The last week has seen the lining and detail painting on Peppercorn K1, 62038, completed. Just prior to the dayshift knocking off the loco was shunted out into the yard for an impromptu photo session. The date is 13th December 1962 and this is the last time 62038 will look this clean prior to taking the short journey back to her home shed, 36A, Doncaster. In just over ten months 62038 will be withdrawn and condemned for scrap. In the wholesale scrapping of locomotives 62038 was a comparatively early casualty from this class on utility 2-6-0s. Less than 15 years from building to the cutters torch just highlights how rapid this transition process was. On something that was built to have a useful life of more than 40 years a more moderate approach to the replacement of steam would have probably seen her well into the 1980's. It is an interesting to think that instead of seeing the usual pair of Class 20s on the colliery trains where I grew up, every so often, your patience at the lineside would be rewarded by the distant bark and then sight of a K1 hauling HAA empties up the 1 in 100 from Colwick North Junction to the coal screens at Gedling pit. The date of this little flight on fantasy would be circa 1982.

The reality is that the model below has been built from the excellent DMR etched brass 4mm scale kit. This is the first DMR product I have built and generally I have been very pleased with how it has gone together. Agreed that it does not have the detail or finesse of a Dave Bradwell K1 but equally it does not take as long to build. The main point is that, apart from a couple of issues with the valve gear, all the parts fit together well and the essential character of the prototype have been captured without making the construction overly complicated. The valve gear issues I encountered could partly be of my own making, influenced by my normal endeavours in P4. This model was built to 00 gauge and I find that it was necessary to add spacing washers in various places to get the rods oscillating parallel to the loco frames rather than at an unrealistic angle. The difficulty was that, having done this, I found a couple of locations where adjacent parts were fouling. The simplest way of explain this is to refer to the page from the instructions attached below. It is marked up with the modifications and adjustments I made to get a smooth and reliable mechanism.

Other points to note in the construction (or Morganisms) are

• Tender coupling hook fabricated from 0.8mm brass rod shaped to look like the hoses between loco and tender. This idea was first shown here
• Hinged fall plate. A length of 0.8mm wire soldered along the front edge of the fall plate is pivotted in 2 short lengths of brass tube soldered to the back edge of the footplate.
• Coil sprung pickups fabricated from 33 SWG phosphor bronze wire. A series of photos on how to make them can be found by following this link
• Removable brake gear (pictures here)
• Sprung centre axle using a Brassmasters/Comet style hornblock sliding directly in the frame cut out. Even in 00 I do this as it improves the pick up and running qualities significantly

The powerplant is a Mashima 1420 driving through a Highlevel Highflyer 40:1 gearbox onto the middle driving wheel. Control is DCC via a Train Control Systems MC2 decoder.

In my next post I'll explain a bit more about the basic painting process.