GWR Armstrong Goods – Cheap & Cheerful!

[RosiesBoss]

Introduction

 

The GWR 388 or Armstrong Goods class was a long-lived design of 0-6-0 with distinctive outside frames. A brief history of the class is in Ref.2. More details are in Refs.8 and 9.

Some years ago, I re-motored a Mainline Dean Goods 0-6-0, as detailed in Ref.1.

 

 

This worked well enough, for a “quickie” conversion – certainly better than any Mainline/Hornby tender drive example. Last June, I purchased an uncompleted K’s Dean Goods at a “bring and buy” stall, finished it and mated it with an existing K’s tender.

 

This made the re-motored example redundant, so I decided to rebuild it again – to a 388 class. Ok, the boiler barrel is slightly shorter (by 7” – see Ref 3.), but most of the major details above the footplate are much the same as the Dean Goods. Importantly, the wheelbase is almost the same (2301 class: 7’3”+8’3”; 388 class: 7’4”+8’4”). I could use the same chassis and wheels, but with extended axles and cranks. Wheel splashers could remain in place, unaltered.

 

I decided to make dummy outside frames in the same manner as those fabricated for earlier projects. (See Refs.4 & 5)

 

Just to add a bit more variety, I chose to mate the loco with a short wheelbase 2500 gall tender, made from a battered old 2^nd-hand Kitmaster City of Truro example, as detailed in Ref.6. (This model came from the same “bring & buy” as the K’s Dean Goods.) The loco would be numbered 1195, one of the last survivors, as illustrated as the frontispiece in Ref.8.

 

Parts List (for those choosing to do something similar)

• Body from Mainline Dean Goods
• Tender from Kitmaster/Airfix/Dapol City of Truro
• Wills/Finecast 1854 class chassis block (which has a suitable wheelbase!) and coupling rods
• Suitable Romford wheels and gears
• Romford/Markits deluxe cranks for extended axles
• Tri-ang X04 motor frame with 5-pole MRRC armature and neomidium magnet
• Hornby X8074 Ex-Dapol Castle/County tender wheel/axle set
• Peco brass axle bearings
• Brass strip (for tender ballast/reinforcement)
• Copper sheet (for dummy outside frames)
• Dummy leaf springs
• Sprung buffers and scale couplers (New, old stock H0 NSWGR spares)
• Misc. BA screws, nuts & washers
• Humbrol & Precision Paints enamels

Construction

 

Construction began with the tender. It had been heavily painted and still had the moulded lining, so it was dismantled to facilitate stripping. Once the lining and excess paint had been removed, all surfaces were rubbed back. Slices were removed from each side, from between each pair of axleboxes, as described in Ref.6. A similar amount was removed from the top. Once these pieces were trimmed to size, they were re-assembled. Peco brass bearings were inserted to the axleboxes and the body was dry-asssembled. Internal measurements were taken and a piece of 1mm thick brass strip cut to just fit inside. The body and wheels were then re-assembled and the brass glued in place. The model was placed on a perfectly flat surface on its wheels so that, as the glue dried, all wheels would be in the same plane to minimise future derailments.

 

After a couple of days, the wheels were removed and the body was primed and rubbed back. A coupling strip was made and fitted to the front of the tender and a small tension-lock coupling fitted to the rear. Buffers, a vacuum brake pipe and the scale coupling were then fitted.

 

The missing handbrake lever, tool rest and handrails were then fabricated and fitted.

 

The main item to be made for the body was the pair of outside frames. To facilitate this, 4mm scale paper prints of the JNM drawing in Ref.7 were made – one as shown below, and the other a mirror-image.

 

Although this shows a 388 class with round-top boiler, the frames are still correct for my model. The paper frames were cut from the images and glued to copper sheet. Rivet details were punched in and then the copper frames were cut out, using the paper as a guide or template.

 

Slots were cut for the extended axles. The Mainline body was stripped below footplate and its buffer beam was removed. The dummy frames were then trimmed and attached.

 

 

New buffers and a scale coupling were attached to the original buffer beam, which was the re-attached to the front.

 

New, larger sandboxes were made from ¼” square-section brass rod, with lids cut from plastic sheet with a leather punch.

 

Springs and their hangers were assembled from commercial whitemetal leaf springs and narrow brass strip left over from some old etched kits. These were then super-glued to the footplate, next to the wheel splashers.

 

Rubber spring dampers (seen either side of each axlebox assembly) were fabricated from short lengths of single-cored 240V house wire, with just 1.5mm of insulation left on. These were glued to the inside surfaces of the outer frames, with just the insulation visible from the outside.

 

The outside cranks were fitted, quartered and lock-nutted into place. The connecting rods were then installed and the mechanism tested and adjusted until everything ran sweetly. Only then were the 14BA nuts soldered in place on the cranks.

