Northroader

With more work done, it's looking great. What I was on about, the curve under of the boiler is done to a very limited degree for as you say, the motor is in the way. Here's one I've done fitting an On16.5 body on a Nellie chassis. The wrapper is nicked behind the smokebox and in front of the firebox, these areas staying vertical, then incurved in the barrel area until it gets in the way of the motor, then trimmed back. You can just make out the bottom of the motor. I'm having second thoughts on my micromodel suggestion, what you spend for what you get is questionable and you've managed quite well with what you're doing. So instead here's a link to a boiler fittings site:http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/101647-has-any-one-ever-made-there-own-loco-chimney/

The speedo design is very poor, measuring voltage of an axle mounted generator. The meter is of the type in which the response diminishes as the voltage increases, so that the needle moves a lot at low speeds, but the really critical bit around 15mph plus, there's very little extra movement. There ain't much margin in the traction motor design to overspeed and burst the windings above this, as several guys have found running light on the main line. The LMS, who pioneered the design with English Electric pre WW2, had two parallel versions, one with a single motor and jack shaft drive needing a longer wheelbase, and the one we know with motors on the outer axles giving a shorter wheelbase. This was dearer, but the BR powers that be went for the short wheelbase for tighter siding curvature for a standard.

As a first try in brass, you've done great in a few days. Keep on trying and you'll want to do the lot in brass with ease. Think about having a cutout for the underside of the boiler with the curve as far as you can get it. The motor will get in the way, so stop short of this and paint it Matt black. The splashers and springs will help disguise this anyway. I don't suppose you've come across micromodels http://micromodels-london-ltd.uk/railway.html, they're a very small scale, and I see the price has gone up tremendously, but when I was a kid I loved making these up into small locos from a flat sheet of card. They're interesting for giving you a basis to form a 3D model from a sheet. Perhaps I should declare that I'm not an interested party as to agency or anything for them.

Talking of steam Railways updating corporate indentity, one good example was the prewar Irish Great Southern railway (black engines, lake coaches) merging with the Dublin buses to make C.I.E. with dark grey locos and coaches in the bus livery, dark green with light green bands at midriff and cantrail heights. What if an independant Scottish rail company had merged with Glasgow buses?

Mmmm, Do you hold the copyright on that name? Washbourne could need to cross the border into Wales sometime in the future...

Looking good, I could've put a picture of a LNWR 040st in which is very similar, and there were quite a few in shunting use.I'm a big fan of 040t engines, the old Hornby prewar tinplate range made extensive use of them, as the track had to be really bad to upset them. In Germany and associated countries, they saw extensive use on the nebenbahn, equivalent to our light Railways. Really there should have been a BR standard 040t. Anyway, rant over, good luck with the build, you'll have a nice looking engine quite suitable for Oak Hill at the end of it.

She didn't say, "Ducky, my Ducky"???

It's Cambrian Railways, and they were used on branch line working, not just shunting, so a Really Useful Engine. I'm sure that Mr Craven would have liked at least one of these.

Mikkel, you'll have to be really desperate in your thirst for knowledge, but you can have a look at post 114, page 5, which is where the "broom cupboards" job kicked off, one of the more surreal parts of this thread, so I'm very proud of it. I'm sure we can reach even better flights of er, ??, in 2017, though. Just don't mention "pantiles". Edit: as I typed that, I happened to be watching the spelling checker. Another mystery solved!

The other way, which should reduce the work needed, is to shorten the back end. A lot of 040s didn't have a bunker, but rather had a coal box behind the cab side sheet on the opposite side to the driver with his reverser lever, like this:

Possibly move both the wheels forward so's the rear axleboxes and crankaxle aren't immediately under the firebox grate?

Scale is?

RAF Ballykelly in Northern Ireland needed to extend the runway to operate anti submarine Liberators in WW2. The runway was built across the main LMS (NCC) Belfast Londonderry line, and all working needed to be coordinated with the signal boxes and the control tower. So you can have the runway planes going over the railway if you wish.

Slaters do an etch for brass numerals in 4mm and 7mm, parts 4965 or 7965 respectively. Intended for their MR loco kits, but quite suitable for GWR usage.

Agreed, the drawing shows a pipe under the lubricator feeding down into the steam header. On the model this pipe is missing, giving the appearance that the only place for the oil to go is into the chimney. It would seem pecketts bracketed the lubricator to the chimney, most of the old locos had them freestanding, which may have caused the confusion.

Good luck with that one day, I've been missing news of your doings, although TBH spiking all the track down would send me doo-ally, even if it looks much better than soldering. Best wishes for xmas and new year.

Someone ought to tell the makers that lubricators don't discharge straight up the chimney. Apart from that, yeahhh...!

Still haven't seen an actual plan of where all those shorty points are going? One word of caution, pulling wagons through them is one thing, pushing them back is another! It's nice to see the setting for all this, it was a fascinating piece of line, really antiquarian feel to it.

(Edit: younger readers will have to google "mr.chad" for the background to this)

Christmas is approaching fast, so it's seasonal to thank all the folks who've been following this thread, particularly all the contributors for bringing their thoughts and humour to the posts, which have made it far better than if I'd tried to do it all on my own. I hope you all have a merry Christmas with your friends and families, and next year brings plenty of progress with satisfying modelling. Here's the Orpheans with their best wishes:

i wouldn't crawl over her to get to you.

Lovely to see photos of the finished job, very recognisable with old photos of the real thing. As you say, now you've done some, you've got the know how and confidence for doing more, and will progress. Have to agree with previous posters in saying "well done".

You could start by using a pencil lightly with the stencil, then going over the lettering using a mapping/ draughtsman's pen. I find at this stage there's a big need to get the paint consistency right, not too runny, not too gloopy, which always seems necessary with Matt white. Don't stop there, next very light retouching with background colour then white as needed.