The Swan at Tetsworth, High Street Tetsworth, Oxon OX9 7AB. 4th June.
"Lot 137 - AN L.M.S. 4-6-2 LOCOMOTIVE AND TENDER,'ROYAL SCOTS FUSILIER' 21/2" gauge engineered live steam."
Strange it seems to have a name and number from a "Scot".
Mike
Good Morning Chaps
I am pretty sure that this is not a Duchess but something built to the Bonds 'Victory' design. This would make it pretty rare I would think. I hope someone buys it as it deserves a good home and appears to need quite a bit of TLC.
Regards
Phil F
Please tell us more Phil. What is a Bonds "Victory"?
Mike
A bit of info here Mike - http://www.users.waitrose.com/~n25ga/Locos/victory.htm (http://www.users.waitrose.com/~n25ga/Locos/victory.htm)
Andy
Hi Mike
The link Andy gave says it all really. Bonds of Euston Road were an early supplier of 2.5" gauge parts, if you look in one of their catalogues from the 1930s you will find that they supplied a good range of what they called 'Standard' parts for building locomotives, these were supplied either as castings or fully finished parts. They also produced a large range of drawings that described the designs and the 'standard' parts but there were never any instructions to my knowledge, you were left to your own devices on that.
One of the earliest Bonds designs was for the Standard British Pacific Locomotive. This was a very good design by Henry Greenly using the said Bonds parts. They provided drawings for different tenders depending how you wanted your essentially freelance loco to look. I have one of these, I recently purchased a complete chassis on eBay and I think I was very lucky to get it as John Baguley of the National 2 1/2" Gauge Association reckons this to be a very rare model now. In the fullness of time this will be finished as a Southern pacific with Lord Nelson type tender. I also acquired a complete LBSC Fayette in the same lot but that is another story.
The Victory design was produced later by George Layton who worked for Bonds and produced some fine models. The Victory also used Bonds 'Standard' parts so that is why it is not a true-scale Duchess and the drawings are still available from the N 2 1/2" G A if you fancy a go at making it - good luck on that!
Kind Regards
Phil
Thanks Phil and Andy,
Although essentially I like to make models as accurately and as detailed as possible, I do admire these early engines and wish there was more information available. Some years ago John Buxton tabulated commercial Gauge 3 models (i.e. not castings and plans) and that was a great start, but I hope one of our more knowledgeable members with a collection of such models might be persuaded to write a series for the G3 newsletter - hint hint, I know he'll read this!
The "Victory" seems to have four cylinders - is that right for standard Bonds parts?
Mike
our cylinders
Hi Mike,
Perhaps I can chime in here.
So far as I know, all the Bonds 'Standard' locos are only two cylinder including Victory.
Bonds had 3 series in the standard range, JR/BS 300 series, 400 series, and 500 series.
The 300 series consisted of:
British Pacific
British Atlantic
Mixed Traffic 4-6-0 (not a Class 5)
GNR Pacific
4-6-4 Passenger Tank
King Arthur
American Pacific
The 400 series was the Victory design which is a freelance Pacific but has a lot in common with the Duchess.
The 500 series consists of a 'proper' Duchess and a Class 5 Mixed Traffic 4-6-0.
Victory, Duchess, and the Class 5 are all G. Layton designs.
I don't think there are any others (although the gentleman you are refering to may know otherwise :) )
The drawing sets consist of a GA drawing, a frame drawing and sometimes a boiler drawing for that particular design. All the other parts, wheels, bogies, valve gears etc. were common - the Bonds Standard parts.
The Association has a lot of the drawings but not all of them unfortunately, although they keep turning up now and again.
When Bonds finally stopped doing castings and drawings for the loco range, they gave permission for the Association to use the drawings as they wished so we can freely publish them. We also acquired what was left of the castings and patterns.
I managed to pick up a British Pacific chassis and a 4-6-0 Mixed Traffic chassis off Ebay last year with a view to perhaps making some new patterns for the Standard parts so we could supply them again if the demand arose.
We've had a nearly complete Duchess running at our club today and it goes very well.
John