JimC

Almost unlimited in the worst cases...

I think you've got to be fairly brave to say that a given minor fitting is definitively in the wrong place. GWR standardisation was aimed only at interchangeability, and minor parts did vary in position, and even varied in position from overhaul to overhaul on an individual locomotive. I'm seeing at least as many original photos supporting the location of the boiler top fittings in the order the Heljan locomotive has them in as there are for the KMRC one. I'm not sure either is definitively wrong or right unless you are pinning down a specific locomotive on a specific date. Both seem to be configurations that at least some 1361 class locomotives ran with at some time in their lives.

Two things struck me, when I was looking at maps. The first was that its possibly harder, in some ways at least, to do a "What if" based on a real location since one has the task of designing a whole railway and fitting it in the landscape in a vaguely credible manner. The other thing that occurred to me was that its all very well planting a fictional railway in a place/scenery you love, but f the railway had really come to that place it would probably have changed out of all recognition, especially if that line is supposed to have survived Beeching...

I haven't seen that one. It does sound like an alternative to the 94s as a replacement for Welsh 0-6-2s and heavy shunting work. It would have plenty of brake power and lower axle load. I just had a very quick play and it seems hard to get it to work unless upgraded to the longer Std 2 boiler or else something new. Getting wheels to fit around the firebox is tricky.

Have a look at Hill Head then. Whereas most of that area is flat there are some small cliffs there. Google streetmap drive along the coast road (Marine Parade) from Lee on Solent, past the airfield, and its all flat as it turns into Salterns road, but then Salterns road takes a turn away from the coast and goes up a hill, and turn left onto Hill Head road, and that is at the top of a small semi cliff, even though its all covered with houses now. Can sort of imagine your line being an extension of the Lee on Solent branch along the coast, and imagine that the area became a major commuting point between Portsmouth and Southampton in the 1930s, and that's how come the line survived. Your line would be near beach level, but with the cliff behind. Or alternatively, depending on which side you want the cliff, it was a different branch from Fareham that came down the Meon Valley and turned eastward.

I'm starting to wonder if the entire shipment experienced some sort of high energy accident.

Hills and embankments? On the Manhood peninsula?? There can hardly be a contour line in the whole area. Wouldn't you be better to just use trees or buildings for your scenic break? Or else think about a different location? Somewhere a bit further to the west would be more likely to give you your contours. Maybe an extension of the Lee on Solent branch to the Stubbington or Hill Head area?

Outside. Here's a quick shot at it. I haven't even attempted to guess the brakes: they might have had to put them on six wheels only. Judging by the sketch in RCTS the proposal was abandoned at a very early stage, if indeed it was ever any more than "This is why this won't work".

The only one I can recall seeing was in RCTS, where there's a pre WW1 sketch of an 0-8-0T based on 4400 components (that's the earlier 4ft1in wheel version of the small Prairie). Its shown with a very light axle loading, 12 tons per axle. Its also got a very short wheelbase, slightly shorter than a 5700 0-6-0PT. It doesn't look especially practical, a conclusion one presumes Churchward also reached. I might try a sketch later.

Not according to the GWR GA drawings I have in front of me.

In "GWR Journal No3", Wild Swan Publishing, Summer 1992, there's a letter from Mike Casey, ex Swindon drawing office. It reads in part "I was taught… that I should NEVER NEVER scale off a drawing. It was drummed into me that the dimensions were there to be used, and that if I needed a dimension not shown on a particular drawing, I was probably looking at the wrong one…" The only drawback being that they had access to the complete set of drawings, a luxury we rarely enjoy...

Gradients are your friend... According to my copy of GWR Goods wagons whilst the 47 was rated for 70 10 ton equivalent on gradients up to 1:190, on a 1:45 they were limited to about 21. So if your fast fitted freight mustn't stop for a banker and there is a big bank somewhere on the route then your traffic folk will be forced to reduce the train considerably.

In my defence Latin lessons were nearly 50 years ago... ... and I wasn't much good then. Vi vaporis would do, it wasn't quite what I was aiming at, but I've forgotten what I was aiming at! Mostly I liked having viva in it! The pale gray is supposed to be argent, not azure, I thought it looked more pleasing like that than as white, especially as I wanted a gray heron. Or was that a typo and its Or and Argent side by side I should have avoided?

