Crook Street Works - Gladiator LNWR Coal Engine

A

Allan

Western Thunderer
Hi All.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Been sneaking in a few sessions in the cellar building a second Coal Engine over the Christmas period but have been a little tardy writing it up...

So this is the second of three I need for Crook Street and the first of two Gladiator examples I'll build. The first one was documented in the 'My Workbench' section a while ago and was a Mercian kit - unfortunately no more with the sad loss of Trevor Cousins to the model railway fraternity.

The Coal Engines were Webb's very numerous workhorses of the LNWR, which, in 1920, were superseding the Ramsbottom SDXs that were being withdrawn.

Having built the Gladiator SDX, I don't expect any dramas with this. The prototype were regarded as simple engines but in model form they're quite complex for a Victorian engine in that a lot of the fittings were mounted externally.

However, progress was quite rapid for the tender with a few of my favourite extras added.

First of all, some suspension enabled by elongating the axle holes downwards for the front and upwards and downwards for the centre and soldered in for the rear. Sprung wire for the front:

PXL_20251210_154741197.jpg



And a coil spring strut for the centre, the 'strut' being wire soldered into the bearing, running in a drilled cross member made up from scrap etch:

PXL_20251210_154729562.jpg



I added a brake actuating rod to the transverse fulcrum shaft:

PXL_20251218_123531295.jpg



...and some water feed pipes:

PXL_20251222_103618432.jpg



I made the front buffers operate by drilling out the castings and adding sprung rods. They're located by glueing in cross wires - Top Tip: don't put too much glue on.... (don't ask me how I know...). I also hacked the drag box about to accomodate my toy-train-set-style coupling post soldered to the drag beam. The front end looked like this now:

PXL_20251222_103828851.jpg



So with all the supplied components soldered and glued in place we have a completed tender:

PXL_20251222_103840462.jpg

PXL_20251222_103856574.jpg


One last thing was filing off the centre rivet heads where the tender plate will go. I didn't do this on the SDX so had to slightly bend the plate, so I strove to get it right this time...!


Post script: On writing this I've spotted an omission - the mount for the brake fulcrum bar which was on the exterior of the chassis - I'll have to add them!


Cheers
Allan
 
Mike W

Mike W

Western Thunderer
Very nice Allan. I have just one small suggestion. The rear coal plate should have a straight top. They were built with curved tops but when coal rails were added they were made higher with a straight top. The problem is that the Crewe GA has the curve scrubbed out but still visible, whilst the straight top isn't show because it lines up with the top of the coal rails. But you are in good company - even Beeson made the same mistake.
Mike
 
A

Allan

Western Thunderer
Mike W said:
Very nice Allan. I have just one small suggestion. The rear coal plate should have a straight top. They were built with curved tops but when coal rails were added they were made higher with a straight top. The problem is that the Crewe GA has the curve scrubbed out but still visible, whilst the straight top isn't show because it lines up with the top of the coal rails. But you are in good company - even Beeson made the same mistake.
Mike
Click to expand...
Ah! I'm in good company indeed... I suspect, however, that's the only thing I share with Mr Beeson's masterful company...
 
adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
It's good to see how the tender builds up, the additional details really help. I don't really know enough about the tenders yet but is this correct?

Shouldn't the top of the spring hangers line up with the chassis rail? Not jut out like this.

In fact the keeper plate at the bottom of the axleboxes have a small dimple in the end - I'm guessing these should be drilled out and the tie bar connecting the axleboxes fed through these holes - this if there is room to move the axleboxes inboard a little.

Screenshot 2025-12-27 at 23.41.24.png
 
G

Genghis

Western Thunderer
I hadn't spotted that but I think Adrian is correct. The cast axlebox assemblies need to be thinned a lot.

Allan: I'll send replacements if necessary.

Dave
 
A

Allan

Western Thunderer
Genghis said:
I hadn't spotted that but I think Adrian is correct. The cast axlebox assemblies need to be thinned a lot.

Allan: I'll send replacements if necessary.

Dave
Click to expand...
Dave, Adrian - Guilty as charged, I'm afraid, nothing wrong with your castings Dave, I cut them down to give more clearance for the centre axle to swing to get round my tight curves:oops:... I did the same on the SDX and got away with it... Got to keep your eyes open for those sneaky Crook Street tricksters...
 
adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
Mike W said:
Sort of both right. The hangers do protrude outside the face of the solebar, but not by much.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the photo - shows it perfectly. From the end on profile the hangers are sort of a H section so they locate positively on the solebar and hold the spring in the right position.

Next comment - another is that usual - the length of the 3 link coupling? The fact that the bottom link is scraping on the floor suggests it's pretty close if not actually down to rail height! It appears to be longer than the guard irons!
 
Mike W

Mike W

Western Thunderer
Good queston about the length of the couplings. That one is in service too, so not like its confined to a remote siding somewhere. Most picture I have show screw couplings. But, if Allan is building no less than three coal engines, H section spokes on the tender like this picture would make a nice change for one of them.1800 tender H wheels.jpg Not many engines had them, but one of the preserved tenders does.
 
A

Allan

Western Thunderer
Mike W said:
Good queston about the length of the couplings. That one is in service too, so not like its confined to a remote siding somewhere. Most picture I have show screw couplings. But, if Allan is building no less than three coal engines, H section spokes on the tender like this picture would make a nice change for one of them.View attachment 254029 Not many engines had them, but one of the preserved tenders does.
Click to expand...
When I look at these excellent photos, Adrian and Mike, I realise just how many compromises and inaccuracies are made in my models.

Cheers
Allan
 
Mike W

Mike W

Western Thunderer
Allan, that may be so, but when running 99% of that isn't visible. A Webb tender is exceptionally difficult to model and even in P4/S7 there are big compromises to be made with pullrods, rear wheel clearances ... There are more compromises in any kit where the designer would have scratch built it a certain way, but can't expect customers to do that. I've not built that particular kit but overall I think its an excellent little model and some details are better than I could scratchbuild, like the rivet spacing.

Keep going, your models are a great encouragement to many.

Mike
 
NickB

NickB

Western Thunderer
When I was scratch building Ladies of the Lake in 7mm, and knowing much less about LNWR practices than now, I used this kit for the tender. No-one commented except one client (known to Mike but my lips are sealed) who gave the finished model a very careful examination, but interestingly, missed the coal plate completely. So much for the experts, eh? I'm pleased to say that I got that right in my G3 Precedent because I had the preserved Hardwicke tender to refer to.

Nick
 
A

Allan

Western Thunderer
Interesting conversation guys. I always think modelling fidelity is a sliding scale from exact scale all the way to coarse scale, or even Duplo! I guess compromise no. 1 is the track. I've adopted 'finescale', which is narrow to gauge and a lot of further consequences flow from that. The next compromise is the curves of the track. Unless we have prototype minimum radius, we're going to need more space than the prototype rolling stock had. The next compromise for me is more abstract, that of time. There's part of me that really fancies building a no-holds-barred scale model just for the miniature engineering challenge but I reckon that would take me about 3 years! Many moons ago, when I was modelling 4mm, I went through something similar, starting off with Peco track and realising half way through building a complex layout that I really wanted P4. I'm sure that was partly instrumental in me turning to 7mm where the compromises are smaller and easier to live with...:rolleyes:

Cheers
Allan
 
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