Rivermead Central

[40057]

Martin

That three-quarter view of 292 is glorious. The little handrail on the smokebox door catches my eye. Not knowing the prototype at all means that I am completely unaware of any missing details or rivets that you suggest may have been left out. You have managed to get an amazing amount of daylight below the boiler, so often a real problem with the B-L engines like the 4F.

Our discussion above got me thinking about my family's view of O Gauge back in the 1950s. My father was a very fine model engineer and also an accomplished railway modeller, in fact a leading light in the local club which had two extensive O gauge layouts, one indoors and one outdoors. As far as he was concerned there was tinplate (by which he meant Hornby on the carpet), O Gauge (which was basically Bassett-Lowke, Leeds, Milbro etc), and finescale, a term which he applied only to those wheels which would not run properly on the club track. I don't remember him ever using the term "coarse scale".

At that time (say the mid 1950s) I had never seen an example of finescale O gauge except for one GWR coach at the club. This was an object of contempt and derision from the clockwork and live steam gang, as it refused to run through our points and always fell off the track (no wonder, with 29mm B to B). Otherwise, my first awareness of finescale was the amazing feature on W S Norris' layout in the MRN for June 1957 (p143 et seq). Inspirational as it was, it in most respects seemed irrelevant to our efforts. But I suppose this was the moment that I began to view what had hitherto just been standard scale O gauge as "coarse" rather than "fine". In retrospect, it now does seem most unfortunate that those terms (fine and coarse) were adopted, with their somewhat judgemental implications.

John

Hi John

Both 292 and 828 are modelled in 1922 condition, based on photographs or information about general changes made to the class. Hence 828 has a steam heat connection on the tender (not the loco) which is most likely, but we didn’t have a dated photograph of the rear of 828’s tender to know for sure. In 1922, there would be hardly any visible rivets on either loco. The most obvious omission from 292 is the loco brakes. However, each side of each wheel there is either a footstep or a sandbox, so there is enough going on below the platform to look ‘busy’. If 292 was being built now, I probably would put brakes on the loco. Neither 292 or 828 have brake shoes on the tender on the grounds of these being hardly visible. We had an excellent dated photograph of 292 to work from which is why this particular loco was chosen, though in 1922 it was only a few years old so ‘as built’ was a reasonable surmise. In 1922, 828 was 23 years old and there certainly had been changes since it was new. However, the loco is well documented (a whole book about it) so I am confident the model is a very good representation of it as it was at the end of the Caledonian Railway’s independent existence.

Both Tom and Brian did an excellent job at hiding the motor. Of course, for 828 we had the benefit of Tom’s CAD process to test alternative motor positions. For 292, I was moving the motor about on top of an outline drawing photocopied to be exactly 7mm scale. The corollary of only a small projection of the motor under the boiler ahead of 292’s firebox is that the motor fills the lower part of the cab. But the cab design means that doesn’t show. And the large motor relative to the size of the loco has produced a really powerful engine. The other area where modelling has moved on between 2009 and 2025 is visible in the photo of 292’s tender. The tender axle-box + spring castings for 292 were cast from a pattern made by Brian, silver soldered in brass. For 828, 3D-printed waxes were used. Undoubtedly, the castings for 828 are far better. That’s not a criticism of Brian’s pattern-making skills, just the advance produced by the new technology. The tender axle-box + spring castings for both locos are brass and both sets were made by CSP models.

Martin