34theletterbetweenB&D

We'll have to confine the inauthentic liveries to the matching wagons then. Nice iron minks, Icedgemo covered hoppers, and Chocolate Oliver siphons anyone? If the preservation lines are permitted to dress up locos in past livery schemes that the protoype never carried, I see little objection to an attractive livery scheme from some other similarly sized and form industrial, on a model Peckett. It'll be close to a miracle if we get more than two or three more industrial steam models to this standard, and the manufacturers will only offer them if they can be sure of good financial returns on them. And a proven way to do that on a model is to churn them in attractive liveries. There might perhaps be wisdom in accepting a little deviation from absolute truth, in the interest of as many accurate models of these types as possible emerging RTR?

Thankfully, the habit of folks acquiring - but never quite getting around to building - them, means that appeals in 'wanted' sections here and elsewhere will usually spring examples from Mt. Kitpile.

These pairs were pretty much out of service by 1962. The 'great survivors' in articulated Gresley stock for short haul services were of course the Quad Arts, the last of these sets hung on until 1966, so you can have them running alongside a full 'BR corporate' blue and grey liveried train. I love the transition period, the last few designs of clear pre-group design origin, running alongside the new that had forty years service ahead of it. Never again would such a span be easily seen. If an impression is what is required rather than slavish accuracy, that'll do.

Having done the right thing on the non-gangwayed Gresley types to their great advantage in appearance, one would hope the way is clear to provide more accurate gangwayed stock, ideally the end vestibule vehicles that went on longest in service on BR. It is somewhat amusing that the most accurate LNER route express train possible from RTR is probably the Queen of Scots Pullman. The rarest passenger vehicles on the line have the best coverage.

Once it pleases the owner, that's the job done from a commercial perspective. I seriously doubt there will be much criticism, as this is a speciality subject; and as the photos already posted here show, the model looks remarkably like photos of the prototype. Just a couple of small adjustments to eliminate compromises necessary for set track curve capability to further polish the jewel, and the addition of a little 'running dirt' here and there will ice this cake.

The direct drive to each axle is kinder on the axle seats. The motor bogies with worm drives (Airfix, old T-H) used to chew up the axle gears before tyre wear became too severe. Hornby's spur gear motor bogie drives lasted better, I suspect because this design can readily speed equalise with each other since the drive is somewhat reversible, the tyres replaceable too, clipped on to the geared centres. The endurance and haulage 'heroes' were the Athearn and Bachmann centre motor drives; and of current UK OO I note that the Heljan 23 is up to 150g per axle. Believe that's the largest axle load in RTR OO at present.

"Why are you wearing shorts, it's winter?" "Outside perhaps, in here it's the eternal summer of the spotless mind." Impressive stuff when you get a lump of it. However we're only talking a 100g or thereabouts in the chassis assembly for the purposes of the model; same weight as the mazak would supply but in far less volume enabling the frame space down to the diaphragm plates to be represented. FWIW, past experience of making 4mm models very heavy with lead for outdoor operation to secure reliable pick up and traction even on a wet or icy rail, suggests to me that rod driven RTR wheelsets with a plastic bushing as the axle seat will suffer accelerated failure if the load per axle exceeds 200g. Never been able to compare notes with anyone else who has done this, seems to be a minority sport in which I was sole participant!

Drifting off topic somewhat, but whenever one of the Bachmann 9F's goes past on the layout, the thought crosses my mind that a replacement chassis block accurately showing the frames down to the diaphragm plates would 'ice the cake' on this model. A tungsten alloy core with applique etched frame sides perhaps, for no weight loss with better appearance perhaps?

