According to Chris…
…It’s no coincidence that our models exhibit a particular suitability for extraordinary settings
Chris discusses the research involved in our upcoming ‘16XX’ exclusive model.
Recently, a reader remarked on Model Rail’s Facebook page that he could not recall having ever seen ‘16XX’ 0-6-0PT No. 1661 carrying the chalked Vinegar Castle name when he used to see it in Worcester. We research all our exclusive models very carefully and in this instance the model accurately represents No. 1661 as it appears in Irwell Press’ The Pannier Papers No. 5.
So far, all our exclusive models, the Sentinel, ‘USA’, ‘J70’ and the ‘16XX’ have been researched by the editors at the time, Ben Jones and Richard Foster. They had input from me and from several experts outside the editorial team. But, for my part, I’m less interested in the individual detail differences between members of the same class than I am about the settings in which they operated. Whether those settings helped to influence the choice of prototype, I’m not sure, but looking back over them, they are all so special that they would have been hard to ignore.
I recall, when the Sentinel was first mooted, Nigel Harris drew my attention to a picture of an Eastern Region Departmental Sentinel dwarfed by a huge stack of sleepers at the Lowestoft Works where wooden sleepers were impregnated with creosote. The locomotive on which we based the Sentinel was the preserved example at Quainton Road. This was formerly Isebrook, which operated at a quarry in Burton Latimer, near Kettering, Northamptonshire. My son lives in Burton and taught for a while at the Ise Academy in Kettering. The quarry site is a short walk from his home but has disappeared under a large Morrisons depot. I found a photograph of Isebrook in battered green paint still with its name, and operating as an unpowered brake van. I have a Model Rail
Sentinel set aside for a conversion. We chose not to issue our Sentinel as Isebrook because it seems not to have run as a locomotive in green as named and because it had some locally made alterations. However, I’m pleased to see that Dapol has produced an
‘O’ gauge Isebrook.
The idea to model the ‘USA’ 0-6-0T really appealed to me, mainly due to a visit I had made, as a teenager, to Southampton Docks. I had (to my eternal dismay) not taken a single number of a ‘USA’ despite the fact that I probably saw
them all! I was too captivated by the ships, particularly the RMS Queen Elizabeth, the SS United States, and SS Bremen. I would still like to model a major dock scene one day.
The ‘J70’, of course, prompted my little model based on Newcommon Bridge at Wisbech with H.B. Brown’s general store and the Wisbech & Upwell tramway on its doorstep. I used a Tim Horn baseboard so that it will be easy to extend that little diorama. I particularly want to model the chapel in Elm, with the tramway right outside.
Now, the ‘16XX’ project is nearing its climax with the arrival of production models from China not too far off. Again, we’ve chosen a locomotive class which is right at home in some very special settings. On a personal level, I have a couple of my brother’s photographs of a ‘16XX’ at Kemble with the Cirencester-branded ‘Toad’ brake van. Tetbury branch freight traffic had ended by then but a lightweight ‘16XX’ had been required for that branch, not for Cirencester. No. 1664 performed its last duty on the Tetbury branch just a couple of days before complete closure of the line. It worked the end of term special for Westonbirt Girls School, hauling a full brake and two LMS Stanier coaches.
Outside my personal experience, the ‘16XXS’ worked in some idyllic locations, particularly on the minor routes within the Forest of Dean, the Cleobury Mortimer & Ditton Priors Light Railway and the so-called Vinegar branch at Worcester. Here, the railway served the world’s largest producer of vinegar, much-needed for preserving food in the days before widespread access to refrigerators.
As if that wasn’t enough, two members of the ‘16XX’ class emigrated to the north of Scotland to work the lightly laid branch from The Mound to Dornoch when the indigenous Highland Railway 0-4-4T suffered a broken crank axle and the ‘16XXS’ were the only available locomotives with a light enough axle loading.
For more on the Vinegar branch and the remarkable Hill, Evans & Co vinegar works, turn to page 70.
To my dismay, I didn’t take a single number of a ‘USA’, but probably saw them all!
Modeller CV: Chris Leigh
Time to start thinking about where the Brighton ‘E1’ 0-6-0Ts worked – they had it painted on their tank sides!