sandra

Tony, I bought MRJ this morning which includes your article about Little Bytham. I loved the article and the photographs illustrating it. As you know I think LB is magnificent and I can see no reason why your railway should not grace the hallowed pages of MRJ indeed I think LB is probably one of the best layouts to ever feature in MRJ. I do notice that in the second paragraph of the article MRJ have unfortunately transferred Little Bytham to the GWR main line, perhaps they have seen the delightful little 16XX pannier tank you have been building and which has appeared on LB. I don't feel you need to apologise for the railway being in OO, that is the standard which most people adopt and whilst it would have been better if a wider gauge had been adopted in the early days of 4mm scale, that did not happen. Actually I think it's only really apparent in head-on views, from the side OO looks fine. I am building a model of a main line station, Andover Junction, and whilst I contemplated building this in P4, I quickly realised that I did not have the necessary skill to build a main line in this scale. I'm not saying it can't be done, but certainly it could not be done by me. Therefore I am building my model in EM. This has proved easier than I expected as converting the stock to EM has not taken too long, the biggest problem has been building all the points for the fiddle yard. I envy those who can just go out and buy Peco points. Loved the article and hope to see LB before too long. Sandra

The Midland 0-4-4 1P tank, whilst a delightful little locomotive, seems a very curious choice for a main manufacturer to produce as I do not think it has featured at all in previous years "wish list" polls. This would seem to be a locomotive which is very much of minority interest and I suppose that Bachmann hope that it will sell on the basis that it can be provided in a number of attractive liveries. However what is the point of forums like this having "wish list" polls if manufacturers simply ignore them. I appreciate that Bachmann have probably done their own market research and perhaps this research tells them that this is the right locomotive to produce but I must admit I do have my doubts that it will sell that well, but perhaps I'll be proved wrong. Sandra

Great Western locomotives did not often work off their own region due to the need for a greater loading gauge but there were regular workings of Halls and possibly other 2 cylinder engines to the Bournemouth area. I believe that Castles were banned from the line although a Castle did get to Eastleigh on at least one occasion. The Great Central was built to a larger loading gauge and thus GW engines could work on it. During the locomotive exchanges after nationalization I think Witherslack Hall was used on the Great Central. I know that in the 1920's there were trials of GW Castles on both the East Coast and the West Coast main lines. I wonder if the locomotives concerned, which I think were 4079 and 5000, were modified before the trials to conform to the different loading gauges? On a different subject, I was recently looking through some old Trains Illustrated and I came across what may be a very unusual working. It was a report of an Royal Scot taking over an East Coast Edinburgh express at Doncaster and working the train through to Newcastle, there was even a photograph of the locomotive returning light engine from Newcastle. However there was no explanation for the working or even why a Royal Scot was at Doncaster. I wonder if anyone else had heard of this incident or could offer some explanation. Sandra

Tony, Thanks for letting me, together with Robert and Mark, operate Little Bytham yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and the railway worked very well. When operating the timetable the only problems we had were due to mistakes by us as operators and by the appearance of the dreaded wasp. All working at Little Bytham stopped whilst we tried to chase it out of the shed. I'm sorry it caused a derailment today but we did try to avoid killing it. The only derailment we had I put down to the mineral train taking exception to being pulled along the east coast main line by a Taff Vale 0-6-2. Once again Tony, thank you for letting me have the privilege of operating the railway which looks even better with the new footbridge, platform canopies and backscene. Sandra

I didn't think 21C6 slipped too much at all, not as much as is sometimes suggested. I have been told that locomotives were not allowed to use sanding gear when leaving Waterloo as all the platforms had the third rail and there was a danger of sand building up and possibly providing a route to earth, particularly when wet. This may explain the reports of excessive slipping when leaving Waterloo. However what interested me was the suggestion in the film that an electric unit could be leaving the station only four minutes after arriving. I wonder if that was really the case for certainly today it seems to take much longer even with sliding doors. I also noted that the film seemed to show a train moving out of the platform with doors still open and a female member of staff closing them as it passed. That seems very unlikely and I wonder how much of what was shown was just for the film cameras. Sandra

