It is not rare that we would like to feature a guest engine on our layouts.
In the Rev Awdry's case with his Ffarquhar layout, guest engines would sometimes make an appearance. 'Duck' being one engine, though he is more of a spare engine than a guest engine. The guest engines would make an appearance during the third or ending of the layout's operating sequence and would be in charge of an enthusiast train which would comprise of two modified Airfix Railbus kits. For my layout I will be replicating some fo the guest engines and will begin with the first, Stepney.

 

Stepney was a visitor for Thomas back in 1963 when he came to the North Western Railway from The Bluebell Railway. Since his arrival he has worked on the Ffarquhar Branch as a spare engine and helped double head an express with Duck after a visiting diesel failed. To help the artist of the book which features him, The Rev Awdry made a model of Stepney using a K's/ Keyser kit. After Stepney's book was publish, the model went on to being a regular visitor to the layout at shows and still runs to this day.

 

Bringing Stepney to the Ffarquhar Branch would be something special and also something new for visitors to see.
The first thing was to find a terrier kit, the same as the original. As chance would have it, one came up on eBay.

It was halfway built but still had all the essential items that were needed to make the model. Some non essential items that were attached to the model had to be removed before any painting could be done. Once the model was prepped and went through test run to see that everything was in working order, the paint could be gathered. Now Improved Engine Green is what Stepney carries for his current livery but the original model of him carried a different shade. Back then, you had to make do with what colour suited best and in Stepney's case, the Rev Awdry painted him in a colour which close to represent IEG. Using profile photos I took of the original model back in 2016, I went through different paint charts to find the right colour. In the end, Revell 17 "African brown" was the chosen colour with Humbrol 20 & 30 for detailing features.

One thing that I had to be aware of was that the lining on Stepney's original model, except the boiler bands, was hand painted. So with the use of a bow pen I carefully did my best to replicate Stepney's livery. With one side done, the model starts to look like the engine. His name and number will be done last as I will need to carefully mark it out, ready to be painted on.

This is how Stepney currently looks right now and I think he's starting to take shape. What d'you think?