Built & reviewed by John Cockcroft Gazette August 2015 (Vol 18 Issue No.8)
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Completed model of the A6

Not many of you will have heard of NER Days kits because Steve Hoyle who manufactures them does not seem to either advertise them or attend shows, but relies on word of mouth and ‘the knowledge’ amongst North Eastern Railway enthusiasts. They used to be known as Medley Models but at some point the name was changed, though I think the manufacturer is the same. The range is quite large and includes prototypes for which there is only a very restricted market. All this makes the range really interesting to those of us who like the NER and enjoy obscure and rarely modelled prototypes.
The finished A8

I was asked to model the A8 from photos taken while it was on the scrap line at Darlington in about 1960, whereas the A6 is represented in happier times about 1923-6. I purchased the Isinglass drawings for both locos and found them absolutely invaluable. I also had both the RCTS Locomotives of the LNER Part 7 and Yeadon- Register Volume 21 to hand. Both are pretty essential. Ken Hoole's book on NER Locomotives has some good early photos of the A6. The A8 of course is not an NER loco but an adaptation of one.

Once I had the chassis assembled and running with the wheels and rods in place, it was tested using temporary leads to the motor. I then turned to the footplate units. The H1 had wooden buffer beams but these were changed to steel on conversion to A8, so I cut off the fold-over representation of the thicker beams and used only the front face. This left the footplate valance about 4mm too short, so I cut it near the rear and fitted in a short extra part supported by a strip of scrap etch behind the join.

I try to attach any detail that is easier to fit prior to, or during, assembly of the main body parts. Forming the flare at the top of the bunker rear was quite difficult because of the thickness of the metal, but I made a fair fist of it. I fitted the rear lamp iron, step and horizontal handrails before assembly, and also measured and checked the tank side units against the footplate, and made and fitted the cab cut-out beading from thin strips of brass from my scrap box. On the A6 I made the beading radius at the corners a bit wider curve than the etched radius so that it matched the Isinglass drawing, and filled in the corner gaps with solder. On the A8 I filed off an etched rebate round the cab cut-out because I preferred to use thin strip as beading rather than the recommended wire. At the front of the tanks I scribed and filed out the half etched bending line so that the corner of the tank fronts is as sharp as I could get it. I strengthened the corner with a fillet of solder.

I then moved on to the front frames and locating the boiler. The etched front frames on the A6 were too shallow and I replaced them using the etching supplied as a profile for the top curve. The boiler on the A8 was over length and I cut it so that the rear of the smokebox fitted at the top of the upward sweep of the frames. On the A8 the opening on the cab front to take the boiler was too big because the kit is designed to represent the original H1 boiler, so I used a card template to mark and cut out a filling plate that was soldered into the recess.

The A8 kit does not include The A8 kit does not include any representation of the snap head rivets later used on the smokebox so I made a thin riveted wrapper from brass shim and soldered it over the smokebox. The A6 is modelled at an earlier period when they used flush rivets. I carefully fitted the smokebox base between the frames and cut the boiler to length, and when I was sure everything was in line and horizontal, soldered them to both the front footplate and the cab front. I now had things that looked like an A8 and an A6.

Prior to assembly, I wisely checked the fit of the cylinder front and rear etches against the footplate and found that they are etched too narrow. They had to be cut and resoldered using a scrap of waste etch so that they are 4mm wider. This enables the cylinder wrappers to come up to meet the footplate valance as in the prototype. The crosshead and slidebars are lost wax nickel silver castings that are quite good once the slightly grainy surface has been kissed away with the file. I had to do a bit of digging out of the recess in the crosshead with a burr on a mini drill to clear the little end of the con rod, but that was soon done. I found the rest of the cylinder unit went together pretty well, but I drilled and fitted lengths of wire into the front cover rather than punch out the rivets. I used thin etched waste strip to represent the drain cock mechanism.

From the 1950s, drives fitted to the front crank pin on both sides of the engine. In anticipation of this I made a couple of brackets soldered to the top of the frames to take the top pivot of the drive mechanism just behind the footplate valance. During all these shenanigans the A6 sat happily on one side feeling smug with its simplicity. However its time would come when I had to fit the bogie brake mechanism and Westinghouse pump.

The completed chassis for the A8

I generally use the plunger pickups supplied by Gladiator. Although they are quite large, there is a lot of room in the chassis on these engines to take them. I considered the best locations and drilled suitable quarter inch holes behind the wheel rims. I glued the pickups in place and wired them to a copper clad strip under the motor from which I took short wires to the motor terminals.

