Note: Rails can be described as having three parts: the base, the web, and the head. The wheels of a train roll upon the rail's head. The web is the vertical strip that supports the head above the base. Railway wheels possess flanges that prevent the wheels from sliding sideways off the head of the rail.
Modern Hornby train wheels are built with flanges that are narrower than the flanges on older wheels. The wide flanges on the designer's old Hornby wagons were evidently making contact with the particles of ballast that were clinging to the rail bases, a fact that was resulting in derailments at high speeds. The rail bases were subsequently cleaned of all clinging ballast, but the old wagons were retired in any event.
All of the track used in this layout, as explained in the introduction page, is Hornby code 100 track. It is possible to obtain "lower profile" track, such as code 83. Code 100 track has rails that are one-hundred thousandths (one-tenth) of an inch high from the bottom of the base to the top of the head. Older trains, such as the designer's old Hornby wagons, can roll easily on clean code 100 track. However, warnings have been posted by model-track manufacturers that the flanges of older wheels might not be able to roll freely on code 83 track (code 83 track is only 0.083 inches high, slightly lower than code 100). The designer's old Hornby wagons would probably have difficulty in rolling on code 83 track.
Why does model railway track possess different rail heights? The reason is that modelers, in the pursuit of realism, want to run their model trains on track that closely resembles the track of real railways. Low-profile rails are said to be more realistic than the established code 100 rails. In America, code 83 (83 thousandths of an inch rail height) has become popular. In Britain, code 75 (75 thousandths of an inch rail height) is being advertised for 00-scale railways.
The 8F locomotive type happens to be a favorite of both the designer and the builder. One reason for this fact is that a similar 8F locomotive appeared in a movie which both of these gentlemen found absorbing (this is unusual, because their tastes in movies are not similiar). We are referring to the 1953 thriller Time Bomb, starring Glenn Ford. (Time Bomb was the original British title; the American title is Terror on a Train.) In Time Bomb, an 8F locomotive pulls a long train of open 2-axle wagons (similar to the first wagon in the accompanying photo), with each wagon carrying 2 large naval mines. Glenn Ford stars as an explosives expert who is called in by the police to find and deactivate an explosive device which, it is suspected, a saboteur has concealed aboard the train.
The 8F locomotive possesses the Whyte wheel classification 2-8-0, meaning that there are two small "pilot" wheels in the front, eight big "driving" wheels under the frame, and no other wheels in the back. Locomotives with this wheel arrangement are sometimes known as "Consolidations". The name Consolidation is believed to refer to the fact that locomotives with this wheel arrangement were once owned by two American railway companies that merged ("consolidated").
The designation 8F is not synonymous with either "2-8-0" or "Consolidation". 8F is a power classification used by British Railways, the national railway organization that eventually owned the Stanier 8F locomotives. The editors have not yet been able to determine whether the 8F power classification was used before the formation of British Railways. See Plate 141 for a discussion of British Railways.
The 8F locomotives were designed by Sir William Stanier for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSR). They were introduced in 1935. For additional information on the Class 8F, see the website of the Stanier 8F Locomotive Society Limited. For biographical information on Sir William Stanier, click here.