Following on from my completion of the Highland 0-6-0's my attention turned to a pair of engines that became a trademark of much of the Highland section in its latter days of steam- A Pickersgill 4-4-0 and a Macintosh 0-6-0, both of which proved very useful additions to the motive power department and which stayed till dieselisation.Once again, these are venerable white metal kits from Nucast and DJH respectively, and have been unavailable for some time now, but were part of my strategic reserve of models for the area in case R-T-R versions weren't released Well, it has proved a wise move and I am working through them methodically now. The double build of the previous two proved quite practical, so I decided to build these side by side as well, which seems to work for me- any hiccups with one can be puzzled over whilst attending to the other, rather than packing the problem away as was often the case before.

 

It dawned on me that this burst of activity is the first time I have built WM kits for nearly forty years and most of them are of the same vintage, with many of the attendant quirks that characterised these releases, but different standards and expectations were the order of the day then.
One great step forward though for me has been to finally master white metal soldering, and most of the construction of these two has been this way, and very enjoyable it has been too....

 

To the models- the 4-4-0 had been started before and packed away at least twice, wheras the 0-6-0 was a straight build from the untouched kit. A look at the boiler and footplate casting as it came- at least it is a fairly solid base to work from- the HR footplate was very flimsy and twisted at the slightest provocation.

 

 

 

As before, R-T-R chassis were used, a T9 for the bogie and a Bachmann pannier for the 0-6-0. The T9 was almost an exact fit but the other is a bit of a compromise, and involved hefty carving away from the splashers and footplate to get the coupling rods to revolve freely. Fortunately the thickness of the castings and the generous clearance allowances for the coarser original Romfords made this possible. The pannier drivers are also a bit underscale as well, but to the eye on the layout it passes as acceptable.

 

 

The 0-6-0 body ready for motor fitting- a small amount of filing and trimming back of the firebox area was needed, but compared to the amount needed on the smaller boilered HR ones this was one of the easier bits of construction.

 

 

 

 

Assembly proceeded, with much perusing of images of the two types, and use of my trio of solder, superglue and 90 second epoxy can be seen in this photo. I found epoxy handy in boiler and fittings fixings- things like domes and chimneys could be tweaked into the correct position while the glue sets. However, problems soon appeared with both engines. The bogie engine turned out to be squint, with one footplate half leading the other by a mm or so, but showing up as out of squares all over the engine. Now, I don't know if it was a casting fault or a built in mistake by myself in the original gluing together, but the whole assembly had to be dismantled. I thought I might lose the whole casting, but to my relief it came apart more or less intact.

 

 

It was from here on that the soldering iron became the preferred tool of choice as I discovered the hole filling properties of 70o solder and lashings of Powerflux, and the home made extractor fan started earning its keep. I managed to square up the chassis and after that there was little to note of with the 4-4-0. Everything went together with little problem apart from getting things square and in the right place, which involves studying pictures of the real thing as the instructions were of little use except to photograph WIP on

 

Eventually body work reached a basically intact state and much buffing and cleaning was done to get rid of decades of oxidation and general grime, and then work started on the tenders.

 

 

The two types had a plethora of pipes and fittings on them, esp. the bogie and I decided to make at least a representation of this on the bodies. Fortunately, both types have been well photographed in colour, so much poring over the like of Keith Pirt's Scottish volumes and others was done. It turns out that hardly any two had the same arrangement, so I did enough to pass muster although I basically used specific pictures of 57585 and 54491 as prototypes.The bogie engines had Westinghouse brakes, as did some 0-6-0's, but 57585 wasn't fitted as such, at least in my period.Two views of the bogie loco with pipework here.

 

 

 

As an aside- the cab backhead casting- an example of 1970's detailing

 

 

When I started the tenders it became obvious that there was something far wrong with the 0-6-0's one. Here it is as supplied and tacked together

 

 

and after modification.

 

 

Starting with a complete ignorance of CR locos, I soon discovered what a minefield this subject can be- lots of variations on a theme, usually blithely dismissed under the catch-all phrase of Jumbos. They seem to have had common access to tenders and fittings, and trying to pin down what went where proved too much work for a one-off job. I finally settled for 57585 which had steam and vacuum fittings and a smaller tender than that supplied. This was achieved by cutting down the existing one and using a strip of plasticard to pass as a patch repair that lots had to disguise any rough bits. The tendertop flare was sadly underdone as well, so much filing away of metal and some brutal bending of now very thin WM was needed to remedy this.

 

 

 

Eventually, with this cured, progress was uneventful and tenders were ready for priming.

 

 

 

I decided to model 54491 with the cab doors closed- a rarely seen feature of the real thing, but as there is a lot of chassis showing in the cab I thought this might disguise things a bit. I also added rolled up cab weathersheeting, which can just be seen in some of the layout photos.

 

 

One final hiccup with the 0-6-0 showed up after priming- despite looking at dozens of images of the real thing I had glued on the chimney supplied with the kit at the start of the build, but only noticed its apalling shape at a very late date. It can be seen in this image.

 

 

and in this workbench shot, where a prototype pic is in the background. Anyway, a replacement CR one was found and fitted.

 

 

They had two coats of Humbrol acrylic primer and three of GW Chaos Black, with 54491 then lined out with Pressfix transfers. Weathering was confined to a dusting of well thinned Humbrol no.79 through the airbrush for this one, and 57585 received the same then about ten following coats of variations of browns, greys and black added to the basic mixture till it had a subtle mixture of shades passed over lightly to give a well worn look.
At the time of writing I still have to tidy up the cab numbering of 57585- a gloss varnish adhesive base still shows up in photos, and needs some disguising.

 

Lastly, a couple of the engines in action during their running-in turns.It was an interesting build and has given me two useful specific engines to add to a growing more accurate roster.

 

 

 

 

November 2013- addendum.

 

The Bachmann chassis as originally fitted was too far out, even for my lax approach to the odd mm or two, so has been replaced with a C class version, which is more or less the correct spacings. Additional work was also done to the body work after even more shortcomings were noticed with this kit. A copy of a booklet covering the restoration of 828 showed up errors in cab cutout shape and spectacle glasses. The attached photos show this,so a bit more filing was called for to remedy things.

 

 

 

 

Replacing the chassis involved some butchery in the cab area as the motor is set further back than the pannier, so a spare T9 backplate was fitted to hide this. Brutal stuff at this stage, but its amazing what a coat of paint can disguise....

 

 

And finally, in service and looking a bit more like a 812....

 

 

Addendum Dec 2017

 

To bring this up to date, I eventually tired of the flaws in the 0-6-0 and with the advent of the Hornby 700 did a rebuild of this loco into a more presentable CR 812. The original 57585 had its chassis removed and the kit one built without a motor and the loco went to an elderly gentleman who had an interest in Thurso based engines to spend its retirement in a display case alongside other 60D residents. He has since died but the family are retaining the collection as a memory of their father. Here is a shot of the replacement conversion at work. It has since this photo had a replacement chimney fitted.