25kV

Looks like it might even have had "high level" pipes added specifically for hauling the EMUs, maybe?

Underframes and Bodies After a couple of weeks hiatus while another project was prioritised, it's back to the Class 22s (not the North British ones - sorry) while that other project waits for paint to arrive. Following cutting of the underframe inserts (see first post), these were married up to some seriously chopped-about Hornby 86 underframes. The slight narrowing at the cab ends meant things weren't quite as neat as I'd have liked, but with some square section rod, the results looked a bit like this: I'm sure there are more efficient ways to achieve the same ends, but I'm new to all this, so it's a bit trial and error and error again. Nevertheless, with something reasonably solid to build upon, the first (dummy) loco's bodysides were roughly assembled. These are formed from the cab end of one class 86 cut in half and chopped down to lower bodyside, plus the lower bodysides from another class 86, minus the cab. Spare bodies supplied the middle inserts on both sides, including the recess for the flexicoil suspension of the middle bogie. Class 87 bodies provided cut-down cabsides for use as bodysides at the inner end of the loco. These were all filed to provide moderately neat joins, and taped in place to check dimensions, etc. I'm using the existing locating lugs on the Hornby bodysides and underframes to provide support and help keep positions accurate - including for the middle bogie! As the Lima 87 bodies are slightly thinner than the Hornby 86s, the cabside sections have been padded out with a rectangle of plasticard. The bodyside panels are secured together with more plastic rod glued along the insides. With the bodysides in place, inner end bulkheads were cut from plasticard, including a hole for what will become a window in the end door. Shunting controls are fitted just inside to allow safe movements on depots etc. The end taper has been removed at the inner ends by inserting 1mm shims on the underframe to keep the sides straight all the way along. Additional bracing connects the two sides and rear bulkhead. A Bit of a Grilling Meanwhile, a start was made on the first of several very long rows of grilles! Lima's yellow plastic is very hard to photograph, I find. The various grille sections were stuck to a length of L-section plastic angle, conveniently using the moulded ridge of the former roof-line on the inside of the sections for alignment. Despite this, a kink is visible in this shot, caused by slightly off-alignment filing of one of the pieces - I later popped this out again, refiled it, and got a straighter result. The first run of grilles, balanced temporarily on the lower bodyside, and starting to give a better impression of the loco's finished look. After assembling the first two main runs of grilles for loco #1, I realised that it would have been preferable to have used a longer L-section to allow for the end grilles at the non-cab end. Some extension pieces were added and, with a gap for the emergency door handrails, the remaining panels added. With these complete, the opportunity was taken to temporarily attach both to the first body. It's beginning to look solid. The L-section angle can be seen inside - this will also provide a base for the roof sections later on. Also worth noting are the cab doors - in a moment of insanity I decided that I wanted to replace the Hornby single-handled cab doors with the double-handled versions from the Class 87 (this was a common exchange on real Class 86s too), so carefully cut several from the spare 87 cabs, then carved a suitable hole in the 86s and glued in place. The quality of the carving varied ... but I have filler... 😳 Hence yellow doors. One down, two to go! The first bodyshell was something of a "figuring it out" exercise, but with a moderately successful build so far, a start was made on the other two. In the foreground is the powered end, and the rare cabless mid-unit is in between (for a history of the class see the first post). 😉 Today I assembled more runs of grilles, for the cabless loco (I should take the US nomenclature mentioned above and refer to this as a B-unit!), seen here, and the other A-unit! Assembly of the powered loco was a little more tricky, having to accommodate the motor bogie, and leaving little room for internal bracing: By the end of this evening, the full complement of bodyside panels was complete (barring some blanking pieces for the upper doorways), albeit not currently glued together, and naturally the opportunity was taken to mount all three on their bogies. One curious discovery (which can just be discerned in this long shot) is that the Hornby Class 90 power bogie sits at a different height to the dummy bogies. Actually it may be more accurate to say the dummy bogies sit too high - the wheel centres don't match the mouldings (unlike those on the power bogies which do), and this has led to the powered loco (at the back in this shot) leaning down at one end. I'm not completely sure what to do about this at present, but it would be good to have everything level. As can be seen below, a start has also been made at removing the buffer beam detail - the NC uses a centre coupler as standard, though these preserved locos will also be fitted with retractable buffers, as fitted when built. Next Steps North Central Railway standard light fittings are hopefully going to be created using this new-fangled 3D printing malarkey, which will save me some time and fingertips trying to create a dozen or more of them from scratch. There's a lot of filling and sanding to do to all parts of the bodywork, and also some wiring to get power to the motor. At some point the superfluous steps on the centre bogies will have to be carved off (done one already), and then, of course, there's the roof. And all those pantographs. 😐

