Next up is the ubiquitous Stanier 5MT, also known as the 'Black 5'. LMS 5001 / 5482 in plain LMS Black livery
We move on to the BR numbered Black 5s. Only a couple of these, as I've previously modelled a few with Early Crest, so the ones I've done now are a couple of oddities: 45015 / 44829 in plain BR Black with LMS Lined tender
We move on to the LMS Patriots. Rebuilding of these with the Stanier 2A Boiler began in the 1930s. LMS 5514 'Holyhead' / 45512 'Bunsen' in plain Black with lined LMS tender
We move on to the final class in this sequence - the LMS Royal Scots. Before the construction of the Princess Royal and Coronation classes, the Royal Scots were the stars of the LMS fleet and were assigned all the prestigious services. By the 1930s, Stanier was looking at improving these locos and they were fitted with Stanier 2A tapered boilers, which took the fleet to new heights.The rebuilding took some time and continued into BR days, with BR adding smoke deflectors to the locos which totally altered their appearance. The locos below are rebuilt but without smoke deflectors. 6101 'Royal Scots Grey' / 6112 'Sherwood Forester' in LMS Maroon
I had to make a decision with these and other locos regarding their names. As you can see from the Maroon versions, the nameplates are a tight squeeze into the space available on the Jubilee Base loco and the Royal Scots were renamed in their lifespan to accommodate Regimental nameplates. These were often double-lined and will not fit into the narrow splasher of the Jubilee loco. Hence, I have decided to use the original names of the Scots for these models. LMS 6132 'Phoenix' / 6147 ' Courier' in LMS Lined Black
That concludes my foray into the world of LMS and ex-LMS Steam classes. It has been an adventure and also an education. Researching pictures of class members has revealed a wonderful variety of liveries and livery combinations, and the 1948 Nationalisation period threw up some real oddities - the Apple Green Black 5 being my favourite. Actually, researching that loco also gave me 2 other Black 5 livery experiments - a Southern Green version and a GWR Green version. I will model these 2 and upload them soon. Moving on, I will continue with preserved Diesels from time to time and anything that catches my eye (there's an interesting 08 coming soon), but my main focus will be a new subject, one that was hinted in some of the pics above - Private Owner wagons! Now, there were thousands of P.O. wagons in the UK before Nationalisation in 1948, so I won't be modelling them all ! However, there are a good few that I will do and I've started already. You may have seen the Limestone wagons uploaded - I'll add them here next - and of course there are many coal wagons to add. I will concentrate on 5-plank wagons and Vans and many will be relevant to specific routes - LMS, LNER, GWR etc, but I will also add ones that just take my fancy or have a special meaning to me personally. Having a personal wagon livery is one of the beauties of Train Simulation, and I would like to offer the opportunity to have a wagon painted in the livery of your choice - within reason. My criteria are: 1/ It must be a genuine livery that I can research 2/ It will use the LPC 5-plank wagon or the LPC Van as a basis. 3/ I would welcome an accompanying picture (or 2) of the wagon if possible. 4/ It must be a reasonable livery to produce - my decision on that is final. OK, enough bureaucracy, contact me either here or on Conversations. I am dave55007 (aka PinzaDave; PD7)
Not the first uploaded, but here is the first of the Private Owner liveries for you to see: 5-Plank 'Hull Corporation'. This was a coal wagon for the City of Kingston-upon-Hull's Corporation Power Station. In the days before the National Grid, cities and town had their own power stations to supply the increasing demand for electricity, and Hull's was a minature Coal-fired Power station complete with a cooling tower, located just with the bounds of the City. The coal came from the Hickleton Colliery near Doncaster (actually near Barnsley and accessed via the Hull & Barnsley Railway). I have done this wagon as I worked for Hull Corporation when I left school, back in 1980, not at the Power Station, which had long been closed down, but with their Telephone Department, the last of its kind in the country. Notice the wagon has different numbers on each side.
4 variants of ICI Limestone wagons. These would have worked out of Tunstead Quarry on the Peak Forest route, but would have been seen all over the country. ICI No. 3034
Something different, but connected... I've just uploaded a test video to my YouTube channel, recorded from TSW5. This is the first few minutes of my scenario based in 1948 of Euston to the small village of Milton Keynes, just north of Bletchley! Need to improve the quality a bit!
A first batch of Private Owner 5-Plank coal wagons: 'Ocean' 5-Plank wagon. Not sure where these were based, but a comment online indicates it may have been South Wales.
We'll have to see if we can find a way to get multiple versions of these wagons into the game. A rake of mixed PO wagons would look quite good (and quite colourful) methinks.
Thats what I'm working on. I'll do a good number of coal wagons - there are plenty to choose from - and a few specific commodities too, including: Beer; Eggs; Bananas (all vans). There are some others too I've not even looked at: Sand; Timber; Bagged cement. Some of the liveries are quite intricate and a wagon can take as long as a locomotive to produce, if not longer, as there's often a good deal of lettering to do, often in shaded form. Its hard to find good prototype pics of wagons, most of the pics I find are of models, which is fine as long as the livery is genuine and not some 'fake' livery for promotional purposes! I dont think I'll be modelling 60+ years of the Beatles on a van any time soon.
There seem to be far fewer Private Owner vans than open wagons, but they do fall into a number of different commodities. The first to be done is Beer! Standard 12T Van 'Worthington' of Burton-on-Trent.
