Little Didcot

[Corbs]

I'm trying to imagine what it would have looked like as a 2-10-0T

Something like this but shorter?

Edited January 19, 2017 by Corbs

[Castle]

Hi All,

 

That's the beastie Corbs! According to the diagram of the 2-10-2 design at the back of the GW 8 Coupled Heavy Freight Locomotives book it was projected to have the standard 7 boiler pressed to 250psi, 19" diameter Pistons with a 30" stroke and 4ft 7 1/2" driving wheels all which gives it a tractive effort of 41,465lbs! Quite an impressive design...

 

All the best,

 

Castle

[Horsetan]

Something like this but shorter?

2570_l.jpg

The picture in my mind was still the 72xx, but with the trailing radial truck replaced by a trailing driving axle.

[Castle]

Hi Horsetan,

 

The picture in my mind was still the 72xx, but with the trailing radial truck replaced by a trailing driving axle.

I see what you mean - it would fit. Whether it could go round the corners of its native Welsh habitats, without a flangless centre axle like the 9Fs or similar is questionable using standard GWR practice and components... The 72XXs and related GWR 8 coupled machines had thick flanges on the first two driving wheel sets and thin ones on the trailing pair. They also had a sort of spherical type rod bearings on the last rod joints and plenty of side to side clearance on the 72XXs trailing axle. The great thing about the way the GWR did it I suppose is that it was a fairly low cost but high return idea. It would have cost them a lot less than adding more driving wheels, rods and bearings, etc. but still gave the extended range.

 

All the best,

 

Castle

[Dazzler Fan]

+

 

............. for all those winding South Wales lines?

Edited January 21, 2017 by Dazzler Fan

[The Johnster]

I believe the intention for the 2-10-2 tank, had it been built, was to use it on the Newport Docks-Ebbw Vale iron ore trains, which were taxing even the mighty 2-8-0 tanks.  Kings had been tried on the service and it was one if the first jobs for the Riddles 9Fs when they appeared.  The curvature on the Ebbw Vale line is severe, and the 2-8-0s were plagued by tank leakage from straining around them, and it is interesting to speculate what Swindon would have come up with to alleviate this problem.  Presumably the larger diameter no.7 boiler would have necessitated narrower tanks, which would have also affected water capacity and hence the loco's range without stopping for water; the run would have been pretty much full throttle late cut off work from Rogerstone up the valley, and the final pull from Aberbeeg is very steep...

[Corbs]

I believe the intention for the 2-10-2 tank, had it been built, was to use it on the Newport Docks-Ebbw Vale iron ore trains, which were taxing even the mighty 2-8-0 tanks.  Kings had been tried on the service and it was one if the first jobs for the Riddles 9Fs when they appeared.  The curvature on the Ebbw Vale line is severe, and the 2-8-0s were plagued by tank leakage from straining around them, and it is interesting to speculate what Swindon would have come up with to alleviate this problem.  Presumably the larger diameter no.7 boiler would have necessitated narrower tanks, which would have also affected water capacity and hence the loco's range without stopping for water; the run would have been pretty much full throttle late cut off work from Rogerstone up the valley, and the final pull from Aberbeeg is very steep...

Thanks for the info (and apologies to Castle for straying off subject). Did anyone take photographs of the Kings on the goods?

[RJS1977]

I believe the intention for the 2-10-2 tank, had it been built, was to use it on the Newport Docks-Ebbw Vale iron ore trains, which were taxing even the mighty 2-8-0 tanks.  Kings had been tried on the service and it was one if the first jobs for the Riddles 9Fs when they appeared.  The curvature on the Ebbw Vale line is severe, and the 2-8-0s were plagued by tank leakage from straining around them, and it is interesting to speculate what Swindon would have come up with to alleviate this problem.  Presumably the larger diameter no.7 boiler would have necessitated narrower tanks, which would have also affected water capacity and hence the loco's range without stopping for water; the run would have been pretty much full throttle late cut off work from Rogerstone up the valley, and the final pull from Aberbeeg is very steep...

Presumably though, if water capacity was an issue, the front edge of the tanks would have been brought forwards to align with the cylinders/back of the smokebox. Or would total weight/weight distribution have been affected too much?

[Castle]

Thanks for the info (and apologies to Castle for straying off subject). Did anyone take photographs of the Kings on the goods?

Don't worry Corbs - all GWR chat is welcome here! Interesting stuff this...

 

All the best,

 

Castle

[Castle]

Presumably though, if water capacity was an issue, the front edge of the tanks would have been brought forwards to align with the cylinders/back of the smokebox. Or would total weight/weight distribution have been affected too much?

Hi RJS1977,

 

The only issue with doing that is that the motion actually comes up and over the frames and through the running plate just in front of the tanks on the GWR inside Stephenson valve gear. I guess you could add on a square bit at the top of the tank but how much more would that gain you? This is especially important when you thing about the sheer size of that boiler and the rate at which it would need to produce steam over the time period required to make those journeys through the Welsh valleys. They weren't going fast over fairly tortuous terrain.

 

I think however that the 2-10-2 could very well have been the GWR's answer to the MR 0-10-0 Lickey Banker, a.k.a. Big Bertha. It would have done a sterling job doing that sort of work and from a purely geeky point of view, it would have been cool to see! The limits on water and coal capacity become null and void given this as a duty.

 

Imagine a big electric headlight mounted on the front of that smokebox on Corbs' picture there. Then imagine being a guard on a big frieght train at night, minding your own business on the veranda of your TOAD and then that monster looms out of the darkness with that headlight blazing! Perhaps we can imagine a re-use of an old broad gauge name for the beast too? How about Cyclops?!

 

That's enough imagineering from me for now.

 

All the best,

 

Castle

Edited January 23, 2017 by Castle

[Clearwater]

Wasn't Cyclops one of the suggested names for the 47xx class?

[Castle]

Hi Clearwarter,

 

It sounds like it should be doesn't it? The list I have suggests that the 12 possibilities put forward by Collett himself (all ex broad gauge freight engines) for the 47XXs were Behemoth, Bellerophon, Champion, Dreadnought, Gladiator, Hercules, Mammoth, Plutarch, Romulus, Tantalus, Thunderer and Trafalgar

 

All the best,

 

Castle

Edited January 22, 2017 by Castle

[The Stationmaster]

Thanks for the info (and apologies to Castle for straying off subject). Did anyone take photographs of the Kings on the goods?

 

The Kings were definitely used for a bridge test on the Western Valley but I'm not entirely sure if they were tested with any seriousness, if at all, on the ore trains.  Let's not overlook the fact that the Ebbw Vale works closed in1929 and didn't reopen, under new ownership and following re-equipment, until 1938.

[The Johnster]

Hi Clearwarter,

 

It sounds like it should be doesn't it? The list I have suggests that the 12 possibilities put forward by Collett himself (all ex broad gauge freight engines) for the 47XXs were Behemoth, Bellerophon, Champion, Dreadnought, Gladiator, Hercules, Mammoth, Plutarch, Romulus, Tantalus, Thunderer and Trafalgar

 

All the best,

 

Castle

 

Tantalus.  Now that's got a ring to it.  That's not a name you'd see on a small engine...

[The Fatadder]

Hi Clearwarter,

It sounds like it should be doesn't it? The list I have suggests that the 12 possibilities put forward by Collett himself (all ex broad gauge freight engines) for the 47XXs were Behemoth, Bellerophon, Champion, Dreadnought, Gladiator, Hercules, Mammoth, Plutarch, Romulus, Tantalus, Thunderer and Trafalgar

All the best,

Castle

I'm rather glad that they didn't name them, with those names I'd have been picking a loco to model for its name rather than being shedded at Laira and being suitable for the intended workings on the layout...

[Dazzler Fan]

Wasn't Cyclops one of the suggested names for the 47xx class?

 

I thought it was a Combined Tank Loco with Crane.

 

Noel

[OnTheBranchline]

Something like this but shorter?

2570_l.jpg

How much did that go for?

[Siberian Snooper]

I'm rather glad that they didn't name them, with those names I'd have been picking a loco to model for its name rather than being shedded at Laira and being suitable for the intended workings on the layout...

You might have got away with it, if it happened to be an Old Oak loco.

[Corbs]

How much did that go for?

£440

[RJS1977]

£440

 

I seem to remember seeing an article on building that model (and a much earlier Dean heavy freight design) in RM probably about 20 years ago.

[jcm@gwr]

Wasn't Cyclops one of the suggested names for the 47xx class?