Internal Issues The interior seat mouldings from the Duple Roadmaster die-cast models were naturally too wide for this narrow-gauge conversion ... well actually they would have just about squeezed in there with the reinforced side panels removed, but there aren't very many NG coaches with 2+2 seating, so it was out with hacksaws to narrow everything down. Naturally it wasn't as simple as just hacking off one column of seats - the Lima Mk1 underframes take out a chunk of lower-legroom, so in the end I had to cut each seat out individually, and trim them to just below the cushions in order to fit properly. Having developed fingertip callouses from this exercise, it was with some relief that the many seats were cemented untidily to some thin plasticard strips. Like railbuses of old, passengers can sit behind the front-right windscreen at both ends, so, to take full advantage of the forward view, the double seats were arranged on the right, and the singles on the left behind the driver. For the intermediate trailer, a symmetrical arrangement was created, with implied reversible seats in some areas. Two partitions for the drivers' half-cabs were cut from a bit of clear packaging - seen at the top here: A quick spray with Halfords-the-Grey... ... followed by a spray of green and some serious medical misfortune for the random passengers, most of whom had their legs cut off below the knees. To give a moderately firm base for the somewhat flimsy passenger inserts, the underframes were given a slab of plasticard over the recessed weight. While on the subject of underframes, the replacement chassis for the intermediate trailer showed up and was immediately shorn of its CK body, had a bogie swap with the Siphon G (dodgy coupling), and had body support beams and slabs added. A Need to Vent Having had a go at making my own grille slats using a variety of invented techniques (such as stacking many layers of thin plastic strip, applying glue down the edge, and then sorta "shuffling" them into an angled stack and hoping the glue would hold them) I turned instead to the box in the attic and found an already cut-up HST power car. This donated sections of the main bodyside grille for both sides, duly stuck onto the windows. A braver man than I would have attempted to cut out the windows and inset the grilles, but I'm gonna live with the weird protrusions as part of the "design". At least until I find it's fouling the loading gauge somehow. Skirting the Issue With the side skirts already applied to the motor car, it was time to face the trailers. Two layers were used for each side - a 1mm thick back plate, with the passenger door cemented to the top, and cut-outs for the moulded tabs on the upper body, plus a 0.75mm thick front plate with a cut-out for the door. These combine to match the upper body's stepped lower edge, and also make a pretty strong overall structure. Here's the results on one of the driving cars. Light scores were made at the cab ends to allow subtle folds in both layers, to match the narrowing cab. And with all the side-skirts in place, a quick test-assemble! (The intermediate trailer is sitting on its original underframe, leading to very tight clearances on curves - hence the longer replacement.) Next up were the vehicle ends. Again, lightly-scoring the card allowed for a gentle fold to match the shape of the nose at the cab ends; some quarter-curved plastic rod helped to form the corners on the "back" ends. Once again, the effect of gluing the side-skirts to the upper body tabs produced a gentle tumblehome, and this was worked in to the vehicle end shapes. Some additional internal supports on the corners and a couple of passes with filler closed the gaps. Here's how things were looking after one pass. The edges of the doors were trimmed with thin card to minimise gaps (there's zero structural space to play with) and force the doors to stand roughly at the same inset from the outer skin. Waistlines and Hems In an effort to reproduce a little more of the Roadmaster styling, plastic strip was curved around the bodies, mimicking similar raised features on the buses. Some ended up straighter than others. 😳 For the cab ends, a 4mm punch was applied to the bottom edges of the upper bands, and a short length of 4mm tubing stuck in place to represent headlights. Then many many small strips were chopped to represent extensions of the bodyside panel ribs between the two raised bands. Resulting in a reasonable sense of continuity above and below the waist. Similar short strips were cut and curved then stuck across the "back" windows, to hide the cut line down the glass... ... with similar strips being placed down the front windscreens. A Weighty Issue There's only so much room inside that tiny motor car ... so this was the solution. Initially I attempted to stick a couple of these weights to the inside walls, but there wasn't room for the motor between them, so they were prised off again and mounted atop the motor with the assistance of a plasticard structure built on any available surface. This has resulted in a fairly top-heavy vehicle, but it'll probably survive the peaceful environs of the 009 layout without too much incident. I hope. See How They Run With all the pieces more-or-less complete, it was time to loosely assemble the full set and see how it runs. Bodies dropped on to underframes; passenger inserts installed; power on. The Kato motor handled the full set very nicely. The outer trailers have minor wobbles, probably a result of having 40 year old Lima bogies under them. I'm not currently concerned about this... but am willing to change my mind in the future. My dad's 009 layout has a reasonable gradient, so the set was also tested on this makeshift, much steeper rise, featuring discarded components from the build - a Roadmaster die-cast lower body, the Siphon-G underframe, and one of the bogies from the CK underframe. 😉 Climbed with no problems - fingers crossed for similar performance when finished. Next Steps Construction is pretty much complete - some short strips will be added to the doors to match the waist band, and possibly a couple of 'go faster' strips on the cab fronts, mimicking the bus design. However the next task is going to involve paint, and this is where I'll either make a horrible mess, or make a catastrophic mess. Only time will tell which it will be!

