GWR 27XX and 57XX comparision

[Bruce Boldner]

I have a Highlevel compensated chassis near completion. It has been designed for use with the Bachmann GWR 57XX body.
However, as I model the pregrouping era, I thought it would be nice if I could use a GWR 27XX body instead.
Is this feasible? Wikipedia advises me that both locomotives had 4'7.5" drivers and shared a 15'6" total wheelbase. BUT is the distance between each axle the same for both classes? If not, I'll have to go back to the 57XX body in order to use the Highlevel chassis.
I would be grateful for confirmation of these wheelbase measurements.
Bruce Boldner.

[Pannier Tank]

Take a look here:- http://www.gwr.org.uk/nopanniers.html

[steamraiser]

57XX coupled wheel base 7' 3" + 8' 3" Front buffer beam to leading axle 5' 6"
2721 coupled wheelbase 7' 3" + 8' 3" Front buffer beam to leading axle 4' 9"
Rear driver to back buffer beam 6' 6" for both.

Gordon A
Bristol

[Penrhos1920]

I'd like to say "been there, done that." but I can't as it isn't finished and its not a 57xx. But I have used a Highlevel 57xx chassis on an earlier pannier design. The 57xx was an updated 27xx, which in turn was an updated earlier saddle tank design and it continues like that a long way back. This is where I have got so far in back converting a 57xx with a Highlevel chassis to 769 which was a 645 class pannier.

IMGP3343a.jpg

Really all you need to do is work out where to chop the front and back off and put it under the shortened body. I've soldered the coupling hooks to the chassis as the buffer beams are only lightly glued to the body.

[Bruce Boldner]

Gordon and Penrhos, thank you both very much indeed for your confirmation of the 57xx/27xx wheelbase dimensions. I will now search for a 27xx body.
Hornby in their "new releases" download advise that a 27xx is imminent. However, it's in their "Railroad" range which I understand lacks the finer details. It looks nice in their brochure tthough and (without rechecking their pricelist )is only 29.99GBP. As one can pay that amount for just a body shell, it seems to be good value.
However, I assume Bachmann and others may already produce or have produced a 27xx? I shall start searching the web.
Penrhos, your pannier conversion looks very interesting and I hope you will post more photos as it progresses. From where did you source the white metal castings?

Regards and thanks again to you both.

Bruce.

[craig_whilding]

Bachmann has never done a 27xx, only Hornby though many of the late survivors seem to have got the 57xx style enclosed cab anyway, The Hornby 27xx is in the Railroad now mainly because it never had any fine detail on it and you may want to check the wheelbase of the model too as it might have been compromised for a generic chassis? You should be able to get a cheap old one off eBay though.

By the looks of the information in the link the 2721 had springs above the footplate on all axles and not just the rear so that is something else to modify on the High Level chassis perhaps.

[HowardGWR]

Bruce said he wanted a pre-grouping version and so he will be well-advised to decide which year he is modelling and which engine. They were all but 4, saddle tanks originally so that would seem important. Perhaps if Bruce tells me which day and which month and which year he is modelling and then finally which engine, I would be prepared to look up the RCTS book and tell him what it looked like! It's part 5 by the way and it's the 2721 class, not 27xx . Of course in order to find out which engine, he will need to specify which location he is modelling so that someone with the allocation list for that day can say what was there (if any). The latter do exist (at Kew).

By the way almost certainly fluted coupling rods are needed, to name but one highly visible detail.

It seems pointless to model in P4 and then get the actual engine wrong. The motto is 'getting it all right', but if one gets none of it right except the gauge it all seems a bit pointless. That's aside from the fact that they didn't run on 12 volt motors of course.

The above was written with the tongue firmly down the back of the throat and I certainly don't want to put Bruce off. However, I believe that modelling pre-grouping GWR engines without the RCTS books is, well, courageous.

[Tim V]

I think you are being a bit hard there Howard, I personally want the track to look right, but my models will not stand being examined from a few inches away. For me reliable running is the A1 priority, and if that means leaving off finer details, then so be it.

I think it's also vital to have correct operation and signals that work - how many layouts fail that test?

[martin goodall]

I am not sure I would rely on the Hornby body as a starting point for modelling a 2721. It is quite an old moulding, which I seem to recall had no daylight under the boiler. I have not examined one closely, so it may be capable of being butchered into a reasonable model after all. Maybe someone reading this has done this and can comment.