 

 

I thought it was a Combined Tank Loco with Crane.

 

Noel

 

So was Hercules

[Corbs]

I seem to remember seeing an article on building that model (and a much earlier Dean heavy freight design) in RM probably about 20 years ago.

They were all up for sale, I posted up some of the others here:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/14790-imaginary-locomotives/page-29

[Castle]

Going Loco (Coal)

 

Hi All,

 

While it is great fun to build loco kits, it can get a bit overwhelming. I have quite a bit done and then decided to write a list of what was left to do on little No. 7202 and then wished I hadn't. It was quite long... So, what to do? Now wagon kits - they are like eating Pringles in two different ways. Once you start, you can't stop and they are small and snack size. A quick refreshing pause from the engine. But which one of the kit mountain to tackle?

 

I wanted to do one that was unusual and whilst thumbing through my list, my eye rested on the N34 coal wagon. Now, I had no kit for this and I didn't think one existed so I went to GWR.co.uk and it's authoritative lists and this was confirmed. Feeling lucky though I went on the Internet and typed in GWR N34 loco coal wagon and a new option since my last search presented itself. A shop on Shapeways by the name of Stafford Road Model Works now offers body kits of several types of GWR wagons including the N28, N30 and - wait for it - N34 (Woo Hoo!) that is designed to clip to the Dapol 21t hopper wagon chassis. So, bypassing the existing kit mountain and working on the principle of buy it while you can see it as it might not be there in the future, my PayPal account received a work out. Actually, it's not too bad. The body was about £20 all in and Hattons provided an unpainted Dapol wagon was mine for £6 plus P&P. So, without paint and transfers (I already had those) it was about £28 for a custom wagon kit of a prototype unavailable elsewhere. Not bad at all...

 

No. 63066 is the prototype for the model. It was built at Swindon to diagram N34 as part of lot No. 1480 in 1946. The steel bodied wagon for the conveyance of locomotive coal was a fairly common type on the GWR and when you think that large sheds such as Old Oak Common were consuming deliveries of around 3,000 tons of South Wales' finest a week at their peak, you can see why... At the turn of the century, the GWR management became concerned with the inefficiencies represented by the standard small private owner coal wagons and was keen to encourage the use of larger vehicles where possible. The figures make this clear. If a train was to carry 600 tons of coal, if we use wagons of 10 tons capacity, the train is made up of 60 wagons, is 1080' long and has a tare weight of 369 tons. If we load the same amount of coal into 20 ton capacity wagons, the train length is reduced to 30 wagons that are 735' long and have a tare weight of just 288 tons! This is a massive saving in all areas and make it easier to move, lower maintenance costs and take up less siding space. Funnily enough, the maths don't keep scaling up using GWR era technology. They did build some 40 ton bogie coal wagons under diagrams N1/11/14/15/17 between 1904 and 1910. The same 600 ton train only has 15 vehicles but is 690' long and weighs 280 tons tare. Not a huge saving on the previous effort and forty tons is a LOT of coal where as 20 tons is a more useful amount in some ways and allows a greater range of delivery sizes to be undertaken.

 

 

In an effort to practice what it preached (to the largely deaf ears of the majority of private owner vehicles as it turned out!) the 20 ton loco coal wagon became a common sight on the GWR. There were several versions that had a number of arrangements of doors (end and side), body design and brakes. The N34 has two doors per side, no end doors, square corners to the body and Morton brakes. It has a 4 wheel under frame that has a 12' wheel base. Twenty tons was chosen as it was a reasonable and yet quite large capacity to expect a 4 wheel chassis to cope with. No. 63066 is (I think - please correct me if I'm wrong!) the sole surviving member of the N34 wagons. There is a similarly rare example of the earlier (1931) Dia. N27 version No. 83831 at the Severn Valley as part of the 813 Fund collection. Jim Champ's excellent introductory article on GWR Iron and Steel Bodied Loco Coal Wagons on Miss Prism's site is available for perusal here:

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/nondiags.html

 

And to the model... The main constituent parts are laid out below. The chassis is still firmly attached to its hopper body, the new 3D printed body is ready for work and a transfer sheet has been liberated from the archives.

 

 

The unpainted chassis is quite nice - there are a few small differences between this and the one for the N34 but once weathered...

