sandra

Hello Tony, Reference has been made to a remark made by the late Roy Jackson concerning a N5 0-6-2. I don’t know if the anecdote is true but it does certainly sound like something Roy might have said. However there is an N5 on the layout which is probably the subject of the story.Here she is on the up main line just south of the flat crossing at Retford The locomotive does not have any brakes but it does have sprung buffers and screw couplings. The body seems to have been scratch built and she had an XO4 type motor. The loco does work but is rather noisy. It was clearly built a long time ago and is probably very much of its time. Retford does need an N5 as three were shedded there in 1957 of which 69314 was one. I had thought of updating this model but it is very much of its period and I think I will leave it as it is and build a new one. Sandra

Hello Robert, I’ve got to convert it to EM gauge first before I can run it properly. I certainly will try it on Andover Junction but it’s hardly suitable. Andover Junction is set in 1954 and the only legitimate diesels which could appear there are the Bullied diesels or the two LMS diesels which were all on the Southern then. Here’s a photo of 10201 with an up express on the very incomplete Andover Junction I will certainly try it on the heaviest trains on Retford but I suspect it will have no problem but we shall see. Sandra

Hello Robert, As you of course know I do model the East Coast but I’ve only bought one. I do have the excuse that Retford is set in 1957 but nevertheless I am looking forward to D9007 belting round Retford at full speed. Though why I ordered a sound one when Retford is not DCC I’ll never know. Sandra

Hello Robert, Thats certainly an interesting picture. As the 5 mph sign is clearly visible I wonder why they thought it also necessary to have a notice as well. I wonder if there was a particular problem at Retford with drivers ignoring signs and signals. There was a sign on the down goods avoiding line instructing drivers not to pass a signal at danger and another similar sign at the exit from the shed instructing drivers to obey the signals. The photo is also interesting in that it shows a train heading for the Sheffield direction from platform 2, normally such trains left from platform 3. Also the freight coming the other way is probably destined to go up the GN main line unless it was intended to reverse into Retford goods yard. I’ve recently come across a photo showing a running in board at ground level in this location. I don’t know the date but it’s certainly in the BR period. It’s the only time I’ve seen evidence of a running in board at ground level here and of course I’ve no idea how long it lasted, was it still there in 1957? Sandra

Hello Tony, The driving wheels on the Finney A3 60073 St Gatien, (Ultrascale?) had to be replaced as they were almost free to rotate on their axles so I replaced them with a set of Markits wheels. Unfortunately these were slightly wider than the previous wheels and so a short-circuit developed but after a great deal of filing of the body she now runs quite well. Also this locomotive is fully compensated on all 12 wheels on the loco and on all 8 wheels on the tender. The result is that there is a lot of potential for the wheels to short against the body as regrettably the track on Retford is not entirely flat. St Gatien is not yet fit to work on Retford as there are still a number of faults which need attention. There is no fall plate and the operating lever to tilt the firegrate on the fireman’s side of the cab has been fitted the wrong way round. I will post some photos of her when she’s finished. Sandra

Hello Tony, There is only one Britannia on Retford and that was used on the North Country Continental. However it was out of period as Retford is set in the summer of 1957 but I understand that Britannias didn’t appear on this train until 1958. Here is 70037 Hereward the Wake on the Harwich/Liverpool boat train. This is actually a Hornby Britannia re-wheeled to EM gauge otherwise it is entirely Hornby. It even still has the flangeless trailing wheels, I haven’t yet got round to replacing them. Roy Jackson seemed to have a blind spot about trailing wheels, a number of “Pacific’s” didn’t have them and they ran as 4-6-0s. I’ve now fitted trailing wheels to them all, only the Britannia is now waiting to be done.Here she is approaching the flat crossing. She has now been replaced on this train by a Hornby B17 which is correct for the period. The train in the other direction is hauled by B17 61620 Clumber, a great locomotive built by Tony. Sandra

Hello Tony, Sorry to hear you’ve got Covid, I hope you make a quick recovery. Tony Gee came along to visit Retford today and he brought along a surprise locomotive for a visit.This is a P1 2-8-2 which we placed on the longest freight train on Retford which has nearly fifty wagons. It managed the train with absolutely no difficulty. The locomotive was scratch built by the late Malcolm Crawley.It ran beautifully and smoothly down to a scale walking pace. Of course it’s out of period for Retford as the originals were withdrawn in July 1945 and Retford is set in the summer of 1957. The only criticism I can make of it is that it is too clean, particularly the motion and I think it needs some heavy weathering. Nevertheless it’s nice to see an example of scratch building particularly of a prototype which I would suggest is never likely to be produced as an RTR model as there were only two of them, non are preserved and they were withdrawn before the BR era. Its always pleasant to have visiting locos on Retford particularly of this quality. Sandra

The goods shed at Mouldsworth on the CLC had a notice on it which specifically prohibited locomotives from entering the shed. This would seem to imply that there may have been locations on the CLC where engines could enter a goods shed.

