TurboSnail

The Oxford Dean Goods. It's not very far out at all, and is fairly reliably on sale every now and then for £60-70. I'm hoping to get on the build when I'm back from holiday in a week or so, so will put some pics up then. It's not going to be perfectly accurate, but should be close.

Well, I've built an F but I don't really want to add printing and distributing them to my stress levels, so I'm not doing much manufacturing myself at the moment. @Skinnylinny is test building the O Class for me at the moment, so I'll have to persuade them into getting on with it! The O Class I could manufacture more easily as it's for an RTR chassis, not a custom one like the F. I've just printed a new R Class shell too, with a few modifications so hopefully that should be ready soon as well.

I'm in the process of dismantling the old layout and building a new one, however it is very small (living in a rented flat means not much space and requires portability). The only tender locos I've done so far are the SECR F/F1/B1 and O Classes. The O uses an Oxford Dean Goods chassis. But mainly it's because small locos generally mean less material and cheaper chassis, otherwise I'd be bankrupting myself with the number of locos I build! Plus I enjoy the challenge of making everything fit in such a small space.

Away from the proper workbench this week, but not the digital one... Here's a flight 'o fancy. Based on the Burrows and Kerr Stuart Well Tanks, but with a larger cab to hide the fact that I'm using a Dapol Pug chassis (it's the only one I can think of that allows such a small boiler to be used). I'm not 100% convinced that it looks like something that really would have existed, but might be a fun quick build project. Still unsure whether I'll end up adding it to the fleet.

In lieu of a proper update, here's an illustration of how small a Manning Wardle Class C really is. The Bagnall and 1800 aren't huge locos either by most standards.

I've got a Dapol pug chassis lying around... It'll just have to share the Peckett chassis with three other locos! My layout isn't big enough for more than one loco in steam anyway Edit: I was joking, but I tried it and... Turns out the pug chassis is actually too long!

I know pugbashes traditionally use older/cheaper loco bodies, but here goes... I was using the Peckett W4 chassis under one of my loco kits, so the body was spare for bashing. So it's got new cab sides, in a style used by Peckett on the B1 and X Classes, so I'd like to think it's plausibly prototypical. These are just plasticard, with the curves drawn around a 13mm loco wheel I had lying around. That necessitated modifying the cab steps and moving them forward, and adding new handrails, with a driver figure for good measure while I had the cab off. It's also had larger buffer heads added - a really easy mod as the Hornby ones just twist out. Finally, a repaint into my (fictional) livery. It still needs name and number plates, as well as a thorough weathering. And I need to find where the whistle pinged off to...

Having designed several locos for a Peckett W4 chassis, I haven't actually owned one... until now! Chassis duly repainted, I was about to flog the body on eBay, but couldn't quite bring myself to. I didn't want a standard Peckett on my layout, as everyone will have an identical one, so I couldn't justify keeping it. The eureka moment was finding some pictures of other Pecketts, including the X Class and the B1, which have a very distinctive cab side shape, so the obvious solution was to apply this to my W4! Commence plasticard cutting... Still a work in progress, as it needs buffers (I'm making some bigger ones for it), cab steps, handrails, name and numberplates, weathering and a couple of other details.

I'll have to see if I can find a copy of that book - I've got "Folkestone's Railways" and several other local ones, but not heard of that one before. The S Class is just a personal project, no plans to sell it at the moment, though I suppose I could - still, not much point if no-one wants them! I made it as I'm not confident with the chassis building on the SE Finecast one, and it's cheaper for me to make a body than to buy the body kit. The Q Class is one I'd still like to do, but I've got plenty of other projects to finish before I start looking at new models. I must have got your email, as it rings a bell, but I can't find it now!

Lockdown started well for me, I was doing quite a lot of modelling, but have been working 50+ hour weeks the last couple of months which has rather taken its toll. Still, I managed to paint most of a Manning Wardle last night, so maybe I'm getting back to it! And yes, that is the S Class. It should (just) fit in my printer. I'm doing the same thing the SECR did and repurposing a C Class to make it!

I've been severely lacking in modelling mojo for the last month or so, and during the brief interludes when I haven't, I've been doing mainly layout work, so not much has progressed on the bench. However, we do have another loco in progress. Just a personal project, this one, but it's a loco I've been eyeing up for some time. If you know it, please feel free to comment on anything I've missed (or done wrong)!

Having printed the trackplan, I've been able to make the cork sheet I had fit it - now stuck down with various markings locating the ends of points (for alignment), drill locations for electrofrogs and centre lines for aligning flexitrack. Point motor holes and so on will be sorted out once I've actually got the track pieces so I can be a bit more precise about the alignment. Next job is waiting for all the track I need to be in stock somewhere!

I was supposed to lay cork and track at the weekend - however, everywhere is out of stock of the track I need, my sheet of cork wasn't big enough, I forgot to collect the point motors, and I forgot to print the trackplan... If only my brain could organise itself properly! So track is on hold for the time being. I did remember to pick up my old controller from home, so I'll try and dismantle that and hide it under the layout. While I was home, I made some rudimentary legs, which will make it a lot easier to do the track than having it sat on the floor. There's also another building in the works!

Did you need to add the extra axle just to make it long enough to fit the nameplate?

I think layouts tend to look a lot more densely packed in real life than they do in 2D plans, so I tried to factor that in when designing. Time will tell whether I've got that right or not! Next jobs - lay cork underlay, lay track. Actually, first, buy track - the wallet's not looking forward to that!