Dave Holt
Western Thunderer
First, a belated happy New Year to all.
Sadly, I seem to have been overtaken by a malaise recently and have lost all motivation to do any actual modelling, so I thought I might post something about one of my favourite existing models, which pre-dates my involvement on WT (although some of the photos did appear in a different loco thread, back in 2019). It also pre-dates my photographing of my loco builds, so I am relying on prints of photos taken by others who I'll credit where possible.
The loco in question is a Caprotti fitted BR Standard Class 5, No. 73129, which currently looks like this:
These were taken by David Clarke after he applied some light weathering.
I always quite liked Caprotti fitted locos because they were different and quite rare. The LMS Black 5 versions were rather ugly but had a purposeful look about them. The BR Standard variety were well proportioned, handsome looking locos and were fairly common around Manchester in the early 1960s after all the English allocated examples (including 73129) migrated to Patricroft shed. Indeed, the very last BR loco I cabbed was one of this type. I was awaiting a Liverpool to Newcastle train, at Exchange Station, in 1968 and found the loco acting as West End station pilot, simmering in the Horse Dock siding. After standing for a few minutes, I was invited into the cab, where the fireman was keeping an eye on things whilst the driver had gone off somewhere. We chatted for 20 minutes or so till my train was announced. I remember him saying that both he and the driver were going to quit the railway when steam finished as they felt that diesels gave no reward for skill or effort by the crew.
Anyway, to the model. The basis was a DJH etched brass and white metal kit from which most of the loco body and tender were built. On the chassis, only the cylinders, slide bars and return crank gear boxes are from the kit. Being a P4 model, the chassis is my own concoction with Alan Gibson profile milled frames and wheels. It has fully floating compensation (no fixed axle). Drive is by an Escap motor driving through a modified gear box using MJT side plates. All the Caprotti drive shafts and reversing gear, except the return crank gear boxes, were scratch built using various diameters of tube and rod/wire. The universal joints were represented by parts made from 1.5 mm tube, as shown below.
The valve gear was made as a set of separate sub-assemblies to facilitate construction, assembly and dis-assembly for painting, as shown in the following series of photos taken by Barry Norman (for a possible article in Model Railway Journal that came to nothing).
Cylinders:
Main drive shafts:
Reverser shafts (viewed fro the opposite direction):
And assembled onto the chassis:
Don't want to run out of photo capacity, so I'll post a bit more in a separate post.
Dave.
Sadly, I seem to have been overtaken by a malaise recently and have lost all motivation to do any actual modelling, so I thought I might post something about one of my favourite existing models, which pre-dates my involvement on WT (although some of the photos did appear in a different loco thread, back in 2019). It also pre-dates my photographing of my loco builds, so I am relying on prints of photos taken by others who I'll credit where possible.
The loco in question is a Caprotti fitted BR Standard Class 5, No. 73129, which currently looks like this:
These were taken by David Clarke after he applied some light weathering.
I always quite liked Caprotti fitted locos because they were different and quite rare. The LMS Black 5 versions were rather ugly but had a purposeful look about them. The BR Standard variety were well proportioned, handsome looking locos and were fairly common around Manchester in the early 1960s after all the English allocated examples (including 73129) migrated to Patricroft shed. Indeed, the very last BR loco I cabbed was one of this type. I was awaiting a Liverpool to Newcastle train, at Exchange Station, in 1968 and found the loco acting as West End station pilot, simmering in the Horse Dock siding. After standing for a few minutes, I was invited into the cab, where the fireman was keeping an eye on things whilst the driver had gone off somewhere. We chatted for 20 minutes or so till my train was announced. I remember him saying that both he and the driver were going to quit the railway when steam finished as they felt that diesels gave no reward for skill or effort by the crew.
Anyway, to the model. The basis was a DJH etched brass and white metal kit from which most of the loco body and tender were built. On the chassis, only the cylinders, slide bars and return crank gear boxes are from the kit. Being a P4 model, the chassis is my own concoction with Alan Gibson profile milled frames and wheels. It has fully floating compensation (no fixed axle). Drive is by an Escap motor driving through a modified gear box using MJT side plates. All the Caprotti drive shafts and reversing gear, except the return crank gear boxes, were scratch built using various diameters of tube and rod/wire. The universal joints were represented by parts made from 1.5 mm tube, as shown below.
The valve gear was made as a set of separate sub-assemblies to facilitate construction, assembly and dis-assembly for painting, as shown in the following series of photos taken by Barry Norman (for a possible article in Model Railway Journal that came to nothing).
Cylinders:
Main drive shafts:
Reverser shafts (viewed fro the opposite direction):
And assembled onto the chassis:
Don't want to run out of photo capacity, so I'll post a bit more in a separate post.
Dave.
