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Hi Rob,

I trust you won't miss a vital detail. A cloth hanging off one of the pulled levers.

Being serious, the box interior looks fantastic. A real credit to you.

Cheers....Morgan

Hi Nick,

I've been following your progress on the Johnson tank with some interest as I built one of these pretty little tank engines over 10 years ago. A picture of mine is posted here....

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/gallery/image/4768-craftsmanscratchbuilt-johnson-0-4-4t/

It seems you have gone down a very similar route to me. Considering it's age the brass parts of the Craftsman body are very nice but as you point out the chassis and castings show their age. I too replaced the chassis and boiler fittings with Gibson parts. My chassis was compensated with twin beams (adjacent to the frames) on the driving wheel axles and a central beam rocking one bogie axle whilst the other is fixed. This was at a time before I got into springing and CSB's. If doing another I'd go that way.

When you mentioned above about the tank fillers being flat I had a sudden panic that I'd done mine wrong. I used the kit castings with some added detail. However it seems the locos fitted with condensing apparatus had a different filler. Phew!

To answer a couple of your questions. 58047 was numbered 1303 by the MR in 1907 and was carried through LMS ownership. Prior to 1907 I believe it was number 1649 but this is assumed by comparing the number series in Table 1 (page 4) of the Wild Swan book of these locos. Regarding builders plates I used a suitably sized oval plate from a Mainly Trains etch of wagon detailing parts. There is no legible text on it and it looked about the right size from study of photos. If you wanted something more accurate then Guilplates would probably be able to help.

Looking forward to see how you get on with the chassis.

Cheers...Morgan

Robin,

That's looking brilliant. I trust you will be bringing it along tomorrow evening?

Morgan

Hi,

Just a short note, whilst I sit waiting for yet another flight half way around the globe, to say thanks for all those that visited the stand over the weekend to talk about this fantastic project. I hope that you all got something from the demonstrations and were inspired to go off and further your own modelling endeavours. This is the first time I've done a demo and I have to say it is probably the most rewarding experience I've had at a show. Thanks also to Robin for putting up with our constant leg pulling about all those 10 coach trains that need to run up and down the layout. Thanks to a bit of impulse buying I am now trying to figure out what to do with 7 pairs of LMS coach sides. So come on Rob how's about that big fiddle yard?

Cheerio.....Morgan

Brilliant work there John. I love the little Shamrocks in the barge boards

Cheers....Morgan

I believe DMR kits have a brass L1 kit under development at the moment. However I have no idea when it may be available. There is always the old ABS white metal L1 kit as well but this should be an interesting "kit bashed" way of making an L1. Good luck!

Some really nice work Darren. I will be following this Blog with interest. The GCR/ROD 2-8-0 is one of favourite locos.

Cheers....Morgan

Well this seems to have been successful. Hats off to Martin Wynne and his transfer utility :icon_clap: Hopefully some updates will follow in due course.

Morgan