Restoring a Carson/Bassett Lowke LB&SCR J2 in 2 inch Gauge

[Florence Locomotive Works]

16 hours ago, Victorian said:

Apologies for a further reply but regarding painting and lining my models use vinyl overlays which cover the original  finish whilst preserving it. I have artwork for Abergavenny if you are interested.

 

 

David

That looks very tempting, but it would have to be resized to fit my engine which I’m guessing is no small task. I think I’ll wait till I’ve made the missing front and rear bogies before I go down the path of possibly repainting or wrapping the engine.

[Lacathedrale]

On 01/09/2024 at 10:40, Victorian said:

Apologies for a further reply but regarding painting and lining my models use vinyl overlays which cover the original  finish whilst preserving it. I have artwork for Abergavenny if you are interested.

 

 

David

 

I'm assuming it's a lifetime of collecting, but it boggles the mind how you can find LBSCR coaches in umber/cream in GAUGE 2 of all things, while there's not a single RTR variant in any other scale or gauge.

[Victorian]

Sadly not. They are in North Western colours, except for the Pullman. Age has yellowed the varnish. Here's a closer view of the Pullman:

 

 

This was never LNWR, so I suppose might be Brighton?

 

David

 

 

[Victorian]

Edited to say that the windows in this carriage were made from Nitro Cellulose film stock and had to be replaced because they were opaque and buckled. Out of curiosity I thought I'd see how flammable they really are:

 

 

David

 

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Highly!!

 

Mike.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

On 03/09/2024 at 08:22, Victorian said:

Sadly not. They are in North Western colours, except for the Pullman. Age has yellowed the varnish. Here's a closer view of the Pullman:

 

 

This was never LNWR, so I suppose might be Brighton?

 

David

 

 

Yes, definitely Brighton though I think fictional as I don’t believe there were ever any 6 wheel bogie Pullman’s on the Brighton Line. If I recall correctly only the Midland had actual 6 wheel bogie Pullmans and those were imported from the Pullman shops in Chicago. There were other 6 wheeled bogie vehicles in use on the UK network, mostly as dining saloons but Pullman’s were almost always 4 wheel bogies.

 

Edit, I am entirely wrong!

 

 

"...In 1906 the LBSCR introduced three new thirty-five ton twelve-wheelers Princess Ena, Princess Patricia, and Duchess of Norfolk. These last three cars were the first Pullmans to be painted in the now familiar umber and cream livery. Hitherto the Brighton Pullmans had been painted dark mahogany brown with gold lining and scrollwork. Some of the older cars had the name in an oval panel on the side. In 1903 Mr. Billinton changed the colour of the ordinary L.B. & S.C.R. coaches to umber brown with white or cream upper panels, and in 1906 this colour scheme was also adopted by the Pullman Car Co., with the name of the car in large gilt letters..."

Edited September 6 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Florence Locomotive Works]

On 03/09/2024 at 08:37, Victorian said:

Edited to say that the windows in this carriage were made from Nitro Cellulose film stock and had to be replaced because they were opaque and buckled. Out of curiosity I thought I'd see how flammable they really are:

 

 

David

 

 

I’m glad I replaced the glass in my pressure gauge with modern stuff.

[sncf231e]

11 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Edit, I am entirely wrong!

 

Not only there is this book: 

but also models by various makers and also some in my collection. Shown here the gauge 1 versions:

 

Regards

Fred

 

Edited September 6 by sncf231e

[J. S. Bach]

The three-axle trucks are very much a US design used on thousands of passenger cars of all types.

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Greetings one and all!

 

After much delay, here’s an update. Things have been quiet as I’ve been waiting for a bottle of steam oil to arrive in order to continue with testing. This bottle managed to get itself stuck in St. Louis for four days but finally arrived on Friday. This allowed me to continue test runs and set the safety valve, which sits at around 65-70 psi. 
 

Today however, the engine had its first adventure out of the relative safety of the garage and into the wilds of the back garden, where it will eventually have a lengthy piece of straight track to run up and down. That didn’t happen today though, but I did do a test run with it sitting on the patio table to see how it faired with windy conditions. It seemed to do very well. 
 

The Russian iron is now coated in a nice layer of steam oil and looks very resplendent in the rapidly setting sun.

 

 

 

 

Here’s a short video showing the engine running. 
 

 

Douglas

Edited September 9 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Victorian]

That looks superb Douglas!

[J. S. Bach]

17 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 ...snip...

Douglas

I just have to ask, what are those "droopy-looking" trees in the backround? They appear to be too green to be Spanish Moss.

 

Glad to see it running after al of the effort you have put into it!!

[Florence Locomotive Works]

19 hours ago, Victorian said:

That looks superb Douglas!

Thank you David! It will be even better once I can get the wheels made. Unfortunately the Walsall Model Engineering website is having one of its usual server outages so there is some delay in getting them. 

 

7 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I just have to ask, what are those "droopy-looking" trees in the backround? They appear to be too green to be Spanish Moss.

 

Glad to see it running after al of the effort you have put into it!!

 

Those are my neighbors weeping willows, planted by the previous owner about 11 years ago. 

[J. S. Bach]

On 09/09/2024 at 22:29, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Those are my neighbors weeping willows, planted by the previous owner about 11 years ago. 