Tony, thank you for posting the photographs you took of the models I brought with me on my visit. I thoroughly enjoyed the day at Little Bytham and I wish to thank both you and Mo for your very kind hospitality and for allowing me to visit. As always the railway ran faultlessly and the only problems were due to the operators, particularly myself. I particularly liked the ground signals which actually work and make operating the railway even more realistic. As for the models I brought with me, they were all built a long time ago apart from the Stanier 2-6-0 whose provenance I do not know. The coal tank is what you got if you just built a K's kit without adding any further detail. Obviously if I was building such a kit now I would hope to make a much better job of it and add a lot more detail. I thought the locomotive was of interest because it does run reasonably well inspite of the fact that it has a K's chassis. motor, gears and wheels. The ancient GWR loco with outside frames is actually a model of a 322 class. These were introduced in 1864 and ordered from Beyer Peacock by Daniel Gooch. The last one survived until 1934. The model is made from a K's kit but with Romford wheels and DS10 motor and it is a model of number 355 which I understand was withdrawn from Shrewsbury shed in 1931. The Dukedog was also built from a K's kit with Romford wheels and DS10 motor. However the slip coach was not built from a Comet kit but from a range of kits at one time supplied by a model shop in West Wickham, Kent. I believe the range may still be available under the Phoenix name. The kit consisted of aluminium sides and roof together with cast white metal ends and cast white metal bogies. Tony, I wish again to thank you for allowing me to visit and if you are ever kind enough to invite me again I will try and complete the DJH Claughton 4-6-0 I am presently building so that I can bring it with me. Sandra

I did thid test some time ago and much to my consternation I scored 46. I was so upset by this that I decided to go a see a psychiatrist for an opinion as to how I should deal with it. She gave me another, different test to take and I received a score again indicating that I was on the autistic spectrum. She therefore decided that I could probably be termed as having Aspergers syndrome and suggested that I could have some treatment if I wished but she did point out that I had managed in life so far (I am in my sixties) and therefore was it worth trying to change now? I have therefore decided just to live with it but I would suggest that people seriously consider whether they should take such a test before doing so. It did upset me enormously when I got the result but now I am happy that I did find out that I am on the autistic spectrum as it explained a lot of the difficulties I had encountered in early life and in fact knowing that I have survived and indeed prospered inspite of this potential handicap has made me feel better about myself. The fact is that we are are all different and whilst being on the so-called autistic spectrum may in some ways be a handicap, in other ways it can be an advantage. It is probably true that some railway enthusiasts are more likely to obtain a higher score in such a test because, after all, the railway is the ultimate system and if having a love for railways is the price I pay for having such a high score then I am all for it.

Paul, Thanks for your comments, I think the idea of a 14XX working on the MSWJR when running in from Swindon is an excellant idea. In fact locomotives running in after works visits probably gives an excuse for the sighting of unusual locomotives in unexpected locations all over the country as works liked to keep such engines close to them for a short time to make sure that all was well with the loco. In fact I do know that in the mid fifties there was a sighting of a standard class 3MT 2-6-0 of the 77XXX class on the MSWJR and this may have been running in after having been built at Swindon. Sandra

Tony, I've always been an admirer of the 14XX tank engines. In 1961, together with my cousin, we travelled from Chester Northgate to Wrexham Central and when we arrived at Wrexham, in the Ellesmere platform was 1458 and a single Hawkesworth autocoach. The locomotive looked absolutely lovely, she was spotless, in lined green with early crest and she sparkled even though it was a very wet day. I think she may have been just out of the works for the locomotives on the Wrexham to Ellesmere service were rarely kept clean. I too have a Perseverance kit to build. The trouble is I model Andover Junction which is at the southern end of the MSWJR. I wonder in anyone knows if the 14XX class ever worked on that line. Certainly small prairies and pannier tanks worked to Andover but I have no record of the 14XX ever venturing on to the MSWJR. Sandra

Unfortunately I do not think the outside cranks on Markits wheels are self-quartering. I think that they have to be threaded onto the axles, quartered by eye and then soldered in place. This can take some time but with care I think anyone can do it successfully. As far as I know there are no outside crank systems which are self-quartering, at least in not in 4mm scale. Sandra

