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

[Graeme King]

Livery, eventually, will be LNER lined green, although pressure of time and limited current personal stock of lining transfers and other final detailing bits may mean that it wears plain green for a while, unashamedly announcing its status as a"work in progress".
Construction in fuller detail is covered on LNERinfo, "Atlantic's workbench..." but in a nutshell: The chassis is a post 2005 Hornby Gresley Pacific loco-drive type with the original 5 pole motor, but with wheels swapped around on the axles to get the (cosmetic) driving wheels to the front, and a chassis extension to match the original chassis front built on 29 mm forward of the original. The extension is largely plastic, to horrify those who believe that plastic cannot possibly be strong, stable and durable enough, but it carries the added front coupled wheelset's axle in a brass tube as a full width bearing. The majority of the body is the type for a 2000-2005 Hornby China tender-driven A3, with smokebox and running plate ahead of the rear edge of the first set of splashers removed plus the separate top piece of the boiler altered. Added to the front of that is the smokebox plus 29-30mm of boiler barrel, plus running plate to rear of first two sets of splashers from a second Hornby tender-drive Pacific. Most of the front of its original running plate has been cut back to just some discreet residual ledges onto which a new running plate was grafted at the higher level. The cab, let into a V cut into the rear of the original boiler after removal of the A3 cab is from a post 2005 type Hornby A4. Plus a ton of filing, scraping, drilling, sawing, multiple rounds of filling, smoothing and priming along with a raid on the spares boxes for fittings.
In order to agree with what appears to be shown on the drawing, the tender (spares again) may end up being an amalgam of a "Great British Locomotives" magazine Mallard streamlined non-corridor tender top on a Hornby underframe which will need alteration of rear steps (as the UF is from a streamlined corridor tender) plus installation of pick-ups and a new drawbar arrangement in lieu of the DCC/sound-ready wiring "junk" that it unfortuately has.

 

[Graeme King]

It seems I must correct myself! That tender underframe needs less electrical alteration than I first thought. Pick up wipers, which I couldn't see when I first had the keeper plate off, ARE there, connected to a rat's nest of wiring that was coiled around itself and taped in place - untill I carefully unravelled it last night and realised that I probably only have to detach the middle pair of wires from the "loco plug" socket (which none of my large LNER locos have) and connect them instead to the drawbar pin and a top rubbing pad so that the tender will be compatible with the rest of my fleet. This assumes that the blanking plug currently in the 8 pin witchcraft socket actually does what it should, but if it doesn't I can easily bridge the appropriate contacts...
The drawbar pin will still need to be moved back somewhat, as in order to accommodate the four-pin connector socket in this version of the underframe Hornby clearly moved the pin forward a bit, further increasing the unrealistic gap between locos and tenders...

 

[Chas Levin]

'Beast' is the right word, isn't it? Magnificent!!

 

[Oban27]

Livery, eventually, be LNER lined green, although pressure of time and limited current personal stock of lining transfers and other final detailing bits may mean that it wears plain green for a while, unashamedly announcing its status as a"work in progress".
Construction in fuller detail is covered on LNERinfo, "Atlantic's workbench..." but in a nutshell: The chassis is a post 2005 Hornby Gresley Pacific loco-drive type with the original 5 pole motor, but with wheels swapped around on the axles to get the (cosmetic) driving wheels to the front, and a chassis extension to match the original chassis front built on 29 mm forward of the original. The extension is largely plastic, to horrify those who believe that plastic cannot possibly be strong, stable and durable enough, but it carries the added front coupled wheelset's axle in a brass tube as a full width bearing. The majority of the body is the type for a 2000-2005 Hornby China tender-driven A3, with smokebox and running plate ahead of the rear edge of the first set of splashers removed plus the separate top piece of the boiler altered. Added to the front of that is the smokebox plus 29-30mm of boiler barrel, plus running plate to rear of first two sets of splashers from a second Hornby tender-drive Pacific. Most of the front of its original running plate has been cut back to just some discreet residual ledges onto which a new running plate was grafted at the higher level. The cab, let into a V cut into the rear of the original boiler after removal of the A3 cab is from a post 2005 type Hornby A4. Plus a ton of filing, scraping, drilling, sawing, multiple rounds of filling, smoothing and priming along with a raid on the spares boxes for fittings.
In order to agree with what appears to be shown on the drawing, the tender (spares again) may end up being an amalgam of a "Great British Locomotives" magazine Mallard streamlined non-corridor tender top on a Hornby underframe which will need alteration of rear steps (as the UF is from a streamlined corridor tender) plus installation of pick-ups and a new drawbar arrangement in lieu of the DCC/sound-ready wiring "junk" that it unfortuately has.

