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Thanks for your suggestions Camerdown. The basic tram shape is just a box but two of the opposite corners are missing because there are door spaces there. When soldered to the footplate it makes for a flimsy structure and twists easily and so I want to solder the roof on to make it ridged. I could make a false ceiling out of a rectangle of balsa wood, card or metal but that is extra work. For now I will try to use what come in the kit or scratch aid etch. I've had several goes at soldering up the body. The third go produce a satisfactory result, about 8 out of 10. to keep the project build going I have to except a reasonable standard but not a super competent finish. Compared to the examples available to look at and handle on the Worsley Works display back at the 009 show I definitely am missing some skill. A deficit but practise builds skill, nes pas? So I am trying to keep going. Don't get bogged down over small faults. Keep the modelling momentum going. Somehow the left hand side has gone sideways and does not line up at A. De-solder and start again. Must have had my beer goggles on, what looked OK the evening before did not the next day. The end has come adrift probably whilst soldering up the skirts and the corners of the skirts don't meet. there's a slight gap on the right hand just below the footplate and a whopper on the left at A. So de-solder and try again.

Hi Camperdown, thanks for your thoughts What sold me this kit and made it seem possible to make the kit. It was small and simple about 10 main parts. The ready made examples where available to pick up, touch and inspect. Touching helps and is part of a close inspection, getting a feel for the strange yellow metal which is very different from the plastic moulded model parts I am used to. The sides where held to the floor and located with tags. Now this made the tram kit a possibility as lining up sides to foot plate is difficult, holding it all and applying hot solder with just one pair of arms, almost impossible. The slot and tags allows for the possibility of proper alignment. Photos sides ends rolled corners soldering stages Rounded corners of the main body box are half etches so easier to roll around a drill shank. That's groves etch halfway to through the metal from the back to enable better folding. Or forming as I believe metal workers say. >>> Photos that follow. First assembly. Body sides to the foot plate, wheel cover plates to underside of footplate. Can't get this cell phone to focus where’s my proper camera. The roof also is half etched from the underside and can be rolled with my special rolling mill. That is some magazines placed on the carpet and a suitable roller found. About a half inch or 12 mm in diameter or maybe larger. A large screw driver shaft or marker pen, WHY. Rolling it pastry rolling pin style up and down gradually forms the roof curve. Total cost... sore knees. It would be nice it the roof had some tags and slots to hold it to the sides accurately. There's nothing like strong sunlight to get clear photos. Pre solder or tin the places to make the joins. The nearest corner shows a vertical crease where I applied the drill shaft wrongly and the metal folded slightly. It's gonna have to come apart to fix that.

Day 1 22 JULY 2023 The Skill Deficiency Despite the heavy rain all day the other Saturday I got myself along to the East Midland 009 model show at Portland College near Mansfield. I have missed it for 3 years running what with the covid panic and then personal happenings. Usually a nice bike ride from here but last Saturday it rained all day, forecast was just rain, solid, I was determined to go after missing it all this time so just togged up in layers of wool and plastic and grimly set off. So this year I got wet through on the way up and again on the way back. But I was there. It's a small specialist show mostly catering to the 009 narrow gauge modeller and one 7mm I think. The order of the day is, small is beautiful. I'm not a narrow gauge modeller but can appreciate the ideas and work folks do on these tiny trains especially the freelance aspect. After checking out the layouts I got some bargains at the club sales tables. Worsley Works was there he reports that people are less and less interested in his brass etch kits. I say that is because they are hard to do and need a high level of skill. The current on rush of ready to run models in all scales and gauges is making people into consumers and no longer modellers. Just look at the lovely little locos of RTR Bachmann and the Continental and other small producers. These models are exquisite little jewels and just purr along, How can the home modeller compete? Compared to the other several 3D printed sales people Worsley Works display was not colourfully attractive just a sea of yellow stuff. The brass etches. You have to be able to see the potential of doing all that work, creativity and imagination when looking at just a plain dull yellow body-shell with loads more work to get it any where near the RTR standard. It's a challenge to make any kit and there's a possibility of it all going wrong. On the sorting through the Worsley Works Scratch Aid table looking through all the etchings spread out for us to inspect I found one for the Wantage Tramway Mathews tram parts. In 4mm to the foot scale. The Wantage Tramway was a short standard gauge track running alongside the ordinary horse and cart lane between the mainline station that was the rest of the world and the small country town of Wantage. Passengers where carried in a short tram like coach and goods wagons could be towed into town too as the track was standard so Wantage was kinda on the national rail network. In a cheap and simple, and slow and cute way. Motive power was a series of small steam pug locomotives and steam trams which where basically a steam train engine inside a box to stop pedestrians and animals falling into the whirling mechanisms when walking past on the country lanes. Flying con rods and oscillating pistons rods, people mangles and hissing steam horse frighteners. Seems quite innocent compared to modern day high speed car traffic I have to face on my bike. As a modelling prospect the small box like etch kit was attractive as it is just that a box a bit like a wagon. I have done one a wagon in brass, easier than a loco with all it's cylinders and tanks and ledges and curved,swooping footplates. I have several locos started but never finished. So a tram box should be an easier-ish build. Looking at the etchings the construction tabs sold the kit to me as it would make it possible to slot the sides to the footplate dry before soldering, get it all lined up first. And then seeing and handling some finished examples on display made up from the basic kits, seemed to imply the basic kits were easy.

How difficult it is to photograph black, so little contrast compared to the green at the back and the grey by it's side. Paint Stripper Waited years for an example of this old Airfix model J94 to come along then 2 within 6 months. Isn't that meant to be buses or Network Rail during the strikes. One is being cut up to make another prototype, the tender version. Then this one showed up just recently, covered in g lobby brown, thick paint. At last a use for all that clinical hand cleansing gel from the time of the covid panic. I bought a one litre bottle more expensive than the same size of one of Whiskey. So the Tea tree and Aloe Vera gets to work on the paint and as quickly as a week to ten days the paint falls away and the plastic is OK. This is GO2 alcohol free I've got loads left after the covid panic. For some reason the hand gel concoction did not totally remove the red paint on the buffer beams and it did not touch the silver pant whatsoever. Don’t know what I'll do with this one. These kits don't work, just static compared with the late Airfix/Hornby running models. A scrap yard scene?

At a second hand club sales rummage sale I found this old Dornaplas kit. 4mm scale or OO. This one is for a village shop. The parts can be assembled as a whole house with a front and back or two low relief half buildings. Kit makers think they know how to assemble their own kits and their instructions saying how can sometimes be ignored if you have other ideas. But I see something better and more old fashioned for a village street low relief background from this kit. As the injection moldings parts come the detail is good, brick detail is sharp and window frames have depth but at about 30 thou or 0.75 mm thick walls I think the windows need to be set back into the walls more, so I've built up the back of the window recesses and door surrounds with scrap to make them deeper. The rooves seem too high and pointed to me so I've lowered the ridge by cutting them down by about 10 mm and cutting the top edge of the gable walls to a less steep angle. You get separate window and door details. Chimneys and gutters. I've cut a new window and gate way in the rear side wall to make a cottage with a tunnel entrance and cut the shop side down into a narrower shop front with only one window. The kits are quite flimsy when assembled so I've built up reinforcing walls and floors in white card and stiffened edges with glued on sprue off cuts. Low relief chimney stacks are optical illusions so build the chimney stacks forward slightly. Two halves of chimney in grey seem to thin to me so I plan to add some fattening layers of plastic sheet into the sandwich.

So I found a couple of printed paper sides and ends for 50p at a model show. A grey brake van for the London and North western and printed with LMS markings. A An example of an earlier generation of model kits. A piece of thin paper really. It's in 4mm or 00. No chassis, a far cry from modern highly detailed plastic kits we are now used to. So I stuck them to some cereal packet card with Prit-stick dry rub on glue or similar, a supermarket brand version and so this bit of ancient card kit archaeology began. Layer by layer I cut out window holes and stuck on the next layer of cardboard. Fruit and Fibre I think again the supermarket brand version. One side I've modified to add windows and side access van doors. I'm modelling a light railway which would have acquired older rolling-stock. Any self respecting small railway buying second hand equipment would not hesitate to modify their new second hand stock to suit their own needs. This is a model of a London and North Western Railway van, Diagram 17 six wheeler. For the side doors I looked at at various internet posted pictures of old LNWR vans. And worked them in between the two diagonal reinforcement timbers. I don't know how wide this body should be? The North Western Society's website shows side elevations mostly. Or how thick the timber framing should be. So I've used whatever card I had which is about 0.75 mm thick. It's that grey stuff you find on the back of note pads. It looks about right, casts enough of a shadow to look right. Over all it is going to be a van body about 35 mm wide or 8 foot 9 inch scaled. Painting was first some knotting which soaks into the card stiffening it then some coats of Humbrol enamel grey, The big screw is a temporary handle during painting. Another screw was in the end of the roof, you can just see the hole. You can just make out the L and S of LMS by the left hand corner and before the half door on the right. Card is weaker than Plasticard so I've reinfoced the body with cross pieces and cubes of balsa wood. The roof is made to plug in between the ends, it's card bent over a sanded balsa former. You can see an earlier coat of grey on the inside, far too light a shade for the LMS ? Problems so far; I'm not sure how wide this van should be, now the body is complete it seems over wide and over scale, I cant find a source of end diagrams. The 6 wheel chassis needs to be designed and made some how, no ideas yet. I have some 10 foot wheel base Mainline van chassis but the middle set of wheels will have to be added, again somehow? Cutting out cardboard compared to plasticard always seems to leave a slightly raged edge. In the past assembling Alphagraphics card kits I added framing details from pre-cut plastic strip from Greenscene or home cut plastic which is almost as good as super square Greenscene strips and much better than home cut cardboard because you get sharper edges and corners. Cardboard is good for buildings where the slightly almost unnoticeable fuzziness adds a little bit of texture that suits building. Rolling stock needs to be super smooth, especially locos, my cardboard cutting skills is OK for ancient old vans and wagons which would have become rough and ragged over the years.

If I ever finish this model I could call it Hiatus, like the many Greek or Latin names the Victorian engineers called their creations. Work on this little loco has stopped when I realised the finished loco would look just like another small 0-6-0 with raised firebox which I have a proper kit for. I'll save my effort to make a proper model of a raised top firebox loco not my usual bashed and hacked RTR chassis and old plastic bodies kinda model. A proper kit means etched brass perhaps a more difficult form of construction. This would be a similar size and shape. Too similar for comfort. So after a pause to think, or a Hiatus I've gone for a later version of a Lion class 0-6-0 with a larger smooth topped boiler. After all the work on the earlier brass boiler I can use that on an original LSWR Beattie well tank model I have a kit for. Of the half dozen photos I can find of this Lion 0-6-0 goods prototype each one had a different boiler configuration as they where changed and upgraded every few years. Also I had this old brass boiler which was a good fit on the green footplate and dressed up the front with plasticard strips to make a smoke box because its easier to work plastic than metal. Bit of curl dewveloping towards the rear of the footplate.

Belt and braces. The metal bracket at the end of the motor can slip allowing for the motor to move up and out of alignment. The bracket was originally from the original  format and motor position which was higher. As the slot in it that goes around the shaft housing sticking out the back of the motor. The slot in it is too long I could not remake it to accurately fit around the motor and hold it firm. So a brass strip belt from 10 thou' held in place by a bolt running through a horizontal hole drilled through the chassis. The hole is almost horizontal as I only have a hand held drill but this quick fix works. It holds the motor down firmly. It will be out of sight up inside the new body.

