably well-maintained track. Conversely, stay-alives don't add inertia, they only help over dead track, and only on DCC - so if we have to pick one system to put in RTR locos, we have to pick the one that benefits everyone. It's just the realities of having to serve the wider market. Ideally, of course, we'd have both! However, on DC, a stay alive isn't simple due to the electronics (most large capacitors are polarised) and potentially you lose some of the benefits if you have a PWM controller. So we don't factory-fit stay-alives, although reserving space for one is something we could look into. Unfortunately, there is no standard size (DCC decoders are easier as they have standard dimensions), so I wonder if that's something the NRMA or another society would be interested in specifying. The cost of a flywheel is fairly minimal (I know they seem expensive for kitbuilds, but when you make a few thousand locomotives, the economies of scale kick in) so there's no real downside to having one in my view. On the use of worm gears over full spur/helical gearboxes, worms are not chosen so much for efficiency as for practicality. Firstly, they are effectively a one-tooth gear, so you can pack a high ratio into a small space without having to use low modulus gears, which need to be cut very precisely and are therefore expensive. Secondly they turn the drive axis 90°, so that on most locos, you can put the motor in line with the boiler, otherwise you have to have a very short (and thus less powerful) motor if it's across the footplate. Or a Ringfield/pancake type motor... engineering is usually a compromise! Everyone's opinions will always differ, even within Rapido, but we think we've hit the right middle ground with this kind of chassis design. If I get an equal amount of complaints from all sides, we've probably done our job right!

That sounds awfully like a product suggestion... these things get lost if left on RMweb (if left to my memory) but if you pop it in here: https://rapidotrains.co.uk/product-suggestion/ then we might listen! There are a few boxes for extra details such as livery variations and availability of works drawings, the more info we get the more likely we are to consider it.