What About The Bee

I wrote to Mr. Simon Kohler. Among other things, I thanked him for the Booth carriage in R30090. His response: "As for the Henry Booth carriage, you are most welcome." I think that sorts any doubt over Hornby's intent about the carriage. It is indeed the Booth carriage, as strongly suspected. Bee

Looking good Alberto!! I agree with DRC, those people in the bubble car really are an enhancement! Bee

Hi Threelink I am indeed familiar with that print, and have just posted that up under Wishlists for the Chinese Liverpool 1st class carriage. Now carefully examine the wagon on the bottom middle. Notice the two openings on the end of the carriage? Mighty small for cattle if you ask me, and two levels aren't needed. That center wagon is for sheep, and you can see this in the Ackermann prints (Ackermann publisher, Bury artist). The wagon is shown with sheep drawn as cargo! I do not understand how the caption on that image could be so wrong. The print is clearly derivative of the Booth print, and we know that Booth did not provide any explanation of his print. Northumbrian substitutes for the "Booth Unicorn" carriage. The strange open 2nd is replaced by the Chinese Liverpool carriage. The odd carriage in the middle left (horse drawn carriage body on a railway undercarriage) is subtly different. Yet it is, at root, the Booth image. Bee

In another thread, some chat revolved around the LMR buffering arrangement depicted by Hornby. Hornby have a single leaf spring, with two rods leading diagonally to a coupling location. In that other thread, we discovered that this arrangement is not the Henry Booth patent of 1836, adopted by the LMR and other influential railways, as the Booth patent comprises 4 leaf springs. The buffering arrangement depicted by Hornby must therefore predate that 1836 patent. I have found the appropriate reference. Once again, Nicholas Wood, Practical Treatise... , 1838. Plate VI In the lower left hand corner, you may observe an undercarriage with a singular leaf spring. I offer the snip from that plate here, to be sure of your understanding The description of that plate can be found in the text. It specifically states that the arrangement is used on the LMR. Plate VI, Explained There are two items which jumped off the page. Firstly, what Hornby calls fine scale chains, Nicholas Wood refers to them as "drag chains"! Secondly, the darts or arrows show the direction of travel of LMR carriages! They are not to be run in random orientation, rather, the concave portion of the leaf spring must face forwards! Today I learned... To further save my readers the exercise of pouring through pages of antiquated text, of matching letter references between text and plate that are hundreds of pages apart. Moreover, to show the full mechanical arrangement instead of forcing the reader to mentally manipulate images to realize the mechanism. Therefore, I have colorized the images and re-arranged the illustration to show the mechanism under two circumstances. Acceleration, that is, as the train leaves the station. Deceleration, that is, as the train arrives at the station. Acceleration The train is leaving the station from stopped. Drag Chain, orange, couples the two carriages. Darts, pink, indicate direction of travel. As the carriage on the left pulls away, the carriage on the right resists the pull. The ends of the leaf spring, blue, on the left carriage are pulled by rods, yellow, connected to a center rod, green, which couples to the dra g chain, orange. This means the ends of the leaf spring, blue, are pulled away from the direction of travel. In the trailing carriage, the drag chain, orange, is connected to a center rod, yellow, which applies force to the center of the leaf spring, blue. This means that the center of the leaf spring, blue, is pulled in the direction of travel. Deceleration The train is arriving at the station and coming to a stop. The drag chain no longer has any affect. I will begin with the description of the trailing carriage, as this is fairly easy to see. The buffers have a long sliding rod, navy blue, which are coupled to the ends of the leaf spring, blue. The carriage momentum pushes against the ends of the leaf spring, blue, leading to a controlled stop (well, not so much). The leading carriage is also involved in this process, albeit with a much more complicated arrangement. The buffers lead to a short rod, navy blue. These are connected to diagonal push rods, yellow. The diagonal push rods are connected to pivoting reversing rods, red. The pivoting reversing rods are connected to short pulling rods, green. These in turn are connected to the singular leaf spring, blue. Therefore, a push on the trailing buffers on the leading carriage results in a pull against the ends of the leaf spring. In acceleration and deceleration, the leaf spring in each carriage is involved. Not explained are the series of end stops required to make the middle and ends of the leaf springs react under different load directions. Now the sharp eye will detect a gear on the carriage, which is not involved in the buffering. At last, the method of carriage braking is within my grasp. That gear provides the mechanical advantage for the guard to apply the brake. Bee

