Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[LNER4479]

...I'm quite looking forward to finishing off a small number of these...

Sounds promising!

[jwealleans]

He's invented a Replicator in his spare time?

[Atlantic 3279]

Yep. Power consumption 1.21 Gigawatts.

[notascoobie]

Yep. Power consumption 1.21 Gigawatts.

I've got a Wills A3 like that............

[Danby Wiske]

Yep. Power consumption 1.21 Gigawatts.

I've got a Wills A3 like that............

I wondered why my lights kept dimming...

[2002EarlMarischal]

I'm rather late in adding my praise for the lovely work on the K2. Looking forward to see further progress Graeme!

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all

LOL......I have an old Kays O4 with the original larger motor (MK1??), that has the same properties. It is quite powerful but draws more current than my Garratt with two motors.

Earlswood nob

[Atlantic 3279]

Here's a bit of further progress / checking on the K2. I wanted to be sure that everything would fit and look right before I think about making the main body mould, although I've already taken care of the moulds for the cab and the backhead. As you can plainly see in the first picture. I hadn't noticed that in handling the chassis I had flicked the joint between the combination lever and union link over-centre on one side. At least the rest of the ensemble seems to be okay. The chimney in these latest pictures is Dave Alexander's K4 type, reduced in height and with a washer of shim soldered to the base in order to bring the base out to a fuller diameter. The dome is Hornby old B17 / D49 type, a "not from a kit maker" alternative to the brass one in previous pictures. Pictures show a multitude of dome cover styles on K2s! The circular access plates on the smokebox upper sides have been rubbed down until they were almost gone altogether. Bolthead representation was restored using dots of PVA.

IF ANYBODY IS THINKING OF VISITING LINCOLN MODEL RAILWAY CLUB'S SHOW AT THE LINCOLNSHIRE SHOWGROUND THIS COMING WEEKEND I'LL BE THERE, HIDING EITHER BEHIND "WATERLOO ROAD" OR IN ANY DARK CORNER I CAN FIND, AND I'LL HAVE THE K2 WITH ME, POSSIBLY EVEN IN BLACK LIVERY BY THEN...

[2002EarlMarischal]

A very handsome model of a handsome loco.

I have always liked the lines of the K2.

[Hatfield Shed]

Handsome is as handsome does. The first UK example of the modern mixed traffic loco. Two cylinders, outside gear with good valve events, high running plate, good superheated boiler. As a template it's got the lot. The LNER's 'big mistake' in locomotive provision was the false economy of developing their medium freight unit as an 0-6-0 , rather than the 2-6-0 which the GNR had found so much to its liking. A K2 development with 5'2" wheels could have been the Thompson/Peppercorn K1 without the intervening steps.

[Atlantic 3279]

Perhaps the group's new directors in the 20s objected to the extra two shillings and fourpence for a 2-6-0 rather than a standard goods engine, regardless of any claimed operating efficiencies? Or maybe the fact that Darlington was tasked with producing the new group standard goods engine meant that a pony truck would never even be considered. The North Eastern had never done pony trucks, so why should the LNER need such things? Bogies by all means, but a goods 4-6-0 might be too big and too heavy and nearly nine bob dearer.......

[jwealleans]

I have read something in one of the histories of the LNER that a 2-6-0 was the preferred goods option but was rejected on cost grounds (one assumes at Board level) and the J39 was the result.

Maybe someone who has read whatever I did more recently can furnish more detail.

[Hatfield Shed]

That was pretty much it. Gresley proposed an outside cylinder 2-6-0 for the medium goods role for the group, but the locomotive committee preferred the economy in first cost of the inside cylinder 0-6-0. The job was placed with Darlington, which some have suspected may indicate where the preference for this format had been strongest. For slow speed hauls between pit and staithe a reasonable decision, but...

[Darryl Tooley]

Outline drawings of the 1924 proposal for a 2-6-0 are given in Armstrong's 'LNER Locomotive Development' and Clay and Cliffe's 'The LNER 2-6-0 Classes'. Essentially a K3 with 5'2" drivers, half inch smaller cylinders, and the same diameter boiler pitched 3in lower, both the aforementioned works say it was intended for slow goods services. This was a job done adequately, if unspectacularly, by 2 cylinder 0-6-0s, for a long time before and a long time afterwards.

D

[Atlantic 3279]

With primer hardening up on all relevant parts of the loco it was time to get the tender ready for top-coat too. Jonathan has just shown, over on West End Workbench, one of these resin GN tender bodies with the hand loops in the upper corners of the sidesheets opened out as per pre-1912 examples of the tenders. I've gone the other way with this one to represent a tender built post 1912, filling the half-thickness recessed areas within the hand-loop outlines then filing,sanding off all raised surface details before re-applying plain beading, scribing in the forward part of the joint in the plating, then applying more primer: