Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Blink Bonny]

S160? Please don't.

Scampers to loo - sounds of retching!

I know beauty is "in the eye of the beholder" but the S160 was a pretty ugly design compared with the UK equivalent RODs and 8Fs.

I often wonder why other nation's locomotives were generally so messy in design. It's hard to believe it was simply on grounds of practicality and access. Surely removing miles of plumbing from the outside of a cladded bolier must have made heavy overhauls more of a nightmare?

Ay up!

My dislike is based on more than its looks.

The KWVR's S160 was a real Lumbago engine. Hot in front, freezing cold at yer back because the cab was the draughtiest I've ever suffered. It was the roughest engine on the line and slipped with no provocation, despite the compensated suspension.

In its defence it did have a good steam generator but the chassis - ugh!

As for EM's comment regarding pipework - we tend to put pipework inside the frames, under the running boards etc and also the components they feed. We never went in much for air brakes so no compressors required plus put sandpots between the frames rather than on top of the boiler. What's that all about, anyway?

[Horsetan]

I've always rather liked the S160.

It will be a challenge to scratchbuild one in 4mm scale. So far, I've only got the drawings, driving and pony wheels, and the bogies for the tender.....

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

Each to their own, Horsetan.

If you ever get it finished, I'll be the first to tip me hat to you!

[jwealleans]

From what I've heard you could have the one from the NYMR for a sufficient consideration and they'd help you load it up.

[Atlantic 3279]

Modified smokebox front installed in plastikard housing and temporarily perched in place - as far as I got last night:

Not a great deal more done tonight, but I've added the rest of the hinge plate, re-drilled the holes for the horizontal handrail, and adding some better supporting pieces out of sight within the extended smokebox.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Looks good to me Graeme - suddenly you can see the anglicised lines quite clearly amidst the American origins. It's strange how much a change of "face" and chimney can do to a locomotive. It almost looks elegant from that 3/4 angle!

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Has that look of a half built WD 2-10-0 .......provided you squint

manna

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

This is looking rather good.

[Atlantic 3279]

Use of the GC smokebox front creates an interesting problem when re-fitting the main boiler handrails. If I use the original holes, these are too LOW compared to the drawing, but even they are much higher than the typical Gorton centre-line-of-boiler handrail position. The normal Robinson relationship of gracious upcurve of the handrail into something like a complete semi-circle on the smokebox front is thus not possible, whether I use the existing holes or re-plot them higher up as per the drawing. In neither case can I stick to the original US style downward turn of the handrail onto the smokebox front, as that would now foul the full opening of the door. I don't imagine that the boilers would have been re-drilled for new handrail stanchions just for the sake of "style" (wouldn't that involve pulling them apart?) and even if new Gorton-built boilers had been required at a very early stage they might have been totally different in looks, so I'm not sure at present quite what I shall do about this.

[S.A.C. Martin]

There is a precedent Graeme - didn't the Sacre GCR locomotives (the 4-4-0 springs to mind, but damn if I can remember which one) have a curved handrail, separate to the boiler handrails? Still looks "GCR" but different enough to be mechanically correct.

I know they are a lot earlier, but they share a lot of the facial character of the Robinson engines with which they were edged out in favour of, in the 1920s.

EDIT: D12, as seen on the website. Just clicked when I went through the RCTS volume.

[Atlantic 3279]

That'll do nicely as an excuse / precedent if necessary. I imagine I'll find others too if I find time and motivation to look. Ta Simon.

[Saint Johnstoun]

THIS IS GOING TO BE SOME BEAST! well done so far Graeme!

[wehf100]

Graeme, you raise an interesting point here. How many of the 'British' features of these engines would have been designed in by Baldwins? The Pollitt class 15 (Baldwin Moguls supplied to GCR) were supplied as complete knock-down kits weren't they?

This begs the question, how much input did the GCR have in the design process? This raises three suggestions;

i) British features were part of the design for the locomotive and were fitted at Baldwin's works. A 'ready to run' loco delivered to UK.

ii) British features were not fitted, but accounted for in original design for fitment upon delivery (i.e.- 'we specify that the opening for the smokebox door is xx feet in diameter so that we can fit the door from a Robinson O4')

iii) Baldwin didn't account for any British fittings in the design, and modifications were therefore made by Gorton at the time of assembly as best as they could to incorporate British features.

Deciding which one of these was the case with 'your' loco, might help your decision making?

For example= if you decide that Gorton wanted to modify the smokebox door of a locomotive delivered with an American door, you are right in saying that the holes Baldwin drilled for it's own handrails would probably have had to be retained (the alternative being the unlikely option of pulling apart the whole smokebox!).

Conversely, if Baldwin was told by the GCR (during the design stage) that it wanted holes drilled in such a way that a graceful curving smokebox handrail could be fitted, then you can reasonably justify drilling new holes in your model anywhere you like!

regards,
Will

[Atlantic 3279]

Valid thoughts Will. I'd even considered at one stage building this loco as if it were from a second batch, supposedly ordered from Baldwins with more GC features built in at source. A D10 style cab and low running plate with typically deep GC angle irons, raised in C4/B4 style only enough to clear the coupled wheels (since I can't imagine Baldwin's bringing themselves to fit splashers so as to keep the plate low throughout), coupled to either a standard GC tender or an eight-wheeled / bogie version thereof, would produce a loco with a worrying resemblence to The Great Bear!

The model is progressing, albeit slowly. I've now filled and levelled to recesses in the boiler top which accommodated the unwanted sand domes:

I've done a bit more with the cab too, building some "rear quarter" sheets that also form an arch to support the rear of the roof. A coupled of strips added to the inner faces of each side also now provide clip-on level location against the edges of the original cab floor.
In this image you can also see the two-layer plastic smokebox front, the front layer merely being a ring so that the thick-edged whitemetal door sits in a central recess. Spacer pieces on the rear of the new front rest against the original smokebox front, preventing the new piece from sliding back into the tube when I eventually glue it in, and providing extra bracing for the thin brass wrapper. I've also put together a Cambrian bogie ready in anticipation of sorting out the 40 ton wagons and the bogie tender for the loco. The one piece moulding of virtually the whole bogie makes these a doddle to build. I found no twist or distortion in the structure, and hardly any flash. You just install the bearing cups and wheelsets, adjust the endfloat, bond in the bearings, add the axlebox fronts, and fit the pivot plate to the bolster using the nut and bolt supplied. There's no struggle to keep the bogie firm and square while solvent bonds the plastic and evaporates off.

[Atlantic 3279]

The Cambrian Diamond frame looks much more prototypically slender than the Parkside version, as shown in a comparison with a Parkside moulding here. The only down-side to the Cambrian bogies is that the "gubbins" in the middle (spring and bolster end) isn't really in the style I ideally want. The Parkside version is closer in that respect, and the Ratio version closer still, but again that's afflicted with a frame that looks too heavy.

The Parkside mouldings are also cursed with a bit more flash than the Cambrian examples - a nuisance to clean off if 30 or so bogies are to be built!