benachie

Jeremy, "Remember that what you see in an in service loco is the boiler cladding, the holes in which may not actually be the same shape as the ones in the actual boiler!" Exactly - and what you see is always circular. Compare Bob's picture of the real BP linked in his 23 December posting http://andrewstransport1960.fotopic.net/p47887579.html with his picture of the model BP in his 24 December posting. The circularity of the cladding holes is most clearly shown in locos in LNE livery where the hole is white-lined. See http://www.docbrown.info/docspics/midlands/mspage22.htm about a third of the way down for the best view. Alan

I am puzzled by this. Are we talking about the same thing? Could you point me in the direction of a photograph showing oval covers as all that I have seen are definitely circular. Alan

I think that the pipe and rod on the A1 firebox rhs should also be present on the A2. Also, whereas the inspection covers on the A1 are underscale, those on the A2 seem slightly overscale and should they really be oval? Of course, they seem oval in any broadside drawing, but I believe they are circular in reality Alan

Bob, The September '66 "tarting up" must have been for some special run. Isn't there some doubt about whether she ever did actually get back to 61B Ferryhill? The bufferbeam "Dundee", no warning flashes on the Bachmann model suggests about 1962 - just after move from Ferryhill. Split handrail on smokebox happened in 1962 - someone will know the exact date. Alan

Seems to be minus its nameplate in the pic? According to a picture in "The Colour of Steam - the LNER Pacifics", dated September 1966, BP had a blue nameplate, was still labelled 61B, had white/aluminium paint on smokebox door hinges, buffers etc. and nothing on the buffer beam. Alan

"any 'spare' space at the smoke box or boiler front can have a lead ingot made to fit." Hi Geoff, That just won't be enough to counterbalance the tank/cab/bunker weight so you have to have some weight transmitted on to the bogie which also helps to guide the back end sensibly round curves. Frankly, any 0-4-4T presents just about the most difficult chassis to build (though very satisfying when you get it right). I always use twin beam suspension or build the 4-coupled unit rigid but allow it to rock fore-and-aft as with good practice in coach suspension. Alan

There was a Ks kit which can sometimes be got secondhand. However, the DJH kit is excellent and goes together relatively easily. You must recognise, however, that all 0-4-4 tanks are difficult because of the over-heavy rear. The DJH kit uses spring pressure onto the bogie to counteract this - a common solution - but this is not all that easy to adjust. Compensation is not easy either though the twin-beam system is not too bad. All in all, 0-4-4Ts are not really for "beginners". Alan

Thanks for all your contributions, everyone. A couple of questions in my last post still remain. Alan

Hi Bob, Many thanks. Your expert knowledge both cheers me (because my ignorance is now understandable) and saddens me (the English (Derby) have let us down again - sorry, no politics here!). If you have not already done so, I think you should get your valuable information into some hard copy publication - RMWeb, although so useful, may be somewhat ephemeral. Two small queries remain: where would Harris have got his information on the SC allocations of the early Gresley diagrams? And why were ALL coaches in a diagram that had never operated outwith Scotland not formally given a Scottish allocation e.g. LNER dia.66? Alan

Thanks for your comments, everyone. Any ideas about SCxxE and SCxxM? And what did allocation to a region actually mean? I've seen pictures of SC coaches a long way from Scotland. Were they unofficially borrowed or officially reallocated but not yet re-labelled? Alan

I am trying to find out as much as I can about which coaches were allocated to Scottish Region in the period 1951-1965 i.e. that had (or should have had) an "SC" prefix to the coach number. For BR Mk1 coaches there are the initial allocations in Parkin's book. For Gresley coaches, Harris's book gives the initial allocations only for the diagrams dealt with in the book. His earlier book gives some allocations for Thompson coaches. I know of no equivalent for ex-LMS coaches. There are a few SC numbers given in Carter's book on LMS train formations. Then there are the (few) photographs where the coach number is visible. Chrisf tells me there are occasional pieces of info in the "Railway Observer". So, how can I extend my knowledge about SC numbers? What was implied by an allocation to a particular region e.g. Scottish Region? Some LNE diagrams spent all their days in Scotland but not all were given SC allocations according to Harris. Obviously there were changes to the initial allocations. Is there any published information about these changes? Thanks in anticipation. Alan