The components in the kit for the brake gear seemed to be a bit crude and on the A8 I replaced them with some white metal products from JPL. On the A6 I also got some white metal replacements, but I found that the hangers were not long enough and so cut off the blocks and slotted them to take the hangers provided with the kit, which are longer. The brake pull rods on both locos appear to be the single type running down the centre line of the chassis, but the A8 kit has enough for two sets. So with a bit of cutting and messing I used them for both locos. The A8 has prominent sandboxes to the rear of the cab steps and I adapted some cast boxes I bought at a show, then used spare sandbox lid castings from my scrap box glued on top. I fabricated steam sanding mechanisms from fine tube and wire soldered together to look about right.

The front bogies on the two engines are different, partly because of the different periods in which they are represented. Up to the 1930s, the A6 had bogie brakes which are quite complicated with a cylinder operating the two brake shoes via various rods and levers. I spent about five hours messing about with some scrap 4mm brake shoes, bits of filed brass and some brass tube to create an impression of the brake gear. It is worth doing well because it is quite obvious and distinctive. The main worry with the bogie on the A8 is clearance around the cylinders and I took up a suggestion in the instructions to lengthen the bogie wheelbase to a scale seven feet so that the wheels clear the cylinders a bit better, though I had to be careful with the guard irons because the wheels then fouled them until I had filed them clear.

I avoided the toy train-style voids above the bogie wheels, where the frames are cut out over scale to clear the wheels, by fitting scrap etch plates behind the rear arches packed in by a couple of millimetres to allow side play. To avoid excessive side play, I soldered a couple of short lengths of 0.7mm wire vertically from inside the rear of the bogie frame so that they project between the mainframes and stop the bogie moving too far but still allow some flexibility of movement. At the front where there is obviously more sideplay needed, I fitted a single plate between the frames to block the light over the top half of the wheels. This is in line with my principle that if it looks good forget the prototype – this is a model after all.

The chassis were now ready to be reassembled and tested but first I painted them with grey primer and then matt black car paint. I weathered the A6 chassis because it is easier done at this stage than later, but the A8 will be an unweathered model. I always get edgy when I reassemble a chassis – have I done something wrong that would suddenly come leaping out and get me? However apart from clearing up some minor stiffness and carefully adding each component in order, I found that both chassis ran perfectly without any lubricant whatsoever, which is my ideal. Of course I will lubricate them because they will run a bit more smoothly, but more importantly for a lot longer.

From the early 1950s, the A8s had the lubricator driven from the front crank pin by way of a crank and rocking lever. Oddly this is not shown on the Isinglass drawing so I had to sketch it in. In effect it resembles the back half of Walschearts’ valve gear but much finer. I fabricated this on each side using scrap bits from valve gear etches, but any thin brass or nickel silver strip would do. I joined the parts using 14 BA screws secured with solder, set the drive crank a bit forward and made the throw 4mm so that appropriate movement was produced on the rocking lever under the footplate.

Part of the reassembly was to ensure that the bodies fitted the chassis, that there were no rubbing or shorting points, and to sort out any problems before there is delicate detail to damage. I then began the home run by making new cab roofs and fitted them using plates and lugs that engage on the cab sides and ends, enabling access inside the cab. The cab roofs in the kit were a tad small or had too much etched detail that was a bit crude so I made new ones out of brass. I fitted rain strips and ventilators using the Isinglass drawings and photos as a guide.

The coal cage fitted to most A8s is well etched in the kit, and after cleaning up the cusps really looks the part. On the A6 kit, the etched coal rails are flat and too far apart, so I reversed the etched parts and soldered half-round wire to the outside as per the drawing and photos. I also fabricated some wire guard rails for the rear cab windows of the A6 because they appear on some photos while the locos still had NER livery. I should have done this while the cab rear was in the flat, but we live and learn.

Next I moved along the top of the models and marked and drilled pilot holes for all the fittings that would be added later. These included the chimney, dome and safety valve, but also the handrails, washout plugs and some operating rods on the A6. I also marked the locations of the boiler bands. There is a useful diagram in the instructions for much of this but the Isinglass drawing is better. I then made the washout plugs by using a washer with a 1mm diameter length of wire soldered in the middle. The washout plugs on the A6 are very hard to see on prototype photos but I think I got them right. I also fitted the T-shaped strap that goes over the boiler on the A8, using a milled brass T-strip for this. If you are modelling an A6 in its later days you will have to fit one of these, but in earlier periods they had rectangular brackets as described next.

I spent three and a half hours sorting out the brackets on the tank tops. They are evident on most NER tank locos but are usually invisible except on photos taken from a high angle (but most models are viewed from a high angle). Etchings are provided but they are far too big and I had to trim every angle and add bolts made from 1mm wire to the upright bit, but I think mine are still a bit too big.

