A very long time ago, some 10 years to be precise, I started a conversion of a Hornby West Country pacific to P4. At the time, I was trying to use the existing chassis and had modified the existing bogie and pony trucks. I was having all manner of problems with the slide bars though and despite trying everything I could think of just couldn’t get it to run properly. After a valiant effort I reached the point where I stopped and put it to one side for a proper think.

I decided to go down the etched chassis route so duly purchased a Comet chassis pack and put the lot away pending the enthusiasm to try again.

I didn’t think it would take a decade to get to the point where I would pick it up again but a lot of water has passed under the proverbial bridge since then. A lot…

So I built the chassis frames and fitted high level horn blocks using a CSB on the main drivers. I retained the existing wheels and dug out a high level loadhauler gearbox and a Mashima 1632 motor from the hoard. You know, the one we all acquired when Mashima declared they were going to stop production.

The Comet chassis has made a few assumptions in respect of fitting to the Hornby  body but I’m glad to say that there haven’t been any nasty surprises so far. I’ve made a bracket to fix the front mounting screw.

Coupling rods were already made and I’ve got to the point where all runs smoothly. I just need to decide whether to try and retain the Hornby motion bracket or use the Comet one. I also am looking at the Markits single slide bar crosshead with a view to using if dimensionally accurate. It’s a bit beefier than the Hornby  one.