Caley Single no. 123

[PGN]

A while back another forum member kindly drew my attention to a model of the Caledonian single no. 123 which was being offered for sale on Ebay, and agreed to stand back and let me have a clear run at bidding on it if I was interested (which I most definitely was!)

We both agreed that it looked like the work of Peter Middleton - a Highfield Models bespoke commission from the early 1970s. It came with a 4-wheel Lima power unit in the tender, but the mountings for this were broken, so rather than try to repair it I scrapped the Lima unit and, a little bit of crude brasswork later, I have now got it running with a Union Mills tender drive unit.

It is not without its problems ... not least that, in order to get a reliable current supply to the motor, the brass pick-up wipers I have fitted need to bear so heavily on the backs of the wheels that they no longer rotate. I will have to see what I can do to improve the pick-up arrangements. For now, though, I am just glad to have it running.

Here is a link to a (very poor quality!) video of its first test run on my (unfinished) pre-grouping layout Neraland 2:


https://youtu.be/1sh_lVvZxgA

[RailGooner]

I do like a spinner. 

[Newportnobby]

Neat! I like your clerestory coach as well.

[PGN]

And after much investigative tinkering, and judicious adjustment on the basis of "see what makes it better - do more of this; see what makes it worse - do less of that" I now have a locomotive with reliable electrical pick-up and wheels which turn most of the time. At the high speeds which this locomotive was built for (it was, after all, rostered for the West Coast "racing train" of 1895) you cannot see that the driving wheels are binding occasionally at all.

<-- happy bunny 

[PGN]

Neat! I like your clerestory coach as well.

I can claim no credit for that one ... OBE modelling there, I'm afraid.

It's just a Langley NER push-pull coach with the plain end fitted instead of a driving end, and painted (rather well, it has to be said) in Caley livery ...

[PGN]

After an interesting exchange of e-mails with Stephen Middleton, and having now offered my model up against the photos of Peter Middleton's model of the Caley single which features in the September 1964 edition of Railway Modeller, I am increasingly of the opinion that my locomotive is NOT, in fact, a Highfield Models bespoke build.

So that does rather beg the question, what IS its provenance? At present I simply don't know ...

[icairns]

Jeremy / @PGN:

You just beat me to it!  I was about to post a copy of the article entitled "Many Layouts at Dorking Show" (see attached) from the September 1964 Railway Modeller which features photos of some of Peter Middleton's locos including the Caley single.  As can be seen from the photo, the loco has the motor in the tender and it is driven via a drive shaft into the loco.  As noted in one of the captions, the Caley single "cheats" because the rear trailing wheel is also driven making it a 4-4-0!

By this time, Peter Middleton was using the Tri-ang X500 motor in many of his locos.  In some of his articles in RM during the 1960s, Peter also references using an an Arnold 0-4-0 steeple cab chassis to power small locos.  In fact, the first scratchbuilt N gauge loco I ever built (and my last, by the way) when I was about 14 years old, was an ex-LNER J6 which uses this Arnold chassis.  I doubt if Peter Middleton would have ever used a 4-wheel Lima power unit.

By coincidence, the September 1964 edition of Railway Modeller was the first edition I bought (actually my father bought it for me).  I have purchased every copy since (sad, I know).

Ian

[PGN]

Yes indeed.

The first Highfield RTR (as opposed to the bespoke models) was the freelance 0-6-0T which used the Minitrix T3 chassis, and the second was the "Ragtimer" 2-6-0. I have one of these in GNR green, and the power unit is the Arnold steeple cab 0-4-0 chassis which is in the tender, while the loco runs on a cut-down Arnold 2-6-4T chassis stripped of its mechanism.

This must have been a pretty expensive way of going about building a tender loco, unless he had a deal with Arnold to supply the 2-6-4T chassis without their motors (or had some other use for the motors ... )

[icairns]

This must have been a pretty expensive way of going about building a tender loco, unless he had a deal with Arnold to supply the 2-6-4T chassis without their motors (or had some other use for the motors ... )

Yes, I agree this must have been an expensive way to build a tender loco.  As you say, Peter Middleton may have had an special arrangement with Arnold or, should at least, been able to buy the chassis at wholesale prices as opposed to retail. 

The first reference I have found for Peter Middleton's batch-built RTR LNER K3 2-6-0 locos was in the March 1967 Railway Modeller where they were advertised for the princely sum of  £8/15/- which must have included material costs, labour, overhead and profit.  Irrespective of the commercial aspects, I think that Peter Middleton just enjoyed building model steam locomotives!

Ian

[PGN]

Well, my understanding is that Peco had the exclusive import rights for Arnold models, and Peter Middleton designed the first two N scale white metal kits for Peco (the Dock Tank to run on the Arnold 0-6-0T chassis and the Fairburn kit to run on the Arnold 2-6-4T chasss) as well as his own two white metal kits (the S&D long-boilered 0-6-0 to run on the Arnold 0-6-0T chassis and the 02 0-4-4T to run on a cut down Arnold 2-6-4T chassis) so it wouldn't surprise me if he had some arrangement with Peco whereby he could get the models for his own use at trade prices even if not at cost; but I don't think the Arnold chassis could ever be had independently of their loco bodies: I think only Graham Farish ever offered that useful option for kit-builders; although Peco DID offer their white metal kits complete with chassis ...

£8/15/- for the Ragtimers doesn't seem so princely ... I have a copy of the May 1973 Peco catalogue in which my father marked the price of all the items, and the price for a Jubilee at that point (just before inflation took off) was £17. The dock tank and Fairburn tank were already off the catalogue, a Hymek kit with chassis was £15.50, and the three pug kits with chassis were each £11.

[Bealman]

Back in 1977 when I was modelling in 009, I bought a Peco "Jeanette" kit here in my home town (it was a sports store really, but had models as a sideline), and they also managed to get an Arnold chassis for it.

So I guess by 1977, Arnold were supplying chassis only.

[PGN]

Well ... at least the video evidence is there that it WAS running.

Unfortunately, I have not mounted the tender drive unit sufficiently robustly, and this morning it needed repairing.

I devised a more robust arrangement for fixing the tender drive unit in place, and now it's shorting out! No idea where, exactly ... but back to the drawing board!

[icairns]

£8/15/- for the Ragtimers doesn't seem so princely

I was being sarcastic!

The 1968 Peco catalogue shows the Arnold 0220 chassis (the one used for Peter Middleton's RTR 2-6-0 LNER K3 and Peco's Fairburn 2-6-4 kit) being available separately for 72/9d.  The Fairburn 2-6-4 kit was priced at 24/11d.

Ian

[PGN]

I was being sarcastic!

Oh ... right. I'm autistic, so I don't usually "get" sarcasm ...

[gc4946]

At least the loco reached Sussex!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rgadsdon/44547013720