[HowardGWR]

Thanks Tim and Martin. I just hope Bruce sees that there is a journey to make in this modelling malarky and making pannier tanks for engines that didn't have them does not seem to even conform to the Rev Peter Denny's 'two foot' rule. I was so sorry not to get to the EMGS Show this year but I understand we may see more of his work in future.

Both of you have achieved what I have not and never will achieve. I am more interested in study to be honest but I do believe we should give Bruce the benefit of as sound advice as possible . Actually Bruce's aims are very exciting as the era is seldom modelled but really was the dawn of something special for that particular railway.

Anyone trying a model of the steam raail motor or the straight frame 29xx? Saddle tanks don't seem to have appeal do they, but some were still to be seen quite late on. Now you have set me off looking up when the last one went. (

[Paul Willis]

Anyone trying a model of the steam raail motor or the straight frame 29xx? Saddle tanks don't seem to have appeal do they, but some were still to be seen quite late on. Now you have set me off looking up when the last one went. (

Hi Howard,

You'd be surprised... David Brandreth of this very place has nearly finished a very lovely looking GWR railmotor. He had it at Missenden back in March. He might be able to give a quick update in between sorting out the Retrospective of Scalefour North for us to enjoy.

The Edwardian period of the GWR was very much my field of interest, before matters Great Eastern. All the Halls, Castles and Kings just left me cold :-/

Flymo

[Bruce Boldner]

My thanks to Craig, Howard, Tim, Martin & Flymo for your comments and advice re the 2721 Class.
Since reading what you have all said, I have done some more research on the web.
"........pannier tanks for engines that didn't have them" Howard? My recent research advises that all of the 2721 class had pannier tanks by the 1920's. More specifically number 2796 was fitted with short pannier tanks in 1904, then full length panniers in 1909.The same source advises that only around a quarter of the class were not so fitted by the 1920's.
Howard, I am a Midland devotee who has only come to model GWR locomotives very recently. I do not even know what RCTS stands for, let alone possess the volume.
In any case, Craig's alert that the Hornby chassis may have a compromised wheelbase to suit the old Triang generic chassis is true, as I have now confirmed that the Hornby wheelbase is 7'9" + 8'3" whereas it should be 7'3" + 8'3". And Martin's advice that the old body shows no daylight under the boiler means that the glory of my lovely High Level inside motion would never be seen.

I am not without P4 experience. Since 2004 completed handlaying track including 39 turnouts over my L shaped point to point layout measuring 15' x 16'. You may also have seen my Lever Frame article in MRJ no. 178. I am now busy scenicing the layout, in between constructing more locomotives and rolling stock.
I have converted a Ratio Johnson 2-4-0, a K's Kirtley 0-6-0 and a Gem 700 class to P4, using my own compensated chassis'. Have also built the Craftsman Midland 1F and 1P and a Martin Finney T3.
However, one only has so much time and I also like to convert some RTR locomotives as a way to both get some use out of them and also to quickly add a locomotive to my roster. In this regard I've converted the Hornby Terrier and LSWR liveried T9 and M7.

I came by way of the pannier chassis by accident. I had ordered Chris Gibbon's chassis for the GWR Dean Goods (I have the Mainline RTR version). However, he sent me the pannier chassis by mistake and I couldn't resist it, as I also recalled I had a pannier body from long ago. But it turned out to be the old Triang version, with nothing but solid plastic under the boiler.
Hence my search for something a little better and also in the Edwardian era.
Martin Finney produces a kit of the 2721 class and I am sure it would be as superb and accurate in detail and construction as I found his T3 to be. But as his kit includes an excellent compensated chassis, my High Level chassis would go to waste . And I already have his Adams radial Tank and GWR Duke class kits to build before I go spending another 116GBP for the 2721 kit with inside motion.
Howard, I really do appreciate your good intentions when you say that there is no point in modelling to P4 standards unless one gets every aspect right. However, I share Tim's viewpoint when he says that there must be compromises made.
This is especially so when one is trying to build a complete layout. I have sometimes found that those who frown on anything less than absolute accuracy either build little, or tend to focus on just one aspect of modelling, rather than a complete layout. I greatly admire the latters focus, but ask for understanding when we jack -of -all -trades have to cut a few corners in order to both get things done in a reasonable time frame and to preserve our sanity.
So this evening I ordered a Bachmann GWR 8750 pannier tank body for 20 GBP. I realise the engine is post grouping, but so what? It's a very nice locomotive and it will at least be quite accurate.
And if I decide to pursue the 2721 again, it will be via a Martin Finney kit.

