Just like the prototype, this project began with converting Hornby`s SDJR No 45, later to become BR 40634. I utilised Hornby`s tender but used a comet basic chassis kit, however the tender never looked right to me, but at least I would`nt have to worry about the livery.

I used a perseverence 2P loco chassis kit and a medium sized Mashima motor and a 38 to 1 Branchline gearbox. Wheels are Ultrascale. No 45 than sat in a cabinet long enough for me to change the time period from 1920`s to 1950`s so I could make use of the vast amount of RTR stock being produced by Bachmann and Hornby, rather than spending years on making all those etched SDJR coach kits I had accumulated and then having to paint them in full S&D blue livery.

The perseverance chassis went together well, but I had to provide pickups on the front bogie. My favoured suspension has been Kean-Maygib sprung plastic hornblocks. I now use those supplied by Exactoscale

I decided to refit No 45 with her original OO Hornby chassis and she went to the Ebay market as Hornby produced the BR version of her as 40634. She remained on the S&D until scrapped in 1962. I changed her handrails and added more where they had not been provided. I added Kean Maygib LMS sprung buffers and all lamp irons .

This time I opted for a more correct pattern tender from the Comet range, but I would have to paint and line her to match the loco body.

I needed to fill the loco body with as much weight as I could muster as 4-4-0 wheel arrangements tend to be very light on their feet in model form. I used liquid lead, wrapped in a plasticard tube and fixed with superglue before fixing in the boiler . Lead strip was then cut and used to fill every nook and crannie I could find in the body as well as the chassis.

Painted and lined using HMRS Presfix BR lining sheet.

Nine years later......... All that weight added to the body prevented me fitting any kind if DCC chip. However having experimented in spray weathering using Humbrol enamels, I was able to place the Zimo MX648R and Sugar cube speaker in the tender. She now sits as BR 40634 on my workbench with Digitrains 2P soundfile on board.