As part of my backwards motive power movement my attention turned to the Highland 0-6-0 "Barney" class- very similar to those other Drummond locos on the CR and their Southern cousins, the 700 class. These engines were part of the Highland scene for the first half of the last century, but suffered from a mass transfer of the last survivors to the Glasgow area in 1946, in exchange for the Caley version that saw out steam here. So, another bit of modellers licence involved here again, I'm afraid.

I had originally started one of these kits about twenty five years ago, and made a complete mess of it, but fortunately it was my sole attempt at WM soldering, so it proved salvageable, much to my suprise. I had been looking out for another one of these over the years, and a couple of months ago one appeared here in classifieds, and was promptly snatched up. My delight at securing such a supposed rarity was tempered when I discovered a 2003 date inside it and a visit to the DJH site showed that it was still available , but nevertheless it was enough to get me going after my Ben alterations.

What follows proves I am not an engineer and in fact perhaps shoudn't be shown to the world at all but it has enabled me to get another two engines going.I have built chassis for engines before through necessity, but the current R-T-R releases are far better than my abilities to match, so Bachmann pannier ones were used as the driving force. They have dimensional differences but I am going to live with that, as I have stopped fretting about the odd mm or two in the wrong place.

In my searches for a lost something I came across one of my builds- most of the four or five others were disposed of, but I kept this one for sentiment- the Mainline original that created such a stir when it first appeared. It has a compensated beam chassis and watching the wheels adjust to any track irregularitaries still gives me pleasure at my efforts.

When I got the new kit I delved into the the recesses and dug out my previous effort- it was badly built and had suffered somewhat in kicking around the cupboard, and my original plan was to scavenge it for fittings for the Ben, which then turned into a rebuild with a plasticard footplate, but after a good soak in boiling water most of it came apart and I realised that the model was in fact still buildable, at least to my standards The following pictures will show what ensued. As it was found, after soaking, and with the footplate resoldered.

A rough trial to see if the chassis would fit inside the body- it did by turning the motor vertically and much filing and widening of the firebox, but it isn't obvious in the finished state.

After that work was straightforward, assembly a mix of solder, superglue and epoxy, with most of the effort going into filling and smoothing, until they reached a more or less satisfactory state.

A good scrub with Jif and a coat or two of GamesWorkshop Black spray saw them ready for the finishing touches.

The original tender was made up with the end bearing Romfords in place so I left it as was, and it runs OK, but the newer one had a Comet sub chassis fitted. As of now, I have broken the habit of many years and not fitted tender pickups, but this may yet be done. A crew was added to both engines- the one shown is, IIR, an American white metal pair that have been lying around for years.

The tender was coaled on both with a lump of Das clay as a former and then covered with coal

Alterations to the chassis- motor turned in its cradle, thanks to a topic in forum that alerted me to the possibilities of this chassis, and the outside brake rods removed with a hint of cross rods and some crudely shaped guard irons to finish it off.

I didn't take any shots of them in plain black, but hereis one of 54398 to give an idea of before.

Weathering was the usual drybrushing of underframe grime colours and various shades of grey on the footplate, smokebox and cab roof and tender top, folowed by airbrushing of layers of diluted acrylics in different mixes to try and give an unkempt look. My start point is Humbrol no.79 followed by about ten or so variations on the original by adding a selection of browns and greys to it and lightly brushing over. This is done with very light coats and can be seen in this shot of a trial burst on a newspaper.

There you have it, a photo of watching paint dry Anyway, to finish, a couple of pictures of the running engines. 57695 is the battered original and 57697 is the later one- it has a Caley stovepipe chimney as per the prototype, but none of these engines made it to a crest, and the tenders are wrong for the period- the box at the rear was done away with, but as I've said before, this is Kylesku, not Kyle of Lochalsh, and things turned out differently here.

Well, another collection of compromises, with more to follow, but it has been for me an achievement to at last have smooth running appropriate motive power for the layout after years of taking boxes out of cupboards and putting them back again. These kits may be crude by current standards but we must be grateful for them at all- I have waited in vain for decades for Scottish engines from the R-T-R's, and without these kits I could never have had Highland locos for my layout.