First of all - hi to everyone, it is great to be here.
I have recently given up Roman re-enactment due to family commitments and have sold most of my armour - much of it on eBay. Whilst there, I came across a Hornby "Live Steam" A3 Papyrus engine (BR). To cut a long story short, I could not resist it and now I am now the proud owner of the loco.
The problem is now what do I do. I last owned a train set when I was 10 (I'm currently 37), and that was mainly LMS. I have done some research and it seemed that during the BR period Papyrus was either based at Newcastle or Carlisle. Presumably prior to that it had bombed between London's Kings Cross and Newcastle. Apparently it was quite fast
Anyway would crimson and cream BR MK1 coaches be appropriate - running on a line based on something around Hexham, Corbridge for example?
Many thanks in advance if anyone can help. Are there any good books anyone could recomend on the A3s, particularly the later years.
Some of the Gresley coaches were still around in the 70s. I think I've seen references to restaurant cars in use, and full brakes being convereted for work on works trains.
Welcome to the forum. Your Loco Papyrus should have the early BR Emblem, unless it has been repainted. If it has not, then you really want red and cream carriages. As suggested above, you could use Hornby Gresleys, or Bachmann Mk1s or Thompsons. If you choose the Hornby Gresleys and you find that they tend to derail a bit too often, we now know a fix, so do come back to us.
I trust that you have also purchased the correct Hornby track for live steam, the special digital controller and a good stock of loco oil and distilled water. You will need them.
Papyrus was an Edinburgh, Haymarket loco, 64B, so to be correct you need to be modelling one of the routes radiating north or south from Edinburgh, but the is no need to be too finicky about that.
The A3s went to a lot of places that the A4s did not, so you are free to model anywhere on the ECML, plus Leeds to Doncaster, right up to Aberdeen, Newcastle to Carlisle and even the route of the old Great Central Railway from Marylebone to Leeds if you wish. Some A3s eventually performed on the Settle and Carlisle as well, but that was after the early BR emblem was phased out. A3s sometimes also worked the Scarborough Flyer and the route from Leeds, through Harrogate to Northallerton. In summer, they worked excursions from Co. Durham to Scarborough, taking a short cut by creeping along the single track branch from Pilmoor junction on the ECML, through Hovingham to Malton.
However, as Hornby live steam does not seem to be all that controllable, perhaps you will just have a large oval of track.
Thank you all for help, particularly Colombo - your post was a great help. This morning I bought 3 Bachmann Mk 1s from my local store so thank you for your confirmation.
I have a photograph of Papyrus in a book at home showing her pulling out of Carlisle (with the early BR emblem like mine). It is difficult to see the coaches - but they don't look like Mk1s. I am reckoning they must be old LNER coaches, perhaps repainted. Presumably either the Thompsons or Gresleys mentioned.
I have bought the controller/transformer, oil, water and a rolling track section to practice on (yes I to have they can be a bit tricky to control). So far I haven’t bought any track, as I am still weighing up my options. A mixture of standard 12 volt and steam seems to best (only realistic) option. I was not aware though there is special "Live Steam" track? Can you elaborate please?
Going back to Richards Comment on Gresley coaches lasting into the 70's. Theres a photo in the latest modelrail of a blue grey Thompson buffet car in 1978 somewhere in Scotland. Also i remember seeing a gresley coach at Immingham shed in the early 90's converted for engineers use. I think it ran with the sheds break down train
You will have to check that yourself. However I am pretty sure that Hornby live steam only runs on their code 100 track, not on the finescale code 75. You will have to see a dealer about that.
The power supply required is beefier than the standard 12V DC supply used on electric model trains. So there are special connectors for the power to the track. I think that live stream runs on about 19V AC and draws about 3.5 amps. This is a lot more than the 12 V DC and 0.5 amps. that electric model trains take. I think that you had better read Hornby's instructions carefully.
Yes you are right about the difference - you definitely cannot mix the two systems at the same time (without blowing something up pretty spectacularly).
I was not aware "Live Steam" would not run on fine scale though. I shall enquire before making any purchase. Mind you my Dad reckons nothing runs on fine scale so I probably would have avoided it anyway
Back to No. 2750 Papyrus, yesterday I received a gift of a fridge magnet of the very same engine. It has the "Flying Scotsman" headboard, so a little unusual (for a gift picture) that the actual engine is a different A1/A3...
Sassanid wrote:
Yes you are right about the difference - you definitely cannot mix the two systems at the same time (without blowing something up pretty spectacularly).
Bit like DC and DCC. Don't put a DC loco on DCC track unless your system allows a DC loco to run under address 0. Even then whatever you do don't use any sort of Lima loco cus if you stop it you'll have rarther spectacular results
By Stephen
Mad about the LNER, BR Eastern region in the 50's, Rail Blue Diesels and Sectorisation era.
They are different scales but the same gauge.
HO is 3.5mm/ft and OO is 4mm/ft.
HO is the better match of scale and gauge. The reason for OO has different explanations, possibly involving early technical abilities, or perhaps locomotive-envy by British modellers (British loading gauge is smaller than European loading gauges, hence the engines are smaller - but OO makes them bigger than they should be for the track).
Scales like EM and P4/S4 try to fix the track/gauge problem for British prototypes. These are 4mm/ft (ish) on wider track.
You should be able to run a conventional DC Rivarossi on conventional DC OO-gauge track. I don't know how old your Rivarossi is.
Really old OO (and I assume HO as well) have larger wheel profiles that really need larger rails.
