Prototype for everything

[Rana Temporia]

I have been busy over the past month or so and not had any me time so yesterday while my partner was on a course I left her to it and visited the Ribble Steam Museum in Preston where Furness Railway no 20 was working the trains. Apparently it’s the oldest working standard gauge loco in the UK having been built in 1863. Free parking and an all day pass for £10 which I thought was very reasonable and you can ride the train all day if you want to. It goes across what I think is unique in the UK, a working swing bridge over the docks. They were also doing workshop and running shed tours yesterday. I had a great time! I would like to go to the Bank Holiday event as they are having multiple engines in steam and a model railway exhibition but I am on emergency call out so need to be near home. 

Anyway, to the point of the post. It’s not just model railways where you can have an ancient steam engine pulling BR MK1 coaches!

 

[Brew Man]

A very nice looking loco, that. I like the wooden tool box on the running board. I wonder how long that would last out in the weather. 🤔

[ModelerXYZ]

If the box is cared for properly (kept oiled, not painted) I suspect it would last a very long time. Heritage lines offer prototypes for everything. thats why I always say I model a heritage line, then I can run anything I like. XYZ

[What About The Bee]

7 hours ago, Brew Man said:

I wonder how long that would last out in the weather. 🤔

As someone who takes his hand built wooden, personal watercraft into the ocean on a regular basis, I can tell you that @ModelerXYZis correct.  ½ the year inside storage, ½ the year, outside and at the ready!

Its all about the finishes and maintenance.  The wooden bilge is saturated with linseed oil and pine tar.  The hull is saturated with linseed oil and Le Tonkinois varnish.   Control of faying surfaces with a gap filler, such as Dolfinite, is a must.  I've had to freshen up the surfaces occasionally, but the wood is in spectacular shape.  

That toolbox, properly cared for, will last a very long time indeed.

What I find interesting about the 1863 locomotive is that is still passes its boiler certification, 160 years on.  It almost definitely has had a boiler rebuild, or two over those decades.  Anyone know?

Bee

[Going Spare]

According to the Ribble Steam Museum website, the loco was in industrial use until 1960 after withdrawal from the Furness Railway in 1870 and did not see further steaming until, in preservation, a new boiler had been fitted as part of a total rebuild across 1997/8.  I should imagine the boiler 'ticket' has been renewed since but no date is given.  

[ModelerXYZ]

As boiler certificates have to be renewed every 10 years, it may well have had 2 more boilers since then. XYZ

[threelink]

I'm not sure how much of the loco dates back to the 1860s.  As I understand it, the loco was sold to industry, converted to a tank loco, scrapped in the 1960s, stuffed and mounted on a a plinth in a play park and then converted back to a tender version when preserved. For all that, she's a fabulous thing, and top marks for those responsible for her rebuilding.

[Rana Temporia]

I think I have a photo somewhere of the loco in rusty and abandoned Saddle tank form at Steamtown in Carnforth from a loooong time ago. It looks much better now! All credit to the different teams that have restored it. With that open cab it must have been a hard day’s work in winter on the Furness line going up the Cumbrian coast. 

Now if only someone had saved one of the huge Baltic tanks that railway had, and a L&Y Baltic tank to go with it!

However, we have to be grateful for what we have and here is another historic gem from Preston, an ex-LNWR shunter. The cab really is tiny on this loco. 

 

[threelink]

Lovely little loco, RanaT.  Perhaps a basis for a Triang "Nellie" conversion project... I have a few white metal kit parts that would do

[Rallymatt]

On the wooden tool box, it’s incredible how wood can survive. The right wood, seasoning and care (or lack of) can see it last centuries. There are many fine examples of historic wooden buildings all across Scandinavia (several hundred years old) but in railway terms, pop along to Shildon and check out the chaldron in the new hall. It gave over 150 years service on collieries and was only retired in 1980’s! Quite a lot of the timbers are the original ones and would have had zero timber care. Treated roughly from day one! Dont forget coal is highly acidic and corrosive, hence why iron and steel parts exposed to coal corrode so rapidly. 
Love the idea of challenging rivet counters with this as a model too, just needs a class 66 or a 800 along side to send them into a complete frenzy 🤣

[threelink]

I second that, Rallymatt. I have part of an1886 built LNWR 3rd Class lavatory carriage. The outer skin is quarter inch thick mahogany sheeting. When I took off the lower panel from one of the doors, pinned and glued into a curve for over a century,  it straightened itself out over 20 minutes or so without splitting. The whole thing spent 50 years as a garden shed with minimal or no maintenance and yet most of the timber is sound.