I've cross referenced all the 1st class carriages by name, and provide the appropriate Hornby product reference. Booth Early 1st Class R30090 Despatch R346, R621, R796, R3809 Experience R621, R796, R3809, R30232 Globe R3810, R40357 Huskisson R40371, R30090 Renown R3810 Royal Mail R3956 Times R621, R796, R3809, R40372 Traveller R30232, R30090 Treasurer R3956 Wellington R3810, R40357 I would appreciate being notified of any errors. EDIT: 2 "L" s in Traveller

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway had a very curious carriage, about which we know very little. We have a few images and little else. Clearly, it is a carriage from the early days. It is autonomously named the Chinese Liverpool carriage. Let us begin with an Ackerman print Bottom row, left. A yellow carriage, but it doesn't look at all like 1st Wellington, or 1st Queen Adelaide, also present in the same illustration. There is a center door, a wall of openings and an odd shape. Ackermann prints have variation when printed, some are better than others, better colors, etc. This alternate print clearly shows those openings are glass windows We have some more inescapable evidence. The Ackermann prints also include this gem of the railway office on the Liverpool end of the line Notice that carriage furthest away. Indisputably that Chinese Liverpool carriage, coupled to a rake of nominal 1st class carriages. Ackermann prints are considered fairly definitive. We can examine the evidence provided with a fair degree of confidence. Firm Conclusion #1. Clearly a 1st class carriage. Its yellow, reserved for 1st. It has glass windows, found only on 1st class carriages. It is coupled to other 1st class carriages. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Trust found this piece of artwork in their files. There is no attribution or even a tentative date. It simply exists. Now that train in the middle made me sit up. It shows the Chinese Liverpool carriage, but interestingly, further back in the rake are those odd, Double Box Center Entry 2nd Class Carriages. This got me thinking. Are they similar? I examined the Ackermann print that has a rake of those Double Box Center Entry 2nd Class Carriages. I selected one and performed an imagery comparison. I first flipped over the Chinese Liverpool image so the perspective was the same, you can see that, the writing is inverted. I then changed the sizes whilst maintaining proportions, until the width of the center entry on both carriages was the same. I then compared the length of the Chinese Liverpool to the Double Box Center Entry 2nd Class Carriages. Almost perfectly the same, from two different Ackermann prints. What attention to detail! I then presented that Chinese Liverpool 1st class carriage image, now fixed in size, for an elevation comparison. Again, nearly a perfect match! Firm Conclusion #2: The two carriages are extremely close in general proportions. This becomes a fundamental consideration to estimating passenger count. The Ackerman print of trains has one with three Double Box Center Entry 2nd Class Carriages in consist. So 6 boxes of passengers for three carriages. I then counted the number of passengers in each box and found that the quantity varied between 8 and 10 persons. I could also observe that many of the passengers closest to the viewer had their backs to us. This leads me to a tentative seating arrangement. In the top half of the image, I propose that in the Double Box Center Entry 2nd Class Carriages, the corridor is in between the seats. This would be consistent with the passenger backs, as shown. Passenger legs dangle in the middle of the two facing benches. White circles with blue borders are nominal passenger seating locations. Since this is second class, more passengers could squeeze in, or even stand in the corridor. 8 to 10 passengers per box. In the bottom half of the image, I propose the probable seating arrangement for the Chinese Liverpool carriage. With the narrowing of the top half, the passengers cannot be seated facing in, but will be seated facing out, back to back on longitudinal center. Now why 3 passengers on each side of the bench? Carefully examine the Ackermann carriage illustration. Notice the yellow muntins? Muntins are vertical window separation members. I've carefully indicated each yellow muntin. Note the size of the center door window, and then each of the side windows. The center door must be slightly greater than shoulder width, to permit passenger boarding. The windows on either side are narrower, but not by much. Passengers can be seated closer together in dimension than corridor widths. This leads me to a tentative conclusion of 1 window per passenger. The passengers sit side by side, facing out, looking at the spectacular view of the country side passing by, through the window. 3 per side per box. I get a maximum capacity of 12 passengers with this analysis of the Chinese Liverpool carriage. This may be compared to 1st Wellington. Three compartments, two facing benches per compartment, three abreast. That is, 6 passengers per compartment × 3 compartments, yields maximum capacity of 18 passengers for 1st Wellington. While watching the panoramic view may have been wonderful for the passengers in the Chinese Liverpool carriage, the efficiency of the nominal 1st class carriage meant more paying passengers and more revenue per carriage for the LMR. The Chinese Liverpool carriage fades into oblivion. Hornby have demonstrated an appetite for LMR carriages. R30090 has the carriage Booth illustrated in 1830. The Royal Mail carriage in R3856. Queen Adelaide's carriage in R40357. Why not the Chinese Liverpool carriage? Its fairly easy to model, in basic principle a narrower box on top of a wider box Window glazing with the black and yellow muntins printed on the glazing. Roof racks and a seat for the guard. Black printing of the name and pin stripes. The undercarriage is identical to any 1st class LMR carriage. Please! Bee

