Castle Aching

[Annie]

1 minute ago, 16Brunel said:

I've always wondered how Singles had enough grip to be viable. 

Two words, - steam sanding.

It was advances in sanding technology that permitted the single driver locomotive to still be a viable locomotive type into the first two decades of the 20th century.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

Two words, - steam sanding.

It was advances in sanding technology that permitted the single driver locomotive to still be a viable locomotive type into the first two decades of the 20th century.

 

The first experiments at Derby used air from the Westinghouse pump until the Westinghouse Co. got wind of it and said absolutely not. The Midland was in the process of abandoning the Westinghouse air brake in favour of the vacuum brake anyway.

[Donw]

In regards to old coaches you might find this interesting

 

https://youtu.be/bmNn9F5BHoo

[Tom Burnham]

1 hour ago, Donw said:

In regards to old coaches you might find this interesting

 

https://youtu.be/bmNn9F5BHoo

Isle of Wight? I really must visit the steam railway. They do a fantastic job with their carriages.

[Donw]

3 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

Isle of Wight? I really must visit the steam railway. They do a fantastic job with their carriages.

 

Yes taken from Packsfield lane which crosses the line at Wootton. Regular walk with the dog for us.

 

Don

[Deeps]

On 31/07/2024 at 08:18, Donw said:

In regards to old coaches you might find this interesting

 

https://youtu.be/bmNn9F5BHoo

I had to have a double take when viewing that footage, it could easily be included in the ‘When the real thing looks like a model’ thread. It was only the nature of the barbed wire in the foreground that convinced me we were looking at the superbly presented 4-wheelers operating on the IOW!

[Edwardian]

On 23/07/2024 at 13:06, 16Brunel said:

 James has been known to occasionally - and fruitfully - troll through eBay etc. 

 

About that...

 

I am trying to implement a period of financial retrenchment, returning to where I started, modelling with little discernable budget, but, then, people keep releasing new models and selling old ones.

 

So, this...

 

Not the best paint-job in the world, and could benefit from some detailling, nbot least a whistle, but it runs strongly and cost Yours Truly £65.  It's impossible to complain or, indeed, resist at such a price for a 'small industrial'. Any current RTR equivalent would cost much more. If I were to purchase a resin body for an RTR chassis, that would also require painting and detailing, and is likely to cost something in the region of, say, £35-55, which is entirely reasonable, but a modern proprietary chassis to go-with, absent a particularly canny purchase or lucky donation, is liable to set one back £80-100 these days.  Of course, buying a kit and everything to complete and motorise it, would cost even more.  

 

So, I do look upon this as a charismatic bargain. It's the perfect little dockside shunting type. How can one resist its diminutive charm, the short squashed-up cab, the Johnsonian dome with salter valves and the perky stovepipe chimney? 

 

The question I have, though, is what is it?  In style and overall appearance it seems to me to resemble a Midland Railway 1322 or 116A Class. The length and rear overhang does not look great enough to my eyes to be the larger boilered 1134A Class, whose proportions it does not share. I have not seen either of the former two classes pictured with such a cab, however. They typically are seen with either flat front sheets or the wrap-over, sideless, type that form a backsheet also.  The cab on the model is a style I have only seen on the larger, longer 1134As in later years. Any failure to match exactly  a specific MR protpype might explain the lack of serious competitive interest, though it was not advertised as a Midland locomotive.  Hopefully Stephen can put me right and elucidate further.

 

Whereas there were, I think, no sales out of service of 1322/116As until 1928, one was almost sold when nearly-new in 1884 and a couple were withdrawn and cut up 1905 and 1907, so it is always possible to rewrite history enough to place one of these somewhere else and thereby explain the change of cab. Then there is the possiblity that someone built something similar, or Johnson lent a mate his drawings. Come to that, we can even imagine Johnson coming up with the design a decade earlier, before he left Stratford. If so, I would point to the cab of this model being closer to the cabs subsequently (1894) fitted to Johnson's GER Coffee Pots than the Midland cab variants. The GER cabs had similar short sides, but were full cabs with backsheets. Anyway, given the way a whole freelance railway company, the WNR, tends perforce to bend hiostorical reality around it, I can certainly come up with some might-have-been story. I have no real need for a Midland yard shunter, but there are many possible uses for one in freelance ownership.   

 

 

 

 

And to 'scale' it next to the Dapol Hawthorn Leslie

 

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

Looks like a Ks kit at root? I'm away from my books so unable to comment further immediately.

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

Looks like a Ks kit at root? I'm away from my books so unable to comment further immediately.

 

It's white metal, so I think that identification is likely correct.

[16Brunel]

51 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

  On 23/07/2024 at 22:06, 16Brunel said:

 James has been known to occasionally - and fruitfully - troll through eBay etc. 

I've just realised my typo - I meant trawl of course - apparently my fingers are much more sarcastic than my brain at times!

 

- S.

[Edwardian]

35 minutes ago, 16Brunel said:

I've just realised my typo - I meant trawl of course - apparently my fingers are much more sarcastic than my brain at times!

 

- S.

 

I thought your original choice of word perfectly expressed my approach to Ebay!

[Donw]

Kit L37 ex MR Johnson would seem to match google brought up a catalogue page. I rather like that.

 

Don

 

 

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 07/08/2024 at 13:14, Edwardian said:

 

About that...

 

I am trying to implement a period of financial retrenchment, returning to where I started, modelling with little discernable budget, but, then, people keep releasing new models and selling old ones.

 

So, this...