If the locomotive works on DC without shorting it should work on DCC as long as the decoder is correctly wired and as long as the decoder itself is completely isolated from the body and chassis of the locomotive. I do appreciate this can be very difficult to do if the body and chassis are live. Therefore it is probably better to use insulated wheels on both sides of the engine and keep the body and chassis neutral. Your model looks like a Kays kit and as far as I know the only other kit available for the Aberdare was that by Martin Finney and your model does not look like one of those. However it looks like the model has Romford axles and wheels. You could probably reuse the axles but replace the wheels with Markits wheels. However as the loco has outside cranks these will have to be removed, they will probably be soldered in place and once new wheels are fitted they will have to be quartered and then re-soldered back in place. This can be quite difficult to do, I have spent many hours trying to get the quartering right on outside framed locomotives. Good luck. Sandra

Tony, when I wrote I had only given the Stanier 2-6-0 a very brief test run but I have now had chance to examine it more closely. Whilst I think the loco and tender are from Kays, I do not think the chassis is by them, it has brake gear and it does not consist of the rectangular pieces of brass which were usually provided in their kits. Also it has Romford wheels and a Portescap motor. The locomotive is in LMS livery and it has been weathered. The only really bad feature of the model is that the tender has a Triang type coupling. I must admit, personally, I do not care what the locomotives I build are worth. I enjoy building them and their value is in the pleasure gained from having transformed a collection of brass or white metal pieces into a working locomotive which can then be put to use on a model railway. I certainly think we should build locomotives because it is a pleasant and challenging thing to do, not because they may be worth a lot of money at some time in the future. Sandra

Tony, I think you are right to be pessimistic about the future value of kit built locomotives, particulaly models of prototypes that are available as ready to run models. Last weekend I was at the Alexandra Palace exhibition and I bought an OO model of a Stanier 2-6-0 5MT which I think was built from a Kays kit. I believe that Bachmann are soon to release of model of this locomotive. When I got it home I found that it ran beautifully, true the body does need some attention but only of a minor kind. However the locomotive only cost £20 and it was together with a number of similar kit built locomotives, all of which were of a similar price and seemed to be reasonably well built. These were what you could call "layout locomotives" they were not suitable for a display case but would be quite happy on most peoples layouts. I think that in the future only the most exceptional kit built locomotives, such as you build, will command a high price, I think those built by the "average enthusiast" will probably not command more than similar secondhand ready to run models. Sandra

I have seen bullhead rail on minor lines in France so the market for the product may not be entirely in the UK. However I do think that the prospect of points in bullhead rail is very good news for the hobby in Britain. Most pointwork into the early 1960's was still laid in bullhead rail and therefore all those steam era layouts do really need it. However I think it is sometimes forgotten that by the early 1960's the plain track on a lot of main lines was laid with jointed flat bottomed rail. I think that shortly after nationalisation, British Railways announced that they would adopt flat bottomed rail as the standard for future track relaying, at least on main lines.The problem is that Peco flat bottomed is not suitable for representing this track as the sleeper spacing is too close. Indeed as far as I am aware no one makes a representation of this type of track. However I think most people will be happy to use only bullhead rail and as I said I think that this is an exciting development. Sandra

Tony was very kind to post photos of the locomotives I took with me to operate on Little Bytham on Tuesday. These locomotives were the C2X, the A8 the O2 and the Collett 38XX. I must say that on looking at the photos that my first reaction was "could do better". My defence is that, with the exception of the 38XX, they were built between 20 and 30 years ago. I do think I could do better now and as I have started building locomotives again I may be able to post photos of my latest efforts in due course. However I will say a few words about these locomotives. The C2X was built from a DJH kit which was actually purchased from the Puffers stand at the MRJ exhibition at Central Hall Westminster in (I think) 1990. It has Romford wheels and an Anchorage D11 motor and Romford gears. Even after all these years it is still incomplete as there is no front number plate, fall plate or crew. When first placed on the track at Little Bytham it did run but was very noisy. However after about 10 circuits of the layout it started to improve. It just goes to show it does really help the running of a locomotive to let it have a long run hauling a reasonable train load. I believe that this kit is still available from DJH and I would strongly recommend it as a first kit for someone who has not built a locomotive before. It goes together very well and as it does not have outside valve gear it does not present too much difficulty particularly if bought together with the DJH Motor/Gearbox and wheelset. The A8 is also from DJH but it was from their days at Banbury. It has an Anchorage D13 motor and Romford wheels. I am told it would be much improved if I had used the correct LNER pattern wheels but I am afraid that when built it I did just build the kit out of the box without worrying if the kit was accurate. The same applies to the O2 which is a Wills Finecast kit given to me by a female friend as a birthday present. The kit did not come with a chassis, this had to be bought separately and when you did buy it, it was a rather inadequate white metal effort. However the locomotive still has has the white metal chassis and it does still run so I should not complain too much. I believe that the kit has been revamped by Southeast Finecast but I suspect that the latest kit does not bear too much relation to the one I built. I do know that it now has an etched chassis included because I have recently bought one to replace the chassis on this locomotive. The GWR 38XX is a tender drive Hornby body on a Comet chassis. It has Romford wheels and a Comet gearbox with Mashima motor. The tender is Bachman. This locomotive was built long before the latest Hornby model was available and I think the photograph shows how poor the old Hornby tender drive effort was. The Comet chassis is extremely good and accurate, however Hornby seem to have used the chassis from their Stanier 8F as the basis for the model and as a result they have made what is quite a long locomotive even longer. The locomotive was a product of the period when Hornby was still producing models aimed at the toy end of the market rather than at the serious modeller. I hope these comments are of some interest. Sandra