Seen on a ScotRail HST today...

Yes, apparently in 1965 a grandmother and grandson were walking hand-in-hand towards Laygate Lane level crossing when the infant suddenly took off and ran headlong onto the tracks, despite the crossing keeper (who attempted to give chase) having stopped traffic. He was hit by loco No. 4 and died instantly. The NCB put in place a raft of changes to give better visibility at crossings, and had the fleet painted white to aid visibility. (Ironically, it turned out that white was not a great colour against the sky, so black "V" chevrons were added.)

According to Hatcher's book, it was applied in 1966 and lasted until 1972 when replaced by apple green.

A handful of photos from today, returning from Glasgow to Aberdeen... 43012 at Queen St, with 43132 on the rear. 43012+43132 on the left after arrival at Aberdeen, with 43026+43134 on platform 4, and 43034+43183 on platform 5. The same sets from the other end... Plus a bonus pair in the carriage sidings: 43175+43137 on the left and 43141+43144 on the right.

I always loved the incongruity of Rail Blue on narrow gauge steam - am I alone in being just a little disappointed when that era ended? This layout totally captures the feel. 🙂

The glazing and roof (grey section, not the curved ends) need to be released first - and they're clipped at the ends and low down below the windows. After this, the body can be separated from the underframe. There's a video showing how to do this here.

A Bit of Progress Here we see the first support struts are superglued to the three underframes. These will, in theory, bear longitudinal members attached to the insides of the bodywork. The Siphon G underframe was found to be too short so had a 10mm extension put in. Will this be enough though? Can we instill a sense of foreboding and foreshadowing? Cutting Up The Bodies Even More Having taken 4mm out from the centre-line of the four Duple Roadmasters, and cautiously glued them back together, it was time to split them in half a second time, but at 90° to the first cut. Oh the chaos. The upper two will be driving trailers - each has an extra bit of roofing waiting to plug the gap - a door will fit into the bodywork underneath this. The third is an intermediate trailer formed from the back end of two buses, while in the foreground is the motor vehicle, using two cabs stuck back-to-back. The passenger windows will hopefully be replaced by grilles in due course. Driving trailer with its extra roof section in place. It's a bit out of alignment, but with a bit of filler and sanding, you'll still be able to see it later. The three trailer cars taking shape. The Motor Car I suppose since it has cabs, you could classify this as a mini locomotive. Either way, here's the guts of the mini-beast, the Kato Bo-Bo chassis, with some initial supporting struts glued on board. There's not a huge amount of room on this little underframe. Meanwhile its bodywork is the first to have its skirt added, replacing the planned die-cast cut-up job from the original bus models. As it happens, gluing these to the 'tabs' on the plastic body produce a slight tumblehome effect, which is quite pleasing and a little bit more "railway" than the slab of the bus side. These will be detailed further later. Test mounting on the underframe... ... followed by a proof-of-concept test run. Finally, a little bit of interior detailing - a couple of partitions and the first drivers desk (the sorta backwards-Z thing top left) cut from the dashboard of the bus model, and mounted slightly higher so that it's visible from the outside. Next Steps While adding support struts to the trailer car underframes, I realised that the bodies of adjacent vehicles were going to just come into contact on 1st radius curves, which meant slightly adjusting the driving vehicles to have a shorter rear overhang. Unfortunately I also concluded that the intermediate trailer's underframe was still too short - having already chopped it about, I figured that another regular Lima Mk1 would probably be an easier option than attempting to break-and-remake the Siphon, so eBay has been scoured for a CK going cheap. Once it's here and similarly set up for the body to rest on, the remainder of the side skirts (and mid-body doors) will be fitted to all three trailers. After that, it'll be time to address the cab front lower sections and the "rear" end of the trailers, and figure out exactly how the bodies will be fixed onto the underframes. (I have a plan, but it's by no means certain to end up that way!) At the same time there is the issue of the interiors - the Lima underframes are definitely taking up some of the passenger space, so there's gonna be some chopping of seats and legs, most likely! The motor car requires some weight adding - it's practically floating off the track at the moment. Hopefully this can be mounted low enough not to cause come entertaining centre-of-gravity issues later!