Noted LMR historian Mr. Anthony Dawson agrees with your description of an early sprung buffer. In his book Locomotives of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway 2021, page 224, he goes on to quote Henry Booth's testimony before Parliament. Booth stated that the buffering arrangement was only provided to 1st class carriages for the first two years of LMR operation. 2nd class carriages received no such treatment. Opening day on the LMR was 15 Sept 1830. The Booth book, and hence the carriage depicted, is from 1830. 2 years before early sprung buffers would be applied to 2nd class carriages. An examination of the image in the original post (and I contend, the coach Hornby model in R30090) has strange objects where the buffers would be. Drawn cylindrical, consistent with a coiled spring. Certainly not the typical buffer. I must say, Threelink, you have a sharp eye. I agree with you. Now putting that evidence together, we have a carriage with an early sprung buffer, depicted before 1832, when only first class carriages had such an arrangement. Does this mean the carriage depicted is actually a 1st class carriage? I think it does! If we accept early sprung buffer, the conclusion is inescapable. 1st Class. I do believe Hornby will be getting another order for this train pack. Thank you ThreeLink! I learned something today! Bee

If it can be taken apart and put the right way round, then there is zero "misprint value". If it can be put right, do so. If not, and you want it right, contact Hornby Customer Service. Bee

@threelink Stone sleepers will be fairly evident, as they are ~2 feet square with a hole center drilled for a oak plug. That would be quite a thrill to find. Naturally, the responsible society should be informed and the block left in situ for archeological investigation. @rana temporia. Modeling fishplate rails on stone sleeper blocks is a secret (well, not anymore 😁) desire of mine. This would require making my own fishbelly rail and rail joiners. I have been dreaming of this but have yet to come to a practical method of manufacture. Casting? Of the 31 miles of the LMR, ~18 were in stone block and the remainder in wood sleepers. The rails were mounted directly to the rock substrate in the Olive Cutting. It is generally agreed that stone sleeper blocks didn't work well and were largely replaced over time. Wood sleepers maintain the gauge, but as the stone blocks were independent, I can easily see the gauge drifting over time. Bee

The dumb buffers illustrated by Henry Booth in his 1830 book show only dumb buffers. I have re-read that book just now, searching for an explanation of the plate, a description of the rolling stock and perhaps some information about the buffers. Booth does not even provide a description of the plate. In that, no joy. I stated that the Nicholas Wood illustrations of 1834 shown only dumb buffers but that the 1838 Practical Treatise ... shows sprung buffers. This narrowed down sprung buffers into a 4 year period. According to Wood, 1838, one Mr. Henry Booth received an 1836 patent for sprung buffers. This is obviously the same individual. What appears to be the patent drawing is opposite page 218. I present that here: There are four springs mounted in the center of the undercarriage. The two outer, smaller springs ease the jerk during acceleration. They are connected to the center mounted hook by a long rod in tension. The two inner, larger springs ease the jerk during deceleration. They are connected to the four buffer rods under compression. This leads us to the method by which the carriages are attached to each other, by screw link coupling. Shown next to the undercarriage in the illustration. The ball at the end of the lever is designed to prevent the lever from unscrewing. In practice, Booth specifies that the carriages are drawn up to each other by the screw link until the buffers are touching, then the screw link is turned "two or three times more...equal to about a fourth or fifth of the elasticity of the springs". Wood goes on to say that the Booth patent was adopted by the Liverpool and Manchester, the Grand Junction and the London and Birmingham railways. Thismlikely was a generous source of income for Booth. Upon closer examination of the Hornby under carriage, it is clear that the Booth patent was not followed. I do suspect that the Hornby undercarriage closely matches the replicas built in 1930. Bee

Deem This all comes down to the following 1) if the round barrel of the shoulder screw can go through the green wheel, you need to fix the nut into the back of the green wheel with a bit of adhesive. 2) if the shoulder of the shoulder screw bottoms out on the green wheel, then any type of thread retainer will keep the shoulder screw from loosening on the nut This is total sum of the problem. You can do both, of course. Affix the nut with adhesive to the green wheel AND use some thread retainer. Bee

