Strictly LNER pre-1942, including pre-group. "Atlantic 3279" in exile.

[Graeme King]

I'm told pictures are popular on here, so after a short introduction I shall try to post some. More to follow if that works, I promise.

As my subject title states, I’m interested here only in studying, discussing, and portraying in “refined 00 gauge” model form aspects of the LNER before 1942, including its joint lines and its pre-group constituent companies. I do have other railway and modelling interests, but I want to keep this topic clearly focussed. I’m more than happy for others to make relevant, positive contributions, and constructive criticisms, or for them to point out possible errors. I do have a sense of humour and I can cope with leg-pulling and banter, so long as it isn’t constant. More likely than not, I’ll point on my own errors, failings and idiosyncrasies before others get the chance, although I’m not challenging others to beat me to it!

Past and Current Projects:

After contributing to, and assisting with the “Grantham – the Streamliner Years” layout at exhibitions from 2013 to 2020, much involvement with producing master models, moulds and resin castings at home, as well as continuing my work in a profession (from which I was able to retire in 2020) I decided three years ago to build a long-planned portable layout of my own, suitable for exhibition. Named “Thelnerby” (not on any maps) it is my attempt to portray a line through the Lincolnshire Wolds in the 1930s, as it might have been had certain 19th century decisions been different. Work on the layout has prevented me from tackling any rolling stock projects for most of those three years, but with the layout now close to readiness for its baptism of fire at Immingham model railway exhibition on 10th/11th May this year, I’ve been able to return to my rolling stock “to do” list.

Here, firstly, are some preview images of the layout. Immingham show has a good standard of layouts for a “small and friendly” inexpensive local offering. Well worth a visit if you conveniently can. I may add more images after the show, for those who cannot visit. Final testing and dress rehearsal for the layout and operators this week. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[timbowales]

I love the clever station name

 

[Osgood]

Photos received and approved - you're in (well you could hardly not be, posting that view of iron ore hoppers! )

 

[Herb Garden]

Photos received and approved - you're in (well you could hardly not be, posting that view of iron ore hoppers! )

Never mind those hoppers check out the summersault signals

 

[Graeme King]

You're all being very polite.

As promised, some more waffle, with images:

With the layout virtually ready about a month ago, I carried out a census of my rolling stock and made efforts to re-organise it into suitable sets to try to provide best possible authenticity and entertainment at the show. It was evident that I would have to make use of almost all of it, that some of it would benefit from long-overdue attention to incomplete work, and that some additional items would not go amiss. The first task was to weather, or further weather, a load of coal wagons that I had made, bought or otherwise acquired years ago but which had hardly ever been used. That also reminded me that I still had five, un-built but potentially very useful, Slaters kits for 1923 type RCH 7 plank mineral wagons, and that I had short-listed but not ordered, some time ago, items in the Powsides transfers range as decoration for those wagons. On-line gossip made me aware that sad circumstances had caused major delays to orders for non-stock items from Powsides, but enquiry via a polite and sympathetically worded e-mail to Powsides resulted in a swift reply telling me that two out of five or six items that I would ideally have wanted were available immediately, from stock. I decided that doubling up on each of those was better than nothing, and within a few days the transfers arrived. Four more wagons are now built and awaiting weathering and-or loading.

 

[Graeme King]

A few more ironstone wagons were ideally required for an empties train I intend to run too. A quick “desperation” visit to a local toy and train fair found nothing suitable, as I fully expected, and current prices for new RTR (if and when available) are no joke, so I sought out some resin-casting moulds I’d made some years ago for extra wagons to quickly and cheaply meet “Grantham’s” needs at the time, when I couldn’t build more complex Appleby-Frodingham all-steel hoppers quickly enough. These moulds produced some wooden-bodied hopper wagons which in truth are not correct models of anything, as far as I’m aware. They do resemble the 1918 Ministry of Munitions ore hoppers, but are in-between the correct sizes for the small and large versions of those. The master wagon was simply an adaptation of another 1923 RCH 7 plank mineral wagon, with an added representation of a hopper built-in. Although sold off to private owners after the end of the Great War, I have no evidence to suggest that any of the MoM wagons came into the possession of a North Lincolnshire iron maker, but I had spare some very neat, accurately aligned, custom printed transfers made by John Isherwood for Appleby-Frodingham all-steel peak-ended ore wagons that I was building nearly ten year ago. Those were adaptable to my wooden bodied wagons, so I produced these additional six.