The other week my dad (who has recently extended his 009 layout) sent me a link to the website of the County Gate L&B-based layout, wondering where they'd got their interesting range of railcars from. He fancied something along those lines himself. Delving deeper I discovered they were all scratch-built, using a powered chassis in between two or more trailers (Stadler style). In my infinite wisdom I immediately thought, "Let's see if I can build one!" While the County Gate railcars are styled towards art-deco for the most part, reflecting their supposed 1920s build dates, my dad's layout is set in the mid-1950s, and his railcar would be new. It seemed most likely that a narrow gauge establishment seeking a cheap-and-cheerful railcar solution would ask a coachbuilder to build the bodywork. Step up the Duple Roadmaster, which, after a scouring of the Oxford die-cast catalogue, appeared to be ideal for narrow-gauging - it has a full-width cab, regular spaced and shaped windows, but a distinct period styling that would look the part. In addition, my dad had a collection of the Dinky die-cast Roadmasters when he was a kid, so it seemed appropriate. eBay and TMC provided second hand Roadmasters for very reasonable sums ... four in total. My initial plan was to build two trailer cars with driving cabs at the outer end, and then a short cabless motor car to place between them. This would require a total of four inner ends ... but then it occurred to me that giving the motor car two cabs would allow for very flexible combinations - driving trailer+motor, driving trailer+motor+driving trailer, and, since there would be plenty of bits available from four bus bodies, driving trailer+motor+trailer+driving trailer. Finding the Bodies So with bodies acquired, the next issue was loading gauge. The Roadmasters are nearly standard-gauge in width, and while there's just enough clearance on the 009 layout, they were going to look over-sized - so cutting down the width would be necessary. Time to dismantle and remove some of the more egregious bus features such as destination indicators, tail lights, and registration numbers. Photoshopping the bodies around a bit gave this kind of solution, with a narrower profile, and some cutting about to make the saloons. : Using this illustration as a guide (which I'd scaled to be 1:1 on screen), I figured I'd need to remove 4 or 5mm from the centre-line of each body - a somewhat daunting task. Masking tape was used to create cutting guides: And then some tentative strokes were made with the razor saw. And this was the result! Wait - no - this was the result: Slightly narrower when compared to the unmodified example on the left. Unfortunately my cuts weren't perfectly straight so some trimming and filing was necessary to get the halves to sit together reasonably well. Some strengthening joins were made on the insides: Followed by an initial fill-and-sand of the remaining gaps. All of these have yet to be cut in half (at least) to form into the trailer coach bodies, but I'm aiming to have them reasonably solid so that I'm not juggling too many pieces. The railcar will have a shorter body height than the Roadmaster, so I had planned to shave a few millimeters off the die-cast lower body sections, and do a similar narrowing to match the upper body. The original intention was to hacksaw the metal and use appropriate sections on the trailer cars, but after a lot of cutting of the first one, I'm not sure it's going to be a great solution. Instead I think the easier way to go is to create the lower bodies out of plasticard, which will also help with affixing them to the underframes. Underframes A quick search revealed a surprisingly affordable, and very tiny N-gauge Kato 11-105 Bo-Bo chassis. This was obtained, along with two second hand Lima Mk1s, and a Lima Siphon-G (slightly shorter underframe for the intermediate trailer). The N-gauge bodies were removed and most of the underframe detailing chopped off. In its place will be square-section plastic rod extending out on each side to support the bus bodies. I'm keeping the N-gauge couplings for now, as it's unlikely to need to couple to any of the other 009 stock... Famous last words. Next Steps Still to come - chopping the upper bodies to make space for passenger doors and to rearrange for the motor car and intermediate trailer - followed by fabricating the lower bodysides and doorways, and somehow putting the pieces back together in a fashion that won't self-dismantle as soon as it enters a tunnel. Plus figuring out how to mount the motor car's body on the tiny Kato underframe - and add a bit of weight to it. Watch this space...