Dear Tony, As I was one of the people lucky enough to help operate Little Bytham yesterday I thought I would let you have my comments. The railway and all its stock ran faultlessly and the only problems were entirely due to human error, particularly mine. Tony was kind enough not to mention the freight train on the down slow line which came to a rapid halt because I forgot to change the points. Little Bytham looks and feels like a real railway and when its operated to a sequence it is like being back by the track-side in the fifties watching the trains go by. It is in fact quite nerve-racking to operate it as it does feel it is important not to make a mistake and when you have set up the route and pulled the signals off, the sensation when the train passes safely through is wonderful. I was surprised by the suggestion that perhaps model wheels should not be coned as surely the very point of the coning is to prevent the wheel being held on the rail solely by the flanges. On straight track the coning centres the wheels on the rails so that they do not hunt from side to side and on curves the coning allows the wheels to ride up the rail slightly on the outside of the curve to allow for the fact that the outer wheels has to travel further than the inner wheel. In fact, theoretically with coning the wheels should stay on the rails without any flanges. This is very theoretical as anyone hearing the flanges squeal on trains entering London Bridge station round the curve from the west will know. Tony, thank you for letting me visit Little Bytham again and I hope to see you soon. Sandra

I have bought early crest 30843 and I do think it is an extremely good model, perhaps the best I have ever had from Hornby. Not only does it seem very accurate but the build quality seems to be very good. However the bogie wheels are too small which is understandable as on the real thing the clearance under the footplate is minimal. I have converted mine to EM gauge and I have replaced the bogie wheels with the correct diameter wheels but to gain enough clearance has meant removing a great deal of plastic from beneath the footplate. I have also renumbered it to 30846. I am wondering if, once the late crest model with the Urie tender is available, whether it will be possible to convert the S15 to a Maunsell H15. As far as I can see all that is really necessary is to fit larger wheels, replace the cab with an LSWR type cab and add lining to the locomotive and tender. There seem to be a few other minor detail differences but I don't think that these would be too difficult to alter. I would be interested to know if anyone else has an opinion on such a conversion or if anyone has tried it. Sandra

Bulleid pacifics were not allowed to use sanding gear when leaving Waterloo. Therefore they did tend to slip but then most locomotives would slip if trying to start a 13 coach train without using sanding gear even if they did have assistance from the locomotive which brought the empty stock in. I think any assistance would only be until the rear of the train passed the platform end. In steam days I saw many and various locomotives slip on starting and it was usually due to rail conditions being damp. I would imagine that it would also depend on the skill of the Driver. I remember the locomotive would slip violently then get hold of the train move a few yards then violently slip again and then get hold of the train again. This would happen a number of times until the train was well under way. Sandra

