Quarry Hunslet: Genuine People Personalities

When it comes to trains there is a long history of anthropomorphism. Everyone knows of Thomas the Tank Engine, where the trains are the main characters and definitely have human personalities, but there are plenty of similar books and TV programmes. My favourite is probably Ivor the Engine, who has a distinct personality without being given a human face. On occasions this even happens to preserved steam engines; some attempts being more successful than others! A couple of examples, from my childhood, were Stepney, seen at Sheffield Park station on the Bluebell Railway in 1984, and Percy and Thomas at Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway in 1986.

The idea of a locomotive having a face doesn't just imply that they have a human personality though. The worst criticism you'll find in a review of a new model locomotive will always be reserved for those cases where the face (i.e. the front) of the engine is wrongly modelled. If you get the face wrong, it doesn't matter how good the rest of the model is, you can almost guarantee it will attract a terrible review. So when building the Quarry Hunslet I wanted to ensure I got the face right.

The kit contains a nice whitemetal casting for the smokebox door, but this casting doesn't include the handles (usually referred to as a dart -- don't ask me why) which is actually a good thing as moulded handles usually look pretty terrible.

Fortunately I've played with fitting smokebox door handles in the past so I ordered a set from Eileen's Emporium. The main locating pin requires a 1mm hole so I went and drilled out the centre of the casting. Unfortunately I hadn't really thought through the fact that these handles are meant for standard gauge locmotives not narrow gauge.

I knew that the handles would be too long, but trimming them to length is easy, what I hadn't thought about was that the central boss would be way too large for the Quarry Hunslet. Once I'd drilled the hole and test fitted the main part the problem was obvious though. The central boss was unbelievably huge in comparison to the door. Fortunately all was not lost. I simply filled the hole I'd drilled, and then drilled a 0.45mm hole through the centre to take a small piece of brass wire onto which the handles threaded nicely. I also filed down the loops on the handles so that they sit closer to each other and the door.

The final step was to then glue the door to the front of the main casting. This took a couple of attempts as I found it difficult to position in easily as the hinge on the right makes it difficult to accurately judge if it is centred or not, although it does help with making sure it is the right way up! While it looks as if the door is very low to the footplate, this appears to be prototypically accurate and it does lead to a pleasing gap of roughly the same width around the sides and top of the door.

I would have taken a more recent photo of the door after removing the stray bit if blutack, but that would spoil the next post in the sequence as it would show you what I did next.

The issue of 4mm detailing parts, such as the smokebox handles, being mainly designed for standard gauge rather than narrow gauge models, does lead me to a question. Do any of you know of a supplier who offers narrow gauge detailing parts? I'm specifically thinking of steam whistles and the myriad of other brass fittings you usually find on the outside of a Quarry Hunslet, none of which are catered for in the kit I'm building. While I can cut down some parts, such as the door handles, to better suit the smaller size of narrow gauge locomotives, I don't think the same approach would work for the majority of fittings so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

And We're Off

Work, albeit minor, has now started on the new layout, although as yet there isn't exactly much to see. Now as well as a box to store the layout in (the trays have now arrived as well), I have the baseboard on which everything else will be built. As with Jerusalem I've gone for a simple piece of MDF as the baseboard; this time 9mm MDF rather than 12mm based solely on what the local DIY store had in stock. To ensure that I can get the layout out of the box, the final baseboard size measures 110cm by 22cm giving a maximum model, at 4mm to the foot, of 275 foot by 55 foot. Also, given the depth of the box, minus the MDF and storage trays I have 22cm I can build above the baseboard (so 55 foot of model space), which should be enough, although it certainly means that any point control etc. will have to be on top of the baseboard as I won't be mounting anything under it.

I've also had my order for the Dorothea kit from Brian Madge confirmed so that is at least one piece of rolling stock confirmed for the layout (assuming I manage to put it together correctly). Given that there isn't much to show I thought I'd illustrate this post with one of the slides my Dad took while I was growing up, which shows a Quarry Hunslet locomotive which isn't that different from Dorothea. The photo shows Elidir, built in 1899 for the Dinorwic Quarry and original named Enid, at the Llanberis Lake Railway on the 6th of August 1985.

Liveries: Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway

In one of the early posts on this blog I looked into the liveries of the different railway companies who had, at one time or another, run steam engines into Penistone. In that post I only highlighted the main colour of each livery rather than showing the sometimes intricate liveries in detail. Unfortunately there aren't any/many ready-to-run locomotives available for a number of relevant railway companies and so at some point I might need to re-paint some models. At that point I will need the full livery details. So I'm intending to do a number of posts where I look at a livery in detail, and I'm going to start with those used by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, or L&YR for short.

In the early years of the L&YR a green livery was applied to it's locomotives. I'm going to focus, however, on the black livery which was in use from the 1880's until the L&YR ceased to exist in 1922.

Over the years there were a number of minor variations in the livery, but essentially passenger locomotives were black with red and white lining, while goods engines used just red lining. For example, here is the preserved Aspinall designed, 0-6-0 number 1300 which was in steam at Barrow Hill when I attended Model Rail Live a few weeks ago.

While 1300 was built in 1896, it is currently painted in a variation of the livery which became standard sometime after 1904 when George Hughes took over as the Chief Mechanical Engineer. Prior to this time the two white lines were of different thicknesses (the inner one being thinner).