It's a Trailer Brake First on accommodation bogies (basically plate wagon bogies). Consequently it's sitting higher than it normally would! The nearest end would become an articulated end, while the furthest had a conventional bogie when in service. Articulated APT vehicles were often mounted on these accommodation bogies for moving around the sites at Derby and Shields, etc.

I came across this photo of one of them recently (by Chris Nuthall on Flickr) - I think BR green hauling an APT car has to take the biscuit. 😉 (The BG is clearly acting as a livery translator vehicle...)

All Brecknell-Willis high speed pantographs have the aerofoils - they're tuned to keep the pan head in optimum contact with the wire, I believe. One of the early production pans can be seen here: http://www.traintesting.com/Highspeed_pan.htm

Oh yes indeed. I'd managed to blank the whole Stafford situation - 304 008 and 013 I think, if memory serves. I have photos somewhere, but I'm not even sure from memory if the road they were on was wired. It wouldn't surprise me if the "shunt" was carried out by means of the grabber. 😉

Exactly! 😁 Lostock Hall was the most local shed to me as a kid - not that it was still in use other than as a wagon repair depot, but it still had an atmosphere about it. I went to take some photos of the abandoned structure on wet day in 1989 - a matter of a few weeks later it had gone. Lots of stories, history and anecdotes on the Preston Station website: http://www.prestonstation.org.uk/10D/sheds.html for anyone interested in this location and its role at the end of (standard gauge) steam on BR.

Thanks!! I have tentative plans for a small diorama at some stage, just to sit them on, but in my craziest of moments, my ideal layout would be to build Lostock Hall shed in its "present day" form. Potted history - the North Central took over the ex-BR steam shed in around 1970 and converted it to an electric depot to service locos covering the routes from Preston (new station on the East Lancs side) to Blackpool Central, Manchester Central, Liverpool Exchange, Hellifield and Bradford/Leeds. In the 1980s a purpose-built ETD was constructed nearby, and the old shed became a warm store for older locos (NC had inherited a good number from other fictional constituent companies - both they and NC would snap up discarded locos from BR and elsewhere to bolster their fleets - which is a good excuse to have models of all kinds of electric locos in one place [I've been thinking about this for a long time!]) which in turn led to the company creating an official heritage fleet on the site, and opening it to visitors. BUT - whether such a model happens remains to be seen. 🙂

Cheers! Yes, there's definitely an argument for too many pans on these - when built, however, there had been some concern about wire and/or carbon strip damage when potentially pulling 5.6 MW per unit (or more if bussed). Consequently, pairs of pans were fitted (class 76-style) for use on the particularly steep and curved sections such as over the Waverley route - also useful in the event of failure, of course. Later on, with improved tech and operational experience, the extras were removed when BW pans were fitted, when bus-bars between units were also added. (Also they'll hopefully look cool in photos. 😉 )

Wow, yes, even just zooming in on some of the closer photos on the page linked above - different window hoppers, underframe layout, bogie-area clutter, probably doors too... Don't you love a standardised fleet? 😉

