petesworkshop

Today I took both the HR Jones Tank and the LNWR Chopper Tank up to Carlisle to CD0GG’s Running Day on their layout at the Citadel Station. Here the pair wait for their test run in the sidings while a train of vans passes on the outer of the two circuits. Both engines despite being unpainted as yet have their new crews aboard so I had high expectations. You’ll remember that after the Running Day in December I decided that the Jones Tank had to have some modifications to enable it to run in club layout conditions. 

There was a good attendance at the Running Day including a strong presence from the Preston G0G Club who brought some interesting models along that I’d not seen before. The club room buzzed with conversation and there wasn’t a moment in the day when the layout wasn’t displaying the modelling skills of the Guild members or showing off the running qualities of a wide range of locomotives and rolling stock. It wasn’t until lunch time and the call of the chip shop thinned the attendance that my pair had a look in…by which time I thought the visitors had set a high standard for them to live up to.

Here’s the HR Jones Tank snaking smoothly through the pointwork past the sidings on the back section of the layout with a train carrying a 15 inch gun barrel for a Dreadnought which was built by Stephen Jarnell, one of the Preston members. She took everything in her stride, and though there were a couple of front bogie derailments, we soon sorted out the offending awkward spots on the track and she continued to run superbly on both the tighter inner as well as the outer circuit.

Here’s the LNWR Chopper Tank running with the same train through the scenic section, which occupies half of the layout. Detail work is well advanced and to a very high standard, though work on the layout is still in progress…there’s more to come. The Chopper Tank performed very well, there were no derailments at all and she ran for more than an hour smoothly without a problem; I was very pleased with the performance of both engines. 

An L & Y Atlantic, a fine scratch built model by Peter Fitton, on a visit from Preston, stands in the station on the CD0GG layout. I thought this picture showed off well the high standard of modelling on show at the Running Day today. The very detailed buildings and other structures are by David Gibson and Jeff Davidson with complementary groundwork by the other Carlisle club members.       

The Cumbrian Railways Association sent me this photo of a Coal Tank at Workington about 1897 shunting in the yard with driver John Young and fireman A Shepherd in the cab. I thought that when I came to make a model "Crew for a Coal Tank" I’d model this pair. The driver seems to be standing on one of the wooden plinths that flank the firedoor and the fireman standing in the doorway is in just the right place for an engine that has very little space in the cab. Both seem to have some sort of uniform cap and it’s possible that the fireman’s jacket was issued to him by the LNWR though it’s hardly "uniform" as there’s no insignia of any sort to be seen. Note the double buffers on the brake van.

Photo Copyright Cumbrian Railways Association.

The superstructure is pinned to MDF which should help keep the footplate flat. The smokebox front plate below boiler level is at the same angle as the cylinders. I made the two arcs of rivets that occur just above where the cylinder covers will be at this stage before I fixed the smokebox front in place as they’re in a rather inaccessible area. I’m working on the cylinder covers in the flat, they should solder in later from above and below. In fact most of the interesting parts are still in the flat at the moment and the crew are little more than an idea still; I’ll show you the crew I plan in my next post…      

In February 2011 I posted a picture of the staff of Threlkeld Station on the CKPR along with a Coal Tank and its crew which was taken on the same occasion as this one which is in the collection of the Cumbrian Railways Association. Since then I’ve discovered some details about the porter, fifth from the left here, sitting on the tank top above the painter. In the photo I posted in Feb. he’s standing fourth from the left. His name was Joseph Hebson, a local lad, who served with the 5th battalion of the Border Regiment on the Western Front where he was killed on the Somme in 1918. His name is included on the Pozieres memorial. The Coal Tank was probably from Workington where there were fourteen of these engines on shed in 1912, the fireman is on the far left of the picture and the driver sits on the footplate by the smokebox with folded arms.

Photo: Copyright Cumbrian Railways Association: Kerr Collection 

I’m not sure whether this is the first stage of a rebuilt Coal Tank or an almost scratch built one; in any case work is under way. I managed to salvage the footplate etch from the pile of bits that was LMS 7629 and use it as the basis for the new engine though as it was too wide I had to file the sides down to a scale 7ft in width…the LNWR Coal Tank was a slim engine. I’m armed with a GA of the engine now and intend this model to be to scale. 

The front drawhook was not sprung, it was held in place by a cotter in the steel channel behind the buffer beam. The frames are full scale width in the open area between the buffer beam and the smokebox. The real frames are necessarily narrower and will fit between the dummy frames at the front, the join will be masked by the guard iron and the sandpipe which attaches to it.    

