Meeting Report

WLMS St Albans 2009

Pictures by Alan Blake and Chris Bourne

Our annual exhibition at the Francis Bacon School in St Albans was once again blessed with an abundance of sunshine, which certainly works to the advantage of those modellers at St Albans Model Engineering Society, our hosts, with their outdoor steam engines and boats.

Indoors, we had a good-sized stable of locomotives to display. Eddie Oatley brought his demonstration of two industrial locomotives, both saddle tanks, one an 0-6-0 and the other a little 0-4-0 Hunslet.  These ran very sweetly on double track arranged with a third pick-up rail and drew a suitably admiring crowd of children who all wanted to see trains “under steam” rather than sitting, stately but motionless, “on shed”.

Spurred by Eddie’s admonition I tried to get my Class 20 diesel moving, and its four black French motors, one on each axle, did shift it up and down the sleepered track when demanded, as long as it was allowed to rest in between these modest movements. Each axle is fully suspended, and the body is decked out in Rail freight grey livery from the 1980s. The whole model is “pure” Meccano not for any ideological reasons, but just because it struck me as being just about possible.

Eddie tells me that he learned how to get his models working properly from the late Bob Ford, and I am sure many of us will miss his advice and friendship for a long, long time. Fortunately Jim McCulloch has acquired his Climax Logging locomotive as a permanent reminder of our old friend’s genius. Jim brought a wide variety of models, but his 100-ton dockyard crane towered above them all. This freelance model includes fully equalised travelling bogies, and a footstep bearing for the superstructure and jib. The model is still unfinished - the tower, while now fully functional, needs proper bracing. Nevertheless it’s a fine example of its kind and full of Jim’s own engineering expertise, with many little twists that he’s developed over the years.

As well as the crane I’d like to single out his Waddin Steam Cross-Compound Pumping Engine which was also exhibited this year at Kew: very appropriately, since that is now its permanent home. It was originally used in Croydon, pumping 2.8 million gallons of water a day, and remained there until 1983 when it was sent to a well-earned retirement at Kew Bridge Steam Museum.

Colin Davies had a display of models related to the 150th anniversary of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, undoubtedly the iconic engineer of the Victorian era. This was an opportunity to view Colin’s models of the SS Great Eastern and SS Great Britain’s marine engine, two very different beasts, but full of Brunel’s energetic and forward- looking imagination.

Dave Collins had a steam engine of a different ilk - a horizontally opposed hypocycloidal engine, based on the Murray patent of 1802.

Dave also brought an addition to our St Albans locomotive stable - the Hunslet 0-6-0 single rail Lartigue locomotive from the Listowel and Ballybunion railway in County Kerry. Built in 1888, this railway hit on the novel idea of building a monorail on trestles which could be raised or lowered to take account of uneven ground, without having to spend money on levelling it. This arrangement precluded the use of points, so to change tracks, turntables had to be used. But the main drawback was that, perched on a single rail on top of the trestles, the locomotives and trains had to be perfectly balanced: two boilers, two smokestacks, and two cylinders. The tender had two double-flanged wheels which could also be driven by a geared auxiliary engine for dealing with heavy loads on gradients; when in use it was engaged by a friction clutch, so the machinery would not be driven uselessly in normal operation. This makes a wheel configuration of 0-3-0 + 0-2-0, which must surely be almost unique in the history of locomotive engineering during . The railway was eventually blown up in 1924 during the Irish independence conflict.

Meanwhile, back in London, a different war was brewing: the Battle of London’s Eye.

The London Eye is of course that massive big wheel on the South Bank of the Thames which was built as a temporary attraction for the millennium celebrations but has now become a permanent fixture.

Alan Wenbourne brought his enormous version of the wheel, which is in two scales at the same time. The wheel itself is to a scale of 1:120 but the capsules are at 1:45. Alan explains that at the 1:120 scale it was impossible to model the capsules in the detail he wanted, and therefore the compromise was made.

The overall diameter of the wheel is 48” and Alan built a jig of MDF on which to construct it, so that it ran true. In the prototype, the whole wheel is mounted on cables and a jib so it hangs out over the river. The 40lb weight of wheel and capsules in this case made it necessary to put a nose strut  under the wheel because the axle kept bending! So far, so good, and Alan won 2nd prize at this year’s Skegex competition.

Enter Paul Joachim. Paul’s London Eye is a little smaller but has capsules - modelled from polystyrene hemispheres - in scale with the whole and in the correct number. At the same time, having a much lighter frame strung with cord rather than steel strips and axle rods, his wheel has been set up so that the angle pillars and cables at the rear successfully hold the wheel at the correct angle without destroying the axle. A sensor mechanism also provides an automatic rectification should the wheel move out of alignment: just as the real thing does, if the wind gets up and alters the wheel’s position. I hope to publish more details of Paul’s version in a future issue.

Paul had another model on show except this time he hadn’t built it. Dennis Remnant’s superb recreation of Paul’s Franco-Crosti 9F 2- 0- “Britannia” loco is a splendid beast, painted black and provided with some marvellous detailing, including the British  Rail crest. Surely the finest design by BR’s chief engineer, Robert Riddles! The Class 9F was the last in a series of standardised locomotive classes designed for British Railways during the 1950s, and was intended for use on fast, heavy freight trains over long distances. It was one of the most powerful steam locomotive types ever constructed in Britain, and successfully performed its intended duties.

Roger Marriott brought his evocative representation of his parish church in Maldon. Not only has he captured the splendid lines of the architecture in blue and gold, but inside the details runs stained glass windows and an organ, complete with organist. Roger also had his famous magician, who assiduously made his Dinky toys disappear and reappear with a spark of magic from the glowing tip of his magic wand.

It’s always good to see John and Cynthia MacDonald, especially when there are so many demands on John’s time these days. Among the array of excellent military models and classic racing cars my camera picked out a Thorneycroft Amazon with Coles crane fitted on the rear. This is a classic subject for Meccano modelling and yet it is unmistakably John’s work. Magnificent!

Peter Goddard had his Appleby Traversing Titan of 1896, a very large area of Meccano that’s difficult to capture effectively on camera. I hope to this model more justice in future issues as it bears much detailed study.

I am already running out of space with little room for more than a mention of Robin Throp’s Bayko Tower, Keith Stanley’s WWI rotary aero engine,  Peter Harwood demonstrating  his “00” set, and of course Bryn Jones’ “Cube Caper” entry. As always we were made exceptionally welcome by St Alban’s Model Engineering Society, to whom our sincere thanks are due. The fabulous “City of Truro” model below won the Miniature Railway trophy for modeller Peter Haycock. What a beautiful thing!