And now for something completely different. History of the NC Class 22s Following its acquisition of the former Great Central main line in 1966 and its rapid annexation of other Beeching routes, the nascent North Central Railway (NC) sought to capitalise on its investment in 25kV electrification by introducing long-distance fast and heavy freight services. With road traffic on the increase and the motorway network expanding, NC saw an opportunity to recapture freight for rail by transporting road vehicles and trailers over longer distances at higher speeds than motorways would allow, with "turn up and go" rapid roll-on-roll off facilities at key hub locations constructed. Wholesale electrification of the NC network was a target, and with it the opportunity for gauge enhancement to allow taller trains at least on its core routes. To power these and other bulk freight services under the wires, NC turned to English Electric, who proposed stretching and uprating the AL6 design into pairs of single-cabbed, 7500hp, 100 mph Bo-Bo-Bo locomotives, operating back-to-back. Following ride issues on British Rail with the bogie design of the AL6, a new design was created with improved suspension - this design also formed the basis of the BP7 bogie for BR's Class 87. The wheel arrangement was chosen to suit the curved and hilly nature of NC's northern routes, which were then under redevelopment and reopening. The first of the Class 22s was delivered by EE - by now GEC - in 1968 with some 520 standard examples being built over the next six years, running as 260 pairs. Production was split between Vulcan Foundry and Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Engineering's (LYRE) recently acquired Gorton Works. Four non-standard, cabless versions were built in 1973 for ultra-heavy load trials, but in the end these saw limited use. The cabless ends of all locos contained basic shunting controls located inside the gangway door. As built, each locomotive was fitted with two AEI/GEC cross-arm pantographs, but later these were replaced by a single Brecknell-Willis High Speed pantograph at the outer end, with 25kV jumper cables installed between pairs to maintain a supply in the event of a pantograph failure. Other later alterations included the removal of the retractable buffers (originally fitted to aid interoperability with British Rail stock on shared routes or flows), swapping of drop-head buckeyes for NC standard fixed couplings, and the addition of fire suppression equipment. Although freight work was the bread and butter of the class, NC's interoperability and compatibility standards meant that occasionally the locos were used on passenger work, perhaps most notably when single locos were used in push-pull mode on Manchester and Liverpool commuter services (along with a number of drafted-in former BR electric locos) for a period in the 80s and 90s, replacing Mk2 EMU driving motors on extended trailer car sets. 7500hp on tap produced a number of legendary performances, particularly on the racetrack out to Blackpool Central! With the first Class 35 "River Class" Co-Co freight locos coming on stream in 1994, some initial inroads to the Class 22s were made, however the opening of NC's high speed lines from 1993 led to increased freight capacity on the "classic" lines and withdrawals were slow paced. As recently as 2015 over 100 locos were still in operation, with a further 220 in the NC "Strategic Reserve" at Farington Triangle - North Central's fabled reluctance to part with anything continues! In 2018, to mark their 50th anniversary, the first- and last-built standard locos, plus the last surviving cabless loco were handed over to the North Central Heritage Fleet based at Lostock Hall. These were restored to original Black/Silver livery, refitted with cross-arm pantographs and buffers, and are now maintained in operational condition. They have since taken part in heritage events and railtours across the NC network and are usually on display at the depot when not in use. In early 2024 only 22 pairs remain in service, mostly in reserve and on stand-by or "Thunderbird" duties, while 147 locos remain stored at Farington. The Reality When I was about 8, a school friend and I had collections of Matchbox die-cast trains that we'd paint up and trade with each other, inventing our own fictional railway systems utilising closed railways in the local area. We started with north and south sections of the Chorley – Cherry Tree (Blackburn) route; he later took over the West Lancs railway from Preston to Southport, while I went east from Preston, with shared running via Blackburn, to Padiham, and then via Colne to Skipton. The idea of an independent network stayed with me as I began to plan a future model railway in 1989, and various "what if" and prototype loco designs from the real world helped feed the desire to create something different-but-familiar. In Brian Webb's AC Electric Locomotives of British Rail book (1979) an intriguing, late-1960s, 86/87-like Co-Co proposal for use in the channel tunnel sparked my interest, along with a similar crude Bo-Bo-Bo illustration right at the back, which I think was just the author's own musings. A combination of those two ideas - the independent network using closed BR lines, along with weird and wonderful never-happened loco variations has lurked ever since. And the great thing about having one's own railway is that no-one can point out which bits you got wrong. 😉 Thus it was that in a spare moment in 2004, I drew up a line diagram of the Class 22, which led to this mock up, entitled "And now for something completely different," being made in 2006 for a popular web gallery of the time - a Class 22 pair in original livery on a rake of NC Mk2 air-cons, back in the day. Much more recently I revised the diagram after finding this nice side-on shot of the preserved triple set: 😉 The Model As no RTR models of the Class 22 exist (the North Central is very poorly served by manufacturers, who seem stuck in some kinda reality), and with many similarities of design between the class and the BR 86s/87s, I initially decided to go with Hornby's classic model as the basis. Obviously the Class 22's bodies are longer overall, with a different arrangement of standard-sized grilles, so a major cut-and-shut would be required. The Class 22 has 14 standard grilles on each side - 28 in total (30 on a cabless unit) - while an 86 has 10 in total, meaning that for each loco I'd need three donor bodies just for the grilles. My initial plan was for a standard pair of 22s, back to back, but it was too tempting to model the preserved triple-unit. For that I'd need 9 Class 86 bodies and turned to eBay for a supply - forgetting I already had a couple in long-term storage! Similarly, eBay provided a pile of Hornby underframes (five needed for nine bogie openings), while nine unpowered Class 90 bogies were found via Lendon's - similar enough to the Class 22 from three feet away - I'm ignoring the different drivers' step design. I knew I'd have to cut the majority of grilles out of their moulded locations to rearrange, so was a little concerned that I'd lose some of the detail and depth, or have issues with realigning due to the width of the saw blade cuts. In addition, something was bothering me about the Hornby body moulding - proportions didn't seem quite right between the bodyside sill, the height of the grille, and the underside of the cantrail panels. By comparison, the Lima Class 87 body seemed a better fit - I decided to address both concerns by biting the bullet and acquiring spare Lima bodies to act as grille donors. Nine unpainted bodies were found via Rainbow Railways. Naturally with an excess of loco bodies, first priority was to mock up a Vic Berry's stack (with a couple of "found" Class 90s a bit of Photoshoppery in there for fun). Why are so many of these bodies showing a bent left-middle window pillar on the front? Also time for a last look at one of the "found" 86s bodies I'd forgotten about in the attic, originally (and badly) painted