Elegant Steam Notes

3D

2011-04-10T01:51:00.002+02:00

Here I am playing about with 3D again when I haven't even finished those on the web site. But there you go - bouncing between projects. That's the fun of it, I suppose. I'm doing a Gresley full brake at the moment (Diag 113 for the purists ). The sides, ends and roof are all virtually finished - just few bells and whistles. I'll probably start the underframe tomorrow but the Malaysian Formula 1 is on. so we'll see. At least, I don't have to create a Gresley bogie as I have one of those in my library.

Received another book this week, Midland Locomotives Part One. Fantastic book and well worth buying for the MR buffs.

The Midland 800 Class is coming along as well, as I mentioned. I've done it as at about 1880 so it's in the green livery. Only the tender to do then I'll post it.

The trouble is that the weather is warmimg up, around 24C now. Everything is growing madly and some of those are weeds, so I'll just have to spend some time outside. My wife went down to collect the post (we don't get post delivered to the house) and mentioned that the tourists are starting to appear. You can always spot them as they are all a whiter shade of pale!

Pity that round here (Costa de la Luz) is that there doesn't seem to be any model railway enthusiasts, so that chances of starting some sort of club seem bleak. Pity.

Playing Catch Up

2011-04-01T15:23:00.002+02:00

Doesn't the time flash by when you're enjoying yourself ? It's been well over a year since I last posted, hence the Catch Up.

Over the last twelve months I've been trying to partially finish with the later locomotives hence the appearance of No 10000, St Mawes Castle, The Princess Royal, etc.
This led to the creation of one or two much earlier locomotives right back to the 1850's with Sturrock's GNR Single and also his steam tender adventure. (Incidentally, the MS & LR had some steam tender locomotives as well). There will be more early types as time goes by. These can't be bought off the shelf, of course, so, for the adventerous, it's scratch building !!

My first attempt at scratch building went against the advice common at the time which was to start with an 0-6-0. Not me - I went straight for an LMS Jubilee. From time to time (which was most of the time) I rather regretted my decision but I learned a hell of a lot about bending and annealing brass sheet, soldering, sprung drivers and how to attach side springs to a front bogie. All in all, a good time was had by all - well, not all, my wife did have a few words to say about men with obsessional hobbies !!

My current project is a Midland 800 Class 2-4-0 in the pre 1882 green livery. The colour is a bit of a problem in that it appears the it could have been a lightish Brunswick Green or, on some locomotives, a shade or two lighter. Anyway I've gone for a sort of Brunswick Green.

I've been buying books lately. Well, I buy books all the time mainly via Abe Books who have a great service. I always pay by Paypal and have never had a problem. Recent buys have been:
- LNER Carriages - Michael Harris. This is a reprint of his earlier (1973)book on the subject but in a bigger format and with added material. Pity that the error regarding the size of the coach letters on the side of the Silver Jubilee coaches was included. (It states that they were 4ins high when, in fact, they were 12in letters.). For all that, it's a good book and worth buying if you're into LNER.
- Midland Locomotives - Essery & Jenkinson. This follows the style of many of the books by these two authors and it's a cracker. These two guys were real experts in the field (and other fields) and if you're into the Midland this is for you. I'm always fascinated at the high quality of the photos taken from about 1880 - huge cameras with plate glass slides being humped around the place. Thank goodness they did or we (the enthusiasts) would be much poorer.

That's enough Catch Up - the sun is shining !!

Busy when it Rains

2010-03-08T01:43:00.002+01:00

Another rainy Sunday meant putting up new light fittings, hanging new things on the walls that my wife bought, etc, etc.

But I did manage to do some graphics work. A Great Northern A1 "Sir Frederick Banbury" is slowing taking shape in the 3D Room while in the 2D Room yet another LNER A4 is coming together nicely. This will be 4487 Sea Eagle in the short lived apple green livery with the black front end taken right back to the first boiler band. Yes, it was quite horrible and, thank goodness,didn't last long when all the apple green A4's were repainted with the familiar black sweeping smoke box curves. Still they existed in the former livery and so will be illustrated. After all, that is what www.elegantsteam.com is all about.

The sharp eyed will have noted the latest upload - a Furness Railway Baltic tank (4-6-4T) engine. I had a lot of trouble with the body colour. A brick red colour NOT to be confused with MR or LMS red.

Thanks to John Fitton who noted my errors on 6228 Duchess of Rutland. He pointed out that the tender should not be fitted with rear frame mounted steps on the tender. He's absolutely right, of course. 6228 was originally a streamlined locomotive in red and gold and, upon destreamlining, the tender was cut down but the curved rear mounted tender ladder was retained. It was a 10ton tender as well with higher sides. A new tender is currently under construction in the 2D Room and will attached to 6228 upon completion. Thanks John.

Onward and upward

In the Workshop in February

2010-02-15T01:58:00.004+01:00

And the rain pours down in Southern Spain. Anyway it lets me get into the Workshop (actually my PC) to get on with a variety of projects. There is a Great North of Scotland Railway Corridor Composite of 1898. This is a brick red colour, perhaps slightly darker with creamy white upper panels and yellow lining. Very striking. Then there is a Dunalastair II of the Caledonian, though I'm waiting for a copy of Jim Mackintosh's new livery register so a slight delay there
And finally. I've tackled the longish process of the complete LNER Coronation train. Coach A is complete and Coach B is nearly there. These will replace the twin sets of the West Riding Ltd already published. There isn't enough detail to be seen in the twin set views for them to interesting so they'll be replaced by the Coronation train as single coaches. The two trains were identical anyway (apart from the Coronation observation coach already published) so anyone thinking of a LNER Coronation set for their layout will get a good idea of what their completed model might look like.

I applaud anyone who has made a model of the Coronation observation coach. Lot of sweat and tears on that one, I think.

Already being redrawn is a Cardean Class 4-6-0 of the Caledonian, and I'm thinking of a couple of locomotives from Southern Companies. Perhaps from the LSWR and LBSCR.

Tata

Streamlined Trains

2010-01-14T10:31:00.003+01:00

Every week or so I like to check the statistics on my site, partly to see where where my visitors are coming from and partly to check which pages are the most popular. It never ceases to amaze me at the popularity of the LNER and LMS streamlined trains sections. They are, by a wide margin, areas where visitors linger. I suppose it's because the trains are colourful and still give an aura of modernity. Both the silver of the Silver Jubilee and the blue and silver of the Coronation Scot stand out against the corporate liveries of their railways but with style.

Having said all that I look at the liveries of the present day railways and find them rather garish and consequently cheap looking. I was watching Portillo's railway series currently on TV and was not really surprised at the livery of the Northern Rail (is that right?) vehicles that were shown. Purple and Blue ?? What idiot thought of that combination? Less of a livery more of an advertisement. The idea of style seems to have gone completely out of the window and the responsibility for the livery handed over to those who successfully completed a one week course on public relations or media studies or some such.

Other railways fare no better with the use of garish colours that clash and go faster stripes. It was ironic last week when I read that stranded passengers had to rely on a steam hauled train to get them away - hauled by Tornado, no less. And all because an environmentally polluting tin can couldn't handle adverse conditions.

No commercial manufacturer, to my knowledge has attempted to produce a complete streamlined train. Hornby did an abbreviated version of Silver Jubilee, a locomotive and two coaches, that were just quick repaint jobs. The coaches didn't have the characteristic deep valences and, in my view, were just playthings although an enthusiastic modeller could have upgraded them to something decent.

So the modeller who would like a complete streamlined train on his/her layout has to rely on brass etched kits (not for the faint hearted), bespoke models (very expensive)or do what I had to do - scratch build. I would have thought that the introduction of a basic set to be augmented by further coach addons might be the way to go. Rather like Meccano did years ago when you could start out quite small and, as your enthusiasm grew, then add the "a" series kits thus building up to, if you wished, to the mighty Set 10. I actually wrote to Hornby about this but, as is usual in such cases, never had a reply.

Enough !!

And the rain pours down

2010-01-09T01:51:00.003+01:00

Yes, it's the rainy season in Southern Spain and another good day to stay inside and carry on with new illustrations. Mind you, by the middle of February the rain will stop and we won't get any more until at least October. We rely on deep wells for our water supply and there has to be a good flow at the 150-200 foot level plus several rain water tanks to be filled, so I'm not complaining.

New illustrations to be added very soon will be a GWR full brake (side and end views) from around 1903 and two more additions to the Coronation Scot American train.

Incidentally, if any visitors to my site (elegantsteam.com) from the USA have any knowledge of photographs taken at the time (1939) of the Coronation Scot during its time in the USA could they please get in touch. I would be delighted to have news. I know that the train created quite a stir during its visit and someone, somewhere must have taken photographs. Including the newspapers as well, of course. I can be reached via the Comment page on the site.

New Uploads

2009-12-30T00:55:00.002+01:00

At last I have finished No 2002 Earl Marischal and uploaded it. I'm quite pleased with it as it was a locomotive that I wanted to illustrate for some time.

The Silver Jubilee coaching stock has now been changed (or most of it) to show the coach ID letters in blue.

After receiving an interesting email I am mulling over the possibilities of including end and rear views. I think that I'll publish one or two and see how it goes.

Tata

Catch Up

2009-12-19T17:45:00.003+01:00

I haven't posted anything for quite a while, I notice. I wasn't sure if this blog thing was a good idea. Any way, I'll try it again for a while.

I'm still staggered at the number of hits that I'm getting on the site - nearly 45000 in 7 months. This relates to over 15000 visitors from all over the world. When I started to produce the illustrations I did it purely for me. We've all seen lots of black and white photos which don't bring out the grandeur of the locomotives while coaches - well, they're just coaches. But put them into colour and that's a whole new ballgame. So I shared them by creating a website and I'm glad that I did.

There will be errors, of course, bound to be if one is trying to interpret a verbal description of a colour from 50 or 100 years ago. Thank goodness some clever people collated lots of information at the time before it was all lost.

Since the last post there have been quite a few changes. The 1937 LMS Coronation Scot is now posted together a page showing the whole train. I've numbered them from one set only but, in fact, there were three sets all with different numbers of course, but the sets were identical.

The NBR is at last represented with a Reid Atlantic. I had a lot of trouble deciding on the colour for this one, in fact, according what I read, the NBR had the same trouble at the time.

Others include No 2510 Quicksilver, 46228 Duchess of Rutland, a Raven Pacific, etc. And so it goes. LNER No 2002 Earl Marischal should be posted this week.

A bit of a controversy regarding the colour of the identity letters carried on the Silver Jubilee coaches. I have always been sure that they were stainless steel and about 10ins in height. Harris (Gresley's Coaches) states that they were blue in colour and only 4ins high. Recently I had a mail from Nick Campling who tells of a conversation with the paint shop foreman at Doncaster who was in the paint shop at the time of the construction of the coaches. The foreman stated that the letters were, in blue, a cobalt blue. This would about RGB 30-0-163 or #2700A3 on a monitor set to 2.2gamma at 6500K. This is obviously good provenance and my illustrations of the letters on the Silver Jubilee coaches will be amended accordingly.

Enough for now. Regards

2009-12-19T11:33:00.002+01:00

Merry Christmas to all visitors to Elegant Steam

Check out the website HERE

North British Railway (NBR)

2009-07-05T00:23:00.002+02:00

It's about time that I added an illustration or two to the NBR section. The problem is that the liveries are confusing, to say the least. E F Carter's book gives some information but even that (usually my mainstay) is less than clear in areas. So, if anyone has any information or leads that I can use please mail me at - mail@elegantsteam.com.

Opera Browser

2009-07-05T00:13:00.003+02:00

I downloaded Opera Browser tonight. Anyone who runs a web site needs to know how that site will look like on different browsers. I knew that while Internet Explorer and Firefox are the most popular browsers that my visitors use and handle the site well I noted that Opera is the third most popular. So I downloaded it and tried it out. The interface was rather different, of course, but there was no steep learning curve. Two features that stand out are the Speed Dial and the Magnify tools. These I will use when testing - very useful indeed. Anyway the site looks good on Opera so there we are - another useful tool.

Visitors

2009-07-01T00:40:00.002+02:00

Elegant Steam (www.elegantsteam.com) has now been on the net for 5 weeks and in that time it has received over 4000 visitors. Amazing!!! When I first started it I thought that there would be a small interest but the sheer number of visitors is rather astounding. The site is non commercial butI have to admit that I have wondered that if I produced colour prints, say, in A3 size, what would be the reaction ? I have to say at this point that I am not thinking of going commercial. My illustrations are really for my own enjoyment and if someone likes them as well, that's great.

Have you ever had the aggravation of waiting for something to happen and it doesn't? I'm at that stage at the moment. Living in Southern Spain with a wife and two siamese cats means that any books I need have to be sent for from UK (sometime USA). Usually they arrive in a week but, right now, I'm waiting for two books on Pullman cars in order to finish an illustration of a 6PUL composite diner. And I'm still waiting !!

Today I added a Google translator to a few pages on the site. I tried it out in preview and it seemed to work OK when translating into Spanish. I just that it will do the same when translating into other languages. We'll see.

Streamlined Trains

2009-06-09T22:24:00.002+02:00

I started my web site - www.elegantsteam.com - only 5 weeks ago and can't get over the surprise of seeing so many hits, over 2100, on what is, after all, only of interest to steam railway enthusiasts. British ones at that. Analysing the stats tells me that the LNER is currently the most popular and, digging deeper, I find that the streamlined trains, ie, the Coronation, the West Riding Ltd and the Silver Jubilee, take pole position for viewing.

I don't find this altogether too surprising as I, too, have always been fascinated by them. The sheer glamour and bezazz of these trains can only bring out "Wow" sounds. This reaction can only be got from photographs, eyewitness acounts and the few films that are available for most people but for me ? A bit different as I saw the West Riding Ltd on several occasions when I was but a boy. Even at that young age I was speechless at the sight of this magnificent blue train and wanted to see it again and again. Of course, I was in love with the A3's and all the A4's, but that blue train !! The nonchalance of the driver as he leaned out his cab talking with my Dad, the huge bulk of the blue A4 locomotive. Memories such as these tend to be burned into one's brain so that it was as yesterday.

However, currently I'm working on the Silver Jubilee set. As will be seen on the site I already have Coach A. I'm now working on Coach C, an all first open. I think that I have the grey sides slightly better than those published so I'll probably rework Coach A.

Another project, still in planning, is the LMS 1939 Coronation Scot set in red and gold. The coach sets were definitely one-offs and need some research before I put pen to tablet.

That's it for today. Keep visiting and I hope that you enjoy. I don't get much feedback, negative or positive, so I must be doing something right!

Brown Jack

Thoughts on my Web Site

2009-05-29T01:32:00.004+02:00

When I started my web site at - www.elegantsteam.com - I thought that a few people would visit to gaze at their favourite locomotives and think of times long ago when they were much younger and the magnificent machines would represent going somewhere different, for some people anywhere different. That might still be the case but if it is then there are a lot of folks who want something different in their lives. In these troubled times I don't blame them.

Back to the point - Nearly 150 people have visited my web site over the last three days. I am amazed. I don't rate myself as a top notch illustrator and I'm not. However I have to say I'm pleased with my results so far. If I'm not happy with an illustration then I bin it and start again.
So - Thanks to all those that visit and I hope that they bring back happy memories.

And in the beginning

2009-03-23T12:31:00.002+01:00

It's taken a long time to to get up the ?? courage to start this blog and I'm still not sure why I've done it. Anyway, it's done now and I'll just have to see what happens. I have views like anyone on lots of things. Don't we all ? Some, of course, are best kept to ones self, but there is a lot of good stuff to share, I'm sure.
One thing that I notice already - I will have to keep an eye on my grammar. It's the only way, I think, to make sure that I say what I mean. God knows I have much trouble in getting to grips with Spanish grammar without making a hash in my own language.
So - today is the start. Let's see how it goes.

Tata
Brown Jack