Black Five

Not a Blaxploitation film (although I did see Al Adamson's Black Heat (1976) the other evening), but rather a type of steam locomotive.  Probably the UK's most ubiquitous steam locomotive, a 'Black Five' was so called because it was motive power class five, (the larger 'West Country' seen behind it is classed seven for passenger work and six for freight, as a comparison), and they were always painted black, whether in LMS or British Railways livery.  That said, this particular model - an early eighties Hornby product - was originally red.  I say red, it was actually meant to be LMS crimson lake, but back in those days, rather than paint the whole body, Hornby preferred to produce the moulded plastic bodies in the closest approximation to the required colour and paint things like the smokebox, cab roof and buffer beams.  Quite why Hornby chose to produce the model in an incorrect livery (it had previously always been black) is a good question.  But, for a while, these could be obtained quite cheaply by those prepared to respray them (as I did).  (Nowadays, those still in the red livery seem to have become quite collectable).  

Anyway, the reason I'm posting a picture of this old model of mine is, having not had a railway-related article, I fortuitously got it running again today.  While it is always good to have another locomotive returned to the roster, the 'Black Five', of course, isn't a Southern locomotive, being an LMS design, dating back to the thirties and still being built by BR until 1951.  (They subsequently built their own version, the BR Standard Class Five, a significant number of which were allocated to the Southern Region and is represented on my layout by the sixties Trix model).  The model dated back to an earlier, long defunct, layout which was based on the old Somerset and Dorset line (long defunct in real life), where Southern and LMS locomotives and stock happily mixed.  Indeed, thanks to the Somerset and Dorset, it was possible to see examples of the 'Black Five' as far South as Bournemouth, (my old model carries the number of one once allocated to Bath Green Park shed, which would have worked the line regularly in the fifties).  Consequently, 'Black Fives' could sometimes be found running trains to Waterloo on the Southern's Bournemouth mainline, when they were occasionally co-opted by the Southern Region.  So there is precedent for the continued presence of the 'Black Five' on my current set-up.

Interestingly, despite being one of the UK's most numerous and widely deployed steam locomotives, there has only ever been the one ready-to-run OO gauge model available, this Hornby design dating from the early seventies.  Equipped with tender drive, it originally shared its valve gear (incorrectly) with the contemporaneous tender-drive Britannia.  Mine is a slightly later version, sporting somewhat more accurate valve gear based upon that of the Hornby 'Duchess'.  The body moulding was later revised to give daylight under the boiler.  This version is still available, with a new loco drive chassis, as part of the 'Railroad' range, alongside a more expensive and more detailed version in the main Hornby range. Its longevity is surprising as it isn't a particularly good model.  What's more surprising is that no other manufacturer has produced their own version, (Mainline and then Bachmann produced just about every other type of LMS 4-6-0, including the very similar 'Jubilee', but never a 'Black Five').  As far as my model is concerned, it might yet get another, better, repaint.  Certainly the tender lining needs replacing and the BR totem updating to the later type more commonly seen during the sixties.  But, as I said earlier, it is always good to see another loco returned to service, especially a useful mixed traffic type like the 'Black Five'.