Southerner

Thanks Stephen, I won't give up on it yet and will get there I'm sure, all of your suggestions have been most helpful. Doug

With thanks to Tim V, Nearholmer and bertiedog for your inputs and ideas. The 'Mystery' loco original posting is now solved; pretty obvious really. As already suggested it's a (much modified) K's, the Mallard Models plate is a red herring, it's a scrap piece of a different kit etch reused as a motor mount! As for the running qualities, the main problem is revealed on fitting the loco body to the chassis, the drive shaft runs between the underneath of the cab floor and the chassis, the clearance between is tight, as the shaft rotates it just touches the cab floor which acts as a sounding board. The cab is nicely detailed and I'm not keen to raise the floor, I may be able to also tweak the wire shaft enough to help matters but it's doubtful. So I think it's a nicely thought out and detailed kit conversion that was not completely carried through to iron out the snags, a major example being the motor flywheel which was so far out of round and balance that it had the effect of a pager buzzer, easily cured though with a coarse file gently held on it whilst running! { ) Oh the joys of other peoples unfinished projects, nice one though it is!

Thanks, you've described the problem well, any idea on where I could obtain suitable drive components?

Is it K's, I wonder why the Mallard Models plate?

I have a 4mm Dean Goods made from a whitemetal kit with a tender mounted KTM open frame motor driving through a stiff wire shaft to a nicely engineered layshaft worm and gear. The tender chassis baseplate is marked 'Copyright Mallard Models 1973' the uncertainty in my mind is that all the info on Mallard Models that I can find suggests that they were etched brass construction, this one is all whitemetal including the tender. I'm struggling to get it to run well, the wire drive shaft runs under the cab floor and tends to vibrate and resonate like a guitar string under load and speed, I may have to consider loco drive yet { ( I'll now attempt to upload a few photos, here goes!

Extreme cornering!

Interesting topic, does anyone remember Arthur Askey as a LMS/BR locoman in charge of (I believe) a Fowler 4F watching a championship football match from his loco footplate overlooking the football ground? How about something more obscure; French b&w film from the 1950s about a logging gang in France using a narrow gauge railway who's efforts to move a train of logs are sabotaged by a rival group using motor lorries for transport. The film sported a love interest sub plot with gorgeous Madamoiselle and also some gorgeous typically quirky French vehicles. Seen briefly on French tv in a Formule Une hotel whilst channel hopping and preparing to leave, don't know the title but well worth a look.

Great idea! Joueff did an HO version of the HST for Hornby before Hornby did their own OO version, if you want to keep it more prototypical a second hand model would fit the bill nicely. Doug

"The very best person for that I ever worked with was Nerys Hughes." And the worst? {)

Is it an original Renwal Visible V8 - later produced by Revell?

Some of the horrors revealed when the restoration started.

Picture of my Dyane in restoration, hope to pick it up this Friday.

And vespa means "wasp", appropriate when they're buzzing around!

The typical italian short legs, long arms setup derogatively known as "Italian Ape" by a contemporary British motoring magazine makes sense as Italians typically steered using the bottom half of the steering wheel in a delightfully casual manner. In retaliation our typical "ten to two" straight armed position was dubbed "English Squirrel" by Italian journalists!

Indeed, how about a WW2 WD 2-8-0, now that appeals to me!