With the interest shown, perhaps some other morsels are in order. Booth depicted several pieces of rolling stock on that plate, that plate shown here: Top Left: Carriage in Train Pack R30090, which we have previously discussed. Top Right: 1st Class Carriage Wellington. The yellow carriage now most commonly associated with the LMR in modern imagery. Bottom Left: Yet another 2nd class carriage. It had to be a very early 2nd class carriage, as there was no roof, a feature swiftly added to prevent burns to passenger clothing from the locomotive exhaust. Bottom Center: double decked Sheep Wagon. The LMR did a roaring trade in transporting sheep. Hornby have offered R40165 sheep wagon pack. I cannot wait for this to arrive. Bottom Right: I believe this to be a pig wagon. Single decked. I suspect this will be offered by Hornby in the coming years, due to simplicity of adaptation. And now on to the most unusual carriage. Top row, center. Zoomed for your convenience. This is absolutely not a horse drawn carriage loaded onto a flat wagons. Ackermann depicts horse drawn carriages loaded onto flat wagons. Not the same! This carriage depicted by Booth carriage has only railway wheels and represents one of the very earliest 1st class carriages. The LMR turned to the carriage trade for ideas in early days. The carriage trade built the body of a horse drawn carriage onto a railway undercarriage! When compared to Wellington, this carriage had far fewer seats. The guard would sit in the open seats on the front (left) of the carriage, where the horse drawn carriage driver would sit. Baggage in the rear compartment. The center inside could seat possibly 8, but much more likely 6 or 4, consistent with horse drawn carriages of the period. Go back and look at the Ackermann private carriage for reference. Carriage Wellington, yellow 1st class carriage depicted on the Booth plate, could seat 18 passengers. Bee Mods: This will only be submitted once...I hope 😁

@Topcat A "Sharpie" permanent black marker will make swift work of colored insulation, turning the wires all black. Since I am not in the UK, I do not know if a "Sharpie" is known as a Sharpie in the UK. So forgive me for using a US trade name! I'm convinced, however, such marking tools do exist! Bee

Hi Rana Temporia When Hornby decided to bring Rocket back in 2020, they had some critical decisions to make. Should they model the reproduction carriages present at the museum, or use the period illustrations? Additionally, Rocket still exists, as both a reproduction and a preserved locomotive. For the 1st class carriages, in yellow, and the third class carriages, in blue, Hornby have selected the reproduction museum carriages. Hornby have also selected Rocket in Rainhill Trials configuration. For all the wagons and carriages after that 2020 release, Hornby have relied upon the illustrations. @threelink The above provides a rational explanation of why the undercarriage is wrong for the Booth Unicorn in R30090. Hornby is using the undercarriage from the 1930s reproductions, across the rolling stock fleet. It follows then that undercarriage would be here. An examination of the buffers in Wood 1834 shows only dumb buffers. The 1838 edition of Wood shows sprung buffers. The Booth Unicorn in R30090 was from an 1830 publication, pre-dating sprung buffers. Yes, in that it does not match. Sometimes, I am envious of the wealth of photographic evidence present for other enthusiasts. That didn't exist for the LMR, simply because photography hadn't been invented yet!! On the other hand, I am thrilled with these models Hornby have boldly released. My layout would not exist without them, I would just revel in the books and the history. The models add a wonderful dimension for me and you will not catch me rivet counting Bee

Nearly two CENTURIES have passed JJ. That's a lot of time for technological improvement. The carriage Booth depicted was cutting edge for his time, the absolute pinnacle of achievement. Bee

After a long think, the square panels are situated right where the seats would be. From the extant Robert Stephenson mechanical drawings of the blue carriages, it is known that the stowage of passenger baggage was under those seats. Perhaps the square panels, depicted in Booth's image, are the access ports to under seat stowage for these carriages. Just a thought Bee

I really empathize with you moderators on this one. What a headache this must be. If the web team won't do a pop up box, they could just do a "awaiting approval" image in place of the actual image. That way, we get to see our post is there (albeit without the proper images) and will not post it again. Just a different concept that achieves the same goal, to wit: no double posts. That would also give me a chance to correct the small errors, grammatical, spelling, punctuation and of course, white space 😉, because I can see it and edit the text; all while waiting moderator approval of my images!! Bee

Nut retainer. Locktite 242 is one example. A tiny little dab will do ya! After you know everything fits together, remove the screw and place a very, very small amount of the nut retainer on the threads of the screw. Think micro grams here. Follow the directions about curing. Problem solved Bee

