Extract from Wikipedia on the 3 cylinder version of what everyone knows as the 2 cylinder version which was the basis of the BR Standard 4MT

LMS 3-Cylindered Stanier 2-6-4T is a class of steam locomotive designed for work over the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. All 2500-36 were built in 1934 at Derby Works. The third cylinder was provided to allow increased acceleration between the many stops on the L.T.&S.R. line. From 1935 the LMS switched to constructing a very similar, simpler, 2-cylindered design.

No. 2500 was the first of the 37 express passenger tank locomotives designed specifically for the London Tilbury and Southend line of the London Midland & Scottish railway (LMS) as they were too powerful for mixed-traffic work. It was built in 1934 at LMS Crewe works.

No. 2500 has survived and is on display at the National Railway Museum in York. It is the sole survivor of his class and is painted in LMS lined black livery.

Before I tell you about my recent purchases just a note to say that the change in the comments posting described below has at last removed all spam from flooding this website which means that I have more time and don't have to read the pornographic titles of these spam comments. Its a shame that it makes it more difficult for you to post but thats the nature of the beast.

After a long period of buying 3 rail conversions my last two acquisitions have actually been Hornby Dublo engines. The first was a Class 20 Bo-Bo which has been repainted and renumbered. I have always had a soft spot for this engine perhaps because the prototype is still operating in revenue service on today's railways. This engine along with the Class 8 shunter must be the oldest engines still working. Didn't HD do well.

The Class 20 was billed as a runner but it didn't. Take the body off and there was a wire loose from one of the pick-ups. Resolder, now moves but very jerky. A light oiling all round and a little grease on the screww drive on the bogie. result. Total transformation excellent runner, will pull my standard freight train easily. Now one thing is strange - no traction tyres. No problem I have some spares, which I fitted but this tended to make the engine a little unstead and didn't do anything for the pulling power. So they were removed and it now runs well and pulls well without the tyres.

The other purchase was

I like my website. Its an innocent record of an old man playing with the trains he had when he was a kid. I have found there are many other people out there who do exactly the same thing and we are kindred spirits. I hope my web (blog) site in some small measure brings like minded people together to enjoy the innocent past time of playing with old trains. But all I get is spam, pornography, viagra etc etc posted under my comments section. At first they were posted so my site looked like a porno site so I stopped that as all comments had to be approved by me. Even that change became a very time consuming exercise with over 20 spams per day having to be deleted so I put in some filters. This improved the situation to the extent of only having to delete two or 3 of these stupid emails every day. What I have done now is stopped any anonymous comment posting. This has completely stopped the spam but means that genuine readers of my website have to be in open mode when they make their comments. The best way is to join the website, I will approve your application and then you will be able to make comments.

I know that this is a pain for you but receiving so much rubbish and having to delete it every day was a total pain for me. So we will operate in this mode for a while, perhaps after a period I can turn it off and the spammers will forget that my website exists. Some hopes.

So to those who log in to my site and want to make a comment I am sorry for the inconvenience but I have no commercial connections of any sort so your email address is safe with me. All I want to do is share my pleasure in playing with old trains to other people - seems simple but some people make it a pain,

The Mainline Deans Goods mentioned in the last posting as "lost" perhaps isn't after all. A posting on RMWeb quickly gave me the information that the tender drive is by 2 wheels only and that my problem was probably excess friction. Light oiling of the engine's wheels and cleaning the traction tyres got it running light engine with some slipping. After one circuit it derailed. Lifting it up showed that the 3rd rail pick up had detached itself - the glue attaching the metal pick up to the plastic body had failed. Now all it will take is to refix the pick up and I might have a runner again. Probably a job for laters as getting the position absolutely correct will take an amount of trial and error.

Well its summer and very little activity on the layout front. In the Uk the evenings are long and the gardening jobs many plus all the other bits and peices like painting etc there is little time to run the trains. Some years it gets very hot at the back of the workshop where the layout is located but certainly not a problem this year. For whatever reason not a lot has happened. The Dean Goods unfortunately broke one of its plastic gear wheels and therefore onl drives on two tender wheels instead of three and this is insufficient to allow it to actually move - it just sits and spins its wheels. I don't think that it is repairable but I've put in the box ready for a winters evening to have a look at it. It is a nice model made by Mainline and on the box it states that it is Guaranteed for 3 months but as that was 25 or so years ago I don't think that I have a claim. So that's the one that has gone. The new one is a Triang Deeley/Johnson designed LMS 3F in BR black. This is not a tender drive. I bought it off ebay as a 3 rail conversion. It was interesting that the conversion using the spring brass pickups could never have been run as one of the brass pickups touched the screw head which attaches the engine to the tender and shorted it out completely. This was overcome by bluetacking a peice of cardboard between the pick up and the screw. It now works fine but