4-6-2 LNER Class A3 4472 'Flying Scotsman'

[Paperballpark]

Ok, I wasn't going to show this off until I'd got it fully printed, but that won't happen before Brick 2014 later this week. However, I've decided to take it there to show it off 'naked' as it were, so I thought I might as well post about it on here.

This is my model of the double-tender 4-6-2 LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman.

As you can see, there is a lot of printing to be done on it - including green printed onto the windows and a couple of other bits of colouring. I'm also going to try to get green printed onto the wheel spokes...

It has power functions included. It runs fine with a single train motor (although I've not tested the limits of what it can haul yet), and runs smoothly around corners and over points. The driving wheels are the XL drivers from Big Ben Bricks. Unfortunately, including PF in it (as well as ensuring it could go around curves) meant that I was unable to properly implement connecting rods, valve gear etc.

As for stats, it's 7-studs wide, 81 studs long, contains over 1300 pieces, and took about 35 - 40 hours to build over the course of about two months.

Oh and for any pedants out there, yes I know that 4472 Flying Scotsman never ran with the smoke deflectors and the double tender at the same time, but I don't care It was always going to be double-tendered, and I much prefer it with smoke deflectors.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I'll post more photos once it's been fully printed (probably in the New Year).

Full size photos are on my flickr stream here.

[detjensrobert]

What are the double tenders for? Is that a British / European thing or have I just not seen any in the US?

[Paperballpark]

The second tender was for extra water, so that the train could run non-stop from London to Edinburgh without having to stop for water. Both tenders are 'corridor' tenders, having (as the name suggests) a narrow corridor in them so that the train crew could swap shifts halfway through the journey without having to stop at a station.

Double tenders weren't a common thing in the UK. IIRC this was the only train that consistently ran with them.

[SavaTheAggie]

A good use of the motor as the pony truck. She's very recognizable as well. Well done.

What are the double tenders for? Is that a British / European thing or have I just not seen any in the US?

Several steam engines in the US use double tenders as well. I can't speak for the folks across the pond, but here in the US at least the double tenders are used for extra water. Rail facilities for steam engines are few and far between now, so they carry second "canteen" tenders for water (and in the case of oil-fired locomotives, fuel as well).

Reading and Northern #425 is one example of a double-tendered steam engine I can name off the top of my head. The UP Challenger (I forget the number) also carries one.

--Tony

[Steph 104th]

Great creation! This is one of my favorite locomotives and you adapted it beautifully.

We have a couple of trains that used to use double tenders here in South Africa as they covered long distances over great open plains with few places to stop for water.

[Railman66]

Awesome Job! Love the wheel arches - very nicely executed. If you ever get a chance and can post some detailed pics of your frame and arches it would be greatly appreciated!

[Paperballpark]

Awesome Job! Love the wheel arches - very nicely executed. If you ever get a chance and can post some detailed pics of your frame and arches it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks! I will at some point, but it's packed away ready for Brick 2014 now, so it won't be until after then. The wheel arches are the standard '1x4 double bow' element, otherwise known as the 'telephone' bow.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Paperballpark

[Legotom]

When 4472 and its A3 class mates, and the A4s, ran non-stop from London to Edinburgh in the 30s and 40s there were a series of water troughs they picked up water from. These were just long troughs filled with water between the track, and the engine lowered a scoop from its tender, whilst travelling at speed, and that forced the water up into its tanks. Now these are all gone, hence the need for a second tender for extra water. Only one of these tenders was built and nowadays it runs with a different engine. Some other preserved steam engines in the UK tow converted luggage vans fitted with water tanks. Otherwise they have to stop in a siding somewhere and be filled from a road tanker, or sometimes a fire engine.

Amazing model. I'm am very jealous. Although I model in 6 wide, so it wouldn't fit my layout.

BTW as an aside Flying Scotsman actually refers to two things. There is the engine, 4472 Flying Scotsman, and the named train which runs non-stop from London to Edinburgh. This still runs to this day, albeit with electric trains.

[detjensrobert]

Thanks Pbp, Sava. I guess that I have just not heard of them until now.

On a different note, it looks awesome!

(can't wait for the stickers)

Edited November 24, 2014 by detjensrobert

[Paperballpark]

Stickers? Stickers?!?! All the numbers, lettering, lines etc are going to be printed directly onto the model. No stickers here!

Thanks Legotom, I knew there were water troughs back when steam locomotives were mainstream, but I couldn't remember exactly. I did a lot of research before building this, so I did read up on stuff like that, as well as the bit about the name not being used solely for this engine.

I used to model in 6-wide when I started with trains about a year ago, but I found I just couldn't get enough detail into the width. You do find that you use a lot of 1x2 'jumper' plates though

Edited November 24, 2014 by Paperballpark

[Legotom]

Stickers? Stickers?!?! All the numbers, lettering, lines etc are going to be printed directly onto the model. No stickers here!

How do you do that? Do you have a special machine, or use templates? Or do you get a company to do it? If you do it yourself, tutorial please!

Thanks Legotom, I knew there were water troughs back when steam locomotives were mainstream, but I couldn't remember exactly.

I read once that the last water trough was quite a long way from Edinburgh, as there was no flat track nearer. So if the engine got a poor water pickup from it they would sometimes run out of water a few miles short and have to be rescued.

