North East England - Steam Days Screenshots - Large Screenshots Possible

Thanks Annie. Here is Newcastle in autochrome style on a dank, foggy and smoke-laden morning at Newcastle Central station and a humble T.W. Worsdell E Class 0-6-0T shunts ECJS vans. This is a Cowlairs built brake gangway of 1903 to Diagram 36. Wilson Worsdell evolved his brother's E class in to the E1 class, later the J72. This was a significant locomotive since it was built in the N.E.R. pre-grouping era and in the early post-nationalisation era under British Railways. The Worsdells could not have done much wrong with their original design.

 
Hello Robd

If you have the means to replace LNER lettering and numbering with GNR lettering and numbering then you can certainly produce some "ersatz" carriages, though the 61ft6in standard length is a little more than the 58ft6in more often seen pre-grouping. The articulated triplet catering set is a L.N.E.R. post-grouping Gresley development. Edh6's LNER BCK might also be re-letterable/renumberable and his 51ft Milk brakes might stand in for the non-corridor Passenger Luggage Brakes. Finding stand-ins for the dining vehicles such as RF, RT, RC, TO and FO are rather more difficult.

the BCK is currently the extent of my G.N.R. carriage build. I identified an Isinglass order of around £77 just for the twelve drawings I'd need for the "basic" G.N.R. stable and the budget for an order for those twelve carriage types to be built by Paul is not on the cards any time soon given the extent of my current build and upgrade programmes.

Edh6 has proven himself to have the skills to produce LNER carriages in the style of the late great andi06 but asking him to turn out twleve G.N.R. types far exceeds my persuasion skills.

Yes, I think I will produce some "ersatz" GNR coaches from andi06's LNER Gresley coaches, it shouldn't be too difficult and strictly for my own use of course! The difficult bit will be finding/producing the GNR style lettering and numbering.

Thank you for the info.

Rob.

Some progress:

3NYn5Gg.jpg


Based on the preserved Gresley composite No. 2701 at the SVR: https://www.svr.co.uk/ShowImage.aspx?id=84

Only one side completed at the moment.

Strictly for my own use only!

Rob.
 
Nice work Rob. Lettering was always the part I found the trickiest when I was reskinning coaches. Sometimes I got lucky with a good clear photo that I could lift the lettering off, but other times I had to hand draw letters from scratch.
 
Four Carriage NER Newcastle, Blyth and Newbiggen set

Paul is building me NER 52ft Brake Thirds to Diagram 76 and 77. The 76 has four compartments (code XB (4)) while the 77 has five (code XB (5)). The company built ninety Diagram 76s and seventy-six Diagram 77s, so they were not a carriage built for niche traffic flows. They were built between 1902 and 1906 for the 76 and 1903 and 1904 for the 77. The 76 being built in 1905/1906 is a bit of a surprise since elliptical roof coaches were already being built.

Here is a shot of a four carriage set allocated to the Newcastle, Blyth and Newbiggen roster number 83. Book-ended by 52ft 5-compartment Diagram 77 Brake Thirds with two 52ft Locker Composites (3 Firsts 4 Thirds) to Diagram 7. the NER had one hundred and thirty-four of those carriages, built between 1896 and 1906 so they had a use for them. Like the Diagram 76, they were still being built when elliptical roof carriages were emerging from the works.



The go-to 52ft Brake Third for the NER after 1895 was the 3 compartment Diagram 18, with one hundred and seventy-six being built up until 1906. It was the usual practise of the company to book-end their carriage sets with Brake Thirds and where 52ft carriages were specified it was mostly a pair of Diagram 18s. This appears to have led to some trains being left with a surfeit of van capacity, which must have meant the company was literally hauling around a lot of empty space. it took its time noticing it, with the first 76s and 77s not appearing until 1902! it would appear that the four compartment type was a "toe-in-the-water" evolution, trading a tolerable amount of van space for a single compartment, increasing the passenger capacity to forty. Once some began work on the company's lines it seems that the traffic managers identified some services where they could trade away even more van space for another compartment, raising the capacity to fifty.

Several years later, in 1907, they decided to try some six-compartment Brake Thirds, though by this time they appeared with elliptical roofs. This seems to have been a step too far for the company, since only one was built in 1907 and a further eight to a different diagram in 1908. Some were produced to the 49ft length for some services and at least one diagram was specifically for excursion work, where presumably van space was a low priority.

What is harder to explain is why pair two five compartment D77s with two locker composites? This means that, in effect a loss of two of the four extra compartments provided by the 5-compartment D77s compared to using 3-compartment D18s.
 
Nice work Rob. Lettering was always the part I found the trickiest when I was reskinning coaches. Sometimes I got lucky with a good clear photo that I could lift the lettering off, but other times I had to hand draw letters from scratch.

Thanks KotangaGirl, appropriate lettering and numbering is difficult to find, in this case a kindly soul, not a million miles from here, let me have a copy for which I'm truly grateful!

@borderreiver: Some interesting coaches in your post #566, a good shot.

Rob.
 
All those lovely NER coaches Frank. Are you trying to distract me away from my Broad Gauge layout? It's been a while since I last had any of my NER models out of my digital trainset box.
 
