The LNER Encyclopedia

If you were questioning the remark made by Silverfox about a "general" drawing, I'm tempted to suggest that he was not in any way suggesting that an "Official GA" drawing could be misleading. I strongly suspect that he quite correctly questions the value of independantly drawn or "unofficial" general drawings, i.e. those that purport to show all members of a class, or some unspecified "typical" member of the class. As we know, individual locos could be highly "unique" within the overall class owing to batch building, use of different works, reboilering, rebuilding, repairs etc.
Hence no doubt the preference for a drawing of a specified, numbered, member of the class, preferably with a date too I presume?

A bit of background to my drawings. Around 15 years ago I was asked to produce a scale drawing of a particular Leyland bus which I did by scanning a works g.a. and then cleaning the drawing up using a graphics package. This resulted in the creation of hundreds of buses and trams; the scale I used was capable of reproducing exactly at 4mm/foot if printed off a 32%. These were capable of being reproduced in mono but I also added liveries and the result was a series of books using these coloured graphics.

I had a go at cleaning up a loco g.a. and this resulted in my producing a whole series of locomotive drawings using similar techniques although I have never as yet produced coloured versions.

The drawings are intended to give a general impression, but if required using the editing techniques available a particular loco at any particular date could be produced. The general drawings now run into hundreds, if one was to do every loco - the mind boggles. I can however on request produce a drawing for a particular loco at any particular time!

Ay up!

Speaking personally, I find St J's drawings to be clear and rather informative. And I have to say that his skill in manipulating a Graphics package is awesome.

I barely manage to play with a piccie or three!

However, as I said earlier, being a pragmatic sort of chap, I would use a drawing for dimensions but check details against photos if possible.

Thanks BB - it's all down to cut and paste.

Just in case any doubt has arisen, I wasn't making any criticism of St Johnstoun's drawings, merely trying to clarify the context in which I imagine Silverfox used the word "general", as I suspect Paul may have misinterpreted.

G'Day Gents

I would love to see some of 'St J' loco drawings, but whenever I open any of St J's drawings, my computer freeze's, and I have to shut everything down and restart, and the computer tells me that I don't have some package, before it commits suicide

manna

interesting expansion, and i agree. i am not knocking stj's drawings, although i can do cad stuff, i find some of the other graphics passages more difficult to deal with.

as i said in my piece , we are all still suffering from the drawings going back to greenly, all of which were designed to allow the very "coarse" scale stuff of the time to be built. strange to think that at the same time, bassett lowke had both some really accurate models, plus some " less so!" is i think polite. later of course hornby, and many other makers massaged the dimensions to allow them to create a range of pretty but not too accurate locos and rolling stock, sadly some of it is still going on today, ie gresley coaches!!!!!!!!!!!!!

when i have in recent times designed a kit, i have been lucky enough to have access to a ga, but have not tried to cover all the variants in each class, because of the pitfalls therein, but like many i recommend the usage of suitable photos, however, even then, you often have only one sided photos. when you do proper research, it is amazing how few locos you find have been photographed from both sides on the same day, in the same place.

at the end of it, we can all only produce what we think is right, and what we are happy with.

paul

Here is some food for thought
This is an amended drawing with four alternatives.

Ay up!

Option 4 has an almost Gresley look to the footplate.

Food for thought indeed.

Strictly off-topic but interesting nevertheless; Can I repeat my request for a line drawing of the original proposal for the BR Standard 8P Pacific that was drawn up by the Derby Drawing Office under J.F. Harrison. It could be argued that it has some LNER in its lineage as Freddie Harrison was a strong Gresley-ite and his assistant at Derby was C.S. Cocks who worked with Bulleid on the Southern. The attached line diagram appeared in E.S. Cox's book "British Railways Standard Steam Locomotives".

I will get round to doing that one eventually but here are two others which Harrison had a hand in.

Saint Johnstoun wrote:I will get round to doing that one eventually but here are two others which Harrison had a hand in.

BR Standard Proposals.doc

Thanks...... and thanks for the 2-8-2 and the other Class 8 drawing. I see that the Class 8 has Walschaerts gear. Presumably it was a 3 cylinder design. If so do you know how they proposed to drive the gear for the middle cylinder?

It was purely an update on Stanier Pacifics 6256 & 46257 with standard features so it had four cylinders and inside valves operated by rocking shafts from the outside.

I have photos of a model below along with the proposed 4-6-4 for the LMS

Saint Johnstoun wrote:It was purely an update on Stanier Pacifics 6256 & 46257 with standard features so it had four cylinders and inside valves operated by rocking shafts from the outside.

I have photos of a model below along with the proposed 4-6-4 for the LMS

4-6-4 4-6-2r.JPG

Of course. That makes perfect sense and I would have thought been a simpler, quicker way of proceeding than designing from scratch as they subsequently did.

john coffin wrote:....i am saddened that so many people think badly of the isinglass drawings.

Do they?

... remember john drew all the originals by hand in the respective scales, he did not initially have a photocopier that could accurately scale up and down. more importantly john was a fount of knowledge of LNER and in particular GNR stuff, much of which when it was still around and working, he had measured. certainly when checking some of his stuff against some of the drawings i have, i am impressed by his accuracy.......

Pity the D11/1 never made it onto the Isinglass list. I could have done with one of those!