If the ECJS etches are anything like the God awful PK LNER TPO sides I bought unseen, I wouldn't touch them with the the proverbial Barge Pole.
After waiting in the region of TWO years for them to turn up , they were very thin, very poorly etched, didn't line up and didn't match the TPO sides they were supposed to represent .
The PK range seem to be from a very different era of modelling from what is expected nowadays. I wont be buying anything from them again personally.
Graeme
sounds like kit/r.t.r bashing would be a much better idea . No idea if Isinglass have any drawings, they have a few 12 wheelers listed.
After waiting in the region of TWO years for them to turn up
I'll take some encouragement from that.
The one I built certainly wasn't disastrously at variance with the Isinglass drawing, nor do I remember it being overly hard. It's certainly one of my favourite carriages now it's built, although I have both of the D & S Restaurant cars Steve mentioned earlier to build and the GN one looks especially attractive.
Okay, thank you. Now I'm emphatically NOT trying to be awkward or argumentative here, but that appears to leave mere mortals such as myself in the position that:
a) You say the etches are semi fictional but you decline to say what you so far believe is wrong with them.
b) You appear to me say that this is not your specialist area of research - so it could be that some or all aspects of some of the etches are exactly right.
c) You feel that you cannot direct us to the person or people who might be able to give a definitive answer.
Under the circumstances, what is a poor modeller to do if he wishes to make at least a reasonable attempt at portraying, or paying tribute to, the highly distinctive 12 wheel clerestory Howlden coaches and their York-built brethren? Go with what is available in the form of the PK etches but accept that the resultant model may be wrong, so be prepared to build a replacement in the future if better information emerges - if the modeller can then be bothered? Hope to find photographs from all sides of the relevant coach on the relevant date plus dated drawings and set about scratch-building, or custom etching, or 3D printing, or use a plotter-cutter to produce layers for the panelling? How many will do that and how long would the research and building take? Forget the idea of trying to build any such coach model for the time being even if it is a key element in making his overall modelling scheme "believable"?
What do you suggest as the practical option given that pedantic adherence to spot-on accuracy is not currently possible?
I made myself perfectly clear and this response is derisive and insolent, and shows why so many experts will have nothing to do with Forums like this. I referred to personal reasons because it is not for me to dish out private people's names so that they can be hounded, especially when the most senior one has a dying wife on his hands.
Atlantic 3279 wrote:
Under the circumstances, what is a poor modeller to do if he wishes to make at least a reasonable attempt at portraying, or paying tribute to, the highly distinctive 12 wheel clerestory Howlden coaches and their York-built brethren?
1/ cobble together something from old Hornby bodies?
2/ Take a look at this page. Other diagrams may be possible, but I'm reluctant to do them because not only are they a lot of work to produce, but in the 20 years since the first ones were drawn I've only sold a handful.
Last edited by billbedford on Tue Oct 18, 2016 9:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
rupertb wrote:Having built a number of the Peter K ECJS 12 Wheelers some of which feature on Gresley Beat my advice would be
a) Beware - not just because of the points Steve raised but because you will end up with something very heavy and with a lot of friction by the time you've put a copperclad floor in and the D&S 6W bogies that are the closest to the prototype
b) If you are a glutton for punishment then I would recommend
1) Figure out what you are trying to build - i.e the whole train and then pick the most relevant vehicles rather than building a kit because it is "top of the pile"
2) Look at the NRM drawing list and book yourself in at York for an afternoon to look at the drawings available and take lots of pictures - sadly most of the Howlden drawings I have looked at are rather poor dyeline copies of the originals and are very hard to decipher.
3) Look below the waist at the drawings and at the surviving vehicles - before the Gresley era pretty much every underframe was unique - I did a brief study of Howlden 6W coaches based on the GNR Society diagram lists and came up with over 20 different body length/width combinations so I shelved my plans to design any new etches until I knew more about what ran in a specific train (the 1938 recreation with No 1). Remember most of the vehicles were gas lit so the size and position of the gas cylinders is crucial to the look of the model and they varied a lot.
For their time (i.e. c 1980) the Peter K etches will get you a something that looks like a Howlden body box but that is all - we now have a lot more data available for study at the NRM which was not available back then and we really should be trying to move our standards forward.
One day I will get round to doing some Howlden etches in the RDEB range in 4 and 7mm to round out some LNER trains of the 1923-39 era - many of them actually lasted in the backwaters of Lincolnshire and East Anglia into the late 1940s as well as departmentals
-R
PS I will be in the Demo Gang at Warley NEC in November if you want to discuss further
Thanks for some good practical advice. I'll try to catch up with you at the NEC.
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I'm sorry this has developed a contentious aspect. I can only re-iterate that I was NOT trying to be awkward. I accept that my comments and questions to Steve were challenging ones in some ways but they were stimulated by un-supported assertions. They were also followed by genuine questions regarding a practical approach for modellers. I'd best say no more.
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I'm sorry this has developed a contentious aspect. I can only re-iterate that I was NOT trying to be awkward. I accept that my comments and questions to Steve were challenging ones in some ways but they were stimulated by un-supported assertions. They were also followed by genuine questions regarding a practical approach for modellers. I'd best say no more.
Graeme, it is you alone who set off on a deliberately nasty tack and denying it serves no purpose except to reinforce what I said about people being put off from taking part in Forums where this sort of this takes place. The other aspects, including personal reasons where you were completely out of order, I presume you have taken on board. And now you make a spurious allegation of "unsupported assertions", but don't say where. Please stop this personalising of historical issues. It does you nor the LNERE any favours.
As regards the "practical advice" that you say you have received, it comprises two things: beware the quality of these etchings; and what I said at the outset, that the information is not available to say which etchings are accurate and which are not. It also underscores what I said about the arduous nature of the research.
At bottom, if all you seek is a model that is a likeness, then none of this matters. Many people are happy with semi-fictitious models. But if you want to make an accurate model, which is what I thought you were seeking, then it's a different ball game.
I really don't want to stir the pot any further, but I feel compelled to comment regarding the "unsupported assertion". If the Peter K etches are said to be "semi fictional", but no specific fault is pointed out, and if they are said in turn to be based on "unreliable" Drawings by Fred Lee, with no specific fault or error in those cited, then I believe the assertion "as given" relating to etches / drawings is unsupported.
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"derisive and insolent" : Perhaps people don't like forums when they get called terms like that? Especially when such terms could be used to describe the post that is doing the name calling...
Atlantic 3279 wrote:
Under the circumstances, what is a poor modeller to do if he wishes to make at least a reasonable attempt at portraying, or paying tribute to, the highly distinctive 12 wheel clerestory Howlden coaches and their York-built brethren?
1/ cobble together something from old Hornby bodies?
2/ Take a look at this page. Other diagrams may be possible, but I'm reluctant to do them because not only are they a lot of work to produce, but in the 20 years since the first ones were drawn I've only sold a handful.
I did mean to acknowledge this earlier Bill, but became "distracted". Thanks, I'll have a look.
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Hope this works, but I hope to have got a photo of one of the 1905 Gresley Restaurant cars here. A rather poor photo enlarged from a 2-1/4" x 3-1/4" entrant. I took it about 1958 in the Wood Green carriage sidings.
