Viewing Single Post From: Originality of miniature railway locomotives

Viewing Single Post From: Originality of miniature railway locomotives
dereksmith	19 Sep 2008, 05:27 PM
Cleaner Posts: 156 Group: Member Member #271 Joined: September 28, 2007	I can't answer for some of the locos mentioned but where the RHDR locos are concerned there have been lots of changes over the years. The early pictures of No.1 at Paxmans show it with an air pump, the tenders were fitted with handbrakes, the Mountains had longer boilers (instead of longer smokeboxes), sandboxes were fitted between the frames of the Pacifics, both third cylinders and motion have been removed from 7 and 8 - the list goes on. And when you get to The Bug then you might have to search a bit to find too much from the original - including the tender which was not only new but also larger than the original. I would question the idea that the replacement tenders on the RH&DR locos are that much safer - in fact if you look at it the last fatality was with Hurricane, which has one of the two biggest tenders, which aren't being replaced as far as I know. For my money if you are hit by a car and it swings you round and you go on your side then you don't stand much of a chance in any tender - but the lower sided old tenders or the TMA tenders did give you a chance to get out if you had the time. I remember once coming round the Warren with the sun in my eyes and suddenly seeing a farm stock truck across the track unloading cattle into the field - I immediately applied the brakes and went to back gear but it took forever to slow down and I thought I was going to hit, so prepared myself to jump (I had the Chief with a TMA tender) - fortunately I did stop and didn't have to bale out but I was certainly glad I had the low sided tender! We reported it to the police but very little action was taken apart from a warning not to use the occupation crossing for that purpose again! But perhaps we have to forget 15" and go down to 10.25 to find the strangest redesign, which was Brian Hollingsworth regauging of a Bullock loco down to 7.25". I know they were designed to be regaugable between 10.25 and 9.5 but the work needed to go down further was considerable. Fortunately I believe it is now back to 'proper' gauge, but it was certainly one of the strangest modifications I have seen.
	Derek Smith dereksmith@whitstablepier.com

Originality of miniature railway locomotives · Non Gauge Specific