My Hornby tinplate LNER 4-4-0 The Bramham Moor finally arrived from the UK today. This is the 20v AC powered version with the light bulb in the smokebox door(quite unprototypical!). Despite the zinc pest splits in the drive wheels she runs smooth and quiet. I will rewheel her with all new drivers and pilot bogie wheels once I find someone in the UK to respray them LNER green before shipping them to me. This was Hornby's answer to all scale looking tinplate from the likes of Bassett Lowke, actually runs better than my 20v ac LMS Compound from that brand. I have my JEP French cars coupled up right now, I will get some proper LNER Teak coaches later this year. I am gearing up for garden railway season now. Mike
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Man, that thing looks GOOD!
Keep up those Brit aquisitions Mike and soon you'll be able to shoot your own "Thomas the Tank Engine" videos!
(The CGI ones are lousy anyway.)
I was a fan of Thomas before they went CGI. The old gauge 1 models(built on Marklin drives) were really cool. I have no use for the cartoon/CGI version of the show. I would love to have a few of the gauge 1 engines or replicas of them, and no not the Bachmann crap they offer in G scale. I love my UK stuff. Wont be anything new now till late summer or fall. Gearing up for 16mm narrow gauge garden railway season. Starting on a coal fired O&K 0-4-0(Austrian/German) narrow gauge loco kit in a week or so. I try to enjoy the outdoors in the summer when not sleeping or in the factory making $$ for my toys. Mike
So those were Gauge 1 Maerklin models! I've wondered about that for years! Thanks Mike!
The drives were gauge 1 Marklin, but the bodies were built by the studio model making dept. Most all of the models still survive in pvt collections and with the studio and creator's family.
I thought I might add some notes about the prototype locomotives which are relevant to the Hornby models. Firstly, this model is named after a Fox Hunt, as indicated by the outline of of a running fox at the top of the nameplate. All the locomotives named after Hunts had the name prefixed by "The" which appeared immediately under the fox on the nameplate. Around two thirds of the locomotives were named after Hunts. The older locomotives were named after "shires" which are a British name for an area of local government. These locomotives had just the area name without the "the" prefix.
The first locomotive built was named "Yorkshire", built in 1927 and this was the original Hornby model. The numbering of the locomotives was a little strange. All these locomotives were numbered in the series of the former (pre 1923) North Eastern railway and were given numbers of older locomotives which had been withdrawn from service. The Hornby models had the correct numbers for the name applied to the model. The locomotives were built in batches, and these were generally given numbers in the 200 and 300 series, although one small group were numbered from 2753.
Anyway, "Yorkshire" was numbered 234 (the lowest number available at the time) but by the time "The Bramham Moor" was built in 1932, it received the number 201. The numbers were never continuous, even after 75 locomotives were completed.
The "shires" were all fitted with Walschearts valve gear and the "Hunts" were all fitted with Lentz poppet valve gear (although to acheive this, two "shires" were renamed after "Hunts" when the naming convention was decided.)
The two Hornby models were named and numbered after the first locomotive built in each group.
Peter
Great Info Peter, thank you. I had read most of those online when researching the prototype for the Hornby model. The Bramham Moor fetches a higher price than the Yorkshire on the second hand market. ACE Trains of London is doing a reissue of the Hornby No2 speical 4-4-0's/BL Compound locos in a few months. All of variations of the Hornby engine are being done, covering LMS, LNER, SR, GWR, BR and CR. They will be DC powered, 3 rail/2 rail with coarse scale wheels, so they will run on tubular track. Made by ETS and having their clutch mech where the wheels will freewheel when not being powered. Or there are dealers in the UK that have nice second hand ones on their websites. Mike Delaney(vintagehornby) has a nicely repainted LMS Compound(original tinplate finish would turn brown when exposed to sunlight). The advantage of the original ones is they are 20v AC so no need to add a rectifier to the engine or change transfomers to run them in the states. I run mine with a Lionel Type R prewar transfomer. Station Masters Rooms is the place to go if you want to preorder one of the reissues(also has loads of new and second hand British tinplate stuff!) and Mike Delaney's website is a boon for nice tinplate Hornby stuff. I have bought from both places many times. Mike
Man, that's a beautiful locomotive!
Same me, different spelling!
Thank you Pennystrains! I am making some changes to my layouts scenery. While the card stock station looks nice, its getting lots of oil spots as I run live steam engines on the layout. I am thinking about putting a Lionel 129 terrace with the 124 station on it at one end and making a crescent shaped passenger platform to match the 042 curve at that end. While not totally British, it does make a nice passenger station with lots of lights(which I like). Most Hornby stations have no lights or just 2 on the corners and the rest is just lithographed. Where the Lionel station is internally lighted, then there are 6 post lights around the Terrace. And being tinplate, it wipes off from the steam oil that comes out the chimney of my live steamers.
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