PAT JAYA 185

Building up the cab is fairly basic, just like the real thing really. I must admit that I have built a few Pecketts in 009 before, although this is a narrow gauge locomotive in standard gauge size. Ive used the rear of the cab and the firebox from the Airfix austerity. I always make sure I have some sort of scale drawing and lots of pictures for reference when scratch building a model, but although I gather as many pictures from as many angles as possible, without ever actually seeing and photographing the locomotive, there is still a load of details that I just have to guess, and inside the cab is one of those areas. So they are never perfect.

This picture shows the chassis before it was painted, and the start for the boiler and smoke box construction. This is the bit I love about scratch building, and at this stage just can’t put it down or take my eyes off it. The Austerity tank has been shortened, and the smoke box has been enlarged. I have decided on the basic flat smoke box door design instead of the curved one, as its true to the early prototype used on these meter gauge Pecketts. The austerity dome has been cut down and reshaped with filler.

This was the first time I’ve had to make connecting rods as well, and it seems to have worked out perfectly. The odd wheel base is very apparent on the Pecketts so I wanted to keep that in the design. I’m pleased with how the spacing turned out, and progress with the chassis has been a success so far

The best bit when starting with a donor kit is that you have all the components to make up a locomotive, but the down side to starting with a plastic kit is that the components aren’t necessarily the quality required for a motorised unit, but in this case I have used the valve gears from an old Airfix pug kit, as They were the only correct scale valve gears I had for a locomotive this size. I must say at this stage it runs beautifully as a rolling chassis, and might take a motor. I have fitted a driving gear to the rear axel so I can experiment once the locomotives is finished. Obviously with a Radio control unit you don’t need pick ups as the loco will have a battery onboard. The planned location for this will be in the saddle tank with the receiver, and the motor in the firebox. It’s a fairly basic principle, I just hope it works. For now I’m going to focus on the challenge....

After digging out these old suitable-ish wheels I made a start on the chassis. Made from styrene its not going to make an amazing runner and at this stage it is mainly for diorama. I will be rebuilding the chassis, and wire it for RC in the new year, but for now I probably won’t Be fiddling about with batteries and receivers. I have an old Airfix austerity kit that I’m going to chop up for this build.

So the track was second on the list of issues, and I decided that using 12mm/ H0m track would be easiest as the true gauge of meter gauge in 4mm should be 13mm track gauge, but as I had the 12mm track already it seemed like the best option. As a 009 modeller I am representing 2ft with 9mm track (which in reality should be 8mm), so I figured it wouldn’t be a problem using 12mm track for meter gauge. Anyway if I wanted to develop this diorama into a layout in the future building 13mm points was going to be a head ache I would rather avoid. This is the test track I put together in 13mm.....

So Having decided I would enter the 4th round of the cake box challenge after taking part in round 1. I went in search of an industrial subject to model. A few ideas were considered, but one was just undeniable the most intriguing. Having read about the Northamptonshire ironstone industry earlier in the year, I had thought about the idea of a meter gauge railway representing of this kind of industrial railway. After considering the possibilities of building such a diorama, I quickly identified that scratch building locomotive needed to happen so got right to it. I love the larger Pecketts used on the Wellingborough network. So I started by drawing a scale drawing of the type of locomotive used.

This looks awesome, and full of atmosphere. I must ask, where did you get the plastic Andrew Barclay kit?

These are the pictures I used for a reference

As I’m completely useless of taking pictures of my progress, I don’t have many pictures of the building process. ‍♂ The diarama The diarama is made out of white form board (off cuts) with a raised section to the left. Obviously cut to the 8x8 sq base and 6” tall. Then adding clay to the raised section and carved brick work to create a stone wall. About half way down this section I broke the wall up by cutting some of the brick work out and adding in heavy ballast. The steps are spares from a Preiser H0 stone wall kit. The building is scratch built from Wills models scratch aids which were left overs from other builds. The doors are modified Dapol engine shed kit doors. The engine shed is made from plasticard and other odds and sods. The corrugated roof is made from the thin Wills models scratch aids corrugated sheets, and the buffer ballards in the shed are bits of balsa wood. For ballast I made a mix of different size and textured materials to break up the uniformity. I base coated the whole model in Matt black and then added a mist of Matt grey primer to highlight detail. Then after a lot of dry brushing I followed that up with a lot of weathering powders. I also use surgical spirit for adding detail and shape to some areas of the weathering. Then it is all fixed with Matt varnish. I didn’t purchase anything for the build, apart from some clear epoxy resin from the pound shop which I used for creating the puddles. I then added a touch of varnish to add ‘reflections’ from the light. Finally I added static grass to finish the model. The stock So the locomotive is a Backwoods miniatures kit of the Robert Stevenson and hawthorn crane tank, built to a 9mm gauge for narrow gauge prototypes. The kit has been modified with Roco H0e valve gears which are attached to the outside cranks. This is then painted, lined and then weathered. It has a seated driver in the cab which is a cut up Dapol 4mm figure. The name plates are from Narrow planet and read Trecrobenn which means Trencrom in Cornish. This is a Stone Age fort that looks down onto Hayle harbour. The truck is a Dundas Models plastic kit.

So as follows the finished pictures of the diarama.