[quote name="Tony Wright" post="2052219" timestamp="1444765616 Today, as posted earlier, three friends and I ran the railway. With a few exceptions, all the locos we operated I'd built (the exceptions included a Golden Age A4, my elder son's 9F, one of his Deltics and the pre-production Heljan O2/3). I have several modified RTR locos, but none of them will pull what the kit-built ones will haul, hence my not using them today. Tim's Hornby 'Coronation' had little trouble with 11 Bachmann Mk.1s, but on the kit-built rakes it might have struggled. The Deltic, with two power bogies was absurd; after 43 coaches were pulled, the train collapsed at the front! The Heljan loco took 40 wagons with ease, to be fair, so that's definitely going to be an RTR loco with plenty of guts. Dear Tony, It was nice to see you at Roy Jackson's house on Saturday. Roy was kind enough to let me run two of my locomotives on Retford. These were both Hornby Merchant Navies converted to EM gauge. Your remarks about RTR locomotives are very true, both these locomotives failed miserably when faced with the challenge of hauling long trains on such a large layout. This is of course another reason for trying to maintain the kit building aspect of the hobby. In fact I would be more specific in that I do doubt if a locomotive built from brass would be much better than a RTR model. A locomotive built from white metal would probably be better. At the moment I am building a PDK kit for an original Merchant Navy. The kit is made from brass with various white metal parts but fortunately such a locomotive by virtue of its shape will probably allow the addition of lead weight. However in my experience it is very difficult to find space in most RTR locomotives to add weight. One trick I was given a few years ago for modellers in EM and P4 gauges, was instead of using plasticard as overlays for the frames, was to use lead sheet shaped to the outline of the frame and glued on. This reduced the gap between the wheels and the frames and added weight just where it was needed, directly over the driving wheels. Lead sheet was sold to me by Eileen's and is the type used in lead flashing, it is very easy to cut and to shape. This of course can only be done in EM or P4. I have come to the conclusion that if you do wish to run scale length trains on large layouts you do have to have at least some kit built locomotives and ones preferably made in white metal. Regards, Sandra

I seem to remember reading that the idea behind having a letter prefix and a letter suffix was to apply only to pre-nationalisation stock. For example if a coach had a number such as S 1234 S then this was an ex Southern Railway vehicle which was allocated to the Southern Region. However if the vehicle was transferred to, say the London Midland Region, then its number would be changed to M 1234 S. I don't know if any CCTs were transferred in this way or even if many, or indeed any, pre-nationalisation vehicles were transferred between regions but I do understand that this was the intention. It was only vehicles built prior to the formation of British Railways which had the suffix letter. Vehicles built after nationalisation only had the regional prefix. Sandra

I know nothing about this locomotive but it surprises me that some Railway Enthusiasts are happily proposing, indeed urging, that a fifty year old diesel locomotive be scrapped. Whilst it may seem an improbable restoration project now we do not know what the position will be in 10 or 20 years time and once the machine is scrapped it will be gone forever and there will be one less Peak extant. There have been lots of steam restoration projects over the years which seemed unlikely to succeed and were subject to criticism at the time and yet against the odds, they succeeded. I think that the problem is that heritage diesels do not at present have a great attraction to the general public. If they go to a preserved railway they expect to see a steam locomotive. However that may not always be the case and heritage diesel locomotives may become as desirable to the general public as steam locomotives are now. Therefore I am against the destruction of any main line diesel locomotives. Sandra

Tony, thank you for letting me see Little Bytham, it really is a fabulous railway and it runs as well as it looks. It was the example of Little Bytham and Retford that inspired me to try and build a model of a real mainline station. As my interest is in the Southern, after a lot of debate I chose Andover Junction as the station I wanted to model. The reason was that it has an interesting and eccentric track plan and in addition to the Southern mainline to the west,there was also traffic over the Midland and South Western Junction and over the line to Romsey. Thus the variety of stock which could be seen on the railway was fairly wide. This does mean that to operate it correctly (when its complete) may be demanding. In fact it may be more demanding than I will be able to cope with. Although I am building it entirely by myself this is not done for some ideological reason, it was simply how it had to be done at the beginning. As I explained to Tony I am now in the fortunate position of being able to pay someone to do it for me. However I've no real wish to do this at present as I enjoy building and converting the stock (its in EM) and making the track but I may ask someone to help me with the buildings and scenery. However I certainly do wish to have a large personal involvement because without such involvement I would not feel that it was "my" railway and I think it is true to say that more satisfaction is gained through building something rather than buying it. Also a lot of people suffer from what I call the "I can't do that" syndrome. That is, they think they do not have the skill to build anything but if they tried they could find that its not as difficult as they feared. I used to be like that about building track but after I had tried building it I found that with practice I could make something which worked. It may not be to the same exacting standards as the best in the hobby but I had built it, and I was happy with it. Tony, please keep posting on the thread. This is one of the most interesting and varied threads and it would be a sad loss if you stopped. Sandra