Thank you, I thought that they might be, but my memory, such as it is, was of weeping willows needing a relatively moist environment.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Today was another very momentous day in the engine’s life. For the first time in probably nearly a century, it moved up and down a fairly long piece of track. 
 

I spent a few hours this morning assembling this length of straight test track. This is made from 3/4 x 1/2 inch aluminum angle which though not ideal makes a decent rail for testing purposes. 
 

 

 

 

Having got that all assembled, it was moved outside along with the thousand and one things required to get an engine of this age alive and kicking. One of these items I acquired a few days ago. It’s a Michigan Central Railroad oil can that I found in my local hardware store which also sells antique tools and such. It is very useful for oiling the motion and has a much finer control on the amount of oil that’s released than modern cans do. You can see it depicted on the thumbnail of the video.
 

Getting back to the subject at hand, the first run was very poor because the burner wasn’t adjusted quite right. It needs to be in EXACTLY the right place in the firebox otherwise the engine steams very poorly. However the second run was excellent and that’s the one I filmed in the video below. 
 

Here are some photos. The Winteringams Engineers Department wagon was loaded with some steel 1x2x3 blocks to give a small load and I even got out my 1909 Bing Gauge 3 signal to put beside the line.
 

 

 

 

And here’s a link to the latest episode in the YouTube series which shows how I made the cab along with todays run.

 

Douglas

 

 

[John R Smith]

Well done indeed, Douglas, she runs!

 

One thing that I seem to have missed, although I am sure you must have mentioned it, is where is the cylinder lubricator? The Basset Lowke Enterprises have a displacement lubricator in the smokebox, perhaps your Carson is the same.

 

Now you are going to have to build more track!

 

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

46 minutes ago, John R Smith said:

Now you are going to have to build more track!

 

More sleepers at the very least!!

 

Mike.

[J. S. Bach]

Interesting concept on the track. I thought about something similar for my temporary 0 scale setup but I have so much regular track (both two-rail and three-rail) that I decided to use it.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

8 hours ago, John R Smith said:

Well done indeed, Douglas, she runs!

 

One thing that I seem to have missed, although I am sure you must have mentioned it, is where is the cylinder lubricator? The Basset Lowke Enterprises have a displacement lubricator in the smokebox, perhaps your Carson is the same.

 

Now you are going to have to build more track!

 

 

Thank You John,

 

Yes, there is a cylinder lubricator. It consists of a pipe that comes out of the T-piece between the cylinders and runs up to the plate in front of the smokebox where there is an oil pot that is filled with cylinder oil. It’s a design I’ve never seen anywhere else besides Carson engines and according to everything I know about steam lubricators it shouldn’t work very well. But given the amount of an oil that comes out of the chimney with the exhaust it seems to be doing its job!

Edited Thursday at 15:11 by Florence Locomotive Works

[John R Smith]

3 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Interesting concept on the track. I thought about something similar for my temporary 0 scale setup but I have so much regular track (both two-rail and three-rail) that I decided to use it.

 

For O Gauge coarse scale there is, as you say, so much Bassett-Lowke, Milbro and Bonds around that there is really no problem. Tenmille do a very nice SM32 plastic sleepered track which is great and cost effective, and they do similar for Gauge 1. But for Gauge 2, as far as I know, you are on your own. I wonder where David got his rather classy pool-side oval from?

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

20 minutes ago, John R Smith said:

. I wonder where David got his rather classy pool-side oval from?

If I recall correctly I think he found a massive amount of Bonds gauge 2 rail and then remade all the sleepers. I could be recalling wrong though!

[Victorian]

Douglas, heartiest congratulations from the old world! The first Gauge 2 live steam locomotive to run in North America this century and indeed perhaps for a century!

 

I had the pleasure of showing your video to the G1MRA 3D group during a Zoom meeting a few minutes ago and they send their warmest regards.

 

[Victorian]

2 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

If I recall correctly I think he found a massive amount of Bonds gauge 2 rail and then remade all the sleepers. I could be recalling wrong though!

That's right but the rail is virtually identical to LGB section 332 rail which is expensive but easily available. The sleepers are hardwood and the rail clipped with stainless 2.2 x 6.5 self tapping screws.

[Mark Carne]

Hello Douglas.

 

On the matter of track, I seem to recall that Bassett Lowke small scale permanent way, which was sold for gauges O and 1 between the wars, is actually scale for gauge 2. Basically the same size rail section, code 200, is still popular in gauge 2 today, but is acknowledged to be slightly overscale, which is why there has been a gradual move towards code 180 for gauge 1, promoted and sold by gauge 1 track supremo Cliff Barker.

 

Mark

[Florence Locomotive Works]

6 hours ago, Mark Carne said:

Hello Douglas.

 

On the matter of track, I seem to recall that Bassett Lowke small scale permanent way, which was sold for gauges O and 1 between the wars, is actually scale for gauge 2. Basically the same size rail section, code 200, is still popular in gauge 2 today, but is acknowledged to be slightly overscale, which is why there has been a gradual move towards code 180 for gauge 1, promoted and sold by gauge 1 track supremo Cliff Barker.

 

Mark

Hello Mark,

 

I was not aware of that coincidence. I wonder if perhaps there’s a stash of BL rail in the hands of an American collector somewhere. I might put an appeal out on Facebook, I know Leonard Carey has an original BL gauge 2 circle, so it must be out there.