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The Nutley, Crowborough and Groombridge Light Railway - Fictional Narrow Gauge in East Sussex


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Alex, have you checked your user-name and avatar recently?

 

Just because ALL liveries are vastly inferior to Midland crimson does not mean I don't like them! :P

 

Honestly though, while the Midland is my favourite company my favourite liveries are SECR and Caledonian. It's hard to find a pre-grouping livery I don't like! :)

 

- Alex

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  • 1 month later...
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So it occurs to me that I have on several occasions said I would do a post covering how I made my Small England on the cheap. I also realised I had never gotten around to that so here we go..........

 

A Prince? or maybe just a Duke!

 

back in May I heard from a couple of people that you could make some convincing 009 models from the old Thomas and Friends ERTL toys. I was told they were slightly over scale, but close enough. At this point I had just gotten my Bachmann Skarloey from Alex (The Midland Mole), so after a quick browse of eBay I managed to pick up an ERTL Duke for £1 including postage! Once this arrived it went onto the recently completed Brighthelmstone alongside Skarloey for some size comparison:

post-22762-0-45463900-1541513788_thumb.jpg

 

post-22762-0-93991100-1541513796_thumb.jpg

 

After a bit of attacking with the drill I managed to remove the chassis and face from the loco:

post-22762-0-67448900-1541513895_thumb.jpg

 

With this done the next step was to get the saw out and remove the sections between the loco and tender:

post-22762-0-66853600-1541514027_thumb.jpg

 

The smoke box was removed giving us the following sections:

post-22762-0-75441500-1541514051_thumb.jpg

 

After this, paint stripper was applied to all the parts that would be used in the final loco:

post-22762-0-58056400-1541514112_thumb.jpg

 

Making the loco look like this:

post-22762-0-10165300-1541514202_thumb.jpg

 

I then attacked the loco with a file to remove the moulded on detail. At this stage I also cut down the foot plate valencies to a more realistic size:

post-22762-0-68320800-1541514287_thumb.jpg

 

It was then time to start adding detail again, starting with making a smoke box door, based on Prince:

post-22762-0-93783100-1541514397_thumb.jpg

 

Then I needed some interior detail, step 1 was to make a cab front and floor. This was shaped to match the existing holes on the inside of Duke's body:

post-22762-0-42984400-1541519935_thumb.jpg

 

post-22762-0-33535700-1541519946_thumb.jpg

 

I then found some pictures of Princes back head, and began forming a basic representation based on these:

post-22762-0-98129800-1541520014_thumb.jpg

 

Hand rails were added from brass wire and handrail knobs I had, and the steam pipe was made out of some scrap cable, so it was time to get the paint out:

post-22762-0-67850600-1541520180_thumb.jpg

 

post-22762-0-27177700-1541520190_thumb.jpg

 

This was all I could do for the time being, all that I had used was the ERTL Duke and some scraps I had, so at this point the total cost of the project was £1!!!

 

As seen earlier in the thread I managed to get a chassis in July, this cost me £27 including postage. and came from this loco:

post-22762-0-80848400-1541521932.jpg

 

The body clipped off the chassis quite easily, and all I had to do to it was paint the wheels and cylinders. I then cut down a chassis from the tender of a Farish Castle that I had got to use the loco chassis for my pugbash, this included a drawbar that I could reuse for this loco. With these done the loco was finished:

post-22762-0-33244600-1541520637_thumb.jpg

 

and able to fit round a 9" radius curve (hopefully):

post-22762-0-46606200-1541520662_thumb.jpg

 

All in all, not bad for an old die cast toy and cheap chassis. Total cost of project £28. I think it is safe to say I will probably try this with some other ERTL models at some point!

 

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed,

 

Gary

Edited by BlueLightning
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Thanks!

 

That's a good list. I never knew they did an ERTL of Bertram, I assume it is the same moulding as my Duke? I quite fancy doing one of Duncan (TR number 6 Douglas) but I'm not sure what chassis I could use, and I think it would need a lot more work for detailing that this one did.

 

Gary

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I still have my ERTL Narrow Gauge models somewhere... I have a load of standard gauge ones too, but I have a plan for selling those to help fund actual models...

I still have all of mine. Too much sentimental value though to sell them. One of the last vestiges of my childhood.

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That's one reason why I've yet to sell them! But the standard gauge ones which I bought later can go. A few will be staying, and all of the narrow gauge ones will, but the rest can go. Most of the standard gauge ones were bought much later with the intention of bashing or selling. I've said it before - my interest in Thomas was only very limited, and by the age of six I'd been bought my first terrier, so I never really collected many of the toys.

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Think I've mentioned before that my first actual model train was the Nellie that became Bulldog when I was about five. But the Thomas stuff has been around since as long as I can remember.

Then there's my complete collection of the books, but there's several reasons why I keep those besides just "they were mine as a kid".

Edited by RedGemAlchemist
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Hey everyone!

I haven't actually done any more modelling on this yet, although I did run each loco on the new test track when I installed that. However I was in the model shop the other day, and he had something sitting there that despite the fact it is wrong for this layout I couldn't resist taking it home with me!

1413618822_2019-02-0214_18_24.jpg.bd2e6ec6621e0bc9c790188b6b1ad786.jpg

I also picked up BRM the other day, just so I could read it's tips on using a bow-pen. While reading I decided to have a go by attempting to paint the NC&GLR livery on a small section of my workbench, I am quite happy with this, maybe with a bit more practice I won't need transfers! Thoughts??

357524665_2019-01-2108_04_03.jpg.b9579a8a1fa8ced08590732ddcf28724.jpg

Now if I learn how to etch nameplates I won't need to buy them either!!! :jester:

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed,

Gary

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3 hours ago, BlueLightning said:

Hey everyone!

I haven't actually done any more modelling on this yet, although I did run each loco on the new test track when I installed that. However I was in the model shop the other day, and he had something sitting there that despite the fact it is wrong for this layout I couldn't resist taking it home with me!

1413618822_2019-02-0214_18_24.jpg.bd2e6ec6621e0bc9c790188b6b1ad786.jpg

I also picked up BRM the other day, just so I could read it's tips on using a bow-pen. While reading I decided to have a go by attempting to paint the NC&GLR livery on a small section of my workbench, I am quite happy with this, maybe with a bit more practice I won't need transfers! Thoughts??

357524665_2019-01-2108_04_03.jpg.b9579a8a1fa8ced08590732ddcf28724.jpg

Now if I learn how to etch nameplates I won't need to buy them either!!! :jester:

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed,

Gary

Smart little loco. It'll look good in blue.

And maybe. Definitely keep practicing. 

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Thanks Red,

 

I'm sure the Baldwin would look great in blue, not sure I can bring myself to repaint it though. Bachmann have done an excellent job on it!! Plus I think the earliest the NC&GLR would have got one is post-war in a sell off of surplus war equipment.

 

Gary

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