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Keeping with the Great Western theme for now over the last week or so I have been working on this beautiful locomotive
Soon to be 2912 Saint Ambrose this particularly elegant GWR 4-6-0 has a rather interesting heritage. It was built more than 25 years ago by Martin Finney using the Proscale kit as a basis. However, how much of the Proscale kit is left is very much open for debate. Whether it is fact or fiction the story that I have been told is that his (frustrating) experience with this loco is what got Martin started on designing his own kits. The rest, as they say, is history. My association with this loco started about 3 or so years ago when my friend Gerry Beale bought the loco from Martin. Martin's interest in the pre-grouping LSWR made a Saint finished in 1920's condition surplus to requirements. The original loco was built to P4 standards and one of the first jobs I did on it was to re-wheel to EM gauge and make some modification to the compensation beam arrangement. In essence simplifying it. This image shows how it looked after I re-wheeled it back in 2012. The original guise was 2920 Saint David although it is not wearing the nameplates in this photo.
Following the re-wheeling Gerry took the loco back and stripped off all of the paint and spent a lot of time updating the loco to the late 1940's appearance seen in the first picture. The level of extra detail that he added is quite stunning. Speedo drive, fine pipework and lot of small sundries really lift the loco into the "very special" classification. The agreement between us was that once he had completed the detailing I would take the loco back and apply a coat of GWR Middle Chrome green. Gerry would then do all of the finishing work. Painting the black areas, applying plates, transfers, weathering and final details. It would have been nice if things were so simple as at this point the Saint became a Sinner. Whilst the loco ran tolerably well we both felt that it could be better especially as the loco had a Portescap drive. Some investigative work concluded that the old "variflex" type hornblocks would be worth replacing along with the Maygib steel plunger pickup which were showing signs of rust. However, the biggest issue I discovered was the right hand leading coupling rod was longer than the left hand one by a fraction of a millimeter.
This problem explained an awful lot in terms of the running quality of the loco so it was fixed with the help of my chassis jig. New Highlevel fold up hornblocks were fitted and provision made for a removable wiper type pickup plate. In addition to this the brake gear and injector pipe work were modified so that they could be removable for future maintenance should it be required.
The chassis has now been repainted and trial run. With the rogue coupling rod shortened to match it's twin on the other side it is much smoother. It has eliminated some rather unhealthy slewing of the middle and leading wheel sets caused by the rods and movement in the variflex bearings. In the meantime the loco body has been thoroughly cleaned and degreased. Following a coat of primer....
....the loco and tender have had a thin glossy coat of cellulose GWR green.
So, with a little more work to be done on the chassis over the weekend Saint Ambrose should be going back to Gerry for final finishing next week. I'll make sure I post a final photo in due course when he has finished it off.
Cheers....Morgan
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