I'm not sure you're actually allowed to change your coat of arms, but maybe the 1st Baronet was a major player in sorting out the chaos of the bank collapses after the railway mania bubble burst and got his status for that. That's a better fit with your concept of the family as political anyway. I think the trouble here though is that whereas with London and Surrey and Wimbledon and Sutton I was just hacking existing coats of arms, and had excellent material, this is more like starting from scratch, and its painfully obvious how little I know about it. However I read up a bit more and tried to get something a bit simpler. I moved the Heron up to the crest, and apparently a Baronet has that sort of face on helmet. The steam engine probably needs work, I took an existing drawing of something 1850s, hopefully it looks vaguely generic. I tried to make the colours a bit less random and a bit more in line with what a 20 minute study of heraldry led me to believe was good practice. Really though a heraldry forum (they must exist!) ought to be the place to get coats of arms designed. I'm sure such a place would laugh themselves sick at this, and good luck to them. Anyway, for what its worth..

Do you want to lose the steam ship then? Need to think about colours a lot more, its far too bitty.

I've been reading more on this stuff than is really good for me I think... I reckon you need to upgrade your protaganists to Barons: unless I misunderstand what I'm reading baronets are merely gentry, not nobility, and didn't get to sit in the House of Lords. Coat of arms might well not have supporters and just be a shield. He would be, I suppose, Baron Bradleigh of somewhere, presumably Kelsby. A quick scan - "Wikipedia research" suggests most mid 19thC Baronies were either politicians or military. That's relevant because Coats of arms often had something to do with the holder on. I wonder of your Baron had something to do with introducing steam ships to the Royal Navy, and had something like HMS Warrior on his shield? A keen maritime steam enthusiast's son might well be interested in railways... Also if we have a steam associated military man I thought of a gloriously silly motto - vapor ad victoria ~ steam towards victory... Appaling puns on the holders name are also a thing in heraldry, what can you think of for Bradleigh? Here's half a shield with the steam ship on, need something for the top half. Resemblance to shield of Bristol not coincidental! Crazy isn't it, you start with making up a fictional back story for your model railway, and before you know it your inventing an entire Victorian dynasty...

Tricky, there doesn't seem to be much source material... Living in Surrey its easy for me to pick out local heraldry in so much as I know anything about it. Actually, reading your imaginary history, wouldn't your Baronet Bradleigh have had his own coat of arms used on the stock? That doesn't advance us very far since I can't find a real Bradleigh coat of arms on the net, but it seems the task is to figure out a coat of arms for the Baronet, but they seem to be so random. Find two or three svg coats of arms on Wikipedia and combine bits of them... There are probably rules about what a Baronets coat of arms is supposed to look like, but I don't know that stuff!

Here's another London Surrey one, as I was stuck waiting for someone to come this morning. A sheep for the wool trade, a Cockerel for Dorking. No doubt everyone who actually knows about heraldry is falling about laughing at this, but hey, that means I've made someone happy! Thanks to the folks on Wikipedia commons I stole the surrey badges, the sheep, the cockerel and the leaves from...

For some strange reason I fancied doing some crests for your imaginary lines... They're highly derivative of GWR types, but when you look at some of the real ones they all seemed to steal each others ideas, so maybe its not too far fetched,,, London and Surrey = two shields, with a pre 1938 Surrey County badge. Maybe just too much like GWR? Garters seemed to feature in a lot of pre group crests, so I stole a GWR one I drew earlier. Rather than put a full heraldic contents, I just picked a couple of items. The double headed eagle is well associated with Wimbledon, but Sutton is a bit more difficult, but some things I found featured the keys, so I thoughjt eagle holding the keys might work...

Was there much difference?. I've just looked at some drawings, and King and Castle are listed as 8ft 11.5in over cylinder cleating, and the 47s as 8ft 11in dead, but wouldn't the throwover on curves be different?

This is the trouble with enthusiast thinking... Swindon innovated better manufacture, better bearing design, better locomotive testing, better safety, the list goes on, but enthusiasts have the mantra that not fitting outside valve gear and high degree superheat, both things which have disadvantages as well as advantages, means they weren't doing any development.

I think that has to be just another myth. When I look at that Great Eastern launch photo above, all the hats seem to me to be the same height.

My understanding is the pure broad gauge coaches were ten feet wide across the body, whereas standard gauge were 7'6 in or 8ft.

3d printing would be one's friend perhaps? Would a model be better off driving those 8 carrying wheels?

Ah, the spirit of Dr Dionysius Lardner is with us yet. Dr Lardner was an early science populariser, who crossed swords with Brunel and Gooch on serveral occasions and normally came second, usually because he over simplified his calculations or didn't understand scale effects. The often unreliable wikipedia doesn't seem too bad (at least right now) on his interactions with the GWR, who seemed to give him an astonishing amount of co-operation. Perhaps they believed that any publicity was good publicity, or simply supplied him with a generous supply of rope.