sandra

Tony, From the top they are: City ( obviously) Bulldog ( Bird series) Duke Earl (Dukedog) Earl (Dukedog) Bulldog Curved frame Bulldog I’ve always have a soft spot for these GWR outside frame locomotives but I feel they would look rather out of place on Retford. Sandra

Tony, At the moment I’m building a K2 from a Nucast kit. I’m using the white metal chassis but with brass bearing added and a Comet gearbox and Mashima motor. Unfortunately this requires the removal of a large amount of white metal to make it fit so an etched chassis would have been a huge advantage. As I’m building it in EM gauge a lot of metal has had to be removed from the body. I would certainly be interested in buying an A5, a B16/2 or 3 and perhaps another K2. Eastern or Scottish modellers may also be interested in an A2/1 which I would suggest is very unlikely to appear as a RTR model. I already have one of these, Duke of Rothesay, the other three were in Scotland so not likely to appear at Retford. Talking of Nucast here is another Nucast kit which I have nearly finished, it’s a GWR Flower class which I am trying to complete. I’m ashamed to say that I started building it as long ago as 1983 but never got round to finishing it. I’ll post more photos when it’s been painted which at the present rate of progress should be about 2036. Sandra

I’m modelling Andover Junction on the LSWR main line in 1954. This is where the MSWJR ended. The three MSWJR locomotives which did survive into BR days were the Dubs 2-4-0s but they had long left the MSWR and were shedded at Didcot or Reading. In 1954 the MSWJR was largely worked by 43XX 2-6-0s with Southern N class and later U class locos working some services. 2251 0-6-0s, pannier and small prairies also appeared and Manor class worked some of the through trains from Cheltenham to Southampton. The MSWJR had running powers to Southampton Terminus from Andover. Its no doubt that the greatest disaster to befall the MSWJR was the take over by the GWR. The GWR had always resented this interloper particularly as it had the temerity to place its headquarters at Swindon. So after the takeover there was a deliberate policy of running the railway down. This reached its conclusion with the diversion of the service from Cheltenham Lansdown to St James. This ended its connection to the Midland main line and thus its use as a through route. This led to closure in 1961. If the railway had survived it would be an extremely useful route today as it linked the expanding towns of Cheltenham, Swindon and Andover with Southampton and potentially Birmingham. There have been a few models of the MSWJR, I can remember Chisledon and Cirencester in P4 and my own Andover Junction in EM. I know Andover was a Southern station but there was an MSWJR 2 road shed there which shared a turntable with the Southern. Sandra

The Strathmore line for me. I do remember that when my Grandmother, who lived in Arbroath, came to visit us in Cheshire she caught the local train to Forfar and changed there for a train south. As a very small child this seemed a curious way to go but was it possible to get from Forfar to Crewe directly in the fifties?

Must go for the B17.

I would go for the W class 2-6-4 tank. Very handsome engines and they seem to have been good at what they were designed for.

I think if you intend to build a model of a main line layout in steam days with scale length trains hauled by Pacific’s then P4 would be very challenging. Certainly EM is easier and achievable but for a smaller say pre-grouping model then perhaps P4 would be possible. I have experimented with P4 and I found that it does certainly work but it is more time-consuming and I don’t think I have the skill to anything more than a shunting plank type layout. I am building a model of Andover Junction set in 1954 in EM gauge and the biggest problem has been building the points for the storage sidings which have required over 100. Converting the stock has not been a major problem. In P4 building the stock would take considerably longer and getting it to work without derailments would take a lot of work. I’ve now acquired a large EM layout which is a model of Retford but that’s a different story as I didn’t build it.

Not a lot to choose from in today’s poll. The biggest gap in LMS preserved locomotive motive power is the original Patriot but a replica is being built. The rebuilt Patriot was basically a Royal Scot with a different cab. There are no representatives of either the Fowler of the Stanier 2-6-2s but by all accounts neither of these were much good. Then there is the Fowler 7F 0-8-0 but these seem to have been badly let down by using bearings off the Midland 4F. I know it’s a controversial choice but I would plump for 6202 the Turbomotive, as whilst nominally a member of the Princess class it was an attempt to revolutionise the steam locomotive and accounts indicate that it did work fairly well but was plagued by its status as a one-off locomotive and the difficulty in getting parts resulting in long periods out of traffic.

Tony, Thanks for posting those photographs. I’m attaching a photo of 60533 Happy Knight which I took this morning.The lining is very prominent on this loco and I think it needs to be toned down by weathering. I think the effect is made worse by the cylinders being lined. Surely this is wrong or was 60533 exceptional in this regard? However I like the shade of green which to me seems about right. In contrast here is 60135 Madge Wildfire which is a converted Railroad Hornby “Tornado”. The lining seems to be rather prominent but it is the colour I feel to be wrong but it doesn’t seem to be as bad as the latest A2/2. It also has been very lightly weathered. Finally here is 60117 which is a Bachmann A1 which has been weathered. I like the appearance of this loco and this is what I would like to aim for in the future. The green is about right and the lining is suitably restrained. I saw several of these locos and this is how I remember them. Sandra

My choice is probably rather eccentric but I’m going to go for a MSWR 2-4-0 tender engine. Three of these were built by Dubs and the last one went in 1954. I bet nobody else votes for this.