As I write this I am listening to "The Wound Dresser" by John Adams. Adams is a favourite composer of mine particularly the opera "Nixon in China". I also love the music of Anton Bruckner, particularly the unfinished 9th symphony. However my greatest loves are the operas of Handel and Wagner. In my opinion the greatest Wagner opera is "Parsifal" and the greatest opera by Handel is "Giulio Cesare". Sandra

The report actually comes out against guided busways as they do not like the idea of such routes being exclusively for one kind of vehicle. Whilst the emphasis is placed on "express coach routes" it does seem that the authors of the report want the routes to be used by other vehicles at certain times by payment of a toll. I would recommend that every one read the report for it is so full of contentious and debatable figures and it seems to overlook the fact that rail routes carry both long distance and freight movements as well as commuter trains. It is not clear whether they envisage the complete destruction of the rail network but I think they probably do. The fact is the people who wrote this report have an absolute belief in the market and I suspect that they don't like railways because they are seen as "socialist" in that railways do require a large degree of state involvement both in their regulation and in their finance. The writers of the report make clear that they do not just want to destroy the commuter railway they want a complete reform of the transport system. They particularly want to introduce road pricing and they wish to eliminate government control from all aspects of transport policy. There are a couple of examples from the report which I think may illustrate the general attitude. Some people on this forum may particularly like these gems "the wages of bus/coach drivers are generally much lower than those of train drivers" they go on to say "drivers of peak-hour commuter coaches could perhaps engage in some other job during the day further lowering labour costs". Also in trying to illustrate how expensive trains are in relation to coaches they say "A typical train in 1960 required 49 people to run it". They do acknowledge that productivity may have improved since then, but frankly trying to justify the destruction of the railway system upon the basis of a figure dating back to 1960 is beyond parody. I think people who value the railway system should worry about reports like this. These people do, unfortunately, often have the ear of government and whilst at the moment they seem to be disregarded they are always there attempting to undermine the provision of a decent railway system in favour of road transport. Sandra

Happy New Year Tony. I was interested in your comments about EM gauge. I started building an EM gauge model of Andover Junction two years ago. I had never modeled anything in EM gauge before and therefore all the stock and the track had to be built and nothing was inherited from previous layouts. The stock is nearly all converted Bachmann and Hornby and the track is a mixture of Exactoscale and C & L. Converting the stock has not been a problem as it has not taken too long and in fact the amount of stock has exceeded the capacity of the layout. What I have found to be the biggest drawback of EM gauge is building all the pointwork for the fiddle yard. This is going to be a conventional layout with the station on one side and the storage sidings on the other. The number of points in the fiddle yard is over fifty and this almost equals the number in the visual part of the layout. If it had been built in OO a lot of time could have been saved using Peco track and points. I have constructed the fiddle yard points using copper-clad sleepering but it still takes quite a long time to build such a substantial number of points even though I have got quicker the more I have built. I do actually enjoy converting stock to run on the railway as each new locomotive is a challenge as their construction varies considerably and different techniques are needed according to the way they were designed. I am presently converting a Hornby T9 4-4-0 which is frankly a bit of a nightmare but if I can make it run properly there will be much more satisfaction in seeing it run rather than simply buying it and placing it on the track as would happen if the railway were built in OO. Do I regret starting this project in EM rather than OO? I have had moments when I have regretted it as undoubtedly the work involved in building such a railway is greater than building the equivalent railway in OO, but on balance I think it was probably the right decision as it has certainly been more challenging and I think it has improved my skills. Also whilst EM gauge is not as accurate as P4 to me the track looks better than OO and I like the fact that the head-on view of track and stock does not have the "narrow gauge" look of OO. I must say this is not as apparent when hand built OO finescale track is used as on Little Bytham but it is more apparent when Peco track is used, particularly code 100. I do think that Little Bytham is a fabulous model and I think that you and everyone associated with it should be very proud of it. Sandra