Atomic Systems

I would imagine that the RSC model will be a tie-in with the NRM and will contain the 6 variants that will be on show later this year at York... the scenarios will not involve the legacy routes, so maybe you'll have a couple for Lon-Bri, and if your lucky, a couple for WLoS.... but they'll all be Quick Drive & Workshop compatible, so they won't really care about scenarios too much.

No doubt one for the S&C or WCML route

kirkheath wrote:No doubt one for the S&C or WCML route

Crikey - an A4 on old LMS rails!!

I save my money for other releases anyway having 2 of the JT packs already.

Its worth remembering that A4s DID occasionally run over Woodhead in the years before electrification. Alright, its not massively long, but that climb out of Manchester is sure to make it puff....

stuart666 wrote:Its worth remembering that A4s DID occasionally run over Woodhead in the years before electrification. Alright, its not massively long, but that climb out of Manchester is sure to make it puff....

They did? i must go back and reread my old books again as i cant recall seeing any mention of such a thing occurring not that i exactly looked for such a thing but you know what they say you learn something new everyday

trainfan11111 wrote:

stuart666 wrote:Its worth remembering that A4s DID occasionally run over Woodhead in the years before electrification. Alright, its not massively long, but that climb out of Manchester is sure to make it puff....

They did? i must go back and reread my old books again as i cant recall seeing any mention of such a thing occurring not that i exactly looked for such a thing but you know what they say you learn something new everyday

I ought to qualify my statement. Certainly an A4 got to Sheffield Victoria at the very least as can be seen with this photograph.
http://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/50s/560512ia.html

This said, im certain ive either seen a photograph of one eastbound at the reservoir heading towards woodhead, or at the very least least ive read that one was seen. This may sound very unlikely, but during WW2 they were often using A4s to haul anything that was needed, including freight. So unless there is some gauging reason why it wasnt done, it seems plausible to me at least. Im just frankly annoyed I cant find the picture im convinced I have seen of it. Perhaps it was in a magazine.

Apologies I cant give any certain details of it, but I think its probably something worth researching further. They certainly seem to have run A4s on the rest of the Great Central till London Midland Region took it over.

If its worth anything, quite likely Sir Nigel Gresley got to Dinting in the late 70s or early 80s anyway. Everything else did.

Just such a beast here: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/new-electric-railway

Although that particular A4 would probably have worked a return service back to London after a visit to Darnall shed.

theorganist wrote:

crumplezone wrote:Not to cause a regional war, but the LNER A4s were built to look elegant and fast with the streamlining and weren't particularly wanting to display the image of hellfire and "dirty" steam engine which people were being twisted towards in opinion in the mid years of steam. Granted the LMS brutes were a sight to behold on the mainline and especially when they are slogging it or at speed but after the steamlining was removed from the Duchies they were pretty much just a huge stonking loco with a blackhole for a firebox

Agree with this I think the A4's are extremely elegant and one of the best looking steamers, I personally think the streamlining on the Dutchess was actually a bit ugly and much prefer them without!

Flaming the regional war further, I still think there is nothing more elegant than a GWR 4-6-0 however

Peter

Yep - the streamlined Duchess was a little ugly and dare I say 'phallic' in appearance. Agree with you there. I'm not too keen on the 'semi' look either with the dented down smokebox front. But as a big stonking loco, with a big black hole of a firebox, it is a sight to behold.

The A4 isn't bad either, but I prefer the look of them with the skirt missing.

You can keep your copper clad chimneys however Though I do like Prairies, Panniers, your big 2-8-0 good engines and that cute 0-4-2 tank from the Titfield thunderbolt. I'd love a go on one of them!!!

spellow3010 wrote: Yep - the streamlined Duchess was a little ugly and dare I say 'phallic' in appearance.

Must say, that's never crossed my mind! The big difference between the coronations and A4s in terms of their streamlining is that the streamlining of an A4 was designed using a wind tunnel with aerodynamics taken into great consideration and significantly reduced the amount of tractive effort required at the higher speeds compared to an A3. To give some figures, at 100mph, the theoretical hp required to overcome air resistance is 450.92 for an A3 and 261.36 for an A4, therefore the streamlining of the A4 gave a saving of 189.56HP (Townend, 1982). The coronation cladding, I think, was mostly cosmetic and certainly wasn't very effective until the very highest of speeds. They were very fast because they were very powerful, and I think the LNER recognised this, otherwise they might have let the LMS trial a coronation on the relatively flat ECML for a fair competition.

Chris

Reference:

Townend, P.N. (1982) East Coast Pacifics at work. Shepperton: Ian Allan Ltd.

spellow3010 wrote:
Yep - the streamlined Duchess was a little ugly and dare I say 'phallic' in appearance. Agree with you there. I'm not too keen on the 'semi' look either with the dented down smokebox front. But as a big stonking loco, with a big black hole of a firebox, it is a sight to behold.

The A4 isn't bad either, but I prefer the look of them with the skirt missing.

You can keep your copper clad chimneys however Though I do like Prairies, Panniers, your big 2-8-0 good engines and that cute 0-4-2 tank from the Titfield thunderbolt. I'd love a go on one of them!!!

Lol not noticed the Phallic thing either!!

I do think a bit of copper makes all the difference!

Peter

theorganist wrote:
...... I personally think the streamlining on the Dutchess was actually a bit ugly and much prefer them without!

Peter

I believe Stanier himself was not a fan of the streamlining, but was pressurised by his bosses to put it on for cosmetic purposes, although I too agree they look much better without it.

Regards,

Len

Nah he didn't like it. Turned out to be not that successful anyway, down mainly to maintenance reasons as well as actually adding weight to the locomotive, so there was no real benefit other than the looks and impression of speed.

I wonder how effective the USA stream-liners were? It would be nice to see them in TS2013 one day.

How about a copper chimney AND streamlining?

I don't think the GWR took it too seriously