Much as I hate truncated text speak Baldwin Gas Mechanical is a bit of a mouthful so BGM it shall be. This is from the Neil Sayer kit which is although not particularly cheap is complete except for couplings so there are no nasty add ons such as wheel, motor and gearbox which slyly manage to make most kits at least as expensive as this one - a lot a no where nearly as well designed as this one as well! The have been a couple of very good blow by blow accounts of the build of this kit already so I won't go into too much detail but think there are quite a few interesting features that are worth talking about.

This loco is a slight departure for me as it is , of course American, but kit was tested, exchanged, borrowed, captured and just plain stolen sometimes so is not outside the realms of possibility and I just fancied it anyway! So what do you get;

A nice plastic box with what does seem like an awful lot of bits for a small loco. First job is the gearbox and axles. I am not normally a fan of push fit gears and things but this all seems to have gone together nicely so we shall.

Now some exciting bits - the chassis. I know I am being pretty sad here but this really is quite exciting! I have not made a kit with this style of construction before and is such a good way of representing the open frames of this loco;

'It's just like a skeleton' says little Iz and she is not wrong! Once bent up the three frames fit together perfectly and was a simple job to solder them all together with the help of a couple of bulldog clips. In a very short space of time we have this;