Hang on! We do not see "awaiting approval" state flag. That must just be for moderators, only. If we could see that state flag, it would alleviate this problem immediately. You can prove that to yourself by setting up a dummy account that does not have moderator status. Submit a post, with an image naturally, and observe if you can see the "awaiting approval" state flag. You will NOT! In fact, you see nothing at all, because the post isn't shown.. Rob Mod note - my OP edited for clarity

I plead guilty. After submitting the initial post, I panicked. Was I about to get rebuked for white space in between paragraphs? For white space at the end of my post? Since I was at the General discussion page, I refreshed, looking for my post. It wasn't there! Oh no!! It didn't work!! Instead of remembering that an image needs approval, I submitted it again. And that's when the penny dropped. My error. I do suppose 15 lashes with the cat of nine tails are in order. Bee

Hornby have produced Train Pack R30090. In that pack are three carriages, two 1st class carriages and what I and others have termed a "2nd class carriage". Upon careful examination, the Hornby new tooling does not resemble the 2nd class carriages in the Ackermann prints. Ackermann prints are considered definitive. There are four types of 2nd class carriages depicted by Ackermann. The blue carriages without roof (early), the blue carriages with roof (improved), the 6 forward seated rows and the double box with center entry. There are other depictions of 2nd class carriages in period literature. Examples include Austen, Crane and Freeling, yet in general, these are simply re-arranged images from Ackermann. What then is the source, the inspiration for the Hornby carriage? Henry Booth was the Treasurer of the enterprise. In 1830, Booth published An account of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Among the plates in that book, we find a representative sample of the carriages used on the railway. These are the carriages used prior to and including 1830, not the carriages used afterwards. Henry Booth was Treasurer, so he would have been in a position to actually know what an early carriage would look like. The samples presented are a strange collection, with an odd perspective. One of them has distinctive sides and unusually shaped doors. Observe it here: Even the casual observer can see the distinct similarities between these! Look at the center posts, there is a point in the side panels there. The exact shape of the doorway is present as is the odd square decorative panel between the doors. The number of doors. The seating arrangement. The curtains. Yes, there are some details that are different, for example, seating for the guard is not on the Hornby model. Some creative license must be allowed. But I think you will agree, it is the carriage depicted by Henry Booth. So instead of a generic 2nd Class Carriage, Hornby have produced a unique Henry Booth carriage. My word! A sleeper is present!! Bee

@RDS When you make a joke, or a comment intended as silly, put some marks on it, so the reader can see its a joke. Like 'that's a joke!', /jk, or 😁. When I first saw your response, my initial concern was for you. Perhaps the man is having an issue at home or at work. I was actually worried for you. I did not see a joke. Perhaps that's just me, but we can assume that others didn't see it either, since DRC took umbrage. Just a friendly thought Bee

@RDS My goodness. What an odd response. I discover that Hornby have made an innocent error. This error is bound to create customer ill will if not corrected. The customer will get the item, only to discover there is no locomotive, even though the page prominently featured that locomotive, Tiger, in imagery. I make the extra effort to not only point the error out, but to document the details. Cross referenced by product number to permit ease of investigation! Non-trivial to get all those product numbers correct. What response did I get? Did I get a "we will look into that", "whoops, we will fix that", "thanks for lettings us know!", "we appreciate that, great effort!" or "Hornby will be informed at our earliest"? Nope. None of that. The response I got was to "stop adding white space at the end of a post". ?????? Oooookay, sure. No problem 🙂 The important thing is that Hornby is informed about the error. Would you kindly take some notice of this issue and acknowledge that it will be passed on? Bee No white space! 🙂

Image one shows two boxes. They appear to be R30233 Tiger Train Pack and R40372 Times Carriage pack. Tiger is also shown outside of the box with 3 coal wagons, consistent with the R20233 Tiger Train Pack. Image two shows 1st class carriage Times with two 3rd class carriages. I believe this is the correct image for R40372. You will note that this is entirely consistent with the content of R40371 Huskisson (one 1st, two third) and at almost the same price. Image three shows locomotive Tiger pulling Times and two 3rd class carriages, inconsistent with any individual product, albeit similar to the content associated with R30232 Lion Train Pack. Perhaps this was a prior marketing concept drawing that got superceded when the coal wagons replaced the passenger carriages, and snuck through? What's inside specifies: 3×coaches Tech Specs specifies: 4 parts If Hornby is going to sell both sets for £94.99, we have a deal. Bee

Hi Ellocoloco While they may just be a bit busy now, Hornby can confirm your pre-order. Just dash off a note and see what they say. It could be that SteveM6 is correct! Bee