I have just purchased #28 Midland Record.
a bit of a weighty[?] tome, not light reading, but right up my street.....
Inside, a treatise on the Midland Railway in yorkshire....and a description of the Huddersfield Gasworks railway.....plus...PHOTOGRAPHS.....
there for all to see, 0-4-0 tanks, haul;ing coal wagons through the streets......equipped with the protective gear required for street running.
what caught my eye was the fact that there were no side skirts..to obstruct the view of the side rods...motion.....simply a set of bars, like a cage.....[sadly, cannot include photos unless I cheat, scan and publish, which may be frowned upon??]]
Still sufficient to partially obscure th motion, but not to hide its presence entirely.
the problem with the basic Hornby 0-4-0 tanks is the primitive representation of the motion.....side rods and connecting rods.
a steam loco with full side skirts might just as well be powered by a motor bogie...or tenshodo SPUD.... for all that can be seen of what makes a steam loco tick.
but with the see-through bars as worn by the Huddersfield Gas works rly locos, the hornby rods can be blackened, yet, something moving can still be seen.
The slide bar area is totally pannelled-off...but not the driving wheel/side rod area.
much more interesting...yet with the shortcomings disguised effectively????
A pity Hornby doesn't include extra large buffers with their lil locos?