back in 1992 or something - wait - isn't that in the original North Central black and silver freight livery? Creating the Jigsaw Puzzle After the scrap pile, second priority was figuring out exactly what to cut, where and how. Fortunately I had those useful photos, along with my revised version of the 2004 line drawing. Nothing like waiting 20 years to get on with a project, eh? The first issue I encountered was realising that the Class 86/87 bodyside arrangement was not just a matter of styling, but of roof design and modularity. Like the Class 85 before them, the whole "above sill" upper section of the body was designed for easy removal, but additionally, sections of flat roof could be removed individually for replacement of modules such as rheostatic brake stacks, the transformer, or control cubicles, etc. As a result, the structure of the roof sections directly correlated to the layout of grilles and windows, with the size of removable panels up top determining where the bodyside verticals were placed, and thus the openings/spaces available for grilles. This meant doing some extra forward planning for the roof details, which I'd not considered in detail before, ensuring that some kind of logic was maintained both between sides and roof (including pantograph and insulator placement), and also the hypothetical internal equipment layout. One stylistic decision which is at odds with this, was to do away with windows on the walkway side in the centre section. Insert here some kind of excuse where the walkway definitely required extra ventilation rather than natural light. Ducted airflow transformer cooling blowers rectifiers something something. Shh! Thus the modified diagram now looks like this, with Class 86 roof sections at the top for reference: After some thought about access to the interior (as well as emergency escape), particularly on the cabless middle loco, I also decided to include additional bodyside doors at the 'cabless' ends. While this removes one of the planned grilles (and leaves me with some spares for disasters), it does mean I only have to carve steps off 1/3 of the bogies, and fitters working in the loco don't have to run 300 miles to the nearest cab to escape in the event of disaster. The various colours indicate the different donor bodies required for constructing the triple unit. Body Preparation All the Hornby 86s were dipped in IPA for varying periods and with various results. A couple of the InterCity liveried versions shed their paint instantly, leaving clean black bodyshells. Most of the others refused to even drop their nameplates or numbers under the influence of alcohol. I don't know what Hornby were putting in their paint, but it definitely didn't shift. Oh well - out with the fine grit and a bit of elbow grease. I chose the clean black shells for the cab ends, and the cleanest/tidiest blue bodies for the inner end lower bodies, with a variety of the rest for the infill sections. The flat roofs were cut away and retained for later modification. The cab end bodies were cut exactly in half, and the inner end sections also cut from halfway along to just inside the cab doors. Following this, I had the excellent idea to obtain the thinnest razor saw I could find - a 0.2mm Zona blade was acquired and used to very very carefully slice the existing grille sections from above the sill. This left the main lower bodywork intact with the tiny upper curve of the sill still visible, but also left the 86 grilles more or less intact. Naturally there were a few unfortunate blade slips, but nothing that a spot of sanding and filling won't hide. Meanwhile, the nine Class 87 bodies were dismantled and the required standard grille sections roughly trimmed to size, leaving a vast pile of cabs wishing for a museum, outside of which they can rust away for 20 years. At this point I realised what the problem was with the Hornby upper body proportions. The grilles themselves are almost the same size as the Lima mouldings, however on the Hornby model, there is a double line of rivets above them which is just a little too high, and gives the optical illusion of the grilles being more squat than they are. Which gave me pause for thought - specifically about maybe just putting a bit of microstrip and filler along that edge to close it up slightly and fix the proportions... But if I could do that, I'd have twice as many bits of upper body than I actually need for my triple-loco, and it'd definitely be a shame to waste 'em... Can you see where this is probably going? Following the rough trim of 87 bits, a start was made on the fine trimming (which is a lot of filing) so that they will all sit snugly together in their new arrangement. And then I discovered that not all the "standard" grilles are, in fact, standard. The traction motor blower pairs at each end on both sides are indeed all the same size as each other - and on casual inspection, the outer pair of the five on the equipment side of an 86 or 87 had appeared to be identical in size. But it turns out that these are fractionally longer than the end pairs. It's only taken me fifty years to notice. As it turns out, these will form the centre grilles on both sides, and the end grilles on the cabless ends, so the slight difference in length will probably not detract too obviously and can be passed off as a "feature". The Class 22s were never fitted with headcode boxes, as the North Central adopted electronic train reporting from the outset, so in between filing grilles to size, these Class 86 features were carved off the cabs and sanded smooth, together with the tail light and handrail mouldings. Replacement light fittings will follow in due course. Down Below - Underframe Construction To relieve the tedium of filing bodyside sections, I took several sharp blades to the Class 86 underframes. Having determined the Bo-Bo-Bo bogie centres by converting diagram pixels into scale millimetres, it was a case of marking up the half-way points between these and roughly cutting to length. While I'd initially planned to make a non-motorised model, I have since been tempted to try to make it move, and a Class 90 motor bogie is on order for one of the three. With a little bit of hindsight, or indeed forethought, constructing entirely new underframes from scratch might have been the more sensible than cobbling together mis-matched bits of the Hornby ones, since they were designed for end-clipping bogies, and are thus mostly space that needs filling up for the centre-pivot Class 90 bogies. However, so far so good on the Frankenstein ones I've cobbled together, using plasticard and styrene rod for strengthening. Two of the three will be dummy locos, hence the lack of space for a motor bogie. The "M" on the middle sheet indicates an end to be removed for the motor. The three bogie pivot holes in each were drilled and filed out - the middle bogie has a slot to allow for a little lateral movement on curves. As it stands this will currently be limited by the interaction of the flexicoil mouldings on the underframe and the bogie - it remains to be seen whether there is sufficient play for pointwork and curves, and some adaptation may be in order down the line. I'm currently thinking that in order to make the underframe as rigid as possible, I'll glue the lower bodywork to it in the form of a strong box-section (just like the real life design of the 86s) and have the upper body lift off for access to bogies and electrical etc. Next Stages The underframes are critical to the creation of the bodysides, as the overall length, position of flexicoil suspension and so on will determine the precise location and symmetry of the various panels. In addition to the grilles, a number of blank sections of upper body have been cut and filed to the correct height, but not trimmed to length yet. Similarly some additional lower body sections will need to be cut, along with the emergency access doors, to fill out the full length of the body. The exact lengths of these elements will be determined as bodyside assembly gets underway.

You can follow the story from this post onwards - albeit in fits and starts between other APT bits and pieces 🙂

Could this be the answer? "In the late 1920’s stone and rock arriving by rail for building the South Esplanade was transferred into narrow gauge trucks and pushed on rail lines laid down onto the beach and sand dunes." https://www.burnhamandhighbridgeweeklynews.co.uk/news/16178030.looking-back-50-facts-burnham-on-sea-railway/

I was pretty much bound to Preston as a kid, and trips elsewhere were mostly limited to excursions or open days. But I do have a memory of going to Manchester (all of 25 miles from home) with my dad, and walking from Victoria to Piccadilly to see what was there - and seeing a 76 on the blocks. That was like a whole other universe. Preston was a strange little world on a weekend - or at least it seemed to be. 25s, 40s, 47s, 81s-87s, but rarely anything outside of this. Even 37s felt a little unusual, and 31s or 45s would be very noteworthy. So I often felt the "Kansas" thing when something unusual came to me! But in that blue era, I think the thing (and you can probably tell by my sig) that had the biggest effect on a 7/8 year old kid like me, was that stripey Alien Pointy Train that would occasionally, unpredictably, and mysteriously turn up.

It's here! 😁 A nice touch is the scar of the "18100" number at the pantograph end (I have a feeling it was patch-repainted in reality but I like this better). In this photo, it survived as an overhead line test loco for a few more years, in a slightly alternative timeline. I've run it back and forth a short distance (on DC) and can hear what sounds like a spark discharging inside after a brief time shortly after moving off. Normal? Weird? 🤔

Thanks to this thread I discovered these existed at all, and now, apparently, one is due to arrive here presently - I don't know how that happened... (With a pantograph, naturally.)