Hello Tony, A few days ago there was some discussion on B1s. I realise that this is not terrible relevant but I thought I’d post a photo of a B1.This is a photo I took of 61013 “Topi” at Chester General. I don’t know the exact date but it was probably in the summer of 1964. I do know that a week later I saw 61022 Sassaby on Chester LMR shed. This photo was taken with a very cheap Ilford camera but for some strange reason I used colour film which was extremely expensive at the time although you would hardly notice that this is a colour photograph B1s we’re not regular visitors to Chester General but I think they occasionally worked excursions to North Wales in the summer. Sandra

It looks like Patrick Stirling’s nameplate is falling off.

Hello Tony, Thanks for your comments. I really must get on with the layout but as you know I do have other things to do. I think Seaton Junction has been modelled before, I seem to remember many years ago a model appeared in Railway Modeller. I would suggest if someone really wanted a challenge a model of Salisbury would be a fine last great project. Sandra

Tony, The ECML does of course reign supreme, I as the owner of Retford, could hardly disagree, however to model the ECML accurately does require a great deal of stock and most of the principal stations are very large and require a lot of space to model. The fact that so many people have chosen to model the ECML in spite of the problems does show the attractions of long trains and lots of big engines. This is actually a photo of my very incomplete EM model of Andover Junction on the South West main line from Waterloo to Salisbury and Exeter. I chose this location as being an interesting location where lot happened but which could be modelled in a reasonable space and yet have full length trains hauled by Pacific locomotives. The South West main line does offer quite a few locations which would have operating potential and yet not require the space required to model a station the size of Retford. Weybridge, Axminster, Seaton Junction and Sidmouth Junction immediately spring to mind. Sandra

If that accounted for the difference wouldn’t it mean the loco was painted at Doncaster and was then taken to Darlington to have the handrails painted. I somehow doubt it.

Frank, Thanks for your comments. The wheels seem to be OK in that they don’t seem to have any cracks but I haven’t done anything to repair the loco yet. I will try and loctite the wheels in place but I’m not convinced that friction fit wheels will work on Retford. The problem is that the express locomotives run high mileages with heavy trains, including gradients in both directions. I do get the impression that whilst this loco has a motor it was built purely for static display and I think it needs a complete mechanical rebuild to make it fit enough to haul trains on Retford but I will take your advice and try Loctite before I completely rebuild it. Sandra

Tony, In the railway shed there is a white metal P2 which I think may have been built from a K’s kit. It looks like it had been painted in LNER livery but has been stripped back to bare metal. I’m sure Roy didn’t build it. It’s been built to OO gauge and rather strangely both of the middle driving wheels are flangeless. Furthermore it’s been fitted with very early Romford wheels with all the wheels on one side being the awful mazak ones. I’m not too sure what to do with it as it would certainly need new frames and wheels as well as a tender.

I don’t know what became of that P2, was it Thane of Fife? It was not on the railway when I acquired it. It may have been owned by someone else. I did think of buying a Hornby one, converting it to EM and painting it BR green but there areI more important things to do on the layout. Lately I have been working on freight stock. Some of the stock was owned by other people so I have gradually been trying to replace what was missing.

Retford is set at about 3’ 6” in height, any higher and large parts would be totally inaccessible, parts are inaccessible at the present height. I have now fitted nearly all the Pacifics with trailing wheels. There’s only one more to do, 60500 Edward Thompson and as I have found trailing wheels for that one I’ll soon fit them soon. However the Britannia on Retford is a Hornby one with the flangeless trailing wheels still set to OO gauge. I must get round to fitting the correct wheels.

Tony, Please keep the engineers train, it’s full of character. Here’s a photo of the engineers ballast train on Retford.I’ve no idea if this is correct but to me it looks the part and presumably Roy Jackson was happy with it and frankly that’s enough for me. Sandra

I think it depends on what type of layout you are going to build and how much time you can devote to it. I don’t think I’m biased as I am a member of both the EM gauge society and the Scalefour society. My own home layout is EM, this is a steam era model of Andover Junction and whilst I did think about building it in P4 I quickly realised that I would not have the skill to make a workable layout in a reasonable period of time. I did however want something more demanding than OO. If I wanted a small diesel era layout then I would probably build it in P4 as certainly it’s easier to convert diesel locos to P4 and observation at exhibitions is that diesel layouts have less derailments. EM is certainly easier than P4 and it looks better than OO so it’s a reasonable compromise particularly if your aim is to build a large steam era layout but I must say if I was ever going to build another layout (and I might) it would probably by OO.

