Kerr Stuart Victory Class in EM

[Barclay]

The Centre Models range of industrial loco kits had disappeared by the time I started modelling, and I've wanted one ever since, especially the Kerr Stuart Victory Class. So when I saw one on ebay recently, I knew I had to have it...

 

 

And here it is - mine, all mine! Naturally it has jumped straight to the top of the loco building queue.

The kit is partially assembled, to a good standard, and is complete with Romford wheels, 40:1 gears, and an ECM type 3 motor. I have been tempted here to try to keep this build 'old-school' and use as much as possible of what was supplied, so....

 

 

The chassis is cast white metal, which I was highly dubious of, but it has brass bushes and has been assembled very accurately, because it runs like a dream. Sadly the same cannot be said of the  ECM motor, which just won't run slowly enough to produce the kind of running I need. There was also the small issue that the chassis is 00 and I work in EM. Obtaining EM Romford axles was easy, but not from Markits as for some reason they have a £10 minimum order value, so I ordered mine from Scalelink and they arrived the following day.

 

Partly to bulk out the chassis frames and partly to hide the motor cut out I have made a set of 15 thou brass frame overlays, joined by brass spacers, the whole assembly sitting over the cast chassis. I'm hoping this will also make it easier to add brakes, slidebars etc.

 

 

 

Sadly the ECM motor has had to be substituted, for another example of the cheap and very cheerful Mitsumi M15N. This is such a smooth and slow revving motor that it works superbly with the 40:1 gears.

Next task will be cylinders, slidebars and crossheads. Currently ALL cast in white metal so I think some substitution is going to be necessary!

Edited October 13, 2019 by Barclay

[doilum]

Shame about the motor. I seem to remember that, back in the day, they were considered an upgrade on the X04 especially when used with the Compspeed controller. I used one to create a Triang halfcab jinty and had another in Bristol models chassied J94.

[Barclay]

They certainly were, I still remember those big ads they had in RM. It feels rather 'coggy' when turned over by hand, I don't know but suspect it's only 3 pole. Mind you, so's the Mitsumi !

 

Bristol Models - I have a Pug with one of their chassis - proper armour plate.

[doilum]

1 hour ago, Barclay said:

They certainly were, I still remember those big ads they had in RM. It feels rather 'coggy' when turned over by hand, I don't know but suspect it's only 3 pole. Mind you, so's the Mitsumi !

 

Bristol Models - I have a Pug with one of their chassis - proper armour plate.

I took the J94 a step further and replaced the footplate with a piece of 3mm steel plate.

[Robin Verth]

This was a loco that had been on my wants list for many years I recently bought a fully built and painted 00 gauge one from Ebay, I have not investigated the motor as it ran perfectly on the rolling road under DC, the loco will be DCC fitted in the near future.

[Barclay]

Robin, I'd like to see a picture of your Victory.

 

Meanwhile, slow progress - the slidebars were made from square section Nickel-silver, soldered into the cylinders, and the crossheads made up from bits of brass. New brass slidebar brackets were cut out and soldered to the frame overlays, to give a strong assembly. Then the connecting rods were fitted to the crossheads with 16BA nuts and bolts, and it all worked, to my gratification.

 

 

The motor hasn't yet been fixed permanently into place - it's so long since I built a loco. without a gearbox so I'm not sure whether to use Araldite or silicone sealant.

Plastic brake blocks are added (Gibson, maybe?).

The body has needed little work but I do want to obtain a better safety valve casting than the one supplied. It'll also need a simple cab interior as there's nothing at the moment.

 

 

But next, pickups, and the cast chassis doesn't leave a lot of room, so the PCB I use to mount them will have to go into the recesses that exist in the casting.

 

 

 

[Robin Verth]

My Kerr Stuart Victory class is made from an Angora etched brass kit, it has been finishes as GWR 666 one of the engines absorbed by the GWR at Grouping. I was going to renumber it to the one on the East Kent Railway which survived to Nationalisation but never carried its BR number, It will remain as 666.

[Barclay]

Pick ups are of my usual brass wire, attached to pcb sleeper strip araldited into the frame recesses underneath. The cast chassis is already a little too deep so running the wires under the loco wasn't an option. In the end each set has a separate feed wire to a pcb busbar on top of the frames inside the tank area. Even so, routing the wire from the rear set was quite tricky with a solid chassis and the wires had to be run round a groove cut into the rear of the chassis block and thence under a false cab floor to the motor. I admire other people's neat work on chassis but can never seem to replicate it!

