Quote from: Trainfish on December 13, 2025, 03:28:21 PMIt's threads like this which remind me how old some of you are as I don't remember Co-op dividends at all 

I've seen 3 monarchs, 2 coronations as well as steam trains! Oh and searchlights, sirens and air raid shelters but just missed National Service having deferred it by 3 years to get my Agric Eng qualification. Can remember Suez Cyprus and Korea having 'problems' which the UK got involved with as well as the Cuban crisis and the Iron curtain.
How we survived childhood without an NHS and got educated with rote learning I'll never know! Boy Scouts competed with Air cadets, Sea scouts and the Boys Brigade for our attention and time and paper rounds were sought like the Yukon gold fields as the means to wealth!
If you had a push bike you had 'wheels', a motorcycle was impressive and anything with 4 wheels and an engine the bee's knees! My first vehicle was an FX3 Austin cab ex-London with a thumping diesel engine which took a bit of starting. If we went anywhere above about 3 miles it was a bus, 20 miles it was train but then Leicester had 3 main stations linked by LMS LNER and GNR(M&GN) to just about every sizeable town and city.
You walked everywhere else and spoke to anyone you knew all without social media! (But my Mum always somehow knew who I'd seen before I got home!)
If you saw a policeman he was a local Bobby and probably knew who you were so it was not easy to get the wrong side of the law. Older people and wealthy people demanded respect and mostly got it although it often wasn't deserved. Post war we relied on cheaper food and passing down clothes which were not too worn. Treats were a tin of sliced peaches and evaporated milk as a topping after Sunday tea. The roast always lasted 3 days - hot Sunday, cold Monday and minced Tuesday and the fruitcake baked alongside on Sunday was still served until about Thursday - as hard as nails!
Winter of '46 the inside of the bedroom windows had a layer of ice where the moisture from our breath had frozen. There was only one fire in the living room and everywhere else in the house was cold, so to stop the outside toilet freezing there was a paraffin lamp alongside the lead water pipe going up to the cistern. It was a pleasure to get to school as there was a big coal-fired boiler which heated the classrooms through those huge cast radiators - but boy was it cold leaving to go home. The gas lamps were being phased out in the 50s But we still had fogs and smogs to contend with if it was dark on the way home from school or the paper round.
I hope I've triggered some others to recount a few memories as the current youngsters won't understand what changes we've experienced since the end of WW2. My current go to Facebook page is "Leicester Born and Bred" if you want a flavour of our memories.

Quote from: EtchedPixels on December 13, 2025, 02:56:04 PMHad a dig - the kit was it seems an ABS J63 originally on a minitrix chassis and someone has converted it a bit (safety valves, no cylinders, box at front. It's a very old (and hardly fine scale) kit in either form

So apparently there was no J72 kit. My error.

@EtchedPixels

For those interested in the early history of British N gauge, two manufacturers made white metal kits of the somewhat obscure Great Central Class 5A that became LNER Class J63.  The class consisted of only seven locos and all had been withdrawn by 1957. The availability of an outside cylinder chassis may have been one reason these kits were developed.

In 1967, Minitrix produced a kit to fit on their German T-3 0-6-0T chassis.  This was a stop-gap until the RTR Minitrix dock tank became available.  (This was also the first N gauge loco I ever bought and the first white metal kit I ever attempted). 

To allow the motor to fit, the kit has an overscale cab and the general features were more freelance than prototypical in appearance. 

In the 1970s, Beaver made a more prototypical white metal kit.  This was designed to fit the Minitrix dock tank chassis (which had a smaller motor than the German 0-6-0T chassis).  This kit was acquired by Adrian Swain and became part of the ABS range. 

The photo below shows my Minitrix version on the left and the ABS/Beaver version on the right. 

Ian

Quote from: PLD on December 12, 2025, 09:55:48 PM

Quote from: madchadbrad on December 12, 2025, 08:06:57 PMAny evidence that a "non-driving" BT might have been through fitted for push-pull?

Certainly none built motor fitted, and none listed in the known conversions.
I can't see there would be a need for non-driving brakes - The driving trailers were all brakes, and they weren't intended for routes with high demand for luggage space needing a second van in a two/coach train.

Thanks! I asked because I was thinking of expressing interest in an example of each coach type so: BT, 3rd, fitted comp, DBT. I could run them as a standard 4 coach loco fwd train and then discard the BT & 3rd if using them as a push pull set. For my locos that are suitable they would be BR lined maroon; I don't have any pre-nationalisation locos that would fit.

Quote from: PLD on December 13, 2025, 06:04:43 PM

Quote from: EtchedPixels on December 13, 2025, 02:42:24 PMNot sure how "loco in the middle" worked for the LMS system or if it was even possible.

It could be done but was rare.
As I understand it, change over from driving at one trailer to the other involved simply closing one valve and opening another. From what I've read elsewhere didn't the GWR system mean disconnecting one linkage and connecting the other??

I believe so.

Alan

Quote from: EtchedPixels on December 13, 2025, 02:42:24 PMNot sure how "loco in the middle" worked for the LMS system or if it was even possible.

It could be done but was rare.
As I understand it, change over from driving at one trailer to the other involved simply closing one valve and opening another. From what I've read elsewhere didn't the GWR system mean disconnecting one linkage and connecting the other??

Here's the list kindly provided by Pete

Quote from: Yet_Another on December 12, 2025, 10:16:33 PMThe instructions do cover it. You are supposed to iron them before use.

@Yet_Another Sorry, but I must be a bit thick today as I can't find instructions. They may be useful for whoever I can give them to. Can you point me to them, please?

And as if by magic it has just arrived 

It's threads like this which remind me how old some of you are as I don't remember Co-op dividends at all 

Only just found this thread.  With my Scottish interests a 16XX would interest me.  2 were sent to Helmsdale to run the branch line The Mound to Dornoch when the older 044T broke an axle or something like that.