Hi,

thanks for that! A lot of work, but well worth it! Amazing what you can do with imagination and patience! It's got me thinking, but maybe something smaller first!

Roja

 

[Graeme King]

Well the drawbar pin for the "beast" is successfully transplanted to an improved position, but either my maths was slightly faulty or cumulative marking, drilling and filing errors have worked against me somewhat as it hasn't closed up the loco-tender gap quite as much as I had intended.

Of course the blanking plug in the 8 pin DCC witchcraft socket turned out not to be doing the job I thought it should, When I initially connected the two inner wires from the 4 pin drawbar socket directly to the two parts of my revised drawbar pin and contact pad, there was no electrical supply to those from the wheels on either side of the tender. I checked the blanking plug with my test meter and found no continuity between any of the pins that required to be bridged! When I then soldered in some bridging wires, every wheel of the tender was connected to every other wheel and to both parts of the newly installed drawbar pin /pad!!!

I "cut to the chase" and ripped out the 8 pin socket, the now unused 4 pin drawbar plug and all surplus wiring, re-connecting the wires from the pick-ups direct to the drawbar pin and pad this time, and got exactly the required result. Keep it simple, stupid....

 

[Graeme King]

A quick catch up. I had doubts about the probable final appearance of the made-from-scratch superheater covers I'd added, initially without bolt-head detail. But once I'd added the latter by applying numerous dots of PVA using the flat end of a 0.5mm drill shank, and had given the area another waft over with grey primer, I was happy enough. The shallow new boiler bands are cut from a large roll of broad aluminium tape I bought for a completely different purposes years ago.



The tender top has come from a GBL magazine Mallard. Removal of thick plastic handrails, a rub down, a coat of grey primer and correction of the badly fitted interior improved it significantly. I could have replaced the low-relief steps and lamp irons on the rear too, but I haven't...

I've now reached a stage of not expecting to have much time to devote to this for the next week or so, and there are of course a lot of things still to be added. Even so, I wanted to get a clearer impression of what the overall appearance might be in the finished state, so I've seen fit to patch paint the main missing areas of black with a single coat, and to apply a very thin undercoat of green to the areas that will eventually be Doncaster Green.



lner.info seems to be inaccessible to me yet again this evening on account of the usual "too many connexions" so this update is "exclusive" for the time-being.

 

[James Spooner]

Graeme,

What you have created there looks stunning. I can’t help thinking, though, that if Gresley saw that model he would be tempted to modify that front foot plating. Somehow it just doesn’t seem quite elegant enough for one of his designs. Something more along the lines of a V2 or A3?

Nigel

 

[simond]

It’s a very impressive model.

Do we have any insight into why such a loco would have been proposed?
What advantages would it have offered over the 2-8-2s or the 4-6-2s?

Presumably more expensive, possibly reduced route availability, probably more expensive to maintain?