[Rana Temporia]

1 hour ago, threelink said:

Lovely little loco, RanaT.  Perhaps a basis for a Triang "Nellie" conversion project... I have a few white metal kit parts that would do

Obviously we think alike. The Nellies had a scale 8’ 6” wheelbase and scale 4’ wheels so not too far off although the wheels are the wrong pattern. I didn’t do any measuring up but I live quite close so it’s an option. Very similar loco to some of those used on the Wigan coalfield!

Railymatt, this preserved railway actually provides a shunting service for 100t bitumen tankers using their (relatively) modern Sentinel shunters and maintains a link to the WCML for this so operational steam locos next to any of the current mainline diesels is a distinct prototypical possibility, as well as modern high-capacity wagons. 

When I used to work in ground investigation we once dug some trial pits through clay that was laid down at the end of the last ice age. Underneath it was the remains of a wood still rooted in what would have been the soil at the time. The wood was still in good condition and flexible due to the total lack of oxygen since it was buried. We didn’t find any evidence of animals so no mammoths!

You can see one of the tankers in the repair line behind this Fowler DS. On the tour it was explained that the tankers have a steam jacket which loses heat and bitumen sets if the trains are delayed and then has to be removed from inside them. There is scaffolding up to gain access on this particular siding provided by the museum. 

 

[What About The Bee]

6 hours ago, Rallymatt said:

 historic wooden buildings all across Scandinavia (several hundred years old) 

Those old buildings are slathered in pine tar!  For my uses, I purchased genuine pine tar, not some cheap knockoff, primarily on the testimony of those buildings.  Its part of the advertising campaign.

Fungus is the enemy of wood.  Fungus needs a few things.  An organic material to feed upon (wood), a bit of moisture, oxygen and a hospitable environment.  Removing one or more elements inhibits fungus.

Pine tar and coal tars/dust are very inhospitable to fungus.  No fungus?  No rot.  

Bee

[ModelerXYZ]

It is true that coal dust stops the sleepers going rotten. However, it does destroy the metal parts of the system, keys, chairs and the like. XYZ

[Rallymatt]

I’m still going to say that a lot of wooden buildings I have seen in Norway and Finland are not covered in coal dust…. Or huge amounts of Pine Tar, I’m always told it’s the seasoning that makes the difference. Although these are the same people who told me the ‘special pickled fish’ would be nice…. I need new friends 🤣

[threelink]

Seasoning certainly has a big part to play in the survival of timber, but preservative does too. The LNWR carriage I mentioned was painted inside and out with lead based paint in a linseed oil carrier - not only waterproof but death to woodworm and the like.

[Rana Temporia]

The timber we used to use for river revetments was tanalised I.e pressure treated with an arsenic based preservative which was green. It prevented decay for a long time!

A lot of the old lead mines in the moors near here (and in Yorkshire) had waste tips containing various compounds of Barium. Both lead and barium are highly toxic so despite the tips being very old now, they are completely free of vegetation apart from the odd straggly bits of grass. Other highly toxic waste tips include those from old town gas works which produced toxic hydrocarbons (phenols, tars etc.) and used cyanide (usually shows as a blue colour) and arsenic (yellow or green) in various processes which are often still in the soil. If you include a waste tip on your layout you don’t need to put any vegetation on it and can have an oddly coloured (blue/green/yellow/orange) pond at the side of it so avoiding the need for clear water. 

One compound of barium found locally is Barium Carbonate (Witherite) which although highly toxic was found to stop some symptoms of terminal stomach conditions so although the people who took it were poisoning themselves they were pain free before they died. Found on Anglezarke moor which is the correct spelling, for some reason some Geology books replace the Z with a S. 

Nothing really to do with trains but there were several tramways in the Pennines associated with the various coal, lead and copper mining. Town gas works were also heavy users of trains as they brought the coal in and took products such as tars away. The Beckton gas works had a large fleet of reduced height steam locos which included at least one roundhouse with turntable (very unusual for an industrial railway). 

