Hacksworth_Sidings

Welp, I know what I’m doing after I sort out the third one I have in the works. Two Prairies and a 4MT, right? Just need my usual order of Princess wheels and a Jinty block on top of it, then I’ve got myself a night!

Princess chassis, right? I’ve been debating what the true best Triang chassis for one of these would be, Princess is too short, and Jinty is too long, fine for running but they aren’t the most realistic. Going to get this third Prairie finished on the Jinty chassis, but after that I might look into alternatives, considering the same one I mentioned for the 4-6-0 4MT, a Triang/Hornby 70s 0-6-0 chassis, the E2/08 (also used under the B12 and Ivatt 2MT I believe), the wheel spacing isn’t as far apart as a Jinty but it isn’t as close together as a Princess, seems it’d be a perfect fit… Would still use the early Princess wheels, that’s set in stone at this point.

Can probably salvage the City’s unbuilt tender, but I’m gonna save that for later. In the meantime, anyone order another Prairie? Decided to make another, might experiment with more liveries on this one… And the fourth… Maybe even a fifth… The church of Swindon grows stronger… Either that or my addiction to this d@mn kit does 🤣 Edit: You can also notice a change on the second Prairie, I finally swapped out the front bogie! Cut-down Triang 3MT bogie, handles my layout brilliantly now, and it looks more accurate!

Out of interest, have you considered a Gresley P2 Mikado at all?

Welp, first City arrived, and guess what dumb me did? That’s right, I broke the crank! Going to try and glue it back on, unsure of how well this will work though, things were going so nicely too… At least I figured out how NOT to assemble one of these. Edit: Only just noticed there’s no quartering whatsoever! Cranks are offset by 180 degrees instead of 90, and the cranks on the right side are 90 degrees off from the counterweights! Is this a problem on my particular model, is it my building, or is this a problem on all the CoT kits?

Cheers, need to find where I put my BR crest transfers (I still have some from the Dapol School which I need to finish, painted it in a Southern livery so I still have the BR transfers), alongside the lining transfers, the blue paint I used is just some automotive paint dad had lying around, matched rather well to BR blue I thought, the black is Citadel “Abaddon Black”.

Just need to do some cosmetic work, tidy up the black paint, get the rest of the lining applied.

Considering something like that, buy a complete loco and a lone chassis, would work out much better too since the spare IC125 motor bogie I’ve got is missing most components too (gutted it’s armature assembly for a class 47, but that’s another story), so the motor from the working 9F could easily be disassembled and put into the 125 bogie I want to use for the project.

Given what I’m actually intending on using the chassis’s for, it’d actually work out better to buy an entire 9F, can pick them up between £45 and £55 from eBay and Hattons, make a bit of money back off the motor units, hell, I didn’t pay anything more than £55 for my first 9F last year! The seller behind the listing in the bottom pic of my post is one I see pop up no matter what I search up, £70 for Triang smoker chassis units, £40 for a basic 0-6-0 chassis, bodies can go from £15 upwards, etc, how he makes his money I have no idea…

The more I think about this, the more I realise the performance would be better, if the wheels are correctly oriented according to the isolated wheels being on opposite sides for each chassis (front “bogie” has the insulated driven wheels on the left, rear has the insulated wheels on the right, due to the pickup being achieved through the chassis like other Triang and, to that extent, early Hornby models) then the problem of a small power pickup range is sorted. Really tempted to give that a stab now, if only I could find the 9F chassis for cheap, based on the current eBay prices I don’t want to be paying anywhere in the region of £60 to £80 on motorising a £30-£35 kit! But if that’s the only option then I might go for it, I really want a Big Boy to run on either my layout or the club layout now…

Was looking into Ringfield 9F chassis units after some conversation in the Kitmaster thread regarding the motorisation of a Revell big boy Anywhere between £30 and £50 for unmotorised chassis units!?

Low and behold, one of my friends found a busted up Dean goods in their spares just now! Been doing a bit of talking with ‘em and I miiiiiiiiiiiight do a second City now…

Finally got the first layer of blue down, unsure of which number to put it in though, considering Lady Patricia Once this layer’s dry I’ll inspect it and decide if I need another, if not then on with the black!

