Great Central Locomotives

[wehf100]

And why not! especially in LDECR blue! This is after all a company that in the words of Dow was neither Lancashire NOR East Coast!

It also clear passed my mind that the Midland Railway centre has a LDECR 6-wheel Third in full restoration. A splendid sight (if a spurious in the livery department) and a boon to the modeller. The carriages did at least get around quite well- I have record of one appearing with a broken spring in an incident book at New Holland, North Lincs in 1932.

http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org ... sp?Ref=876

(Oh and while we are at it- if you do build one of these carriages- I would suggest that the post-takeover GCR 'teak' finish would actually have been plain brown paint- like the LNER 'teak' brown. The GCR would not have paid the huge expense to strip the layers of paint off down to plain wood and start again!

[Bill Bedford]

(Oh and while we are at it- if you do build one of these carriages- I would suggest that the post-takeover GCR 'teak' finish would actually have been plain brown paint- like the LNER 'teak' brown. The GCR would not have paid the huge expense to strip the layers of paint off down to plain wood and start again!

Coaches that were to be painted were built of mahogany, while those that were to varnished were built of teak. It is impossible to strip all the paint off mahogany to get a surface that is worth varnishing, because the paint gets into the pores in the timber. So yes any mahogany coach would have had a painted finish, but it might have be scumbled to resemble varnished timber.

[Skaran]

OK, the Craftsman 9N/A5 has arrived. Still have to get the wheelset for it though. Any thoughts on a good motor/gearbox for this kit?

[Atlantic 3279]

I'd imagine this is a case of cost versus simplicity. At a cost, you could buy and fit a two stage gearbox to lift the motor clear of the wheels and then accommodate the largest motor you could possibly want into the boiler/tank space, giving you bags of torque, superb low speed running, and freedom to have loads of sideplay on all wheelsets to suit toy-train curves. On the other hand if you cut out the frames a little a Can motor as wide as 14mm will still go nose-down between the front two coupled wheelsets, driving the first one through a single stage gearbox or open gears, and with its rear end lifted will still allow you to have sideplay on the third coupled axle. A 26+mm long 16 x 14 flat Can should give all the low speed torque you are likely to want anyway, in fact a shorter one may suffice but why not fit the biggest you can get? For the wheel size I'd guess that 40:1 reduction gearing would be ample for low speed performance and 30:1 would give you a bit more of a greyhound.

If you study the kit closely compared to prototype plans and photos you may want to alter the rear end of the loco slightly as you build it. The running plate should turn in sharply under the rear corners of the tanks, not form a "lazy S" across the cab doorway, and you may judge that the bunker width and rear spectacle plate of the cab require changes.

[Skaran]

I'll bear in mind what you have said about the footplate and bunker. I'm gradually building up my GCR reference materials and getting hold of photos. As far as the motor and chassis I would be looking at minimum 36" radius curves for this to run on so I don't think I'll need a lot of side play.

I think the 40-1 gear ratio sounds quite reasonable for this one as well. Now all I have to do is find the time to build it.

[wehf100]

Interesting stuff Atlantic- well spotted on the running plate- the 9N certainly had a dstince 'kink' here, as it did at the front of the tanks. The craftsman kit seems to get the latter correct at least!

Skaran- some brilliant photos of this class (a4 sized- high res) are collected in 'Locomotives of the Great Central Railway' vol I, 1897-1914, by EM. Johnson. It has some fascinating photos of this class, although no drawings. There is a short section in Volume II of this work on the LNER-built locos. Other than the Isinglass drawings, which I don't have but are generally regarded as impeccible, Railway modeller April 1973 had a set of drawings and article about the locos.

good luck.

[Skaran]

Thanks for the heads up on the locomotives book. I'll certainly keep an eye out for that.