Southern Railways "Schools" V class [WIP]

[bombardiere]

Woot! I am so happy. This is one of my favourite locos. I don't know why, but it just is.

So yes, I want to play with it.

My initial reaction was that the tender was longer earlier type. That the standard tender for Schools Class is more compact. I have tried to google picture it, but I can't be sure. Preserved "Repton" has a bigger tender, but my guess is that it is later BR standard type tender and not a Southern one.

My favourite livery is Southern Maunsell Olive Green with white lining, by the way. Anyway, the lettering should be bit more yellowish. Yours is perhaps too pale. And I see that you have included loco shed letter code in the tender. I think it is correct, but I have a vague feeling that it was dropped around time that the Schools were introduced.

[Gumboots]

Ok cool. Any and all of that can be tweaked easily enough, once we know what to tweak it to.

One thing I do want to have though is black wheels. The preserved Schools locos have wheels painted to match the rest of the livery (whatever that may be) but according to Wiki the standard when the class was in mainline service was black wheels, with either the Maunsell olive green or the Bulleid malachite.

The reason I want to use black wheels in RT3 is that it will be the only practical way of doing different skins for the loco. Skins only get applied to body files and trucks. They don't get applied to wheels, so if the wheels are painted to match one skin they will look wrong with all the others. OTOH, black wheels will match all skins equally well, so no problem. Although if you only wanted Maunsell olive and wanted the wheels to match, obviously there's no reason why that couldn't be done.

And yes, the Schools class is one of my favourites too. There's just something cool and fun and lovable about them.

[bombardiere]

Black wheels? I have to confess that I have not paid much attention to that.

I have couple of books and one had very clear picture taken during BR years and it had painted wheels. So painting the wheels was done atleast during post war British Railways period.

I have also a book about Maunsell locomotives and it had a few colour pictures. I scan two pictures so you can make your own mind. Low quality. sorry.

The first one is Repton in 1962. I don't think those are painted wheels, but could be as well dirty or worn, so hard to tell.

The second top is Malachite Green Southern. Post war in 1948. In the book it looked like black, but in this scan it could be dark green.

So take your pick. But I think that these photos prove that, even if wheels were painted, in regular service those got dirty and dark looking. So black / dark grey is totally ok.

Anyway your logic about black being better for different skins is good, so I would say that go for black wheels.

[Gumboots]

Ok. I just thought of checking old cigarette cards from the period. These are usually pretty accurate, and one shows olive green wheels.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Leatherhead-Sc ... 0951553782

But we're stuck with an RT3 bug for skins. You can get coloured wheels to work with skins, but the only way you can get them to work is by saving and reloading the game. That's a PITA every time you want to select another skin.

There's a thread about it here - Duke skin + a little help requested

Although it would be easy to make the skins as half a dozen separate locomotives. It'd chew up more loco slots, but apart from that I can't see any problems with it. The game should perform just as well.

About the tender: I know Cheltenham's tender has SE&CR cast onto the axle boxes, so I'm sure that one is not an ex-BR tender. It'd have to be original SR, since they took over all the SE&CR stuff and that presumably included a lot of casting patterns. It appears to be the same tender that was on the drawings I used.

[bombardiere]

I went to see what modelmakers think about it. I know that Dapol has N gauge Schools and Hornby OO model.

Dapol's Olive Green and Malachite has painted wheels and Hornby has only BR versions at the moment and all these have black wheels. I know that model makers get these things wrong often, but I think this is a good indicator. UK steam engines regularly had painted wheels. Even black engines had wheels painted.

(I am going to buy Dapol's model later, but Olive Green is out of stock and anyway I need to control my railway model purchases. Too many locos and no functional layout to operate with, so i have been on a diet past several years. )

But we're stuck with an RT3 bug for skins.

I know this yeah. I have had BR Express Blue Class A1 with pale green wheels. But I don't think this is worth to do separate locomotives for each livery. Unless you want to do a special loco for a scenario.

I think that Schools had five basic liveries. SR Olive Green with while lining, Malachite Green, SR wartime black (no lining), BR Black (with lining ) and BR Brunswick Green. So if you go with dark grey wheels with a slight green tint, I think it will fit to all typical colours.

