geordiedave66
HERE'S ONE I MADE EARLIER
About fifty years earlier to be precise. It started off as a not very well partially made Will's white metal kit. I more or less had to desconstruct it then rebuild it from scratch. It was designed to be mounted on a Triang Brittania chassis. So I bought one second hand (cheapskate) and bingo a Peppercorn A1.
The Peppercorn A1 and A2's never really captured the enthusiast imagination as did Gresley's stuff. But from a traffic point of view they were very reliable and certainly clocked up the miles. Some of them exceding one million miles within about twelve years.LMS affictionados will try and tell you the mileages were fiddled, but they weren't. They were calculated on drivers' tickets which they filled in at the end of every shift, so their pay could be calculated. But a record was also kept of which engine they had used and it was then added to its mileage record. I know this because I was employed as a clerk at York MPD, when I first joined the railway and that was what we did.
Luckily there are two preseved Peppercorns in existance, the new build A1 Tornado and the A2 Blue Peter, although IMHO I think it doubtful the latter will ever run again.
HERE'S ONE I MADE EARLIER
About fifty years earlier to be precise. It started off as a not very well partially made Will's white metal kit. I more or less had to desconstruct it then rebuild it from scratch. It was designed to be mounted on a Triang Brittania chassis. So I bought one second hand (cheapskate) and bingo a Peppercorn A1.
The Peppercorn A1 and A2's never really captured the enthusiast imagination as did Gresley's stuff. But from a traffic point of view they were very reliable and certainly clocked up the miles. Some of them exceding one million miles within about twelve years.LMS affictionados will try and tell you the mileages were fiddled, but they weren't. They were calculated on drivers' tickets which they filled in at the end of every shift, so their pay could be calculated. But a record was also kept of which engine they had used and it was then added to its mileage record. I know this because I was employed as a clerk at York MPD, when I first joined the railway and that was what we did.
Luckily there are two preseved Peppercorns in existance, the new build A1 Tornado and the A2 Blue Peter, although IMHO I think it doubtful the latter will ever run again.