Thanks DCB for your comments. I have found some small bore rubber tube to replace the flexible shaft connection. I think it is fuel hose for miniature engines as used for flying models. So check out a flying model model shop or website. On fitting it it immediately made everything run smoother. With the close up photo I can now see the motor is out of alignment, I only just noticed this when preparing the photos. The yellow cogs at B are acting to extend the gear box bearing which is only in the metal behind B. The yellow cogs are securely set into some black Epoxy 2 part glue. The red bracket shows the effective length of this extended bracketry. At A there is some card packing so I can lower the motor by removing a layer or two. At C there is a bracket holding the end of the motor. That screw is the only fixing. It's a bit meager as a solution perhaps a more solid fix and something at the front of the motor too except just the two vertical pillars coming up from the chassis block. As an example of accurate metal work this is taxing my skill level.

I stand corrected. Davknigh I meant KS Metals, I was getting muddled with K and N bolt on air filters for boy racers in their souped up and over noisy cars. I checked your link and the KSmetals site opens up with a picture of brass tubes. Much thicker walled than I found in the shop. Possibly such tubes would be useful in modelling?

Building up the brass-work for the boiler took ages. Many evenings fretting over a hot gas stove. Cutting bits of tube and bending them. My main resource is plumbing pipe, 15mm copper and various brass tubes, is it K&N that metal stock that    sometimes appears in model shops. On little display racks, always useful but expensive. These are in different sizes and can telescope in side of each other which is good for building up raised section of boiler like this. I've found using a plumber's pipe cutting tool puts a burr on the edge it cuts. Especially on the thin walled brass modellers tubes. Useful for introducing a round end. The pipe cutter is basically a set of rollers that turn and press the tube or pipe against a rolling disc like blade. It makes a neat perfectly square ended cut. Sometimes. That combined with some tin snips and a pair of round nose pliers sections of pipe can be curved into upside-down U shaped and omega ( insert special character here ) shaped hoops that can be built up to make the raised fire box. The big cooker gas burner can be first used to heat up the brass to anneal it for easy bending and then soldering the whole big mess into a solid and heavy lump. Useful for ballasting a loco. Check with the kitchen authorities that this is OK or wait until they are out? That bolt sticking up there was used to fix all the layers of U shaped pieces and hold then tightly in position whilst the boiler tube was held over the gas burner. Now it is solidly stuck, soldered fast. The spare U shaped piece shows the rounded edge conventionally put on when using the plumbers pipe cutting toll. Luck or serendipity rather than intentional use of skill. The modelling Muses have been kind with this. But looking at the close up photo reveals a little bit of footplate curl developing around the red insert. Solvent distortion perhaps?

I don't know why this is in my Airfix Chops thread? It's so afar all from other tstuff. A Wrenn footplate and all other green bits. Wrenn or old Hornby chassis block, Markits or Romford wheels, how can I tell the difference? Copper central heating pipe and brass K & S tube for the boiler. A Ks smoke box moulding cut off their Falcon kit. White plasticard from what ever source you just buy some sheets when ever you see it at model shows. OH hang on the tender in some of the pics' is a cut down Airfix Schools kit tender or probably modern Dapol. So that sort of counts? This pic' shows the newly hacked brass boiler balanced in place atop a strip of balsa wood which you can't see. To get the height about right. Next is to build up the raised firebox. Should I carry on with more brass or go back to my more familiar plastikard? Here's a drawing of the intended boiler firebox, in my head it is all different metal pipes fitting perfectly together and below is the brassy and copper reality and that is going to need tidying up.

