Class 44 not available for BVE

[Boxcars]

At the time the British Railways Type 4 or “Peak” was the heaviest locomotive on the railway here in the UK, weighing in at approximately 138 tons. Their weight was spread over a wheel arrangement of 1Co-Co1 like the English Electric Type 4 (now referred to as the Class 40). The “Peak” is now referred to as the Class 44 and I’ve noticed a distinct lack of the Class 44 in BVE :-( I was wondering if anyone has any plans to develop one? With its sixteen wheels it always used to give me a bit of a buzz! I “cabbed” many a Peak in my trainspotting days but never got to drive one! I’d love to now! ;-) May I put in a polite request?

Cheers, Neil (in Cambridge)

http://www.modelshop-northants.co.uk...450/32-651.jpg

[OSaarekas]

http://koti.mbnet.fi/lopomo/trainsoft/Class44cab.zip
Please see the readme.txt first

[Boxcars]

Thanks for that Oskari. Your cab does look familiar to me. Takes me back! Of course, I forgot to include the Class 45 and Class 46 in the title of this topic. Class 44 was originally numbered D1 to D10, Class 45 was originally numbered D11 to D137 and Class 46 was originally numbered D138 to D193. Below is the only photo (and it's very small) that I’ve been able to find of the cab interior so far.

http://www.brdw.co.uk/pic44004-2s.jpg

I’m sure a lot of you already know but, just in case some of you don’t, there’s a fabulous :9 locomotive photo gallery at

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/markshipman/railway/

Neil

[Boxcars]

Just found a better, larger picture of the same view of the cab.

http://www.brdw.co.uk/pic44004-2.jpg

[ChrisCooper]

The main difference between the cabs on the different types were the power controllers, since each had different electrical equipment. The 44s and 45s had Crompton-Parkinson electrical equipment, but the 45s had a newer style control handle (same as on the 33s), wheras the 46s had Brush electrical equipment and had a Brush style control handle, same as on the 31s and 47s. Also, the 44s wre vacume braked only, but the 45s and 46s were dual braked, so had slightly different brake handles, which were also swapped around (loco brake [small handle] at the back, train brake [large handle] at the front, and they also had a main reservoir gauge under the AWS sunflower. BRDW also has pictures of both those types of cab. The main difference between the 44s and the later 45s and 46s though was that the later types had a more powerful engine, and tended to do express passenger work (45s on MML, 46s on Cross Country) wheras the 44s were mostly on freight. Since I'm working on the MML for BVE, and hope to do 60s and 70s versions eventually, I'd love to see a 45 made, since they were the mainstay of the MML from the 60s right through to the early 80s when they were replaced by HSTs, and 44s were regular performers on freight at that time.

[Simon_G]

As well as being the mainstay of the Midland line until the early 1980s (though they didn't disappear from regular passenger work until 1987), 45s were also regular on Trans-Pennine services from Liverpool to York and Newcastle after these were reorganised in the late 70s.

46s also appeared on trains out of Kings Cross, though I'm not sure how common they were. Both classes worked right into Cornwall on cross-country trains and freight where they coexisted with exotic things like Westerns in earlier days.

It would be nice to have any of the Peaks to play with, though there aren't really any period routes for them yet :( (I'm looking forward to a semaphore signalled Midland main line, Chris!).

[Boxcars]

Hi Simon,

I lived in Market Harborough in Leicestershire for a few years in the late 1960s so I saw many Peaks, my Ian Allan Combined Volume has most of the class underlined! I remember seeing Peaks in Cornwall too. I liked the way you referred to Westerns as “exotic”. Weren’t they just eh? Peaks and Westerns … two powerful locomotives but the Westerns were the ladies of the line I always thought! But if Westerns were ladies then Peaks were bruisers! Hey, this is fun reminiscing about railways when I should be working! Anyway, to get back to Peaks … can you or Chris tell if the picture of the cab is a 44, 45 or 46?

Neil

[Simon_G]

Well,... the file name is pic44004-2.jpg which might be a bit of a giveaway ;)

There's a photo of a Class 45 cab on the same site (http://www.brdw.co.uk/main.html), which illustrates Chris's description of the differences:

http://www.brdw.co.uk/pic45135cab-1.jpg

[Boxcars]

Oh ha ha! Right click image and properties, how simple ... I should have known x( . I see it's the cab of 44004 which was originally D4 "Great Gable" and my train books tell me that I once cabbed it. It's strange to look at the picture and know I was in that very cab probably 40 years ago! Good view of 45135's cab BTW! It clearly shows the differences as you say.

[ChrisCooper]

Just to add the final one to the batch, also from BRDW is a cab photo of a 46:

http://www.brdw.co.uk/pic46035cab-1.jpg

This shows the similarity with the 45, but the different, Brush style, controller.



http://www.brdw.co.uk/pic46035cab-2.jpg

This is a very usful image for anyon wanting to make a cab view of a peak for BVE, showing a had on viw of th instruments. The red light is "engine stopped" and next to it will be "general fault" and "wheelslip". The guages are from left to right: air brake pipe, vacume train pipe and vacume chamber, front and back brake cylinder, speedo, and just behind the controller, the ammeter. The gauge on the far right above the controller is the main reservoir and main reservoir pipe.