 

[Graeme King]

Higher construction cost, higher maintenance cost and restricted route availability seem certain Simon. The suggested justification in the text of the RCTS book is the challenge of further-increasing weights of the regular, non-streamlined main passenger services and the absolute limit of 66 tons adhesive weight for a six-coupled design. I'm not sure that my thoughts are strictly scientific, but with the LNER school of design firmly wedded to the wide firebox for its heavy express locos with the inevitable carrying wheels at the rear rather than coupled wheels, the ability of the rear coupled wheels to "dig in" using weight-transfer when pulling a heavy load would not be as pronounced as it might be with say a heavy 4-6-0 (such as a King). The Pacifics had at times displayed limitations in their ability to work, or more particulary to start/re-start the heaviest passenger services on adverse gradients when fate or nature was against them too, hence the appeal of an eight coupled loco with greater adhesive weight. As the 2-8-2's were not enjoying completely trouble-free operation in Scotland, and presumably the leading bogie was considered preferable to a pony truck for better guidance of a loco at speed, that would appear to explain the attempt to create a 4-8-2 and one that would squeeze onto the exising turntables at the main depots.

Did such a loco really need 6'8" coupled wheels though, given the demonstrable advances in steam loco technology by 1939? The draft design indicates no external streamlining and there was a separate proposal anyway to further uprate the A4s with larger grate areas for use on the fastest expresses, so the 4-8-2 must have been intended for the heaviest trains at less spectacular speeds. If the A4s could achieve 100mph fairly often, or 126 in extremis, then would similar cylinder, valve, and steam passage design allied to the intended high boiler pressure offer the possibility of the intended high tractive effort plus adequate suitability for running at "normal" express speeds with "mere" 6'2" coupled wheels? That would make it easier to fit everything in to the turntable length limit, as well as making the loco a bit more suitable for heavy mixed-traffic use...

Something else has concerned me about the loco in model form, or its appearance anyway, mostly since the differently coloured bits of the donor locos disappeared under uniform grey primer, and especially since painting the full length of the smokebox black: It has an unpleasant resemblance to the A2/1 and A2/2 products of Thompson's butchery! There is, as has been pointed out to me by one observer however, also a hint of Raven Pacific about it, more noticeable when the model was still all grey with no superheater covers on the long boiler and smokebox. I think perhaps the dead flat running plate under the line of splashers contributes to the Ravenesque hint.

Of course, the Raven Pacifics had all gone before the 4-8-2 proposaL was under consideration, which does suggest to me the possibility of re-using one of their names and numbers for the model, or extending the list to include some other LNER-served cities.

 

[Chas Levin]

"the sometimes-available LNERinfo website..." (my italics)

Quite.

 

[Graeme King]

Indeed Chas. I was going to comment on Manna's latest loco conversion just now, but I see that my "preserved" logged-in status has been timed-out or randomly kicked out again, and I don't have time to make multiple attempts to log-in again this morning...

 

[Chas Levin]

Incredible. No other site - literally, no other site that I'm aware of online at the moment, has this issue. I've stopped using it: unecessary time-wasting like that is just too much.

 

[simond]

The G0G site does some weird stuff from time to time…

 

[Chas Levin]

I stand corrected Simon: I did think as I wrote that I was making rather a sweeping statement! I should have underlined "...that I'm aware of..." to emphasise that I'm going on a relatively small sample.
What does the G0G one do: similar refusal to keep you signed in, or refusla to let you sign in at all?

 

[simond]

Random sign out seems to be the order of the day. It stopped doing it for a while but has recently restarted. It’s not particularly onerous but it does waste a few minutes every time you use the site - which, if you’re having your brekky before work, is an irritation

As my daughter would say to me “first world problem, get over it”, and I guess we have to.

Best
Simon

 

[Chas Levin]

Random sign-outs are certainly annoying (though I do also agree with your daughter's view!) but in the case of LNERinfo being unable to sign in for long periods, as well as random ejection, is too much.
As financial services ads say, other railway-related websites are available...

 

[Graeme King]

With some time available today I've tried to log back in "over there" three times using my original user ID and three times a little later using a second ID that I created after prolonged log-in rejections early last year. I may as well have not bothered, all attempts rejected...

 

[Chas Levin]

Very short-sighted of him not to sort it out. This isn't an expanding hobby, nor is it full of people with patience and experience with IT matters. His site's traffic will drop dramatically, IMHO. Great pity as I really miss reading things on there.