 

 

Lots of different ways of writing LOCO and COAL here! There is a bit of a discussion as to the correct colour for GWR loco coal wagons. Some say black, some say grey, some say wibble but that may be because they are mad (2pencils up your nose and underpants on your head). I saw a picture in the GWR wagon bible of a 1948 built N34 in BR black with BR(W) lettering so, despite it being unlikely that a 1946 built wagon would have been repainted into a 1948 livery, I went for that. It's a BR livery I wouldn't have otherwise...

 

 

The 3D printed body had apparently been polished (!) and has a subtle texture on it. I figured that there were two options open to me here. 1 - spend hours and hours sanding it so it is absolutely smooth or 2 - accept it and incorporate it into my weathering. Because I am a lazy type we are going to have a go at option 2. I will let you fine people judge how good it looks. I was looking at getting the body done in the FUD material which would have been smoother but at £40 for a wagon body I figured that was a bit much! The only issue I can see with the body is that the door bang springs are in the wrong place. On the prototype, the hinge pins are in line with the straps and the door springs are in between them. The springs are perhaps the least successful part of the print bit are well done within the limitations of the technique. I shall be fiddling about with a bit of scrap brass etch here to make new ones.

 

 

On to the conversion! Wheels out!

 

 

Couplings off!

 

 

Fake load thingy out and body off!

 

 

The wagon weight is fixed in by the melting plastic until it can't fall out method. I don't know what you would do if you wanted to display the wagon empty?

 

 

A little light destruction resulted in it coming away.

 

 

First trial for is quite good. A little trim of the two plastic clips is needed to make it all go together seamlessly.

 

 

Before I push it home, I decided to have a look at the prospects for fitting weight to it. Hmmmmmm - quite a large gap between the bottom of the body and the top of the chassis. I wonder...

 

 

...yes! The weight was designed to fit in here and without the hopper sections of its previous incarnations in the way, a great fit! Time to start hacking away at plastic now.

 

 

The far more to scale instanter is fitted as shown above. The previous mount of the tension lock coupling is mostly cut away using the frames as a guide. I'm not happy with those buffers though.

 

 

These ones from Lanarkshire Model Supplies are much better even if it's not 100% correct. There is less and less of the original wagon left at this rate!

 

 

Click! And it fits!

 

 

The coal load looks nothing like actual coal but it is a start. A couple of chunks of styrene down two of the sides makes it fit better.

 

 

A little more weight helps the use of scale type couplings as it is less likely to roll away on you as you couple up so liquid Gravity was stuffed in where possible.

 

 

A little work with some scrap etch and we have eight new door bang springs! Two coupling springs and two split pins to add after paint and we are good to go!

 

 

Primer shows off that texture - could be good, could be bad...

 

 

A spot of Rolling Stones lyrics and it was painted black!

 

 

A dose of transfers, weathering and real coal sees it looking like this. The surface looks like pitted and rusty metal. Whether such a 'young' wagon as depicted would be this pitted is another matter but this is the nature of the material as it comes without fettling. It could be that if the wagon was being depicted much later in its life that this would be wholly appropriate. Still, it looks like a convincing effect to my eye at least and if I find I really can't live with it later on, it's a plain black livery and I have plenty of transfers left over! What do you think?

 

 

As a small plug for a small manufacturer (usual disclaimer - just a satisfied customer and all), you can access their Shapeways shop on the link below for all manner of GWR and other goodies!

 

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/stafford_road_model_works

 

All in all, it's been a nice break from the much more demanding 72XX build and I have No. 6866 Morfa Grange to weather for a friend and No. 3822 to weather for me. I must get back to the kit, detailing and weathering mountain. It isn't going to sort itself out...

 

All the best,

 

Castle

[Bluemonkey presents....]

Great work. Excellent use of the Dapol chassis.

I think you are right, the texture of the 3D printing gives a great aging effect to the paint work.

[sjgardiner]

You definitely used the surface texture of the WSF to your advantage.  You would likely have had a smoother starting point with FUD, which is what i use for most of my 3D printing, but when painted and weathered, as you have shown, you can certainly get acceptable results from WSF if you understand the limitations and how far you can push the material.

 

As someone doing effectively the same thing (modelling all the pieces in the collection of the museum i volunteer at), I always enjoy your ongoing project updates.  Been a while since i've been to Didcot, i should try to get back the next time I'm in the UK!

 

Stephen