 

The loco now looked mechanically complete:

 

The loco and the tender now were ready for painting and lettering:

 

The model was brush painted with Precision Paints pre-1928 green and a mix of the usual Humbrol enamels. HMRS Pressfix transfers were used for the tender letters and buffer beam numbers. I printed my own cabside numbers. When the paints and transfers had cured, the model was sprayed with Tamiya TS80 matt clear. Unfortunately, that reacted with some of the paint on the boiler, so it had to be rubbed back, repainted and refinished with Humbrol matt clear enamel.

 

Results

 

 

It makes an interesting contrast to my K’s Dean Goods:

 

Reflections

 

It’s not a “museum quality” model, but I’m happy with the result. To my eyes, it captures the “look” of the prototype.

 

This project would not have come about without the pre-loved items bought at “bring & buy” sales or on such websites as eBay:

• Wills/Finecast 1854 class chassis kit
• Kitmaster City of Truro
• Mainline Dean Goods
• New, old-stock NSWGR H0 buffers and coupling hooks
• MRRC 5-pole armature
• Neo magnet for X04 motor

It pays to buy potential spare parts when they become available!

 

References and Further Reading

1. Post 11, here: www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69067-dean-goods/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_388_class
3. https://www.devboats.co.uk/gwdrawings/gwrstandardboilers.php
4. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107593-gwr-1076-class-double-framed-pannier-tank/
5. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/134586-gwr-stella-2-4-0-kitbash/
6. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-14843-a-tale-of-two-tenders/
7. J.N.Maskelyne: “Locomotives I have Known” (Percival Marshall, 1959)
8. J.W.P Rowledge: “Locomotives Illustrated 157 – Great Western Railway Armstrong & Dean 0-6-0s” (RAS Publishing, April-June 2005)
9. Anon.: “Locomotives of the Great Western Railway – Six-wheeled tender engines” (RCTS, 1956)
10. http://www.gwr.org.uk/no-tenders.html

[MikeOxon]

Exactly my sort of kit-bash.  I may be following your example

[Prometheus]

I agree, a nice build. I'm still building your Cambrian Composite coach!

 

Tony

[Brassey]

What you have is an outside-frame Dean Goods which was a class in its own right: GWR 2361 0-6-0

[RosiesBoss]

Thank you, Brassy, for your comment, but the 2361 class wheelbase differed from the 388 class more than the Dean Goods:

388 class: 7'4"+8'4"

2301 class: 7'3"+8'3"

2361 class: 7'9"+8'0"

 

In addition, the 2361 class springs were below the axles, not above.

 

It was generally similar, but not the same as the 388 class, which I modelled.

 

Regards,

 

Rob

[HowardGWR]

You write that you 'printed' your numbers.  Could you explain please how and with what, or is that contained in one of the refs?  Much obliged and a very interesting account, thanks.

[RosiesBoss]

G'day, HowardGWR,

 

I have mentioned in other posts that I printed my own number plates. Here is how I did it:

 

1. I scanned the GWR's number fonts in the 1st edition of Great Western Way.

2, Using the MS Paint programme, I coloured every number gold and saved each one separately.

3. Again using Paint, I prepared  1, 2, 3 and 4-numeral blank plates.

4. To make any plate, I opened one of the blank plates, then "pasted from" whatever number file I needed, one numeral at a time.

5. Once the new design was to my satisfaction, I saved it as a jpg file.

6. I copied the selected file (several copies) into MS Word and adjusted the size until it was just right, then printed it onto photographic paper in my inkjet printer.

7. I cut out each plate with a scalpel, then coloured the edges with a yellow felt pen.

 

The new plates were then ready to be mounted. Here is a copy of the file for 1195:

 

Now that I have a library of blank plates and numbers, it takes me less time to make each set than it did to write down this account.

 

I  hope this makes it clear.

 

Regards,

 

Rob

 

Edited to correct tenses to make them consistent within the numbered section.

Edited January 20, 2019 by RosiesBoss

[MikeOxon]

One of the facts that surprised me is that the Armstrong Goods was a bit longer than the Dean version!  The Armstrong boiler was 11 feet long , compared with 10' 3" for the Dean.  Both firebox casings were 5' 4" long.  the Wheelbase for the Armstrong was 7' 4" + 8' 4" against 7' 3" + 8' 3" for the Dean.

To help me visualise these differences, I overlaid the Maskelyne drawing, posted above, with a silhouette of the Dean Goods, also derived from J.N.M

 

 

[Brassey]

One of the facts that surprised me is that the Armstrong Goods was a bit longer than the Dean version!  The Armstrong boiler was 11 feet long , compared with 10' 3" for the Dean.  Both firebox casings were 5' 4" long.  the Wheelbase for the Armstrong was 7' 4" + 8' 4" against 7' 3" + 8' 3" for the Dean.

 

To help me visualise these differences, I overlaid the Maskelyne drawing, posted above, with a silhouette of the Dean Goods, also derived from J.N.M

 

GWR_Dean-Armstrong-Gds-comp.jpg

 

 

 

This shows the 388 as shorter overall due to the shorter cab that also sits further back on the footplate