Anyway, i don't expect you to do skins. One Schools is more than enough.

About the tender: I know Cheltenham's tender has SE&CR cast onto the axle boxes, so I'm sure that one is not an ex-BR tender. It'd have to be original SR, since they took over all the SE&CR stuff and that presumably included a lot of casting patterns. It appears to be the same tender that was on the drawings I used.

I am no expert here so I have to be careful. But I have this feeling that the tender you have made is based on earlier model and this would fit to what you write. But this is non important in the context of RRT3. Old, new, BR tender, I just simply do not care. All would be "prototypical" It looks like it is a Schools and that is enough for me,

P.S. I have feeling that I went into rivet counting, but I had to do a google about the tenders. It looks to me that most Schools used the same basic tender. No major variations. But I found pair of photos of preserver Repton. The one taken in the US show SR tender, but when it came back to UK it had a different tender. Again this nothing important for RRT3.

http://www.semgonline.com/steam/v_class4.html

[Gumboots]

It looks like it is a Schools and that is enough for me.

This is my attitude too. The idea is to just give it the right feel, without going mental trying to make RT3's limited format do things it can't do.

Re liveries: I don't think they look so good in black, and I know when BR painted them black (with red lining, yes) they got so many complaints that they had to change them back to green.

I like them in olive or malachite, so those are definites. Apparently there were two different shades of olive, with one favoured at Ashford and the other favoured at Eastleigh. The Eastleigh green was darker, but nobody seems to agree on what shade either of them were so it's anyone's guess.

The BR Brunswick Green I can take or leave, but it wouldn't be hard to do. It's just another shade of green and a different colour for the lining, along with adding "30" in front of the engine number and throwing a ferret on a unicycle. What I really want is a St. Trinian's skin.



And maybe a St. Custard's as well (post about skins here). Skins are handy, because they let me use colour coding for different routes and regions in the game. I like this.

[bombardiere]

Oh did not realise that you have already sorted liveries.

Apparently there were two different shades of olive, with one favoured at Ashford and the other favoured at Eastleigh. The Eastleigh green was darker, but nobody seems to agree on what shade either of them were so it's anyone's guess.

Yes I have heard about this, but it is very much open to interpretation. I would go for darkish green and be happy about it. However it is most likely there is kind of natural variation. Paint patches may vary and repaints in different times can produce different shades.

What I really want is a St. Trinian's skin.

Image

St. Trinian. Oh Yeah! While I did live in the UK many many years ago, I saw couple those old black and white movies. I think I jumped between the channels and first time I was like. Oh my God. What is this. Finnish TV showed two modern re-makes last winter, but these did not have the charm of the originals.

[Gumboots]

I haven't seen the re-make of St. Trin's, but I heard it wasn't all that good.

Anyway I find skins are easy. They take hardly any files to run them, and usually I'll have the base colour layer separate from all the styles/highlights/grunge/etc, so making skins is usually little more than duplicating a base layer and swapping the colour overlay on it.

By the way, although they're not big on detail I do like the colour balance in the old loco skins you made.* They work well for general feel.

I had a thought about the tender. I think the problem is the weird way RT3 does perspective from some angles. Here's a orthographic profile shot of the actual model, along with an SR drawing (pre-BR era).

Tender_profile.jpg

Actually, looking at that wireframe I should tweak the tender a little bit. The coal board isn't quite right, and there are probably a couple of other details that could be better. Generally it's on the mark for proportions though.

*If you ever want to fix the drivetrains or other details on your old locos, I'm happy to help out with that.

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I found something about livery and shades of green. This is an old colour photograph from the mid-1930's.

schools.jpg

There has probably been some distortion of colours, unless the sky really was that colour in mid-1930's London (which is scary, but possible). I'd also expect a more intense red on the buffer beam. Still, it gives the general idea, and it's noteworthy that this is apparently the "new light green". At a guess I'd say this is probably what people refer to as "Ashford olive", with the "old dark green" being the "Eastleigh olive".

Eastleigh being an old LSWR town, I think "Eastleigh olive" was probably the old LSWR dark "Holly green" livery being carried over into the first years of SR. Apparently this happened, at least in some places, and it makes a certain amount of sense that the Eastleigh works would feel like sticking to their old livery until they were told different. They probably had a stash of LSWR paint to use up anyway.

