7mm The Woodhead Electrics, formerly "Spoked or disc?"

[demu1037]

Chromatic blue seems to be a recent myth, probably born out of poorly processed colour pictures of the day, or as is more likely badly mixed paint,
Officially, I think there are only two blues, BR blue and BR Electric blue, the later was applied to Al1-AL6, EM2 and Glasgow blue train units....or a very close shade.
Heather, sorry for the totally irrelevant waaaaay OT, I'm more than a bit passionate about juice jacks I'll stop now and let y'all get some peace and quiet LOL

Mick - don't forget JB's - they were electric blue too!

and for a bit of BR blue.....




Regards

Andy

 

[warren haywood]

Andy
Think you've overdone the weathering abit there,

 

[mickoo]

Mick - don't forget JB's - they were electric blue too!

and for a bit of BR blue.....

View attachment 35984


Regards

Andy

Andy, I'm not so sure about that?, they certainly were not an exact match for BR blue but are definitely a darker shade than WCML AL1-6 electric blue.

Anyway, back to Heathers colour conundrum, locos were delivered in BR mixed traffic black, repainted to BR express green in mid to late 57 and names applied in 59, except 27003 which had to wait until 1961 to be named.

 

[alcazar]

And why were the names on the then class 76 locos removed?

 

[mickoo]

And why were the names on the then class 76 locos removed?

I believe the BR policy is to only name passenger or mixed traffic engines, how class 44 retained their names until 74 when they were classed as freight only way back in 62 is a bit of a mystery, that's another project and can of worms for a later date

Regarding EM1s they were de-named when passenger services stopped in January 1970 and they all became freight only locos.

Some locos had already had their name plates removed by that date and their boilers struck out at about the same time, others had their boilers struck out shortly after January 1970 but retained their names until, according to the record 1973 on one loco, I've not checked all of the photos to get better dates as yet and the record is not exhaustive on nameplate removal dates.

Negating all that, nameplates were begun to be removed from certain BR locos from 74 onward due to a spate of nameplate thefts, all class 40 and 44 were de-named, yet other classes hung onto them, why I haven't found out, possibly due to the locations they may have been stabled at.

 

[mickoo]

I presume the power handle notch arcs are polished brass?

Heather, I think they were probably polished steel, these look a bit rusty to be polished brass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britis...le:British_Rail_Class_76_Cab_05-11-12_07.jpeg

 

[Nick Dunhill]

I heard (from my mum's neighbour Ken, who was a guard at Wath at the time) the nameplates were removed from EM1s because people were nicking them. Then a load of them disappeared from Reddish and turned up in a bar in the US, so a bit of money for Reddish fitter's christmas pi-- up no doubt.

Hi Heather
Nice to finally meet you at Telford
The layout at Guildex14 (Rotherwood in disguise or whatever it was called) is owned by a lovely chap called Graham Clarke who made his own resin/etched kit for an EM1 and sold them to his fellow club members. The one on the Competition stand was from the same source and scandalously didn't win (Woodhead/MSW was my local railway and EM1s my all time fave.)

MSW did an EM1 and 2 and Tommy in 4mm and the EM1 and 2 in 7mm and the 7mm stuff went to PW and has disappeard without trace. I wanted to do an EM1 kit or two but originally they were over £600 per kit and they ran mainly in pairs when I spotted them, so thats £1200!!! The kit body was ok but the pans and bogies were poor so I never bothered. I scratchbuilt Tommy (which was stabled at Bury prior to withdrawal) and made my own pantographs too, although they were partly made from etches that Adrian Rowland and myself designed. I had it at Telford last weekend, and it ran on Graham's layout before the decoder went mad. Here's a couple of snaps.









I'd put up a better pic that Tony Wright took if I can work out how to post a Tiff file as I don't have the software to convert it to a jpeg.