Not a bit of it, they made it taller because that was the way all their product was made back then, so that the bufferbeam would clear the jumbo coupler hook on a transition from level track to 1 in 15, as produced by the 'inclined piers' of their system. It was quite possible to drop the loco body relative to the mechanism and thus put the footplate and buffers at scale height, or to go a step further and fit scale 26mm dia drivers and still achieve scale height, although that did need slight recesses cutting within the boiler shell to clear the top corners of the motor. The tender was even better, slice the excess 2mm of height out of the frames above the spring trunnions, cement a new footplate on top of the frames and about 1mm of plasticard packing to the tender body underside carefully blended to the sides, for a near dead scale tender body. Of everything in the Triang-Hornby steam loco selection back in the day, easily the best starting point for making a scale tender. The well executed flared out sides were much appreciated by many.

There's only one way to slow mazak rot, and that's to keep it warm and dry. The failure mode is that the lead promotes a change in the crystalline structure of the solid. I don't remember the temperature break point - it is ine the 'ambient' zone - but below this temperature a slightly bulkier crystalline structure is more stable, and that's the cause of the swelling. With no lead present, the low temperature risk is very much reduced, but it may still happen in the longer term. Mazak is a 'young' alloy formulation; unlike brasses. bronzes, pewters, steels where we centuries or even millennia of experience, we probably haven't yet seen all the tricks it has in store. As I think you are aware, the alternatives are likely to be more expensive, one way or another. Mind you, find an equivalently capable alloy (see post 37 for some of the properties to be matched or beaten) with less downside and equal or better economy and there's money to be made.

Whatever the absolute authenticity, I think this must be the first OO RTR plastic bodied loco production to carry any LNWR livery style?

Zinc alloys (Mazak, Zamak) in various formulations are used for small die castings for a whole 'basket' of properties. Doesn't erode the die material too fast, fills well and takes a good impression, easily machined, has sufficient weight, strength, stiffness, dimensional stability, corrosion resistance, readily accepts paints and platings, non-toxic; for a cost that results in a price acceptable to customers. It has a downside in its vulnerability to lead contamination. Show me an alloy that doesn't have any downside, and that'll be invulnar, principle components unobtainium, noncorrodium and fortisium, priced at the GDP of Switxerland per kilo!

We will know the revolution has come if Hornby can be persuaded to take at least one display photo of any new stock introductions on a carefully ballasted length of a 'better OO track', instead of exclusively using their own lamentable stuff with its 1950s origins on show.

Shown on LNER outline diagrams, as seven and a half inches between frame ends, or alternatively 8'3" 7'9" between trailing coupled axle and leading tender axle centres, or 48'3" total wheelbase of loco and tender. ERROR corrected. For some inexplicable reason ability to perform basic arithmetic apparently departed me at time of original posting...

Very handy that underside view. I suspect I will be making a new drawbar to space off loco and tender at scale separation, since the supplied one looks like it will saw through the wires whichever way around it is used, if operation is attempted at the scale option. It may well be possible to go one better and re-jig it all so the drawbar goes into the drag boxes; with the overall appearance so good, this sort of fiddling around icing the cake is well justifiable. I expect that the slight 'reveal' of the inset bottom of the boiler will be 'disappearable' by slight adjustment of the contacting surfaces where the body interior rests on the mechanism. This worked easily on the J15, and would have been equally possible on the D16/3 but was not required on my specimen. And are those splashers behind the rear bogie wheels? Don't recall that detail in any previous RTR model of any class. Now Hornby, about the B16...

The sounds you are going to need which will not be standard are the tyre squeals and suspension and frame noises as the stock got around the curves and gradient transitions. The 40s and Peaks were distinctively different from 'all the rest', much more groaning, thuds and clonking. Oh, and another one which a deprived youth will have prevented you hearing live; the insanity which was the EE type 2 'Baby Deltic'. Even for a period more relaxed about matters environmental these machines were incredibly loud in the upper register from the turbocharger's wail, even with the loco itself moving at dead slow, aided by hard surfaces all about to 'keep the noise in'. A fixed speaker array to provide the main station 'background music', especially of Deltic departures and arrivals with the acoustic variations provided by the trainshed, open throat and 'piped' by the tunnel, definitely worth considering. It is all so soulless now, none of the fondly remembered atmos. with largely electric traction doing the work efficiently...