I don’t doubt that an unmodified Dean Goods runs fine, but the Airfix tender drives had plastic tender wheels, only picking up through the loco wheels, I should have worded my response in such a way that better showed off that I was referring to that, unsure of if the plastic wheels carried over to the Mainline release of the Dean Goods so please correct me on that if I’m wrong, but the lack of tender pickups due to the plastic wheels is what I was referring to, hence the choice of the Lima King motor.

I was actually considering something like that, though more along the lines of the Airfix 4F chassis under the City’s tender body (same motor design, as Mainline got the tooling for the Dean Goods from Airfix), main problem being one of pickup, if I were to do something like that then I’d likely get a busted clerestory carriage, fit with metal wheels and rig up some contacts, though as I was able to find a good deal on a Lima King I’m going to use that instead, modified to have pickups on both sides of the tender.

Would I possibly be able to get a better look at the bottom City’s tender? Bought an Airfix kit (as, like you said, the plastic on the Dapol ones is too soft to ensure smooth running) and a busted Lima king last night as I’ve been debating building the City for some time now, managed to dig up an old City tender from one me and dad tried building a few years back, and I already have a Lima king to get basic measurements from, just wondering how I should go about modifying the tender before I go cutting into it, will likely use this damaged tender to practice fitting it to the King bogie first.

Mainline 4MT? I bought it last year a little before Christmas, sluggish runner, doesn’t much like my Triang track either, but I still like the 4MTs, managed to get a Dublo one on the cheap earlier this year, and I prefer the 4-6-0 tender variant to the 2-6-0, so I think it’d be a fun project to attempt. If I were to do the mogul I think a Triang 3MT chassis would probably be better.

Was running my first Prairie model just now, left hand crosshead guide decides to give out mid run and the loco pulls a Tangmere! Rather tempted to swap the piston set out for one from the kit now… Speaking of Tangmere, she’d be a nice one to have in the collection, might look into building another Bulleid…

Loco body is nearly ready for painting! Going through a few rounds of priming and sanding to get a good finish before I apply the main coat of blue. Steam pipes aren’t permanent yet, only just found them! They were on the other side of the layout, talk about hidden in plain sight.

I was actually considering something like that, though I wouldn’t go for a 9F or 8F chassis, at least not Hornby ones… A Kitmaster 9F chassis could likely be doable, easier to cut down than a Hornby one, not to mention cheaper if a Dapol one can be made to roll freely, so that’s another option, only problem I’m seeing would be the cylinder height and angle

More so just an idea than anything at the moment, if push comes to shove then I do have the chassis from a busted Tyco 2-8-0 I could look into modifying to fit the chassis, like I said though, just an idea, might build this one static to get to grips with the kit first before I go to trying to motorise it.

Should this go here? Grandad and I are planning to make a Revell Big Boy kit together, and I’m considering motorisation options, sure it’ll likely never run on my tiny Triang layout, but it’d be a novel thing to motorise. Currently considering a Hornby Ringfield bogie from a busted IC125, mounted in the tender with an unpowered bogie for pickup, all depends if we can make the loco roll smoothly though. Also worried that the Hornby motor bogie won’t have the power, but if it does then I’m tempted to give it a go.

I did something similar a few months back, shared it on another thread (“Let’s see your Airfix/Kitmaster kit”), not a Princess chassis, but components from a Princess were used. Solid Princess wheels were used (the earlier, smaller ones) on a Jinty chassis, Airfix GMR bogies on both ends, though I’ve since swapped the front to a cut-down Triang 3MT bogie due to the more accurate wheel size and the fact that the front bogie hated my Triang S3 track! The valve gear from the kit works just fine, a simple and cheap motorising option if you can get the wheels quartered correctly! Still need to figure out mounting the body though, currently only held on with blu tack.

Not exactly sure what I was trying to replicate, just saw an eBay listing and thought “hey that’s cool, I want that” Found a photo of the model I sent to a friend before the listing ended, like I said, I didn’t end up winning it, but I thought it was a nice custom and wanted one for myself, hence my shoddy attempt at such

One last find before I look like I’m rambling: I saw a custom model on eBay earlier this year, sawn-off Princess if you will, I wanted to try and get it but someone else won the bid, a few months later and I’d bought another broken Princess to use some chassis components from, the body went unused, so I tried to shorten the body, which I did! …Crudely! Might come back to this model some day and finish it off…