 

Not the best paint-job in the world, and could benefit from some detailling, nbot least a whistle, but it runs strongly and cost Yours Truly £65.  It's impossible to complain or, indeed, resist at such a price for a 'small industrial'. Any current RTR equivalent would cost much more. If I were to purchase a resin body for an RTR chassis, that would also require painting and detailing, and is likely to cost something in the region of, say, £35-55, which is entirely reasonable, but a modern proprietary chassis to go-with, absent a particularly canny purchase or lucky donation, is liable to set one back £80-100 these days.  Of course, buying a kit and everything to complete and motorise it, would cost even more.  

 

So, I do look upon this as a charismatic bargain. It's the perfect little dockside shunting type. How can one resist its diminutive charm, the short squashed-up cab, the Johnsonian dome with salter valves and the perky stovepipe chimney? 

 

The question I have, though, is what is it?  In style and overall appearance it seems to me to resemble a Midland Railway 1322 or 116A Class. The length and rear overhang does not look great enough to my eyes to be the larger boilered 1134A Class, whose proportions it does not share. I have not seen either of the former two classes pictured with such a cab, however. They typically are seen with either flat front sheets or the wrap-over, sideless, type that form a backsheet also.  The cab on the model is a style I have only seen on the larger, longer 1134As in later years. Any failure to match exactly  a specific MR protpype might explain the lack of serious competitive interest, though it was not advertised as a Midland locomotive.  Hopefully Stephen can put me right and elucidate further.

 

Whereas there were, I think, no sales out of service of 1322/116As until 1928, one was almost sold when nearly-new in 1884 and a couple were withdrawn and cut up 1905 and 1907, so it is always possible to rewrite history enough to place one of these somewhere else and thereby explain the change of cab. Then there is the possiblity that someone built something similar, or Johnson lent a mate his drawings. Come to that, we can even imagine Johnson coming up with the design a decade earlier, before he left Stratford. If so, I would point to the cab of this model being closer to the cabs subsequently (1894) fitted to Johnson's GER Coffee Pots than the Midland cab variants. The GER cabs had similar short sides, but were full cabs with backsheets. Anyway, given the way a whole freelance railway company, the WNR, tends perforce to bend hiostorical reality around it, I can certainly come up with some might-have-been story. I have no real need for a Midland yard shunter, but there are many possible uses for one in freelance ownership.   

 

 

 

 

And to 'scale' it next to the Dapol Hawthorn Leslie

 

 

 

 

Hmm. Cute little engine. Looks very Manning Wardle or Andrew Barclay  to me. Another of the erstwhile No.19's cohorts moving on I take it?

[Edwardian]

9 hours ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Hmm. Cute little engine. Looks very Manning Wardle or Andrew Barclay  to me. Another of the erstwhile No.19's cohorts moving on I take it?

 

It does have a look of a small Andrew Barclay to me.

 

The WNR appears to have a choice of three works shunters; every time I see a small tank engine that I think will suit the Norfolk Minerals, I start to wonder how nice it would look in WNR livery ....

[Edwardian]

Off on our hols....

 

 

Always, of course La Serenissima fascinates. Now I have introduced Miss T to it, 36 years since I was last there.

 

 

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Off on our hols....

 

 

Ah, the University of Birmingham! Or is it Berkeley?

[Edwardian]

45 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah, the University of Birmingham! Or is it Berkeley?

 

Blackpool Tower, I'd assume, leastways, that's where I thought we were going.

[Northroader]

Did you go “man in seat 61” or fly?

[Caley Jim]

17 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Blackpool Tower, I'd assume, leastways, that's where I thought we were going.

Nah! Blackpool Tower has been on the telly every day for the past fortnight. 

 

Jim

[nick_bastable]

9 hours ago, Northroader said:

Did you go “man in seat 61” or fly?

Park and ride works well ferry docks in the centre,    how much a coffee in St Marks now was I think it was €18 when we went many moons ago

[Deeps]

7 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Nah! Blackpool Tower has been on the telly every day for the past fortnight. 

 

Jim

Considering they started construction of the Eiffel Tower some 137 years ago, you would have thought they could have removed all that scaffolding by now.😀

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, nick_bastable said:

Park and ride works well ferry docks in the centre,    how much a coffee in St Marks now was I think it was €18 when we went many moons ago

 

I'm afraid my daughter has become rather fond of Caffe Florian!

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Deeps said:

Considering they started construction of the Eiffel Tower some 137 years ago, you would have thought they could have removed all that scaffolding by now.😀

 

Well, the Pompidou Centre's got a while to wait then

[nick_bastable]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

I'm afraid my daughter has become rather fond of Caffe Florian!

so no more stock for Castle Aching  or somewhere in France then for a while

[Schooner]

13 hours ago, nick_bastable said:

Castle Aching...

...as seen below...

...has been niggling at me. Reasons re twofold:

• IIRC, the main line, and first line, ran North from CA, via Birchoverham and yet
  • the loop is on the subsequent Achingham branch not the main line, so what happened to the original mainline loop?
  • the goods yard is off a direct facing connection, which is not unreasonable, but I suspect it'd be more fun and make more of the headshunt, if it was reversed

Something like...

...would ease these niggles. What do we reckon? It is a little more complex, but not by much; a little longer, but not unworkably so; a little more fun and flexible to play trains with?

 

In situ, something like...

...looks workable, tho' I've not spent any time trying to make it pretty.

 

 

An option, at least. BM and AM survived this little poking session unaltered BTW!

 

 

Edited August 14 by Schooner
Doh!