As I promised, I am writing a post about my LMS Coronation Class engine, The City of Bristol.

These engines were built between 1937 and 1948, they were the most powerful passenger steam train ever built for a British railway company; with 3300 horsepower, they were more powerful than the diesels that replaced them! I actually have a plan to change my model from its semi-streamlined condition which the model was of, to the streamlined condition, using a diagram I found in the SRPS archive store. After doing the streamlining I will change it to its LMS livery, which is red. (Please note this won’t happen for a while). In the future  when I use the diagram, I might post a picture showing its size! – it’s a 1:8 scale diagram of a 26m long train!

A picture of my model:

A picture of the engine in its ‘Streamlined’ and ‘Semi-streamlined’ conditions:

I am very sorry that this post was delayed by a week, as I had delays finding pictures.

I’ll be putting out a new post in the near future; however, I’m not putting a date on it – don’t want to repeat the same mistake twice!!!

-Update, the conversion, I’ve decided, would be too difficult, so I have no plans to go forward with converting it to streamlined (which is a shame). Sorry.

As I posted in a comment a few weeks ago, my BR Engine No.68478 did not have a BR Engine No. of 47160-69; easy mistake!

Basically, I searched into the internet my engine number, and because they were the same wheel arrangement, 0-6-0, I got confused when I saw the picture on Wikipedia – Never trust the pictures alone!

But, after searching through the previous engine numbers I found my engine’s class. This engine was designed and built in 1900-01 and was the NBR D Class, before it became the LNER Class J83, and later into BR ownership. There were forty of these engines produced, and were designed for short-distance freight and shunting. These engines were all scrapped, with the last one being in 1962, after the slow replacement by the more efficient diesel trains.

NBR- North British Railway; LNER- London North Eastern Railway; BR- British Railways;

My Post-LNER J83 Engine

This still sadly doesn’t fit in with the time-scale of the model, but I do have another engine, a LMS Coronation Class engine, which I will post about in the next two weeks.

PLEASE DO NOT GET THIS CONFUSED WITH MY INCORRECT

FOWLER DOCK TANK POST!!!

On Saturday evening, daddy, Megan and I spent some time moving track around into the layout design we wanted.

Layout plan we decided on last time:

We made a few changes because the layout design above was impossible to fit in, we made a few minor tweaks to make it work. We removed the tinker yard daughter board (points on the far left), extended the mine (buffer on the right), and changed the switch-yard to fit in (top of the layout).

After daddy and Megan had left, I had some very weird problems to do with dust, the engine would suddenly stop, reverse, then continue as if nothing happened. Then as I had the controller on no power, and was just about to switch off the controller, it shot off like a rocket! I will need to investigate…

Last weekend we went on a camping holiday to Port Ban, on the West coast of Scotland. As our trip took us through Loch Lomond and The Trossachs national park, exactly where I’m setting my model, I paid attention to houses, and things I will include on the railway.

Next up was houses/buildings which I will need to model, increasingly more important discovering my shop and church models are in O (churches don’t look different). The houses I saw were rectangular, with a roof slanting down to the longer walls. The houses were painted white, with slate roofs, and often vertical windows sticking out of the roof. Sadly I didn’t get any photos, due to bad planning, but you will see in the future some photos of the models.

Something I noticed was that the forests down low were actually not at all pine, and contained a mixture of other trees. Which means for one thing my forests don’t have to be boring, and secondly I can use the trees I have.

Photos show sections of non-pine forest (it was wet…):

For years my railway has been disused, in a cold and dusty, dark attic; but now I’m putting it back on track as I begin on my new adventure to build my first model railway!!!

Layout Design

This layout design was our old track just changed quite a bit, we needed to keep changes minimal, because re-arranging is hard. I wouldn’t say it was my ideal layout, but it does works nicely, and daddy agreed to do all the new nails!!! The outer loop is the mainline, with the inner section containing the village, switch yard and coal mine.

Layout Map (rough draft):

LMS “Hughes Crab”

Before beginning on scenery I have to (note: present tense – more coming soon on this post) do some research. I have discovered my model train given to me by some friends, on my birthday one year, is a LMS No.13000 engine. This engine was produced between 1926 and 1932, which means my railway will be set just after that, which also is the time I was planning anyway.

My model LMS “Hughes Crab“:

LMS Engine No.68478

This train is a British railways engine No.68478, as of now I am unsure of anything about it, other than this number. Next week I will have done some research – Sorry for the Inconvenience

My model LMS Engine No.68478: