Atlantic's works: Portable layout update

[S.A.C. Martin]

The only one to pull an apple green 6 wheeled tender was Duke of Rothesay. This tender was the standard B1 type. I used a Bachmann tender for this but of course, the finer Hornby version can also be used if you can find one spare.

There's quite a few photographs of Duke of Rothesay in apple green with the six wheeled tender in various publications, including but not limited to back copies of Locomotives Illustrated and The Power of the A2s, or Yeadon's Register.

EDIT: For spelling correction on "Rothesay" - twice!

[45609]

This tender was the standard B1 type.

Jim,

I don't think a Bachmann or Hornby B1 tender would be correct for the A2/1 without modification. The 6 wheel tenders on the A2/1 was an earlier pattern of high front type as fitted to the later series of V2. Having studied a couple of works grey photos of what was to become Highland Chieftain, numbered as 884 and 3696, this seems to be the case. As these locos were originally intended the be V2s this makes more sense. The give away detail is the lack of tool boxes above the coal shovelling plate and instead you can see the single tall louvred door to the coal space. I think your original idea of a V2 tender is on the right track.

Cheers....Morgan

[S.A.C. Martin]

This tender was the standard B1 type.

Jim,

I don't think a Bachmann or Hornby B1 tender would be correct for the A2/1 without modification. The 6 wheel tenders on the A2/1 was an earlier pattern of high front type as fitted to the later series of V2. Having studied a couple of works grey photos of what was to become Highland Chieftain, numbered as 884 and 3696, this seems to be the case. As these locos were originally intended the be V2s this makes more sense. The give away detail is the lack of tool boxes above the coal shovelling plate and instead you can see the single tall louvred door to the coal space. I think your original idea of a V2 tender is on the right track.

Cheers....Morgan

Hi Morgan,

You would be right for Highland Chieftain but, as I said previously, Duke of Rothesay's 6 wheeled tender was 100% definitely the B1 type: and it was the only one of the four A2/1s to be painted apple green with a 6 wheeled tender.

Look at the side sheets in its extensive photographs in The Power of the A2s. The type of tender is further confirmed by Locomotives Illustrated no.46, because the central toolbox on the B1 tender can be seen.

EDIT: To clarify further - studying photographs of it whilst in black in The Power of the A2s, I am wondering if 60508 actually has pulled two separate tenders there. The apple green tender with "British Railways" on sides is definitely a B1 tender, but I am now after looking at the photographs of it prior to its accident, unsure if it started out with the same tender. As you say Morgan, there's a lack of a visible toolbox there while it is painted black.

Is it possible 508/60508 had a tender swap between being black as LNER no.508 and as an apple green 60508? There does not seem to be a record of this in RCTS 2A.

(My apologies Graeme for going off topic a tad).

EDIT 2:

I keep looking at these photographs and am wondering if my original statement above was wrong. I naturally assumed due to the sidesheets that the tender was an out and out B1 tender on 508, but having looked again closely at the 60508 images I am now unsure of my original declaration. The niggling doubt which asks "is that a toolbox in the centre there?"

My apologies for the continued edits. I'm well and truly stumped by the photographs of 508/60508 and am not so sure of my facts as I was previously. Perhaps I should just lop off the toolbox present on my 60508's tender and be done with it!

[2002EarlMarischal]

Thanks for all the help chaps!

I don't think it's off topic Simon, as Graeme has stated his intentions regarding an A2/1 and all this is highly relevant!

[S.A.C. Martin]

Aye, perhaps, but I'm now so confused by what I am looking at that I really don't think I'm of any practical use at all. My apologies to Morgan for I feel I did him an initial disservice.

But if the tender is neither an out and out V2 or B1 tender by virtue of its side sheets and toolboxes, then what is it exactly? Some form of prototype for the latter and a modification of the design for the former?

I still feel in modelling terms that I'd prefer with the shape of the tender side sheets to start with a B1 tender and modify the frontplate as necessary if required.

EDIT:

Not a great photograph but here's a three quarter view which sort of gets what I am aiming at.







From RCTS's archive on the net.

Against my model:



EDIT 2:

Just found this superb shot on Wikipedia, of all places! The unfortunate results of the crash with 508. And look - as Morgan says above, no toolbox can be seen on the tender frontplate:



But the side sheets definitely are closer to a B1 tender...?

[60800]

I'm treading dangerous waters here so shoot me if I'm wrong, but is this the one that Bill Hoole crashed?

[S.A.C. Martin]

Not sure if this involved Bill Hoole, but the main reason for this crash was the state of post-war track conditions, causing the derailment of the locomotive no.60508 Duke of Rothesay. It slid on its side for around 100yards according to The Power of the A2s. Driver injured, fireman killed, minor injuries amongst the passengers.

The surprising and miraculous thing about this crash was that the locomotive slid on its side through the arches of a bridge apparently, without damage to the latter. It could have been much worse, given the derailment happened at 70pmh.

[earlswood nob]

G'dday all
I have seen the photo before, it was Bill Hoole.
Earlswood Nob

[Atlantic 3279]

I hadn't checked the history of the liveries before shooting my mouth off about my ideas for the A2/1. As I can't have an authentic portrayal of an A2/1 in true LNER green livery with small smoke lifters and a six-wheeled tender (despite having a very suitable B1 spare tender) then I think the most practical option, given that time for building and application of livery will be restricted, is to finish the loco as 60508 with the easily fitted large deflectors and standard Bachmann A2 rivetted tender. This pre-supposes that I actually get the A2/2 done first

Butler Henderson joke guard iron fitting pictures to follow.