I had hoped when the NRM embarked on its loco model programme that we might see several of the renowned 'last quarter of C19th' express types get a model (Gladstone, Jumbo, 901 or Tennant, other singles various) but rather fear these have now 'missed the boat' as rising prices will reduce the likely market uptake to less than required for a sensible commercial return. So it may be that the Stirling single is 'it' for this category as far as RTR is concerned.

I believe the answer is 'non' for your target period. With no wine production in the UK, and an established bottled/cask beer trade from brewery to point of UK consumption or export, there was no opportunity for a bulk tanker. Efforts to promote this concept appear to be post WWII. There was a telegraphic wagon code 'CASK', but this was for 'empty cask' wagons, a high sided cage providing maximum capacity for the low density load. Did such wagons depart the brewery only part filled with full casks, or go out empty? Why not use regular general merchandise opens or vans, which could work a balancing turn, assuming loaded casks out and empty casks in ran near equal, with relatively few losses? Or were these wagons for movement of empty casks alone to such as whisky distilleries which required used sherry casks and the like for the maturation of water of life? (The LNER's CASK wagons were from the NBR.)

What sort of 'main line loco'? It is entirely credible that a modest 0-6-0 or 2-6-0 type could run in from the top left entry, and stay solely on the straight road, which is in use as a kick back allowing access to 'another siding' somewhere off scene. Something like the C class, 3F or J15, or a class 2 2-6-0 would be the right 'scale' . So it would run into view, reverse direction and run off scene, then reappear with a short cut of wagons, then go off scene again. It could then reappear with a different cut of wagons, and repeat, parking them in the off scene siding before making its final exit.

By observation the much higher location of the bottom of the keeper plate is an easy giveaway, thanks to the much better airspace and thus light beneath. You want catalogue numbers starting 32-, but beware the bottom feeders putting a 32- xxx body on an old split chassis mechanism. Small tank engines too! The motor turns through 90 degrees to assist getting it into narrow openings, which made it a snap for fitting into a J52 body, All that has to be done to enable this is to cut away two moulded plastic bumps in the base of the plastic cradle/retainer, which the motor is clipped into.

So does anyone know where the wagon(s) actually worked? It's very different and attractive, and any vaguely plausible excuse will do. (What I do know is that the story of the many UK based lubricant producers is long, tangled and complex, by an old friend recently retired from one of the best known.)

For cheap coaches which will withstand the attentions of children, these look to be a good deal. I would come straight out and say don't bother improving them with the likes of better glazing, unless you are a real enthusiast for doing this kind of thing; because they are such a flawed canvas as a starting point. (There are simple plastic kits - mostly now have to be found s/h but they are regularly available - for Gresley coaches in the Ian Kirk range; these will build into scale models for much the same effort, and can be improved as the owner chooses.) Then, at some future point in time if the model railway interest is still burning bright, these coaches can be either sold on in trade for something better, or given the more or less ambitious rework treatment to taste. Repaint experiments, use of the bodies as carcases to apply new etched sides, massive carve ups as already described to make them into something more accurate. The one I particularly like is that the sleeper from this range is too short for an LNER sleeping car: but this company also built articulated twin sleeping cars with slightly shorter bodies, and relatively little carving makes a relatively accurate artic. twin sleeper from two of these original coaches.

It only needs the magic word to happen. If enough LMS and LMR enthusiasts start talking Stanier 0-4-4T, then a RTR model will come along, lickety split.

Actually equidistant in scale ratio between both 3mm and 4mm. The really interesting thing with an HO 66 is to put it alongside an HO model of the US equivalent traction unit, and appreciate just how much 'pruning' was undertaken to squeeze it inside the UK moving loading gauge.

That's a prepared script to discourage interest in this particular subject if I am any judge. We undertook a one off exclusive commission of a specified volume and that's it, all finished; no further plans being entertained. There's some Utubery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8O1DIxjWIQ