Nick



Done it

 

[Overseer]

Chromatic blue seems to be a recent myth, probably born out of poorly processed colour pictures of the day, or as is more likely badly mixed paint, I've read that Stratford didn't stock blue paint for many years and it was a mix of what ever green and yellow they had, resulting in some odd shades of blue on some locos. I've a photo in one of the Ian Allen landscape books that shows a class 25 in Derby works with a very odd shade of blue, the rest of the photos colour tones look ok but the blue is most odd, so there do seem to be odd coloured blue ones around.

mickoo, if you are going to spread mythology you need to make it a bit believable - Stratford would have had to do the impossible to make any shade of blue paint out of green and yellow. Maybe that had stocks of GER blue hidden away and were adding yellow to make green. Unlikely but physically possible. Blue from green and yellow, no way. Not all green pigments have blue in them . . . But that's another topic.

 

[Phill Dyson]

Chromatic blue, rail blue what's the difference?
Some say it's the same colour, I don't know!
Just asking cos I have a JLTRT Western to do in it.
I'm sure someone will have a definate answer

Chromatic Blue is a myth as Mikoo said...those Westerns were rail blue/SYP

 

[mickoo]

mickoo, if you are going to spread mythology you need to make it a bit believable - Stratford would have had to do the impossible to make any shade of blue paint out of green and yellow. Maybe that had stocks of GER blue hidden away and were adding yellow to make green. Unlikely but physically possible. Blue from green and yellow, no way. Not all green pigments have blue in them . . . But that's another topic.

Doh good point, I've clearly mixed up my myths I'm sure i've read Stratford mixed paints different to others, thought it was blue, clearly not

 

[alcazar]

Nick, that model of Tommy is superb...although he wasn't as clean as that when I saw him.

As for nicking nameplates, a mate and I arrived at Frodingham one Sunday afternoon to ask to go round, and there were two teenaged lads trying to unscrew the worksplates off a class 45/0 that was stabled on the fuel tanker road. In broad daylight, sunshine and everything.

We mentioned it to the running foreman who went out and cleared them off.

 

[mickoo]

..... I wanted to do an EM1 kit or two but originally they were over £600 per kit ....

you could probably get three sets of loco etches in NS for that price, including photo tool costs!

That leaves Pantos and pots to source / fabricate, cab headlamps, cab roof and sandbag filters to cast and the rest is probably available as castings from current sources.

The bogie design is perfect for Stephs remote gearboxes and motor between wheels set up and I've virtually finished cleaning up and scaling the Doncaster EM1 pipe and rod drawings, which leaves just one decision, which material and what thickness to use for the etches.

 

[Heather Kay]

As ever, superb service from Simon of The Titfield Thunderbolt. A nice fat book has arrived and is being devoured.

 

[Ragstone Andy]

you could probably get three sets of loco etches in NS for that price, including photo tool costs!

sandbag filters to cast and the rest is probably available as castings from current sources.
.

Mick, yes all those bits do look familiar......

I would need a copy of the drawing to check though!

Andy

 

[mickoo]

Mick, yes all those bits do look familiar......

I would need a copy of the drawing to check though!

Andy

Andy, so as to not dilute Heathers thread further, I'll take this EM1 spin off over to my S7 thread over the weekend once i've put the last of your castings on the A1 tender

 

[mickoo]

As ever, superb service from Simon of The Titfield Thunderbolt. A nice fat book has arrived and is being devoured.

A lot of the information is in the text under the photos, rather than long pages of written dialogue, takes a bit of finding but lots of usefull stuff there to help you, I've several other books, but not really aimed at the locos specifically, so if you need anything generic or overall I can see what I can find

 

[Nick Dunhill]

I have patterns from the Tommy build in my bit box. Axlebox and secondary bogie springs, all the insulators, headlamps, vents from the roof and sand boxes. Anyone in need is welcome to borrow although the sand boxes may be different on a EM1. I think the photo etch tool for the pans exists too.

Nick

 

[mickoo]

Nick, certainly interested, let me quickly finish the A1 tender ready for paint and then over the weekend and next week work up the etch work, certainly for the bodies and progress this in my thread.

 

[isleofthanet]

One I built [rebuilt] from aMSL kit sometime ago as Pandora with modified bogies ex RJH - 'Simples'!

 

[isleofthanet]

Definitely some pc problem uploading photos