JimC

If I read RCTS correctly I think they all started life as Peckett's  E Class. Once they were with the GWR they were all classed under the same diagram, but over time there were minor differences - not all received GWR chimney's for instance. So by the time they got to BR there were certainly variations, but I don't think the variations related to who owned them 30 years before.

Are you sure it's of railway origin? Sometimes a summerhouse is just a summerhouse! 

Rail 254/365 is at Kew, not York. The other registers up to 1951 seem to be there too. 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4350208

Description: Register of condemned wagon stock

Date:1924-1929

The second sample argues against it being an S. He forms the S in Sold quite differently. That presumes both are the same hand though. I tend to agree that what looks like a first character could be just a downstroke and we have three letters. Are there any other similar mystery entries, or is it just the one, and are there any entries that are unequivocably RSB? 

I'd like to see a few more entries too. Are there any more that seem the same? And does the number of wagons involved give a clue to the size of the Co? Of course there's always elimination - are there any constituents not noted in your list that you'd expect to see? 

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

That is what distinguishes side tanks from saddle or pannier tanks, which are supported by brackets off the boiler.

By which definition the GWR 94xx are side tanks. I think not! 

Good stuff. I'd like to find a MSWJR 4-4-0 tender for a similar conversion, but I can only find etched kits which is beyond my pay grade.

and meanwhile the 4709 group are nursing their sore knuckles?

14 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Really, so anyone that looks on Wikipedia is accepting the information as absolute? 

It's quite evident that many do. 

The worst thing about Wikipedia is the insistence on *not* using primary sources. A classic example of this was in the article about the GC London extension, where the Wikifanboys insisted the article should retain the nonsense about it being built to Berne gauge, since that was in a book, whereas the original gauge drawings were a primary source and invalid, and evidence from people who work on the preserved structures was original research and invalid! 

The talk page is both amusing and frustrating in equal measure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Great_Central_Main_Line. Someone eventually managed a form of words the fanatics would accept. I particularly like the statement that Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. 

My impression, reading RCTS, is that duties wouldn't have overlapped. The earlier bananas were geared for 60+ mph which might have been a bit of a struggle for the steam units. Lower geared branch line cars didn't appear until 1938. So while the very last steam and the first diesel units might have been seen together occasionally, at least at Swindon, it seems to me that the new didn't directly replace the old on the same services.

35 minutes ago, amwells said:

Worse still today, the number of mobile phones held aloft to record the passing of the hearse, to the detriment / line of sight of anyone trying to pay respect. 

The arms held aloft gave a particularly unfortunate impression.

Just had a *huge* ad for TMC which I couldn't click past because the relevant bits were off the screen. 1680 *1050 monitor, Windows 8.1, chrome browser. Any other info needed?

And here's the odd little Dean O-4-4 No 34, updated from back tank to pannier tank with a new boiler.

I'm not feeling very inspired at the moment about your other missing types. The larger tank engines would be problematic since there would be issues of visibility with the length of boiler, and water capacity due to the greater diameter of the boiler reducing space for tanks.

@CaledonianYank here, not as tidied up as it might be, is a Barry Class G 0-4-4T as never (although it could have been) Swindonised with pannier tanks and a Std 9 boiler. 

19 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah yes, that was at the back of my mind. But the same point is made - wheels to the rear of the cylinders, otherwise the cylinders are held in place and supplied with steam by magic.

But interesting, because with high set angled cylinders and small leading wheels the weight of the cylinders on that Stroudley must be a few helpful inches further back than they would be otherwise. 

This is congruent to some thinking I've been doing about the (G)WR 15xx outside cylinder pannier tank. With exactly the same issues of clearance and weight distribution, I've come to the opinion that rather than designing it deliberately with a short wheelbase they had given it the longest wheelbase that was compatible with the desired outside cylinders. 

36 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

Turn it off!

Trouble is it's like satnav. You turn it off and then find out that your short term memory ability to look at a map and memorise the next 10 turnings has atrophied. 

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 I am compelled to insist that the notation is PT, ST, WT etc. - 

Tell that to my autocorrect! 

39 minutes ago, CaledonianYank said:

 So here is a list of pannier tanks I have yet to see, 

• 4-4-0PT

I haven't studied small prairie wheels, but there was a change to the design of 5'8 wheels under Collett. It was either crank moved from on a spoke to between spokes or vv, but I think the first off hand. The older design did sometimes replace the newer (oh and driving wheels were different to leading and trailing). Might be worth looking for similar variations. 

2 hours ago, doilum said:

Not an absolute rule, but after the suffix letters were introduced the numbers 1-99 were often allocated to motorcycles.

Wasn't the case in Surrey from about 79 on. I was in the bike trade then. We just got the next batch. 

3 minutes ago, micknich2003 said:

Not perfect, but hopefully of some use.

Just good enough to be useful, many thanks. 

IIRC In the early 80s when I was in the motor trade the numbers were issued sequentially separately from the letters, so on the letter boundary XXX499V would be followed by XXX500W, and the wrap around from 999 to 1 or 100 (I forget whether 1 and 2 digit numbers were sold separately at that time) would happen at some random time.

Can anyone point me to a photo of one of the USA tanks with the rods off? Better still a closeup of a wheel? There surely must be a restoration photo gallery with such a photo somewhere, but I've failed to find one.

4 minutes ago, Zero Gravitas said:

, the 15xx is what their offspring would look like.

It's often stated that the 15s were influenced by the USAs, but in my opinion it doesn't hold up if looked at in detail. I did a blog entry here FWIW. 

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

It isn't often said but those times should be considered a big improvement; this is the time for limited or non-stop services, nine minutes reduction from 41 minutes is well over 20%.  It is relatively harder to reduce times significantly on short journeys. 

Good point, and I suggest the corollary is that on suburban routes increasing frequency would have a much bigger effect on quality of service than increasing speed.