Thanks Tony, A strange fact about the O4/8s is that the last ones were not converted until 1958. As Retford is set in 1957 I will have to be careful to make sure my one has a suitable number. Roy had a collection of photos taken in and around Retford and the class which appears most often on the GC section is the O4/8 so I absolutely had to have one. However it does seem strange that conversions of such an elderly design were still being done as late as 1958. Sandra

Tony, Thanks for the photos, I have found a few photos of B17s with the larger tender but the small GE tender was by far the most common. The loco for the boat train was usually supplied by March and the only large tender B17 they had was Doncaster Rovers so I intend to model that. Whilst the telegraph poles will be nice and there were some huge ones at Retford, I think the most important job at the moment is to build the permanent platforms as the present ones and the station buildings are just mock ups. I’ve been discussing this with Andrew and we think we do know how to proceed although they will take time to build. Isn’t he bottom picture an O1 not an O4/8. Retford already has a kit built O1 but until recently no O4/8. The O4/8 is not quite finished but once it is I will post a photo of it. Sandra

Hello Tony, Arts and Crafts was of course in St Michael’s Arcade off Bridge Street. Brook street is the road leading to General Station, I got confused, it’s a long time since I’ve been to Chester. In Chester I only ever went to Arts and Crafts or the shop in White Friars, I don’t recall Trickett’s, I don’t think I ever went there. As I went to school in Northwich I went to the model shop there, I think it was called Eaches but I may be wrong. I never had any of the Trix pacifics, the only Trix locomotive I had was a Western which didn’t look much like a Western and ran really badly. No matter how much I fiddled with it the wretched thing would not run well but I do still have it on the basis that nobody else would want it. It did haul a set of Trix Mk1s in chocolate and cream which were nice coaches but inexplicably made to the wrong scale of 3.8mm to the ft. and fitted with Commonwealth bogies. I seem to remember the coaches were sold as kits and you had to build them. Sandra

Tony, I do remember the model shop at White Friars in Chester. I only went there a few times but as I remember the shop it was the only Chester model shop which catered for the more finescale side of the hobby. That is he sold lots of bits and pieces which enabled you to actually build something. Probably it wouldn’t be considered very finescale in comparison with today’s standards but it was the best we had. It was actually my cousin Eddy who tipped me of about this shop as I don’t remember it being advertised in any magazines. Before I found this shop I had only gone to Arts and Crafts in the arcade off Brook Street and that shop sold mostly RTR, however I did buy some Wrenn flexible track there which was perhaps a first step towards a more serious approach to the hobby but the Wrenn track was pretty awful. Sandra

Tony, I took some photographs of “Clumber” this afternoon. Here she is on the down boat train which passed Retford at 12.37. The B17 worked the train from March to Sheffield. She was turned at Sheffield and returned from there in the afternoon. So the same B17 worked both trains at Retford. As Robert Carroll has now very kindly assembled the carriages for the train in both directions I have photographed “Clumber” hauling it both ways.Here she is heading east with the up train to Harwich and here’s a closer view of her on the same train.”Clumber” is the only loco apart from the Britannia which can haul this 11 coach train out of the fiddle yard. As this is the only passenger train which regularly crossed the flat crossing in the east/west direction I wanted a representation of the working in both directions. So an extra road has been added to the fiddle yard, as there was not a great deal of space this had to be squeezed in but there was just enough room. The problem is that I don’t really want to use this locomotive on both trains as this would involve too much handling of the loco so at the moment I’m using 70037 “Hereward the Wake”on the up train. However she is out of period so I’ll have to build another B17 and really it should be another model of “Clumber” but I could never build or paint it as beautifully as this one so I’ll make a model of 61657 “Doncaster Rovers”. This engine was shedded at March and I do have a photo of it on the boat train. Sandra

Tony, It was nice to see you yesterday on your visit to Retford, I hope all the visitors enjoyed their day. The railway worked well apart from one broken tie bar.Tony Gee brought along this beauty which is going to be finished as “Valour” in full Great Central livery. Here she is hauling the up “Heart of Midlothian”. This train consists of 13 coaches and if Retford was completely flat she would have had no problem hauling this train. However Retford does have an incline on the GN main line where it crosses the GC fiddle yard. Considering “Valour” is made of brass I think she did very well to haul this train. Most of the principal expresses on Retford are hauled by locos made of white metal but some have plastic bodies but this only works if there is room to add extra weight such as on A4s. This is a new Retford locomotive 61464. This is a B16/3 I made from a very old DJH kit. This was actually her first run on the layout and she’s hauling an up fully fitted freight. She’s not yet quite finished, she needs weathering. There is a photo of this loco on shed at Retford in GN loco sheds Vol 2. Sandra