Optimum distance between loco and tender?

[David Thorpe]

I've at long last very nearly finished my E4, but have discovered that the drawbar supplied with the Gibson kit will leave a gap of about 5mm between the loco and tender. This is the first tender loco I have made that has reached this stage of completion, and the gap does seem somehat large. Before I start bodging the drawbar to reduce the gap, I wonder if anyone can advise me as to an optimum dustance, if there is such a thing, between loco and tender in P4?

DT

[grovenor-2685]

Unless you want to use very sharp curves it should be whatever the prototype was.
Regards
Keith

[David Thorpe]

The trouble is, Keith, that I don't know how big the gap was on the protoype. The drawings I have (which came with the kit) show the loco and tender, but separately. The photos I have are all taken from such angles that it is well-nigh impossible to judge, far less measure, the distance between loco and tender. The only surviving member of the class of which I'm aware is at Bressingham, which is rather far away. There is a composite drawing on the front of the kit box, but that is to a reduced scale (approx 3mm to the foot) and seems to indicate a gap between loco and tender of about 3.25mm, but that still seems a bit too wide to me

In the absence of any greater knowledge, therefore, I think I'll just make up two or three drawbars and see which one both looks right and works over the curves on my layout.

DT

[David Knight]

A suggestion; take engine and tender, set on the sharpest curve/switch that you expect to have and measure the distance between the drawbar pins. This may not give you the exact distance as per the prototype but will give you a practical working distance. OTOH making up a few extra drawbars may not be a bad thing either.

HTH

David

[Eastern]

I have a Gibson J15 kit. The tender drawing supplied with that shows a dimension between the front drawgear plate on the tender and the rear drawgear rubbing plate on the loco for the S23 type tender (used for the E4 as well). Due to the print quality, I can't quite make out whether it is 8 and 3/8 inches or 8 and 5/8 inches. Perhaps that will help.

[David Thorpe]

Perhaps that will help.

Certainly does, thanks. That works out at fractionally under 3mm and assuming that all is well when I carry out the test suggested by David above, that's what I'll use .

DT

[Chris Mitton]

Hi Davey

Can I suggest that (for this and any other LNER locos you might feel like building) you get hold of the Isinglass drawings ( http://www.isinglass-models.co.uk/ )? They're very reasonably priced (IIRC I paid about seven quid a throw for mine), and contain a wealth of prototype information such as numberings and renumberings, rebuild dates, etc, and lots of detail sketches as well.

To answer your specific question, the gap between loco and tender on my E4 drawing looks to be about 2.5 mm. I think I'll build mine to that dimension and if it goes through a B6 turnout I'll leave it as that (apparently that's Network Rail's requirement as well as mine!). Otherwise I'll have to make it a bit bigger!

Regards
Chris

[David Thorpe]

To answer your specific question, the gap between loco and tender on my E4 drawing looks to be about 2.5 mm. I think I'll build mine to that dimension and if it goes through a B6 turnout I'll leave it as that

By some fluke the first drawbar I made did the trick, leaving a gap of just under 3mm between the loco and tender. That's the scale gap found by Ian on his J15 drawing and it looks OK and works fine on B6 points, so it'll do nicely, thank you.

I shouldn't be building any GE or LNER locos as I'm meant to modelling CR c. 1955. I still can't think of any excuse to run the E4, but I have a soft spot for the GER and the E4 is such a pretty little loco that I'll dream up something. At one time or another they did have GE locos on the GNoS, GWR locos on the HR, and even a couple of SR tank locos found a home on the CR lines in Angus during the 1940s, so I'm sure I'll think of something!

DT