[v6TransAM]

Thats a purty nice engine

[Commander Wolf]

The UP Challenger (I forget the number) also carries one.

... and sometimes, they have three

I haven't seen four on anything yet, but maybe when 4014 hits the road again(!)

[Paperballpark]

@Legotom There's a couple of UK companies that print directly onto bricks - minifigs.me and minifigs4life. I'll be using the latter.

[detjensrobert]

... and sometimes, they have three

I haven't seen four on anything yet, but maybe when 4014 hits the road again(!)

o.0

Dayum. That's a heavy train

[Redimus]

What's the sticking up and out ridge at the front of the smokebox?

[zephyr1934]

That is a slick build, great work! Please do post further about the printed bricks once you have them.

Meanwhile, here's another locomotive on North American rails with dual tenders...

(more info here... though since that old post the url changed to http://morphotoarchive.org/rvndb) and here is a shot of the whole train.

[UrbanErwin]

It looks really cool

[Paperballpark]

@Redimus in later years the train sometimes ran with a curved name-plate above the boiler door. This will be printed onto those bricks that are sticking out.

@zephyr1934 yes the train did a tour of America at some point. I believe it had to have a cow-catcher and bell fitted to comply with US regs...

[jtlan]

Nicely done. There are a lot of Lego renditions of this locomotive, but everyone seems to make slightly different choices on the details. I don't think I've seen anyone model the dome the way you have, for example, and you've made an interesting choice in coloring the "sides" of the wheel arches (maybe you're considering printing on the sides of the 1x4 bow?). I particularly like the details on the smokebox door. However, the tenders look slightly too tall to me, but I'm not sure why.

As you can see, there is a lot of printing to be done on it - including green printed onto the windows and a couple of other bits of colouring. I'm also going to try to get green printed onto the wheel spokes...

I assume the printed windows are necessary because 1x2x2 framed windows (in particular 2377/60032) don't exist in green, a problem I also ran into. I wound up building the window using SNOT, but that might not be an option for you due to the small amount of space you have to work with here. It's also a bummer that XL drivers don't come in green (or any colors other than red, black, and dkbley, for that matter)

Edited November 25, 2014 by jtlan

[Paperballpark]

Yes I'll be getting the sides of the 1x4 bows for the wheel arches printed green. I could have used green, but that would have meant the top of them being green too, which I didn't want.

If anything, the tenders are just slightly too low. I think it's partly because of the perspective in the photos. The front double tender was about the same height as the cab, whereas I've built it one plate lower. I do know what you mean though; I spent a bit of time looking at them after they were built, thinking they were slightly out of proportion. After a little bit of consideration, I think I worked out why...

Basically, the driver wheels are to blame. Although I managed to get the ridge on them recessed a bit, the real engine has the whole wheel recessed under the arches, behind the running plate. Because I can't do that, the entire engine - boiler, running boards, cab - was built a little bit (maybe one or two plates) higher than ideal. Now, you don't notice this on the engine itself, because of the detail, and because it looks roughly right and in proportion. But when you get to the tenders, you do notice it, because they're basically just boxes. Ideally, if the whole train was one or two plates lower, the black border at the bottom of them would only be one or two plates high, rather than three. However, to make the green line up with the bottom of the cab, and to ensure the bogies weren't visible, they had to be three high, which makes them look just a little bit out of proportion.

Unfortunately it's caused by one of the constraints of modelling in Lego. But then, if I wanted to have a model that was 100% accurate to the exclusion of all else, I'd buy Hornby

On a couple of your other points, the windows basically hold the cab together, so I couldn't really SNOT them! Plus I looked at the options and they wouldn't have been in proportion anyway. The 1x2x2 windows would have been perfect, but they're not in green. I've not ruled out using black and getting them printed green, but we'll see.

I've only actually previously seen one LEGO Flying Scotsman before, which looks to have been done about 6 years ago, before curved slopes. I've just done a bit of searching and have found another, which looks quite similar to mine, but with pretty much everything done differently! (this one: https://www.flickr.c...57632754585185/) Even that has compromises though - look at the cab interior!

Different choices, different compromises...

Edited November 25, 2014 by Paperballpark

[ScotNick]

Well, there is still Carls very old version of the flying Scotsman out there, and recently I also designed my own version:

Credit for the tender, cab and wheel arrangement goes to Carl Greatrix, whose A4 I revised into an A3 by adding my own boiler version and the running plate.

As many say, the tenders look a little bit too tall IMO. Somehow it seems to me that some proportions just aren't right, but I'm not sure about that.

[Redimus]

@Redimus in later years the train sometimes ran with a curved name-plate above the boiler door. This will be printed onto those bricks that are sticking out.

Ahh! That's not a name plate (and it wasn't just the later years that those were used)!

What you're referring to is the head board for the express the loco was hauling.

Here's a few examples.

I suspect the reason you thought it was a name board is that the Flying Scotsman was also the name of a none-stop express that ran between London and Edinburgh. Most A3s (originally designated A1 until they were *heavily* rebuilt after being embarrassed by the GWR's frontline express loco of the time) were named after race horses of the time, I'm not sure if Flying Scotsman was also named after a race horse or if they decided to ignore the naming convention for the class and named it after the express.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Redimus

[Paperballpark]

Ah I see! Yes that's the one.

[Sérgio]

Good looking Steam, congrats!