Coketown

[relaxinghobby]

In the post above where Tom Burnham recounts a tail of a private engine travelling around the railway system, long before the age of the private car and fast tarmacadammed roads.  A private loco would be great. I think I would like something a bit more luxurious than opened cab Gazelle, perhaps something more akin to Drummond's Bug. That had a short coach compartment built in and could reach speeds of over 70 mph.  In modern times perhaps a self propelled maintenance vehicle or a refurbished self propelled parcel coach like they had on the Southern Region?

[Caley Jim]

There's always The Duke of Sutherland's 'Dunrobin' and his private saloon for inspiriation. 

 

Jim 

[relaxinghobby]

 

 

The Arkwright Mills Ginny seen here approaching the basic wooden halt at the back of Arkwright’s mill. This is a shuttle service between here and the mainline along the old tramway. This was in the period when this  backwater of an industrial line had acquired an American style coach.

 

 

View of rear shows the guard acting as a sort of brakes man standing on the open platform of the coach. A procedure OK for the wild west but it would upset the unions here on safety grounds I guess.

 

I found the little coach 2nd hand. It's a Bachmann shorty clerestory and had already been weathered and populated. I've swapped the couplings for Hornby ones using the original mounting sockets and screws, and a few layers of card packing to set the height. These are attached to the coach body, fixed under the floor prototypically instead of the onto bogies as with most models. Seems to be able to manage the 2 ft radius PECO points OK.

 

 

 

This series of photos is a fake set up, I still have not wired up the motor to the pick-ups. So not running. The loco is just posed to make the shot.

[CKPR]

Shades of the Gastang & Knott End and the WC&P.

[Compound2632]

I do like the engine - quite a Nelliestein! What's the chassis - some American 4-4-0? It's a sort of cross between Dunrobin:

 

 

and a Highland Yankee tank:

 

 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Compound2632

[mpeffers]

Aha, snap.

I fancy it best resembles an NBR R Class although with outside cylinders.

 

Chassis is a Bachmann/Spectrum Baldwin 4-4-0 and I too have yet to tackle the wiring. I got the distinct feeling that American H0 RTR steam isn’t intended for disassembly…

Edited October 26, 2022 by mpeffers

[CKPR]

These conversions are  certainly making the most of the Drummond lineage of "Nellie" , something that hadn't dawned on me until now despite "Polly" being my first model locomotive back in the late 1960s.

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, CKPR said:

These conversions are  certainly making the most of the Drummond lineage of "Nellie" , something that hadn't dawned on me until now despite "Polly" being my first model locomotive back in the late 1960s.

 

There's scope for a whole freelance Drummondesque fleet based on models of Triang origin - Nellie, the M7, the Caledonian single, and though its author was Holmes not Drummond, the J83.

Edited October 27, 2022 by Compound2632

[relaxinghobby]

 

 

Finally got the fence on the coal drops.

I found some steel fence sections, stamped out and ready blackened.

Glued on with superglue, clamped with clothes pegs.

Still waiting for someone to release the coal into the drops.