[45609]

Simon et al,

Here is another photo of the New Soutgate crash. I've manipulated it to a point where you can, hopefully, see the outline of the tall narrow coal door. This suggests that up to and including the crash Duke of R had the early high front group standard tender.

Manipulating the photo you found (it should be credited to Ben Brooksbank) the outline of the coal door can be seen from the front in the gap where the cab roof panel has been removed.

The problem is that it is all but impossible to distinguish an early high front tender (V2 style) from the later version (majority B1 style) unless you can see enough of the front coal plate to decide if it is tool box or coal door. The overlapped coping plates are identical as are the tender frame profiles. Digressing, there are a few facts to muddy the waters on B1 tenders. When built the first batch of 10 B1s (8301-8310) had brand new early high front tender without tool box. 1010 and 1011 had second hand tenders from A2/1s (3696 and 509) and there was a plan to use the other 2 tenders on B1s 1038 and 1039. As it transpired this did not occur and 60510's tender ended up on a K3 (61873). 60508s tender eventually went on to 61105. So where does this get us?

Generalising about tender coupling to loco classes is problematic for accurate modelling. I prefer to consider it as being as complicated as the variations in engines. It's a damn sight more difficult though. Certainly at the time of the New Southgate crash the B1 building program was in full swing and I guess a new tender could have been paired up with Duke of R. Alternatively the tender could have been repaired and modified up to the later standard with toolbox. But what is certain is that the Early B1 tender allocation was entwined with the replacement of 6 wheel A2/1 tenders for 8 wheelers.

[Atlantic 3279]

Those D11 guard irons:

Here's how I prepared mine, using a slim square file guided by the top bend in the iron to notch back the FRONT edge of the iron to about the half-way mark. Notice how the brittle flaky paint, with no primer, has pinged off the (unrealistically?) thin springy metal . It hasn't been scarred by tools, just held firmly by finger-tips whilst I gently filed....

I didn't trim the top face of the iron, simply bending it down to 90 dgerees instead so as to have three faces that I could glue, suitably abraded, to the walls of the pocket behind the buffer beam. Even with the top of the iron reduced by half, I still had to notch its rear edge to clear the central pip in the cast pocket. Initial fixing was with superglue, later reinforced with a blob of epoxy which will be painted balck in due course. If the loco is kept inverted while the epoxy dries it actually sinks to a nice concave curve behind the buffer beam, suggesting the down-curve of the frame cut-out for the leading bogie wheel.

Before adding the epoxy I had checked, by this special "digital" simulation of full bogie spring compression, that there was still at least just a whisp of clearance for the front wheel flanges.

My repaint colour for the irons was Humbrol "matt" 174 which is maybe not too bad as a buffer beam red / vermillion shade, but I'm not sure it is quite brown enough to emulate the factory colour. Why it has also dried shiny in this case, heaven only knows - its was warm and well mixed.

Now having managed to snap the flimsy plastic whistle off several B1s in my time you would think I'd have anticipated trouble with this loco and taken care to avoid it, wouldn't you? Nope , so now I've either some tedious drilling to do so that I can refit the whistle stiffened by some wire, or I need a new whistle. As Bachmann make so many other bits in metal, why don't they fit some decent brass whistles?

[45609]

....just a whisp of clearance for the front wheel flanges....

Ah! Welcome to my world of P4 modelling... Nicely done Graeme. The factory applied lining on the bogie wheels is quite heavy but I guess the enlargement of the photo does nothing for it. Are you planning to tone it down a bit?

Cheers....Morgan

[60800]

Here's mine, just taken these snaps of her to show that any old b####r can do it

Front 3/4, looks fine apart from the fact the irons will need the chipped paint removing before they are repainted (I may hack the tension lock coupling socket off her - I've planned to do it with 60163 and 60532 for a while);

Underside dosen't look so great, especially with the flash on to see it all, but i'll get the frame panels cleaned up and repainted at some point. No idea where the paint chip on the running plate came from As you can see with the tolerances on my railway, everything is very tight up so the front bogie spring is drenched with oil;

EDIT: You can also see the modifications to the frame plates
EDIT 2: Again with the tight tolerances, I've had to snip a mm or two off the bottom of the guard irons and sand them smooth

[Atlantic 3279]

The lining on the boss particularly is a bit heavy. Toning down would probably help. Unlike the man in a SOCO suit I'm sure I don't have the skill to put a precision dark green bow-pen line in between the two white bands in order to make these lines neat and narrow.

As I commented over in Blackout's thread, if I'd felt like throwing more time at the job, some custom-cut new guard irons in thicker metal, designed to fit in the right place, would probably have been better. I had thought at one stage about soldering the top bends of the Bachmann irons to a piece of brass sheet so that I had something of a decent size to glue firmly in place behind the buffer beam, but the shape of the casting there isn't favourable! A real wizard in metalwork could probably solder the iron to a little brass block that plugs firmly into the socket behind the beam, then glue that in place. CBA.....

I forgot to mention (although it is visible) that there's no need to attack the front bogie with Xurons or other blades if you don't want the coupling pocket to show at the front. Minus coupling, it still fits nicely if you just turn it round.

[60800]

I forgot to metion (although it is visible) that there's no need to attack the front bogie with Xurons or other blades if you don't want the coupling pocket to show at the front. Minus coupling, it still fits nicely if you just turn it round.

Tried that a few days ago. It just annoyed me when it could be seen on the corners Well, the dummy screw link obscures it good enough