My thanks and regards to you all,

Bruce Boldner.

[craig_whilding]

My thanks to Craig, Howard, Tim, Martin & Flymo for your comments and advice re the 2721 Class.
I do not even know what RCTS stands for, let alone possess the volume.
Bruce Boldner.

Railway Correspondence and Travel Society, they produced small booklets in the 50s detailing all of the GWR motive power and giving details on numbering, detail changes, tenders attached to locos etc. I've got a couple of them now through various 2nd hand shops but getting a full set of these in an adventure in itself! The full listing is here: http://www.rcts.org.uk/shop/publication ... series.htm I'd rather like copies of 5 & 9 when I can find them.

[Penrhos1920]

Penrhos, your pannier conversion looks very interesting and I hope you will post more photos as it progresses. From where did you source the white metal castings?

Bruce.

It's actually a Mainline pannier but it fits the chassis well. I've cast a pair of lead weights that fill the tanks and filled the tiny bunker with lead. The bunker is from an Alan Gibson 517 or buffalo tank kit (the kits come with 2 or 3 spare bunkers) with the extensions fabricated out of brass. You cant see the rear wheel springs but they are hand made by twisting wire around wire.

Tank fillers 247 part LP910
Injectors 247 part INJ1 or Alan Gibson AM810
Chimney DMR Products part WR14
Buffers Alan Gibson 4908
Sandboxes plastikard
Cab backhead Alan Gibson

Its worth looking at a preserved pannier as the details as similar.

Richard

[DougN]

Well Bruce it looks like you are well on your way to getting on with that Chassis. Where in the end did you get the body from?

[Bruce Boldner]

Craig, thanks for decoding RCTS for me. I shall try and locate some.
And Richard, thanks for listing the castings you have used on your pannier tank. I didn't realise Colin Seymour had produced a kit of the 517 class. It's another locomotive that appeals to me. I wonder which version it is (open or closed cab, collett bunker or earlier? Hmmm.....
Regards,

Bruce.

[Bruce Boldner]

Well Bruce it looks like you are well on your way to getting on with that Chassis. Where in the end did you get the body from?

Hi Doug, I bought it from 'Trains on Time, 'which was one of the sites you helpfully suggested to me. Thanks again.
If you are going to Martin's meeting on June 4th, I should have it finished by then and will bring it along.

Regards,

Bruce.

[Paul Willis]

Craig, thanks for decoding RCTS for me. I shall try and locate some.
And Richard, thanks for listing the castings you have used on your pannier tank. I didn't realise Colin Seymour had produced a kit of the 517 class. It's another locomotive that appeals to me. I wonder which version it is (open or closed cab, collett bunker or earlier? Hmmm.....

Hi Bruce,

I didn't have chance to speak to Colin at ExpoEM last weekend to se how his sales were going, but if you look at this http://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1360 post you will see that he had a 517 lit in stock. As this is part of his limited edition production run, and is only available because of a cancelled order, if you want one I'd get an order in immediately.

I do have one Number 5/12. Bought for old times' sake, as I built one in P4 many, many years ago, when I was around 20 and at university. I don't have that any more, so I wanted another...

I haven't unpacked the kit, but quoting from the instructions "This kit provides for building the 15' wheelbase type with R4 and B4 boilers with three types of bunker - Wolverhampton, Swindon and Collett, this variation having a closed cab. The locos represented by this kit were in use from 1903 to 1944."

HTH
Flymo

[DougN]

That sounds great Bruce I will be interested to see a finished Highlevel kit. I have half finished the gear box... so a fully finished chassis and operations will be very interesting to me!

[HowardGWR]

Of course I looked it up. 2743 didn't get pannier tanks until June 1933, for instance. Some of the smaller wheeled tanks (2021 class) as late as 1935.

The whole thing is arbitrary of course, in this sense. It was the introduction of the B4 type boiler with a Belpaire firebox that brought about the change. Some engines continued to receive reconditioned S4 boilers (equally round all the way along) and so continued with saddle tanks. One or two engines, having had B4 and pannier tanks fitted, went back to S4 and saddle. It just depended what was lying around in the works ready to be used, apparently.

As a rule of thumb, if you are modelling Edwardian Churchward era 1902 - 1912, saddle tanks would have been in great preponderance, if WW1 and then up to 1923, the reverse.