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I was thinking about the appeal of the Schools class. They're a well-proportioned locomotive, but I think some of the appeal is that the large drivers and short boiler give them just a little bit of a cartoon feel, so people naturally feel good about them. They just tend to make people happy because you can't take them too seriously, even though they were very capable units.

Which reminded me of something else I've always wanted to do for sheer idiot fun: a GER Humpty T19R.

Humpty_painting_and_shot.jpg

These just crack me up. I can't look at them without laughng, but they did work for secondary express in the early 20th century. It wouldn't be hard to make one, and you could find a slot for them for light UK express in RT3, but other things have to be done first.

[bombardiere]

I think the problem is the weird way RT3 does perspective from some angles.

Not only the RRT3, but is is my eyes too. I now know that most Schools had same tender, but when I google pictures the angle make it look like there were several different lenghts. So it so no "problem", but more perhaps an optical illusion.

I think your tender looks good. I know that you will "fix" the stepping ladder in skin, so the current 3D box (plane) makes it look longer than it really is.

*If you ever want to fix the drivetrains or other details on your old locos, I'm happy to help out with that.

Thank you for your offer, but I think it is no. I feel that your route to make new ones is better. My locomotive are bastard mutations of RRT3 ones, so I feel that it is not worth of time to work on those.

If I have time this weekend, I might try to something myself. I have not forgot Black 5, but this discussion did remain another Southern favourite of mine. A1 Terrier. As 0-6-0 tank with inside cylinder, it is about as simple as a locomotive can ever get.

There has probably been some distortion of colours, unless the sky really was that colour in mid-1930's London (which is scary, but possible). I'd also expect a more intense red on the buffer beam. Still, it gives the general idea, and it's noteworthy that this is apparently the "new light green". At a guess I'd say this is probably what people refer to as "Ashford olive", with the "old dark green" being the "Eastleigh olive".

The company logo and numbering is Bulleid Sunshine, so it would indicate that this really is a Malachite Green. So I would say that the colours are distorted. It says that it is supposed to be a colour photograph, but to my eye it is more of re-coloured photograph. They did that in 20's - 30's UK magazines.

London is known as "Big Smoke", but as you said, that colour sky is bit scary.

I would not worry too much about the exact shade. Just pick a darkish green colour which pleases your eye. I have done enough modelling to know that the beauty lies on beholders eyes. I have witness enough argument on what is the "correct" shade that I know that there is no one right shade / colour.

Your olive green is perhaps bit darker than I am used to see on model trains. But models do get lighter colour for scale effect. And when I googled yesterday, I found 3D models dark as yours. May be darker. So I think that yours is a good colour. I own only one Southern Olive Green train model. A Terrier. But I will dig it up tomorrow and see how it compares to your shade. I personally think that this kind of accuracy is more than enough for this game. Only reason why I talk so much about the details is how fond I am on Southern and Schools. I really like how Southern yellow fit to green base, so that why I would like to see lettering you are using in a richer shade.

These just crack me up. I can't look at them without laughng, but they did work for secondary express in the early 20th century. It wouldn't be hard to make one, and you could find a slot for them for light UK express in RT3, but other things have to be done first.

Yeah, high boiler and short length make it looks like someone would squashed it. It would be a fine addition to the game. I would like it. I have always eyed for LNWR Precedent as for late 19th Century UK express loco.

[Gumboots]

The company logo and numbering is Bulleid Sunshine, so it would indicate that this really is a Malachite Green. So I would say that the colours are distorted.

There's no way that green is Bulleid malachite. It's definitely an olive of some sort. If anything, the lettering may have yellowed a bit with age.

The colour for a Terrier is another quagmire. I've seen "Stroudley's Improved Engine Green" done as everything from bright yellow to faded babypoo brown. If you want to do a Terrier that's fine by me. It's not a loco that interests me much, so it'd be good to have someone else do something that I wouldn't do anyway.

If I was going to do a small tank of that period I'd be seriously tempted to do an LT&SR Atlantic tank. Those were classy little units, and LT&SR had some great liveries too.