Highly conscious that the finish on those was far too clean, and that the twenty seven ore wagons that I previously built had remained far too clean because I’d never found time to weather them, I made myself do something about that too. I’ve varied the degree of weathering, the recent six qualifying for heavy treatment, including some real High Dyke ironstone dust.

I'm trying out a home made coupling on these, not suitable for on-stage shunting, but intended for easy assembly and separation of the train when setting up or packing away at an event. It's one-up on an idea I used one some of the ironstone wagons I built several years ago, which simply had a wire bent down at about 90 degrees and offset obliquely to one side. That works fine for wagons that need only be pulled, and while the buffers alone on those earlier wagons seem to suffice when the wagons are propelled, I've equipped the latest six with a version that should work as a "pusher" centre-coupling too. Or so I hope...

 

[Graeme King]

Another piece of remedial catch-up work has been done on my former ECJS D79 twelve-wheeled clerestory dining saloon, another home-cast resin bodied item from 2018/2019. While building it, study of the notes of its later alteration and use, on the Isinglass drawing, had made me conclude that one of the windows I had originally included must have been removed when a toilet was removed and replaced by a smaller “coat cupboard”. That was supposedly well before the grouping and prior to its transfer to GC section stock in the 1920s. I had therefore changed my model, before completion. Much later, I spotted the very carriage I had modelled innocently lurking a photograph in a book, after its alterations, renumbering and transfer to the GC section in 1926 – and the window I had removed from my model was still there! Careful drilling, filing and scraping has succeeded in removing the fill-in material that I had used without damaging the buried original cast-resin outline of the window frame, and without terminally scarring the surrounding panelling and painted teak finish. I only had to “re-teak” the window frame, add some transparent plastic to glaze it and stick one of my spare, home-printed representations of an ECJS crest on obscured glass behind that.




Unfortunately the late-discovered carriage picture also showed that many original ventilators had been removed, the clerestory sides lost their glazing and were panelled, plus the insignia were not in the same places as those on my model, but I couldn’t face the task of altering all of those features.

 

[Graeme King]

In a more frivolous moment on the workbench, I’ve also had further dealings with a model I extensively adapted in 2012 to portray the never-built large loco for bulk coal haulage that Baldwins of Philadelphia proposed to supply to the GCR around 1913. For various reasons I had only ever applied a representation of a GC number plate and the Great Central name to one side of the cab and tender. Thanks to hanging on to the Guilplates name transfers I’d first bought for it, and some spare DIY prints of a number plate, it now has ID on both sides, although I’m not bold/brave enough to attempt an application of full GC lining at this stage.

 

[timbowales]

Graeme, does that beast have double cylinders?!?!

 

[Graeme King]

Yes, and a massive common crosshead. A simple-expansion derivative of one of Vauclain's ideas on compounding I suspect. The only drawing I've ever seen shows it thus.

 

[Osgood]

An observation about the layout photos in post 1 - they offer no clue about the scale.
It might be anything from 2 to 7mm.

 

[Chas Levin]

Another piece of remedial catch-up work has been done on my former ECJS D79 twelve-wheeled clerestory dining saloon...
View attachment 237815
Unfortunately the late-discovered carriage picture also showed that many original ventilators had been removed, the clerestory sides lost their glazing and were panelled, plus the insignia were not in the same places as those on my model, but I couldn’t face the task of altering all of those features.

Hello Graeme and welcome to Western Thunder from a relatively new but very happy fellow member here!

I very much like the remedial D79 work (just the sort of thing that would bother me too until I fixed it) and I also sympathise with your lack of enthusiasm for the other alterations: you have to draw the line somewhere!

Lovely coach - will you be running it at Immingham?

 

[Graeme King]

An observation about the layout photos in post 1 - they offer no clue about the scale.
It might be anything from 2 to 7mm.

Thank you, I believe I should be flattered.
4mm scale for avoidance of doubt, or pseudo 4mm scale as some would see it, the gauge being "wrong".

Hello Graeme and welcome to Western Thunder from a relatively new but very happy fellow member here!

I very much like the remedial D79 work (just the sort of thing that would bother me too until I fixed it) and I also sympathise with your lack of enthusiasm for the other alterations: you have to draw the line somewhere!

Lovely coach - will you be running it at Immingham?

Chas: Just you try stopping me from running it at Immingham...

 

[Graeme King]

I love the clever station name

One or two have found it a little "corny", but most who react to it at all find the derivation and the "typical for region" form interesting.

 

[Stephen Freeman]

Just not sure what "refined 00" is exactly, 00SF through the pointwork perhaps or something finer?

 

[Suffolk Dave]

Nice work all round, Graeme! I'll look forward to further posts on your thread.

 

[Graeme King]

Just not sure what "refined 00" is exactly, 00SF through the pointwork perhaps or something finer?

I can't give an exact answer to that. It's certainly finer than the traditional OO of the major brands. The stock mostly conforms to about 14.7 to 14.8mm BTB, a necessity for use my other (loft) layout which has soldered code 75 rail on copperclad-base pointwork. The plain track on the scenic parts of Thelnerby is SMP type J which I'd bought in readiness years ago, and in all but one case I've been able to adapt the geometry of Peco bullhead 75 large points to satisfy requirements. The stock seems happy with those. A single slip is rail soldered to copperclad. Where I've used older, coarser Peco points off-scene in the fiddle yard (again, as I already had them and money refuses to grow on our two apple trees) I've added shims of around 15 thou thickness to the faces of check rails and in some cases extended the check rails.

 

[Virgil Wedge]

I've added shims of around 15 thou thickness to the faces of check rails

Hello Graeme,
I’m another ‘newbie’ but your quote above really means something to me.
Many years ago, I was a member of a midlands based group who were building an American outline layout and using the then quite new Peco code 75 track. I had discovered that American NMRA RP-25 wheels still had a fair amount of slop when traversing these points and I wanted to improve the running. I did the same as you but using shims of (I think) 5 thou black plastic card.
I wanted to see if anyone remarked on the improved running but either someone had reported on me or something. I was given a real dressing down and forced to remove them, no-one would listen to me.
I was right though and it’s very heartening to read about other people using this technique to improve Peco points!
Thank you!
Virgil

 

[Stephen Freeman]

Peco pointwork tends to be more on the Universal side of things and you will always get better running when the wheels are more closely matched to the track.

 

[Graeme King]

Successful re-assembly of the layout last week without any dramas quickly confirmed that it all still fits and all still works. Two days of operating practice with helpers, in separate pairs on each day, produced valuable results. General reliability was proven, people started to get the hang of controlling points and signals, one of the operators at least having some useful prototype knowledge to share in that regard. Combined thought and discussion has pointed to a further improved starting arrangement of stock in the fiddle yard to make it easy for the operators to run an "entertaining" and reasonably logical sequence of train movements, with optional shunting moves according to the perceived requirements of the moment. With much of the stock hardly used over the last three to five years, and some of it having almost never been used previously, I have almost inevitably had some servicing jobs to do in order to wake items from hibernation, or to correct previously un-exposed shortcomings, but not a lot of work in all. Just one section of track required some attention to vertically misaligned rail ends that I really should have noticed when ballasting, although even with that corrected there is still one loco that has to be prohibited from some routes. Hardly a major problem though. Chances of avoiding total disaster and humiliation at the first show in Immingham on 10/11th May are looking reasonable.