 

[Graeme King]

This is where I am with the 4-8-2 project at present, still of course in only an illustrative undercoat.



Changes from previous views are matters of detail rather than great strides forward, five days away in Scotland recently paying a long overdue family visit having limited available work time. As can be seen however, boiler handrails are now permanently fitted (later lining can easily be applied around those) whereas the cab and tender handrails, still unpainted, have been left loose so that edge-lining can be done before they are secured. The boiler handrails mainly use the original Hornby holes for the pillars, but the still removable ejector pipe below it required filling of the original holes and new ones drilled about 2mm lower in order to allow a neat straight pipe to miss the larger spectacles of the new A4 cab. The pipe is simply 0.9mm brass wire with some clips made from a narrow strip of 6 thou brass shim wrapped around it and inserted into the boiler.

The smokebox door handles are two shoulderless handrail knobs soldered onto a piece of 0.5mm nickel silver wire, and the useable lamp irons are bent and cut pieces of staple fixed firmly into holes in the plastic mouldings. I’ve temporarily fitted a vacuum pipe and a Smiths screw coupling at the front. I’m not sure I like the recent version of the Smiths coupling with the etched representation of a “vestigial” tommy-bar rather than a separate pin in a hole through the shackle. I decided not to remove the moulded buffer sockets and “squander” a precious set of Kean-Maygib Spencer buffers on a fictional loco, but I have attempted to create the appearance of Spencer buffers by adding 15” turned buffer heads with their spindles inserted in short sleeves of tinned brass tube.

Under the running plate I’ve added material to reduce the size of the frame cut-outs above the bogie wheels, but I daren’t close up the gaps too much as the bogie of such a long loco has to have space to rise on uneven track. I’ve also blended in the plasticard additions to the tops of the cylinders a bit more, although they don’t currently appear to be part of the originals as the paint I’ve used on the additions doesn’t yet match the sheen of that on the originals.



I’ve made better provision for fixing the GBL tender top to the Hornby underframe. A block of plastic bonded inside the rear of the tank allows a screw up through the Hornby fixing hole to bite into something, and the flimsy plastic tongue at the front has been bolstered by two miniature screws through the top of the platform down into the frame. There’s now a drawhook in the rear buffer beam too, but no dangling coupling to interfere with my usual small tension lock, nor a vacuum pipe to hinder any attempts to used the scale drawhook.

...and I haven't forgotten to include a basic representation of the cover flap for the oiling access to the motion levers, through the vertical plate between the frames below the smokebox front.

 

[Graeme King]

After a spray painting session yesterday that definitely did not go according to original plan (do they ever?) I believe my model of the projected Gresley 4-8-2 looks better for the benefit of an even coat of Doncaster Green, albeit the Railmatch version rather than the Precision Paint that I had hoped to use – that had turned to mud, jelly, solid skin and at least two varieties of liquid in the carefully re-sealed and stored tin…


If I get the time, the model may even manage to receive some of the necessary lining, a number, and LNER tender branding in time for a cheeky appearance on my Thelnerby layout at Lincoln exhibition. That statement provides the perfect opportunity to remind readers that Lincoln Model Railway Exhibition takes place on 21st and 22nd February at the County Assembly Rooms on Bailgate in Lincoln. The rooms are just beyond the top of Steep Hill, near the North East corner of the castle, and there’s parking nearby if you're not stretching your legs on the way up from Lincoln Central station.

We’ll have plenty of Gresley and other LNER locos and rolling stock available for running on Thelnerby, in classic 1930s LNER liveries of course, perfectly appropriate for celebrating Gresley’s achievements in this 150th anniversary year of his birth. So if you haven’t managed to get to the Gresley 150 event at Doncaster exhibition this coming weekend, or if you’ve been but still want more, or if you cannot get to Doncaster or simply don’t fancy paying the Doncaster admission fee, then please come to have a look and say hello at Lincoln.