Tony, This photograph shows the Hornby livery to its best effect but other photographs I’ve seen show the green to be far too light and too blue and the lining to be too red. I have a few Hornby locomotives on Retford but I think the only way they look acceptable is if they are heavily weathered. I do have a couple of Hornby locomotives waiting to be converted to EM gauge for use on Retford but I’m in some doubt as to whether I should bother as I feel I can’t live with them without repainting them. The problem is that whilst I can respray them, the finish I can achieve is not up to the quality (but not the colour) of the Hornby product. The Bachmann green is better but the lining can be too bright. Retford has A2 “Happy Night” which is spoiled by the lining being far too bright and thus it looks incongruous in comparison with other locos on the line. I will have to weather it at some point. Sandra

The J6 for me. Pretty little locomotives but extremely useful. Retford has three.

The big A5 tank engine for me.

As we are voting for locomotives that haven’t been preserved I’ll have to go for a Claud Hamilton. I’m not sure what the LNER classification for these was, D15?

The L class 4-4-0 for me the so-called German locomotives because some were supplied in component form by Borsig of Berlin in1914. Notice the date, I’m not sure if Borsig were paid for them.

As a replica of a Brighton Atlantic is being built my choice must be that workhorse of the LBSCR the C2X. The 0-6-0 was the typical British goods locomotive and not enough of them have been preserved.

Tony, Thanks very much for your comments. I think you’re right and it will have to be completely stripped. I will first convert it to EM gauge and then strip the body and the tender. It does illustrate the problems in buying a model built by someone else. There are further problems that can’t be seen in the photo. The driving wheels have 22 spokes rather than the correct 20 and as I said to you whilst it purports to represent the engine in its final condition it has a Westinghouse pump affixed to the right hand footplate. Nevertheless it runs well and I can therefore forgive it a lot of its faults. My experience of locomotives I’ve bought already built is that they very rarely run well and some have been awful. Occasionally I’ve bought one which has been built in such a way that it is actually incapable of movement. In one instance the brake gear was actually lower than the bottom of the wheels and thus when you tried to place it on the track it actually rested on the brake rodding but it did only cost £15.00 so I shouldn’t complain. Sandra

Tony, Buying a kit built locomotive built by someone else is always risky and can involve more work than starting a new kit from scratch. However it can be a much cheaper way of buying all the parts that make up a locomotive kit. As you know I’ve been building locos for Retford and as an example here’s a locomotive I’ve just bought. This is an A3 built by an unknown builder from a DJH kit. It cost less than £100 on eBay. It is of course built in OO so at the very least I’ll have to convert it to EM. It does, unusually, run very well as it has a Portescape motor and is very free running. However it has a double chimney which it would not have had in 1957 so that will be changed but the biggest problem is that whilst it doesn’t look too bad the lining is not good enough and so it will have to have a complete repaint. I don’t know if it’s glued or soldered together so if I do strip the paint and it’s been glued together it might all fall apart and I end up with kit. I think I’ll do the EM conversion first, get it to run properly, test it on Retford and then address the issue of the lining. Sandra

I seem to remember reading that just before withdrawal the shedmaster at Canton had her specially cleaned so that she could go out in a bit of style. I think the first photo from Miss Prism may show her at that time. She does not seem to have been repainted by BR but if she had been repainted post war by the GWR she would probably have been repainted in lined green. So it is possible she retained wartime black until withdrawal. If I were building her I would probably paint her black.

I’d go for the 3F, a humble goods engine but they were well liked and there were hundreds of them. It’s a shame none survived. However it would also have been nice if Big Bertha had survived.

I’m not a great fan of N gauge but I must say that Chee Tor was probably the most impressive model railway I’ve ever seen. For a view of the railway in a landscape I don’t think it could be beaten.

Tony, When I talked to Roy about the people who worked on the railway he always referred to The Retford Crew. Crew seems rather a modern word. Does anyone know if it would have been in use in 1957? Sandra

Retford the real station is in Nottinghamshire but the model is not therefore EM Notts would be a bit odd. I quite like Retford Massiv but I don’t think it’s in keeping with a model set in 1957.

Hello Robert, yes I have run out of lamps so I’ll have to buy some. The A4 60018 Sparrow Hawk is the one without lamps. This locomotive has given lots of trouble, it derails and it can’t pull a heavy train up the gradient without slipping to a halt. The problem is that the front bogie, the driving wheels and the tender wheels are all compensated. The front bogie also has a spring. To cut a long story short after much experimentation and some not inconsiderable amount of swearing I found that the principal problem was the spring on the bogie being too strong so I fitted a lighter one, I also removed the compensation unit from the tender. So the loco is now better but I don’t trust it with a passenger train so for the time being its been demoted to a humble goods train. I have painted the roof of the first carriage in the Queen of Scots Pullman but it is not a good match for the rest of the train so I’ll have to have another go at this. I do find carriage roofs to be difficult to get right, often the colour is too blue as in this case so I’ll have to experiment further possibly including brown or green in the mix. Sandra

Tony, Thats really kind of you, I’m so grateful. I already have 60506, so my choice would be 60513 Dante which I believe was a New England locomotive and probably quite common at Retford. It’s interesting that you and Robert have posted pictures of the GN fiddle yard. For comparison here’s a photo of the GN fiddle yard which I took this morning. As you can see it has expanded over the years. It could do with further expansion particularly on the down side as there are far more up trains compared to down trains. Sandra