The completed model of the A6 ready for the paint shop.

I had pre-weathered the chassis during construction while I could get behind the wheels etc. I then proceeded to add details in a way that left more vulnerable elements for later. The A6, representing an earlier period, has NER tapered buffer housings and oval buffer heads on the front. Between them the kits included two versions of lost wax buffer housings and sprung buffer heads and I cherry-picked the parts from both because the A8 needed LNER standard buffers which I bought in. I used a casting blip inside the buffer housing to engage in a groove filed in the buffer shank to reduce the tendency of the oval buffers to turn out of line, but they still look a bit squinty if I don’t watch them. The cast smokebox doors in both kits were pretty lumpy and I used a suitable replacement LNER standard door on the A8. On the A6, I found that a cast LMS 8F door was not far out, but had to cut and file the distinctive foundation ring out of thin nickel silver to solder to the front of the smokebox and glued the casting to it. Again, if you model the A6 in a later period an LNER smokebox door will be needed.

While working on the front end, I referred once again to the Isinglass drawing and photos. The casting for the piano front over the valve chest in the A6 kit was not really accurate and the partly half etched cover in the A8 was impossible to form without a showing a kink where the half etched section ended. I used some thin brass and formed replacements for both using photos as a guide.

As I noted before, the castings in the kits are pretty dire and most of them were unusable. This applied particularly to the boiler mountings, and in fact the only one I used was the Ross pop safety valve mounting plinth on the A6. Most A6s had attractive brass conical safety valve covers at the time of the grouping except 688 and 689 which had new boilers. There is a lost wax conical cover in the A6 kit that does not look too bad but I wanted to model 688. The plinth was in fact in the A8 kit, but with some filler it was pressed into service. For the rest I used Laurie Griffin castings for both the A6 chimney and the dome (a Highland Railway dome). On the A8 I filed an LMS Jubilee chimney and used a dome of unknown, but possibly GNR, origin from my scrap box. All of this cost both money and time for what in some kits is simply a fettle and fit job.

With the locos now looking like locos I began the final detailing process. This was quite protracted as there was a lot of it, and not much was in the kit. I used the tank filler from the A8 kit but fabricated a locking handle from some scrap etch. The vents on the A8 tank top were small drag beam buffer castings that come with DJH tenders but I don’t usually fit them. I have a pretty comprehensive scrap box or rather series of drawers with different parts of locos in them including one called ‘shapes’ which is a sort of catch-all. But for the tank top fire iron brackets I had to use brass strip bent and soldered then filed.

When I fit curved handrails to smokebox fronts, I usually make them in shorter section and solder or glue them to the handrail knobs. This sounds difficult but it makes the different sections into simpler jobs and avoids the curves and bends at each side that have to be absolutely right or the handrail at the sides will not be horizontal.

Once I had fitted most of the bits above the footplate I dealt with the more vulnerable below footplate details. The etched footsteps in the kit are quite accurate, but etched in the very thick nickel silver of the kits, so I did a lot of thinning down of the edges and took trouble to curve the ends of each step upwards as per the prototype. I strengthened them using bits of waste etch bent into an L-shape and soldered to the footplate. On the A6 there are drain pipes tacked under the cab steps that vanish under the loco. I used copper wire for these. While under the footplate, I represented the balance pipes behind the footsteps on the A6 using a brass front with a strip of curved brass at each end to give depth. I was worried about the trailing wheel hitting this on curves and put L-shaped stops under the footplate to limit the swing of the rear part of the frames. If this causes derailments on my tightest curves I will have to file the back of the balance pipes.

I finished the construction by fitting the smokebox door darts and then representing the two operating rods that go along the top of the boiler on the A6 and are supported by a couple of stanchions. For the stanchions I used some very long shank handrail knobs that I bought from a show. The rods are quite thin and I made them from 0.5 mm steel piano wire which is about as strong as I could get. I did not fit the wires until after the painting stage as they get in the way of fitting the boiler bands.

The models were then scrubbed with Cif to get them ready to paint. Painting was conventional using Halford’s grey primer followed by Halford’s satin black. I could have finished the A6 in NER green but I like LNER lined black and so used Humbrol red to line the model. Looking at all the photos I could find showing the lining, none seemed to show the frames above the footplate were lined, nor were the tank fronts or spectacle windows, so that is how I did them. Yeadon’s Register reported that 688 was lettered L&NER at its first repaint and a good photo of 689 in Yeadon convinced me that it looked just right. Another livery detail is that No 688 had the buffer beam numbers in NER style.