[sir john]

1 hour ago, Rana Temporia said:

The timber we used to use for river revetments was tanalised I.e pressure treated with an arsenic based preservative which was green. It prevented decay for a long time!

A lot of the old lead mines in the moors near here (and in Yorkshire) had waste tips containing various compounds of Barium. Both lead and barium are highly toxic so despite the tips being very old now, they are completely free of vegetation apart from the odd straggly bits of grass. Other highly toxic waste tips include those from old town gas works which produced toxic hydrocarbons (phenols, tars etc.) and used cyanide (usually shows as a blue colour) and arsenic (yellow or green) in various processes which are often still in the soil. If you include a waste tip on your layout you don’t need to put any vegetation on it and can have an oddly coloured (blue/green/yellow/orange) pond at the side of it so avoiding the need for clear water. 

One compound of barium found locally is Barium Carbonate (Witherite) which although highly toxic was found to stop some symptoms of terminal stomach conditions so although the people who took it were poisoning themselves they were pain free before they died. Found on Anglezarke moor which is the correct spelling, for some reason some Geology books replace the Z with a S. 

Nothing really to do with trains but there were several tramways in the Pennines associated with the various coal, lead and copper mining. Town gas works were also heavy users of trains as they brought the coal in and took products such as tars away. The Beckton gas works had a large fleet of reduced height steam locos which included at least one roundhouse with turntable (very unusual for an industrial railway). 

@Rana Temporia  Rana I spent 38 years in the timber industry for one company, back in 1964 when i was 20 i was seconded to the timber preservation dept it was called celcure back then and contained arsenic chromium and cobalt cca for  short .It was superceded by tanalith which in my opinion was not as good. I remember the becton gas works it was only a mile from where i worked used to get creosote from there 

Regards john 

[threelink]

@Rana Temporia Your mention of gas works recalls a childhood memory of occasional trips to the local gasworks with my late dad to buy a bucket of creosote. Mixed with old engine oil it made a marvellous, if odiferous and not exactly environmentally sensitive fence post preservative. Some of the Welsh lead mine tips are still vegetation free after well over a century of abandonment. I have great fun painting up old Triang tank wagons to represent disgusting tar carriers and the like - a bit freelance but nonetheless convincing pastiches of some of the less reputable wagons found on internal systems.

[Rana Temporia]

3 hours ago, threelink said:

@Rana Temporia Your mention of gas works recalls a childhood memory of occasional trips to the local gasworks with my late dad to buy a bucket of creosote. Mixed with old engine oil it made a marvellous, if odiferous and not exactly environmentally sensitive fence post preservative. Some of the Welsh lead mine tips are still vegetation free after well over a century of abandonment. I have great fun painting up old Triang tank wagons to represent disgusting tar carriers and the like - a bit freelance but nonetheless convincing pastiches of some of the less reputable wagons found on internal systems.

Threelink, I have a book somewhere with a picture of a train of tar tankers waiting to be filled at a gasworks, in Oldham I think, mostly rectangular tanks with a few old cylindrical ones from memory. Other interesting trains using rectangular tanks and old tenders are water for breweries and water for stations with a limited supply at peak times. A brewery in Bolton used to have trains of water from Burton on Trent delivered, and during peak holiday season Blackpool North used to have trains of tenders filled with water to top up the locos there. I’m sure there are more. 

[threelink]

I'm sure you are right about there being more examples of tar wagons,water carriers and the like, Rana. I've reached a point where I am happy to model something quite outlandish, but plausible, and defy any doubters to prove that no such thing ever existed. They can't of course. I have happy memories of marauding about miles of abandoned lines in the 1960s and finding all sorts of weird and wonderful stock rotting away in the undergrowth. 

[Rallymatt]

I have to admit this all feeds into my rebellious side. The things that shouldn’t be but actually happened. 😁

[threelink]

I know how you feel, Rallymatt. The one thing I want to model but so far have been unable to do so is an ancient and much modified motor cycle I found in a bank of brambles at Market Harborough. It had been fitted with railway  wheels, an outrigger with a third wheel and a box

I think it was intended as transport for an inventive lengthman and his tools.