In the days before there were Blogs, I built my first 0 gauge engine; an LNWR Coal Tank. I’d always liked these engines, so I bought a kit from Mercian Models. It was a "difficult" kit, possibly impossible, and though I didn’t realise at the time, it was an ancient design too. I struggled and realised that I was at the botom of a steep learning curve. I had wanted to build a kit, not scratch build a Coal Tank, yet in desperation I built a new chassis myself from scratch. Eventually after much outlay on replacement parts I had a Coal Tank; though it was not a scale model of a Coal Tank. The cab interior was ridiculous, the boiler bands were too thick, the chimney was highly dubious and she didn’t run well either…However I left it at that and moved on.

Pete Skellon’s new book on the NW Coal Tanks revived my interest in these engines and I thought that I’d take up the thread again where I left off and make a few improvements to 7629…a fly wheel, perhaps a new chimney and maybe a cab interior. I set to work and realised that I’d have to strip the paint off the model too but thought that a new paint job wouldn’t come amiss anyway. I stripped her down to bare metal and took the old white metal chimney off. Then…one thing led to another; the boiler bands came off, the boiler back was prized away, out came the gas torch and before long there was nothing but a pile of bits ‘n pieces.

I decided that now I had Pete Skellon’s book in hand I could build a real scale model of a Coal Tank. There were a few good LGM castings and the odd salvageable etched shape from the old model that would give me a start… so make a start I did. I’ll show you how far I’ve progressed in my next posting soon…          

There was only 4′ 6" between the tanks in the cab of a full size NW Chopper Tank; the model has even less…a mere 3′ 6". The crew are from my "Heroes of the Footplate" range; they’ve been chosen as they are posed appropriately and don’t add to the cramped feel of the under scale cab area. The fireman is a mere strippling of a lad and doesn’t take up too much space…he wipes his brow as he leans on his shovel, it’s hot work on this engine. The driver in contrast is an older character; he’s a dual pose figure and I’ve assembled him with his alternative arm which rests casually on the tank top. His position in the doorway leaves plenty of open space in the cab and gives an impression that it’s less crowded than it really is.

At Christmas I bought Peter Skellon’s new book on LNWR Coal Tanks from the Bahamas Locomotive Society; it really is an excellent publication, everything you ever wanted to know about Coal Tanks is in there, and it led to dramatic events, which I’ll detail in my next post very soon…     

I found the kit for this model in the ABS Models catalogue and built it some time ago; the basic kit has had a good deal of modification and improvement and in addition I’ve spent most of my spare time over the Christmas break fiddling with the engine to improve it, my other projects have temporarily stalled. You can’t see most of the improvements, they’re inside the engine, but she’s a good runner now and I think the time spent has been worthwhile. The new roof with its characteristic double row of rivets took a lot of effort to seat properly, it has to be removable for access, if I could just solder it in place there’d be no problem.

I didn’t take my Jones Tank to Carlisle for the last running day of the year at CD0GG as the weather was atrocious, she’ll have to wait for her trial run until after the Festive Season now. 

Instead I turned my attention to my LNWR Chopper Tank, an early effort of mine which, despite all my efforts, never really ran well. I resolved to fit a fly-wheel and short out the wheels on one side too, which would enable me to do away with the wiper pick-ups, at least on one side of the engine. Brian at ABC Gears replaced the Mashima 1833 motor with an M.1824 which just allowed room for a fly-wheel when the motor was mounted on the front driving axle facing back towards the cab, rather than on the rear axle sitting upright as previously. The chassis needed a good deal of modification before the motor eventually slid into place; it was a tight fit. I used an MSC fly-wheel which fits onto the motor shaft with Allen screws, much better than glue…you can take it on and off. Initial trials with the new motor and fly-wheel were encouraging, the engine ran smoothly and, despite having a less powerful motor than previously, still had considerable pulling power; I’m sure the Mashima 1824 is quite adequate for a little engine like a Chopper Tank…and a Jones Tank for that matter. 

At this stage I resolved to strip the superstructure and give the engine an upgraded paint job to go with the re-desiged mechanism, so into the Nitromors she went. It wasn’t as simple as that… it took a lot of work to strip her down. As a further improvement I replaced the original wire couplings with cast ones from CPL; you can see the working spring, washer and retaining nuts which bear some comparison with the real thing in the open area behind the buffer beam.