Well, today has been a bad day. Nothing to do with modelling, just been really paralysingly down. The sort of day, in fact when anything you try will probably go wrong.

So... I decided that (since my old B17 is deader than... something that's very dead indeed) I'd perform a dissection on that, rather than on my nice shiny B17 chassis.

It was instructive.

1. The cylinders and valve gear are not attached to the footplate/runningboard. However, the footplate/running board is attached to the chassis at the back.

2. The boiler/firebox/cab comes away from the chassis fairly easily. If you remember that there's a screw at the back of the chassis as well as one under the smokebox. This is nice. It suggests that you could use the Langley B2 kit to... well, do much the same as Thompson did and rebuild your B17 into a B2.

You could, possibly, turn your B2 into a V2 (although the wheels are too big)... Or maybe even the planned LMS 2-6-2. I know (sacrilidge!)

3. You can turn the gearbox round on a Dapol chassis - and have it work. So, if you're looking for a chassis for a tank engine, the Dapol stuff should be a good starting point. Of course, finding a tank engine with 6'8" wheels might be tricky...

4. There's no real issue with the amount of space under the body of a B17.

The only possible problem is deciding the amount of runningboard/footplate to remove from the chassis. So, things have turned around a bit...

Oh yes, and thanks to Will J for putting me onto a Minitrix A4 body on eBay.