Leaderboard

Although I have complained about the Hattons/DJM mechanism and chassis at length, I have never had any major criticisms of the body on this model and this remains the case, apart from the fact that you have to dismantle the body, in order to get the Hattons/DJM motor out, without resorting to the use of a mains Dremel. The level of detailing is very fine and some of the components are, by their very nature, somewhat delicate. The pipe runs along the edge of the footplate are a case in point. The pipes themselves are formed of steel rod, which is rather unyielding as is usually the case with steel. The end of the steam heating pipe, which runs along the left-hand edge of the footplate, actually fits into a corresponding hole in the rear of the plastic steam pipe moulding, which comes in a small bag for the owner to fit themselves. The steel rods are held in place along the edge of the footplate by small plastic clips, which are the vulnerable component here. The steam heating pipe on my model needed to be bent back slightly, in order not to place too much pressure on the plastic steam pipe (which you have to glue onto the buffer beam, fortunately Butanone seems to work OK for this). When bending this steel rod back a little, it popped out of the leading plastic clip on the side of the footplate, which in any case had, I suspect, been compromised during previous work on the loco. As a result, the plastic clip was broken and wouldn't hold the pipe securely any longer. My solution to this was what I have done before, when fitting similar pipework to kitbuilt locos. Two 0.5mm holes were drilled into the side of the footplate valancing, one on top of the other and by necessity, very close together. 0.5mm is somewhat too large but with a smaller drill, there is an increased risk of the drill breaking off, which wouldn't have been very helpful. Both holes are hidden behind the pipework when all is done, in any case. The first thing is then to epoxy a short length of 5 amp fuse wire into the top hole, having previously drawn the wire through some fine wet & dry paper to roughen the surface up to key to the glue: The top 0.5mm hole just goes right into the plastic of the footplate moulding, to a depth of about 5mm, enough to let the epoxy hold the fuse wire nicely. This is left to harden overnight. The next stage is to use a fine pair of tweezers to feed the other end of the fuse wire into the lower hole. This lower hole emerges on the underside of the footplate moulding. The fuse wire is then carefully pulled taught and some more epoxy applied to the underside of the footplate: The result looks like this - the fuse wire forms a very small little loop, that holds the steel steam pipe run in place and will disappear when dabbed with a black permanent marker or a bit of black paint: I would add, however, that the above process was rather fraught, as the threading of the fuse wire into the lower hole proved a lot more difficult than I had envisaged. I wouldn't do it in that order again, but would instead put the wire in the lower hole first, but not glue it, then thread the other end into the upper hole, glue it and leave it to harden. I would then draw the wire already in the lower hole tight and glue. I think I was lucky not to have broken the fuse wire off with the initial fumbling with the tweezers!

In the February issue of BRM, I showed a few photos taken last year when I went over to Australia to talk to the British Railway Modellers of Australia convention. After the main event, we enjoyed a couple of days visiting members layouts around Adelaide. One of the highlights was Tony Phillips model of Nottingham Victoria. This lives in a 40ft by 32ft railway room and is simply awe inspiring when you see it. Reader Keith Dyson from Nottingham e-mailed me to ask if I had any more photos. Well, it's taken me a while to find them, but here are more shots of this amazing project. Looking inside the train shed, still unfinished but looking good. The builder usually finds himself in charge of the MPD during operating sessions. Coal traffic is important and on a layout this large, you need a big loco to handle it. Finally, the man who built all this, Tony Phillips. Thanks again to the British Railway Modellers of Australia. If you are planning a trip "down under", get in touch with them as they are a friendly bunch with some great model railways.