Charlie009

Ted Polet, Nick Welch and others have remotored old Minitrix chassis using Mashima or similar motors to great effect, and I think Sven van der Hart (www.tramfabriek.nl) does a remotoring kit for the Minitrix N205 2-6-2. Charlie Insley

As I understand things, Peco were initially intending to make these for TTn3 before Eggerbahn arrived and H09/009 took off. If you look at the cab openings on both James and Jeanette, they’re definitely undersized for 4mm scale. Charlie Insley

A few more pictures of my little slice of Normandy, St Etienne-en-Caux. Charlie I

Just joined this conversation. I’ve modelled French 60cm for about 13 years now, and the dodge I’ve used is to model the stock in 4mm scale, so it looks ok on the track, but the layout itself is 3.5mm/H0e. This allowed me to use the small no of kid that are available for French 60cm and which tend to be 009 (e.g. the Tortillard Models Weidknecht 4-6-0 - such as ran on the Calvados and the Tarn, or the BCF Models Calvados 4w coaches). My layout is set in Normandy, in the Caux region (east of the Seine) and is an imaginary line along the coast around Étretat and Fécamp; it’s called St Etienne-en-Caux and was in Continental Modeller in October-December 2010. A few pictures here. Charlie I

Neil, how did you manage that fact that the rear driving wheels have got a lot of sideplay? Without the rear pony wheels, doesn’t the chassis wiggle from side to side a bit?

Super work, Neil. I’ve seen quite a lot about how “rtr will ruin 009”, but Scarrside shows exactly how you can use rtr and ready-to-plant buildings to superb effect. Looking forward to seeing more. Charlie Insley

That looks very good, and I shall probably do the same with mine, so they look more like my prototype (which has a completely round boiler!). Charlie Insley

As Paul RHB says, the prototype for the Minitrains model was built as a competition entry to find a British outline model to use the standard MinitrainS Krauss mechanism. My model was inspired by 'Excelsior' (late of the Kerry Tramway), known to most in her 0-4-2 configuration but built as an 0-4-0. Because the model was built to fit the chassis unmodified, there were, shall we say, some compromises - notably in width and length, plus the need to use the standard MinitrainS stovepipe funnel to fix the body to the chassis. That said, the model has been released for a couple of weeks and I've already seen several in modified condition on other forums! Charlie Insley

Super work, Franck - very atmospheric! I built one of the Moroccan 0-6-6-0s for my French 009/H0e layout St-Etienne-en-Caux, using the Bachmann Spectrum USRA mallet. Where did you get the station master from, by the way - at least, I mean the man by the station building wearing the sun helmet? Charlie Insley