Entry posted by D869
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The story so far... as regular readers may remember, we are at a point where we just about have enough locos to run the schedule at St Ruth. Recent additions from my direction prior to the Nottingham show earlier this year were a Farish Warship and a much modified Western, both in maroon.
A long time ago I promised myself that I would not be building a class 41 Warship - these were the very first WR hydraulics and were rather outside the WR's hydraulic concept, being the result of a political fudge by the BTC so that the WR got its preferred transmission but not the lightweight German inspired body design - instead the design and build work was done by NBL in Glasgow along similar lines to the LMS 'twins'. Apart from being WR's 'unwanted' locos, my own chosen period is 1968-72 and the class 41s were withdrawn in December 1967... although it may be that this was why my chosen period starts in 1968.
I've since become rather more flexible, having realised that pushing the date range back a few years allows me to dilute the never ending stream of Mark 1s on the coaching stock front. While operating the layout it also occurred to me that it would be nice to introduce a bit more variation to the diesel hydraulic roster so my views on the class 41 have mellowed... to the extent that I have now splashed out on one of the Worsley Works kits.
Rather than dithering for ages over the choice of prototype (after all, there are only 5 choices) I have selected my intended loco before starting this build. It will be D604 'Cossack' - the last one built. Like their smaller class 22 cousins, the class 41s went through a lot of detailed changes in spite of their extremely short lives, so choosing the combination of these changes is another important step. I've gone for August 1965 on the basis of a photo in Strathwood's 'Looking back at Warships' showing D604 at Laira in work-worn condition. This was not her final condition because all of the class were fitted with 4 character headcode boxes before the end... but in my view these always looked like an afterthought, apart from being a pain to fit to the model.
So, to the model... step 1 was to cut a socking great hole in the side. Why? - after checking photos I found that the layout of one side was incorrect. The BR crest and nameplate should always be to the right of the centre door, but on the etch I received there was a boiler filler door and a louvre vent in the way. I thought briefly about whether I could live with this but it didn't take very long to reach an answer so I drilled 4 holes a short distance away from each corner of the louvre and used a coping saw to turn these into a square cutout with a reasonable margin outside the louvre vent.
I then chopped a second hole in the new intended location and after a fair amount of fitting and filing I soldered the louvre into its new location. I then tidied up the first hole and cut a piece of 10 thou to fill this in. The etched boiler filler door was filled with solder and all of the solder joints scraped and sanded flush. I doubt whether the fix will be completely invisible but once the nameplates etc are in place I think it will be very inconspicuous. I will fit new boiler fillers to both sides using the Etched Pixels parts. In case anybody else is considering this kit, I have contacted Allen about the error and he has corrected his artwork based on the prototype photos that I sent him.
Step 2 was to further butcher the sides. One of the earliest changes to these locos was the removal of the louvres over the upper air intakes for the cooler groups.
The modified intakes seem to consist of a very fine vertical ribs which are practically invisible in many photos. Unfortunately neither the original kit nor the detailing pack from Etched Pixels caters for this configuration - a shame because the locos spent the majority of their lives in this condition. I convinced myself that I had at least one way to represent the later intakes before hacking out all of the upper louvres. I found the best way to do this was with a sharp knife with a piece of steel behind the etch, keeping a stone handy to resharpen the knife at regular intervals. Once the majority of the louvres were removed I cleaned up carefully with needle files, taking care not to distort the remaining pillars.
I mentioned the Etched Pixels detailing pack. This contains some extremely fine overlay etches for the louvres. They are beautiful etches but on a practical level I could not see how I was going to be able to use them - they are at a finer pitch that the Worsley louvres so could not simply be overlaid. I could have removed all of the Worsley louvres but this would have left the new etches unsupported and I don't think they would survive normal handling without some sort of backing. In the end I reluctantly decided to save these etches for a future project.
After completing the butchery of the sides it was time to fold up the main body and fit the two bulkheads. This has gone in a similar manner to the class 22 so I won't repeat the description. The ends of course are rather more complex than the class 22. The kit provides a fold up inner support for the nose which I fitted next. The cab window surrounds were the next item. The side etch has a smooth curve between the windscreen pillar and the nose but photos show this to be incorrect, so I filed this to a sharp corner which also simplified the fitting of the windscreen surround.
That's about all in terms of progress on the body for now. Here's how it looks right now.
Given the smooth running of the class 22 I spent some time searching for a pinpoint bearing chassis but was unable to find anything with suitable dimensions... actually that's not quite true - the US 'Erie Built' diesel is about right and there is a reasonably modern model but apparently they are like hen's teeth, so pinching a chassis from one of these is very unlikely to happen. Instead I've gone for the usual option of a Farish class 47. I've opted for a BachFar one because the class 47 bogie centres are too far apart for the class 41. I intend to shorten the bogie centres in the same way that I did for the Western. The chassis is in the process of having various changes made (e.g. improving pickups) but I'll spare you the photo of what looks pretty much like an off the shelf item.
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