I looked at photos in Yeadon’s Register and finished the model in a lightly weathered condition with the tank sides well cleaned but the boiler less so, and the smokebox, footplate and under the footplate quite dull.
The finished A8 and, below, the completed A6.

The A8 was painted and lined in BR black with the lion and wheel crest as No. 69855, based on a photo supplied by David for whom I built the model. That particular engine retained the earlier Diagram 63C boiler as evidenced by the dome being further forward than most late examples. As I noted earlier, the model is not weathered and David wanted a fairly glossy finish, and I am very pleased with it. More to the point, so is he.

By way of a postscript I took the A6 to try out on a layout built by a friend, which is small but action-packed, has a minimum radius of five feet and lots of points. The A6 is a very long engine and did not like some parts of this layout, so if you are thinking of building one of these engines and have tight curves, try to build some flexibility into the model. In the event I made some modifications to the front of the engine to increase the bogie swing, and increased the sideplay of the drivers by removing packing washers and paring back the brake blocks. I will take it back when I get chance but I think the civil engineer may have to put some restrictions on where the engine is allowed. It will however happily negotiate Peco points and six foot radius curves.

In conclusion I will say that I am pleased with both models, the more so because though the kits are essentially accurate you do have to put in a lot of extra work to get a good result. The castings are poor and there is a lot of adjusting, replacing and fabricating to tailor the models to various periods. Because of this they are not a quick build and I spent over a hundred hours on each of them. But to scratch-build would probably take another hundred hours for each one, so it is worth it. Putting a lot of one’s self into a model is more satisfying and I feel they are ‘mine,’ so I am glad I built them and may build more NER Days kits if I get the time.

From November 2015 NER Days A6 and A8 kits We have always tried to produce and price our kits for ‘the bloke in the street who has kids and hasn’t a fortune to spend’. The kits are produced to reflect a specific point in time. To include everything to build the model in all periods of its life would make the cost of the kit substantially greater and the modeller would end up with a box of bits that he may, one day, use. The A8 boiler, for example, would have meant two boilers in the kit, two cab fronts and so on, involving two sets of tooling and their associated costs. The later boilers on the A8s were only carried for a relatively short period of the loco’s life. To quote Patrick Russell, in volume 98 of Locomotives Illustrated, ‘The various changes of boilers amongst individual members of the Class A8 make a complicated story in their own right.’
The etchers we use are used by other kit manufacturers, therefore their kits have similar cusps. These are part of the etching process and out of the control of the kit supplier. Nickel silver costs about 7 per cent more per etch than brass and we have always used it for all our kits. The thinnest nickel silver supplied by the first etcher we used (a well-known producer of LNER Pacific kits also used the same etcher) was 0.7mm, pretty close to 7mm scale prototype frame thickness. To keep costs down and stay with nickel silver, we opted for half etching of parts. This approach gives the modeller the opportunity to quickly file something, like cab footsteps to something thinner if they wish. Items such as tank supports have to be etched slightly over scale because of the etching process with this thickness of metal.
The A6 and A8 are etched on the same thickness of metal. The difference may be because we changed etchers some years ago. The etcher we now use supplies dull etches and our previous etcher supplies polished ones. The A6 kit in the article came from a ‘club’ sale and it may be the two kits came from the two different etchers. There would be no difference in thickness.
The A8 kit did not start life as an H1 kit. They were drawn in tandem as one etch initially. The kit was supplied with frames for both the H1 and A8, produced following prototype practice of separate extended rods, pivoted on the centre axle. Subsequently, the A8 kit was redrawn to include some parts that had been left to be scratch-built. The H1 was not redrawn and has been withdrawn along with a substantial number of our other kits. To include brass etchings would again have increased the cost of the kit for something which I have found is easier to produce from brass wire filed flat. The same goes for cab beading. As to cylinder frame width, there is an overhang of the loco footplate over the valences, evident in photographs; to say that they are 4mm too short is a bit much.
As is stipulated in the instructions, if a modeller has a query about a casting, then an s.a.e. to cover return postage would bring a reply and that goes for later Group Standard buffers for this kit, as these are available. A number of alterations made to the kits have been the builder’s personal preferences, as are the criticisms of processes that are out of our or other suppliers’ control.
Looking back at our prices since we began, we have only increased them by between 15 and 20 per cent. There has been no increase at all in the last few years despite rising postal, fuel and metal costs. In view of this, the input in terms of time and the diminishing financial return, we have already reduced our range of kits. They will not be reintroduced and this will continue as stocks are reduced.
Thank you for the copy of the article, we won’t see it in print, not being Guild members, Steve Hoyle, NER Days,Leeds