The reason that Churchward did not have much to do with this type (nor the tender versions) is, as I see it, the spate of new build of essentially Armstrong engines happened during Dean's latter years (late 90s) and then beginning again in the late twenties (Collett simply renewed them all with the 57xx, etc).

So apart from this saddle tank business, one might say that there was no change on our railways in the local goods provision for about a century up to 1965!

I hope that is interesting to you who are slaving away with soldering iron. If you have a particular query about an engine, do ask off list, as I have all the books. I do have also, due to kindness of a colleague John Lewis, the allocations for the early thirties. I can also ask on the Great Western Study Group's list.

[JFS]

I am surprised this conversation has got as far as it has without much mention of Martin Finney's kit - which is excellent of course - if a little off-topic from the original post. But if anyone does want a pannier which is a bit longer in the tooth than a 57XX, this has to be a consideration. Picture of mine herewith.

Going back to the question of "are the chassis interchangeable", I had an interesting experience when I built this one. Of course, I built the chassis first, including full working inside motion. Once I had it running, my eye chanced upon a chassis-less Mainline 57 body which happened to be nearby. Then temptation was too great to resist so I tried it for size. I was amazed to note that not only did it fit, but it fitted perfectly - even down to little cut-outs to clear the coupling fixing boss! Since it was obviously no coincidence, I asked Martin about it and he just smiled. So for a few weeks, I think i had the only Mainline pannier P4 conversion with full inside motion!

BV-2.jpg

(please draw a veil over the time-shift on the left!)
By the way, I am not necessarily advocating buying Martin's kit and throwing half of it away!


Best Wishes,

Howard

[andrew jukes]

Also a little off-topic, but I thought it worth saying a little about the Exactoscale driving wheel that should be good as a 4’ 7.5” pannier wheel.

As some will remember, this wheel was in the original Exactoscale driving wheel programme. Even with my LNER bias, it stayed in the programme until I realised that we were about to do two almost identical wheels. The LNER 4’ 8” inside cylinder wheel and the GWR 4’ 7.5” wheel have the same number of spokes, the same crank throw and the same crank pin position. We then did a differencing exercise on the 3D models of the two wheels and came to the conclusion that the shape similarities confirmed that doing two ‘different’ wheels would be nonsensical.

So what we’ve produced (as 4DW P20A) is a slightly worn J50 wheel of 4’ 7” diameter, as accurate as we could make it to the Doncaster J50 drawing. Being perhaps too honest, that’s all we’ve ever advertised it as - but the logic that said that the near identical designs made it not worth doing two different wheels also means that we have produced a really very accurate 4’ 7.5” pannier wheel.

Just thought it worth mentioning as the wheels have features (like slender spokes, moulded from both sides) that might appeal.

Obviously, I do have a commercial interest in these wheels.

Regards

Andrew Jukes

[martin goodall]

2743 didn't get pannier tanks until June 1933, for instance.

2743 had the unusual combination (in the late 20s/early 30s) of a Collett cab and extended bunker whilst retaining its saddle tank. There is a photograph showing it in this condition.

I obtained a spare set of saddle tank castings from M&L (for their 1076 kit) with a view to a bit of kit-bashing on a spare Mainline body to prodcue this hybrid, but it is still on my list of 'some time never' projects.

[Horsetan]

I am surprised this conversation has got as far as it has without much mention of Martin Finney's kit - which is excellent of course - if a little off-topic from the original post. But if anyone does want a pannier which is a bit longer in the tooth than a 57XX, this has to be a consideration. Picture of mine herewith.

Going back to the question of "are the chassis interchangeable", I had an interesting experience when I built this one. Of course, I built the chassis first, including full working inside motion. Once I had it running, my eye chanced upon a chassis-less Mainline 57 body which happened to be nearby. Then temptation was too great to resist so I tried it for size. I was amazed to note that not only did it fit, but it fitted perfectly - even down to little cut-outs to clear the coupling fixing boss! Since it was obviously no coincidence, I asked Martin about it and he just smiled. So for a few weeks, I think i had the only Mainline pannier P4 conversion with full inside motion!

.....By the way, I am not necessarily advocating buying Martin's kit and throwing half of it away!

Interesting. I think Tom Mallard wrote an article on how he more-or-less scratchbuilt his 8750 class pannier, and he ended up using the smokebox boiler firebox tanks and former from the Finney 27xx kit.

So you would only be throwing away about a quarter of it.....