As I mentioned earlier, goods engines were lined slightly differently with just two red lines. You've actually already seen this livery on an OO Gauge model in the Docker's Umbrella post, but to the left you can see it in use on preserved L&YR locomotive number 752.

This locomotive was originally built as an 0-6-0 tender locomotive in 1881 but was converted to a saddle tank in 1896 (it would originally have looked similar although not identical to 1300). Given it's poor state of repair (it's missing it's connecting rods) it's unclear how accurate the livery is. The red lining appears accurate but there are a couple of anomalies. Firstly the green background to the makers plate originally denoted which company had built the locomotive (Beyer Peacock & Co in this instance) so as to know who to contact when for repairs or spare parts. From the 1890's, however, all makers plates were painted black. Also none of the photos I can find of similar locomotives show the company crest on the side of the cab.

While these two locomotives show most of the livery details quite well you can see a number of other examples (including carriage liveries) on the website of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Trust.

A Naked Duck

Having recently been on holiday and then having to spend time catching up on work that had built up while I was away I haven't had time to do much modelling for quite a few weeks. Of course this blog isn't just about modelling so for this post I'm going to delve back into my childhood, via some of my Dad's photographs, so get ready to behold a naked duck.

After Flying Scotsman the UK's most famous steam engine is probably LNER 4468; more commonly known as Mallard. On the 3rd of July 1938 Mallard was recorded reaching a top speed of 126mph breaking the world record for a steam locomotive; amazingly that record still stands. Next year will see the 75th anniversary of that record breaking run and while Mallard will be given a cosmetic overhaul she will, unfortunately, remain stuffed and mounted as a static exhibit at the National Railway Museum in York. Things were, however, very different in 1988 when Mallard celebrated fifty years since her record breaking run.

Preparations for the 50th anniversary started in the early 1980's as she was slowly restored to working order. By the 28th of September 1985 she was once more raising steam as these photos show.

I love these photos as although they show what a sorry state Mallard was in at the time (the rust marks on the tender are shocking) they allow you to see that underneath the streamlined casing the A4 Pacifics are in fact very similar to other steam engines of a similar size. She has a tubular boiler, smokebox door and (in this case) a double Kylchap chimney. I don't actually remember this trip to the National Railway Museum but I know I was there as I actually appear in the left hand photo; I'm the small blond haired child being lifted up by my mother in the middle at the bottom of the photo.

By the 25th of March 1986 the overhaul was complete and Mallard returned to mainline duties pulling a special train from York to Doncaster via Scarborough and Hull. Looking through my Dad's slides I can see that we saw her at York two months later on the 25th of May pulling the Scarborough Spa Express and then again on the 25th of August when the photo to the left was taken. Here you can see Mallard, again pulling the Scarborough Spa Express, racing out of York towards Scarborough; you can just see the National Railway Museum through the bridge.

It's a shame that such an evocative sight won't greet those people who visit York next year for the 75th anniversary of the world record. Deciding to overhaul and return an iconic engine to steam is always a difficult decision to make. A full overhaul often involves replacing large parts of the locomotive that cannot be repaired (often the boiler) and there will come a time when little of the original locomotive remains. When Flying Scotsman finally returns to mainline steam duties very little of the original engine will remain, and I guess the National Railway Museum have taken the view that retaining Mallard as a static exhibit is preferable especially as there are a number of other A4 Pacifics currently in operation and certified for use on Britain’s mainline railway network.

Note that a lot of the information for this post came from Don Hale's brilliant book Mallard: How The 'Blue Streak' Broke The World Speed Record which I can heartily recommend for anyone who wants to know more about this wonderful and historic locomotive.

Henry de Lacy II

If you've been reading this blog since the first post, or have read the relevant posts on my other blog, you will know I have a fondness for Flying Scotsman. Now you may thing that if, as a child, I was going to have a photo of a steam train on my bedroom wall that it would be of Flying Scotsman. You would, however, be wrong. The photo on my bedroom wall was of Henry de Lacy II.

My Dad took the photo, and thanks to my Mum careful labelling each slide, I know that it was shot on the 16th of April 1983 at Middleton Railway; note that the slide is in better condition than this image gives it credit, but as my Dad has borrowed my slide scanner this was scanned using the slide adaptor on my flatbed scanner which doesn't produce particularly good images. I'm not sure why this particular photo should have ended up on my wall but it could actually be the first steam engine I saw in the flesh. Of all the slides of steam engines my parents have recently given me (and which formed part of the inspiration for this blog) it's got the earliest date so there is a good chance this was taken on my first trip to a steam railway.

Henry de Lacy II was built by Hudswell Clarke and Company in 1917 for use at Kirkstall Forge in Leeds where it spent it's entire working life. Apparently it was the second of four locomotives to be named after Baron Henry de Laci of Pontefract, who, in 1152, allowed Cistercian monks to found an abbey adjacent to the site of Kirkstall Forge. Interestingly it is the only locomotive at Middleton Railway to have arrived under it's own power having used the mainline network to travel from the forge to the railway when, in 1968, the forge donated it to the railway.

Henry de Lacy II can still be found at Middleton Railway, although now as a static exhibit in the engine shed -- if you take care to follow the health and safety notices you can even visit it's cab. Looking at the old photo I think it was probably a static exhibit back in 1983 as there is a board placed across the chimney. Either way it's actually looking a lot better now after a new coat of paint.