Justang

Smokey Joe's basis is the Caledonian 264 which was a Neilson design. Neilson made similar engines for the North British and some for industrial railways. With a larger cab over the firebox, it could look more avonside

Perhaps if you reduced the height of the cab windows, less of the windows would be in the curve of the cab sides. This photo shows one of the inside-framed Lambton locos, and the cab windows seem less tall than the cab windows on the outside-framed locos. Although the one in the photo isn't the outside-framed type of 0-6-0 you are making, perhaps the less-tall windows might not look out-of-place. Hope this helps.

The metro tank is possible on the 14xx chassis with some modification. I'm still working on mine.

If you turn the chassis backwards, then the loco will run forward. But on a serious note, I hope you can find a solution.

I turned round the chassis on mine and it's been taking a while to get it running. Still working on it!

I think you just have to edit your first message on the topic and it will bring you to a menu where you can edit the topic. Hope this helps!

I've done a bit more work on the metro tank. I finished constructing the motor, worm shaft and mounts a while ago before realising that it locked up and wouldn't run. I presumed that this was due to the motor mount twisting from side to side on the single screw holding it, and due to the mount for the other end of the shaft which was sliding about too much. I added "smoke deflectors" on the either side of the motor mount to keep it between the chassis weights and I rebuilt the shaft mount from scratch. There is a bearing on the shaft mount so that it will spin more freely. I don't think the mechanism has a lot of torque so I'm hoping that the chassis will be able to move under its own weight. I haven't tried spinning the motor yet! Then I moved onto work on the body of the loco. The smokebox needed shortening, so I sanded it back a bit. I removed the splashers and filled the gaps in the footplate with plastic. The next job is to narrow the cab slightly and modify the cutouts. I'm going to turn this into a later modified variant of the metro tank class. It will have a full churchward cab with a collett bunker. I think I will also need to remove the top feed at some point but I will have to do a bit of research.

I agree. Small-drivered locomotives tend to more often be designed for goods work.

Hawthorn Leslie made some 0-6-2t locos with inside valve gear and outside cylinders if you need some justification for using that layout. I think that with a parallel boiler and a new cab/bunker design, this could look like a convincing goods loco. When I mention a change to the cab design, this could be a simple change of shape to the cutout. This is just a suggestion though. Go for whichever route you think would work best.

The lining you've done on the Atlantic is stunning! It's great to see how lots of time and effort can lead to amazing progress. The NWR wagons look great in their new liveries. I like the route that you've taken by making them a lot darker in tone with the hull-red colour. It makes a lot of difference.

They look quite realistic! I think they will definitely help to set the scene and convey the look of a preserved railway.

I've just found this topic, but I think that your E2, Atlantic and Percy look amazing. You've done a great job with the paintwork on all 3.

Personally, I'm not too knowledgeable on the mechanical side of things but i think there's something about the combination of the running board, smoke deflectors and cab that makes it look very railway-series looking in design. I really like it.

They are some nice wagons! And to answer your question, yes I have started a thread to show my work. I have been mostly just modifying Triang models (quite badly), so nothing there is massively interesting. Here's the link:

I've done some more work on various projects. First of all, I wasn't happy with my saddle tank. I decided that it was too uneven (I should really stop using milliput), so I sanded it down a bit better than last time. I don't have any photos at the moment, but it does look a lot less bad than it did in my opinion. The next thing I did was to begin building a chassis for my star class build. This meant cutting some brass strip to the correct length and drilling holes in for the wheels and spacers. My dad basically worked out all of the dimensions and made drawings to work from - thanks dad. Here's what it looks like: You might notice that the wheel spacing looks a bit odd. That's because the model's body is from a saint class. These - I think - were designed to use the B12 chassis and so the splashers are spaced apart evenly to go over the wheels. Also, I'm going to be using Bachmann A1 wheels with even length coupling rods. I hope this inaccuracy is relatively unnoticible on the finished model. As always, I do like to take railway modelling very seriously, and so the next 2 hours of my time was spent putting the A1 wheels under various small damaged locomotive bodies. I honestly have not the slightest clue what went through my mind when this happened: Another thing I decided to do was to try and make the jinty look more pre-grouping. As it was, it was basically just a red-painted jinty with a ruined firebox. Therefore, I decided to ruin the tanks and bunker too. When looking at it, the narrow cab, wide tanks and wide bunker look quite Fowler to me. Therefore, to demonstrate how it is meant to be an earlier locomotive, I decided to narrow the tanks and bunker to cab width. I also wanted to shorten the tanks at the same time. Here's what it looked like after the bunker and tank sides were removed: Then I put a side on the bunker. And that concludes 6 months of work on a project. It should be finished in about 15 decades. Onto the next project: a Metro tank for Sodor's little western. My main goal with these models is to make as many pre-grouping models as possible whilst pretending that they are somewhat based on characters from the railway series. In the books, Oliver the Great Western engine is portrayed as a 14xx. However, my lack of interest for engines that exist in preservation has caused me to change this to a metro tank in my "Thomas Universe". For those wondering, Henry's going to be a raven A2, Gordon's going to be a Thompson A1, Percy will be a Neilson "Coffee Pot" saddle tank (one of those is in preservation) and Duck will be a Buffalo pannier tank. Sorry to go off on a tangent, back to the metro tank. I started with an airfix body and chassis (both built from parts accumulated over time). I made a chimney from a brass tube with a brass ring soldered around the top and I got bored and made a safety valve cover from a broken Triang bogie Rivet (from a coach) with some brass rod. Then I started work on the chassis. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of the chassis itself. First, I modified the chassis to fit under the body backwards. I then made a mount for the motor. Then I made mounts for both ends of the worm shaft. Then I made the shaft itself. The only part of the mechanism that I actually photographed. That's from before I trimmed the sewing pin that held the gear in place - only the worm is an interference fit. After some modification to the chassis and overall mechanism for a few days, it runs ok. Here's what it looks like now: Thanks for reading. I hope I end up posting more updates soon.