 

 

 

Nevertheless the running of the loco. is very good indeed - it grumbles along very nicely, proving that Romford 40:1 gears are perfectly good in the right setting. Very unusually for me this is a rigid chassis and it proved slightly more prone to stalling on my rather ropey industrial track than a compensated chassis. I have installed a small flywheel to give the chassis some moral support - at these low revs I can't imagine it makes much difference! Still, after further tweaking and a rub of graphite on the wheel treads and backs it is now pretty good. The middle axle, as with many rigid 0-6-0 chassis, I believe, is very slightly higher, making it a long wheelbase 0-4-0 for most of the time.

 

The body has been ground down in places until it sits nice and straight on the chassis, and I think it's weight is helping the running too. The flywheel is in the cab unfortunately, the curse of middle axle drive. It will be painted black and hidden by a crew in due course. 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic chassis painting is now complete, after looking at which I remembered that I had forgotten to fit the sandboxes. I had a notion with this loco. to paint it Malachite Green as I have a big tin of this from Phoenix, picked up secondhand. However brush painting the cylinders cured me of that - what an awful colour, even for an industrial locomotive. Plan B is to stick with GWR green or maybe try something different, a warmer green such as the Highland colour perhaps. Now to complete the body and get some paint on it.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Barclay

[mike morley]

I'm a bit concerned about the big gap twixt the front of the motor and the worm.  Worm drives cause lots of side load and that gap provides extra leverage that will give the motor's front bearing an extremely hard life.

I guess the chassis design prevents the worm being shifted up the shaft towards the motor, but there looks like there might be the possibility of adding an outrigger bearing beyond the worm to ease matters.

Edited November 10, 2019 by mike morley

[Barclay]

Thanks Mike you doubtless have a point. There's no way of getting the motor any closer to the gear wheel, in fact this was the only example from my collection of Mitsumi motors that had a long enough shaft to do the job. It might just be possible to fit an outrigger bearing, and I'm tempted to have a go. Meanwhile some Southern Railway Maunsell light olive paint has been ordered so it looks like this will be my new 'standard' livery, until it runs out at least...

[Barclay]

Incredible what a coat of paint shows up - look at that gap between the tank and the footplate! That will have to be filled and the left side re-primed. I've also fitted buffer beams, with couplings and new Kean-Maygib sprung buffers; grilles on the rear spectacles, sandboxes, steps, and handrail knobs. There's a simple representation of a cab interior too, just to give an impression, and now the flywheel is painted black you can hardly see it.....

 

[Barclay]

A coat of paint today and the Southern light Olive is a lovely colour, paler than I expected, and more like the colour I originally used for Saltport's loco's before switching to GWR green, which, under heavy weathering, can look pretty drab.

 

It's a big old unit for an industrial, comparing directly in size to a 3F and the mighty Nasmyth. Even heavier though with all that white metal - I must see how much it weighs when it's finished.

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Barclay

[Barclay]

Having painted the loco last week I had been planning to finish it this weekend, and there on the mat this morning was a nice envelope from Narrow Planet. I am having it as Works no. 3068, in reality sold to Manchester Collieries and still at work when the Railway Modeller article came out in 1966. The running number (22) is from my stash of A1 Models etched plates.

 

 

The cab interior has been kept quite simple, with a basic firebox shape from brass and a crew from my seemingly endless supply of Airfix/Dapol trackside workers. They stand well back to clear the flywheel.

 

 

 

Today has seen the loco weathered with an overall spray of filth, washed off the tank and cab sides with a thinners-soaked brush, before a final light coat all over. Then some powders and coal dust. I've been trying to replicate that look where a loco has been kept quite clean where the staff can easily reach, but the boiler and tank tops have been pretty much left to their own devices.

 

 

 

 

 

Well an enjoyable task and a reasonable model, given it's 1970's origins. These must certainly have been among the better white metal kits available at the time. It's a shame that the range disappeared so long ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Barclay

[Ruston]

That looks very good and I'm still envious of that huge Manning WardIe, too! I notice a PO wagon of Sir John Lister Lister Kaye in the background. I sometimes walk my dog along part of the trackbed of Kaye's line and it's where I got a lot of the coal that I use as wagon loads from, and the slag that was used as ballast was taken and used as 7mm ballast on my O gauge layouts. Is the model a kit or RTR? I've got some 7mm Slaters verions but I'd like to have one or two of those in 4mm.

[Barclay]

Thank you. The wagon is a Slaters kit as well. I nicked the chassis for a runner wagon for my crane tank so this one has a scratch built chassis. When I built a proper runner wagon the chassis was surplus so I scratchbuilt a body to go on it. Therefore both halves of the Kit are on the layout but not together!

[James Hilton]

Great looking model, real presence, I can see why they were so useful for so long!