A number of years ago I did some research into the 439 class with a view to scratchbuilding a model in S-Scale.
Information and photographs of the class can be found in Locomotives Illustrated #144 and LMS Locomotives Vol. 3 written by Bob Essery & David Jenkinson. And, more recently, Caledonian Railway Locomotives-The Classic Years by HJC Cornwell (available from the CRA). Three distinct versions of the 439 class were built, the original being built by McIntosh, then by Pickersgill and finally by Nasmyth, Wilson for the LMS. The Pickersgill locomotives differed slightly from the McIntosh version in that they had a longer wheelbase bogie. On the McIntosh locomotives the distance from the trailing wheel, to the centre of the bogie, was 11’ 9”; the wheel base of the bogie being 5’ 6”. Pickersgill increased the distance from the trailing wheel, to the centre of the bogie, to 12’ 0” and increased the bogie wheelbase to 6’ 0”. The other difference between the two versions was that Pickersgill removed the rear sandbox from inside the cab and fitted it below the side tanks. The Nasmyth, Wilson version pretty much mimicked the Pickersgill locomotive except that the water capacity was increased; McIntosh/Pickersgill locomotives had a water capacity of 1,270 gallons and the Nasmyth, Wilson locomotives 1,380 gallons. Nasmyth, Wilson achieved the slightly greater water capacity by increasing the length of the side tanks from 10’ 5 1/2” to 10’ 9 7/8”.
Scale drawings do exist and the two which I have found are a Skinley 4mm drawing and a 7mm drawing from the CRA. Unfortunately I haven’t managed to source a GA drawing of the original McIntosh locomotive but there is a copy of the GA produced by Nasmyth, Wilson for the LMS version. The 439 class was a direct development of the final series of 92 class locomotives (sometimes regarded as the 879 class) and, as far as I can tell, was identical but without the condensing gear. GA drawings of both the 92 & 879 classes also exist. All these GA drawings are held in the NRM.
I did start on my own model a number of years ago using the 92, 879 and Nasmyth, Wilson GA drawings. Unfortunately, I hit a bit of a stumbling block when it came to the driving wheels and my progress was resigned to the shelf. Hopefully, with some help from another S Scale modeller, the problems will be resolved in the coming months and progress will start again. The Main frames have been cut and this is the finished bogie-
I hope this helps and I will definately be looking forward to seeing how you progress with the kit.
Scott
This is from a spreadsheet constructed by the late Jim McIntosh combining his data of Caledonian drawing numbers, build batch numbers and dates with my extraction of Caledonian drawings from the full listing of the NRM/OPC microfiche collection some years ago.
www.srpssteam.com
LMS/CR batch difference or local repair? The embedded version seems to have been more common - see the one derailed at Balnaguard above.