You've made some really nice models here and I like what you've done with that jinty. I have been doing some 4mm W&S modelling recently (partly inspired by your work) and I tried making Thomas from a Triang jinty a while back. My solution to making it look less LMS was to - as you have done - make the firebox round-topped and to also narrow the bunker and tanks to the width of the cab. I do like how you've extended the tanks forward, like on Thomas in the books though.

That would look better with Drummond fittings

It's been going better than I'd expected. The tender top is the only part of the single that has been currently cast. When it was cast, we tried pouring the silicone over the tender top, but then it began to float to the middle (vertically) of the silicone. Once it dried, we had to cut it out of the silicone and found a lot of bubble holes left on the bottom half of the mold. My dad tried casting resin with it, but the result was quite thin and brittle. That cast was turned into a coal load for a wagon, and my dad tried again. This time, he used just the top half of the mold. This proved to work better. Even though it is solid underneath, it looks alright. My dad has been doing lot of experimenting with the casting and I think once we are both more experienced at it, more casting will be done with the single. We have got some driving wheels for it and we'll probably modify a Triang single chassis block for the chassis. I have been doing some work on other projects. However, I haven't had a lot of time to post about them due to school and homework. I have been finding quite recently that it's quite a bit more fun for me if I try smaller projects than large Pacific locomotives, so don't think I'll do much more on The Great Bear for a while. Soon, I will post an update on some of this smaller projects. For example, I've already got the parts to build a GWR metro tank and buffalo pannier and a bit of work has been done on the saint. The Ratio 4-4-0 has also been renovated to a really good running condition by my father.

I was thinking of the exact same thing! It would then be possible to recreate the scene from the titfield thunderbolt where it goes off the rails.

That 812 looks amazing. It looks exactly like the prototype (apart from the livery).

Thanks for the correction! I only did a little bit of research on the kit range, so any information on it is greatly welcomed.

Now, on a bit of a sidetrack, (as it is with most of my posts on this topic), I have discovered some new projects to (never) complete. I have been recently going around various trainfairs and exhibitions with my father and we have found 2 interesting items: The first is a Ratio 4-4-0 kit. It's part-built, but most of the hard work has been done on it, and we picked it up for a tenner. The only problem is the plastic wheels, but we'll sort it out somehow, with batteries or swapping for better wheels. Most of the paintwork is done, and the tender has already had transfers applied. The next item is an unassembled Kitmaster Stirling Single from the GNR. Most people never see one in their lifetime, and we picked this one up for a fiver. For this reason, my father and I have decided it would be a great opportunity to try and make resin copies. I am not sure if this is against copyright/patent laws, so if it is please let me know. However, the kit has been out of production since the 80's, so I should hope it's ok. Anyway, it just so happened that we found the kit whilst visiting my grandfather who had fortunately had some left-over silicone from making casts for parts of tram models, so we have been attempting to make molds from the silicone. We used a box made from lego and a coleslaw tub lid as containers for pouring the silicone into for experimenting. So far, we have tried to make molds for the tender top, smokebox and backhead molds, so we will have to wait for the silicone to dry. I will update on progress in the next post.

If I was making it from a B12 chassis, I would most likely remove the pony truck entirely and scratchbuild a new one.

What about a B12 chassis? The B12 has a coupled wheelbase of 7' + 7' and the driving wheel diameter is 6' 6". The GCR pacific has 6' 6" wheels and a 7' 3" + 7' 3" driving wheelbase. The chassis looks quite similar (in my opinion) when comparing drawings: Here is where I found the B12 drawings: https://steammemories.blogspot.com/2011/08/precursors-to-b17-on-ger-before.html

I haven't had a good look at any Bachmann Thomas range models to be able to tell the scale of Gordon. But if anyone on here does have one, it would be great to find out its wheelbase. They will become more available soon, with Bachmann bringing the range to the UK, so if it is an option, it would be convenient.