Hattons/DJM 14XX - now completed
Entry posted by Captain Kernow
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I've now finished weathering 1458 and the loco is now considered 'ready for service'.
1458 and 1420 were the two regular locos on the Kington and Presteigne goods services in the early 1960s, until the lines finally closed in 1964. Both continued in service for a few months, with 1420 getting preserved by the Dart Valley Railway and 1458 seeing her days out on the Chalford auto trains, shedded at Gloucester.
In my timeline, the railway beyond Kington to New Radnor was not closed in 1951, together with the extension to Rhyadar, so the 14XXs would have worked beyond Kington to Capel Bethesda, where goods traffic with the Vale of Radnor Light Railway was exchanged.
Due to the extension beyond New Radnor to Rhayadar (which was initially meant to be part of a through route from the Midlands to the Welsh coast), the line was upgraded to take heavier locos, so we now see various types of pannier tanks appearing at Capel Bethesda, together with 22XXs and the occasional larger loco.
It's nice, though, to have a couple of 14XXs available, though, as a nod to the real life lines that closed in 1964.
Although I have some quite dirty and heavily-weathered locos, I wanted 1458 to represent a loco that had been looked after and was kept relatively clean by the local crews (a nod, perhaps, to the almost fanatical cleaning regime applied to the regular loco on the Golden Valley line a few miles away and a few years earlier).
The loco was sprayed with a weathering mix of diluted Humbrol enamels, based on the methods described by Martyn Welch. The first layer was largely rubbed off again, when touch-dry and a second mix applied, leaving the original dirt lodged in the nooks and crannies. A bit of brush weathering followed, together with a final 'blow over' from the airbrush.
(The other 14XX is one of the Hattons factory-weathered examples and I've yet to decide what to do about that, as it's really a bit too dirty!).
And finally, a kind and observant soul has pointed out something that I already knew, namely that the really 1458 retained the early crest right until the end. I only realised myself a few weeks ago, but decided that as my layout's whole 'raison d'etre' is really rather outrageously improbable, then I could get away with saying that the loco acquired the later crest when it was reboilered in the late 1950s (earlier photos show 1458 with a top feed, later ones show her without).
And I'm not messing with it now that it's finished!
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