I have not had Paul build me some non-corridor stock for a while. He upgraded the Diagram 116 Driving Van Composites earlier this year and when doing some rummaging through plans and the NER record of carriage numbering I realised that the Diagram 76 and Diagram 77 were larger builds than I had thought they were. So, when I then went in to the 1926 Carriage Roster I decided to commission them.

For some time now, since the building of the daytime ECJS carriages were completed I have meant to get started on the NER bogie corridor stock (the company only had about 76 of them (including full brakes) at the grouping) but it has been repeatedly delayed. I decided to have Paul build the GNR Gresley Brake Composite for the Newcastle through carriage attached to the Saturday 2:20 p.m. out of London but that grew when it turned out that several diagrams of GNR Brake Composite could be built in the one commission. The delay for that was the time it took me to create the GNR lettering and numbering. I will have to do the GN&NEJS numbers and lettters for the GN&NJS stock eventually if I want to run the whole daytime service between York and Newcastle for 1914 and 1922.

I have had Paul price up building the NER dining carriages. Three Diagrams and all 67ft bodies running on six wheel bogies. Two diagrams of Restaurant Third and one diagram of Composite Restaurant. There were a total of seven. After that it will be the Open carriages They are two diagrams of Open (Dining) First to run with the Restaurant Thirds, and one diagram of Open (Dining) Third to run with the Composite Restaurant. There is a range of choice for the compartment stock considering that we are only talking about thirty-seven carriages. Seven corridor Brake Composites (Diagram 200), three corridor Brake Firsts with 2 compartments, fifteen corridor Third Class, four Brake Thirds with 3 compartments, six corridor Brake Firsts with 4 compartments, and two corridor Firsts,
 
Gresley GNR Teak

Robd, regarding post #564

I am often returning to carriages to tweak teak finishes.
Here is my effort with the Diagram 171 BCK.



 
Very nice Frank. There's something about a teak coach that makes it look so much better than a painted coach. I always enjoy making teak coaches, but my efforts aren't a patch on those two coaches.
 
GNR Diagram 171 looking good in both post #570 and post #572. The aged teak texture looks particularly good.

Rob.
 
1925 Coal for Littleburn

Northeast England during the steam era. One of the sessions I have on my personal Consett & NW Durham route involves bringing coal off the Waterhouses branch and reversing at Baxter Wood to then head down the ECML to the coke works at Littleburn. Prior to WWI many collieries in County Durham had coke works on site to produce the higher value product, which was in great demand from ironworks, factories and domestic customers. The coal from the county was well suited for making coke. The cokeworks produced a valuable by-product, coal gas, used for lighting homes and cooking. This meant that some of the coal output from the county was bought by gasworks in larger towns and cities.

Below, while the loco, former N.E.R. Worsdell J26 0-6-0 No. 881, runs round the train at Baxter Wood a BTP steam Autocar comes down from the Bishop Auckland branch heading towards Relly Mill junction.




No. 881 comes to a stop past the trailing connection from the Bridge House Junction to Baxter Wood Junction chord to the sidings where the coal train waits.




After coupling up to the coal train No. 881 draws the train out of the sidings and on to the steep grade down to pass beneath the Bishop Auckland branch in order to reach the East Coast Main Line at Bridge House junction.

 
1948 Shunting at Newcastle

Some more shunting at Newcastle Central, this time during 1948 at the start of the nationalisation era. After WWII the LNER began to build new rolling stock of Thompson design and with steel panelling. The original plan was for the programme to be all steel but material shortages and the intervention of the Ministry of Supply in contract negotiations betwene the LNER and contractors meant that timber was used in some of the body construction, though the underframes and external panelling were steel. In 1945 the LNER carriage works at both Doncaster and York were still limited in output due to wartime fires, neither of which were due to enemy action, hence the decision to have a major part of construction done by contractors.

Here a Gresley V1 2-6-2T has the pilot duty at Newcstle and is moving a Thompson Diagram 344 63ft BG and Diagram 328 59ft6in CK. I have been fixing some niggles in TRS2019 and have reskinned them. Scabbled teak paint was the finish to simulate teak panelling. Some people at the time thought that they were teak panelled and more than one person has thought the same since when looking at contemporary photographs of the real carriages.







Neither of the carriages has fairing or stones ventilators, indicating that while they are from the East Coast Register, they are not part of the carriage pool allocated to the premier express the Flying Scotsman. Even the "Junior Scotsman" (unofficial nickname for the relief train) did not have pressure ventilated stock allocated to it, but during 1948 and 1949 some pressure ventilated carriages would be built for it.
 
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The Thompson pressure ventialted Diagram 328 Composite, weathered with new upgraded bogies.
Paul has been doing some work on the NER Fox bogies and LNER Gresley bogies for me.
Here the Diagram 328 rides on heavy bogies in TRS 2019.





 
Gresly Bogies

A regular ventilated version of the Thompson Corridor Composite to Diagram 328 riding on 8ft6in Gresley light bogies.
Torpedo roof vents rather than the Stone's cowls and no fairing covering the solebar.







The single row of rivets indicates the light type of bogie.

Number 143 was built in 1946 so is one of the earlier examples of Thompson carriages built for the East Coast Register.
 
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