The chassis has a second grinding down. All I have is a big hand file and a small clamp on vice which can barely hold the work piece firm against the force of pushing a big file over it. Progress is slow and the zinc metal clogs the files teeth so I had finished to quickly last time. This only became obvious once I had put the wheels in and placed the body on. It did not sit quite level or low enough so, eventually I would have to take the wheels out and measure mark and start the filing again. That fin up the middle went as soon as I tried to fit the body, too difficult to fit the footplate around it. Somehow you have to juggle all this metal work with marking and cutting out the wheel slots in the palsticard without cut too much. Line up and sit level I thought the chassis block would be delicate and wanted to keep as much metal as I could so was very wary of grinding off too much and making it weak. After all there is basically a big hole in the middle where the worm wheel and pick gear sit. No worries the small part left is plenty robust enough, metal is much stronger than the plasticard I am used to using but harder to work. Now about the old boiler. I had this nice white metal casting from a Ks Falcon kit. That was a sister passenger engine to the Lion goods class on the old London and South Western Railway. So I thought it would be a good fit here. No the Falcon was a large wheeled class of engines and on the 00 model there are large cut-outs for the wheels and cab sides. Plus there is no bottom edge as on the Falcon, which was a fast engine made for speed so they made the boiler as low as possible for high speed stability. The bottom of the boiler is not visible on that model.

Maybe I had cut away too much green but I've been building back better, all new stuff in white plastikard except a new black foot plate. The footplate was a strip of 1 mm black glued in before I started to cut the body. After a few days to allow the glue to harden I set to with saws and drills. This base footplate kept the two sides in the correct place and a firm base to work around. Splashers are a hard job for me I built these up from a disc and sides holding them together with pins until the glue was set them carefully cut them to size and sanded down to fit.

I bought the kit new and back dated the bunker at the in pieces stage sawing of the flared top and after assembling the kit with solder built a plasticard top. You can just see the line above the bunker hand rail. trouble is since this photo a horizontal crack has appeared between the plastic and metal. I went for a rigged 4 coupled chassis with the front wheel in oval slots and a wire spring holding it for flexibility. A High Level gearbox keeps the motor forward of the cab space.

Current Margarine tub project is at this stage. The one at the back comes out of the one at the front. After a couple of sessions with the mini drill, chain drilling, the joining up the holes with a pointed craft knife and using the trusty X-acto razor saw where it will fit. Got to make wheel holes, using the cardboard footplate to help mark them, more chain drilling of a row of holes and opening them up with a knife to come. I forgot to mention this was inspired by Manna's use of the same WRen chassis and body to make a Great Northern J6. I've even got the same green body but will have to ditch the motor as it is far too massive to fit inside this dinky 0-6-0

Thanks Cypherman for your M7 body conversion. I still feel because the M7 is such a long body it sits better on the longer Hornby Jinty chassis. The shorter Hornby-Wren chassis would suit a South Wales 0-6-2 type or my similarly short chopped down L1 chassis. As in the photo above. Also the Wren-Hornby has a very tall motor that is difficult to get under the boiler on older smaller prototypes. Even Hornby-Wren had to cheat and add two little bulges to get it in. Margarine tub system of job control. Thanks 33C I'll try, I also have a little shelf near my computer where incomplete models sit, I can look at them and ponder what they need doing next.

I'm cutting down an old Hornby or Wren 0-6-0 tank chassis. It has the right wheel base for the little pre-grouping 0-6-0 I'm building. There is little metal remaining at the front so I left a central fin to reinforce the chassis in that area. But it gets in the way of the footplate and superstructure. Do I dare cut the protuberance off? By the way, the plinth here is from one of those non-working display locos in TT or H0. That got cut up for parts and details. On the left hand side there is a groove, it's where I cut through the plastic track and widened the gauge for 00. Cardboard pattern footplate.

Hi AVS1998 I put this on your thread as it is about the iconic Pullman Wild West roof style. This is a call for help in constructing the iconic Pullman roof. I modified this H0 Continental coach because it was the correct length and height and the windows looks Pullman-ish. CAn't remember the make. The roof was built up with plasticard on top of the original grey one but over the years has warp into a banana shape. Dissimilar plastics and too much solvent glue I guess. Any ideas on how to construct a new one or resurrect the old. Whilst trying to force it straight again it snapped in two but each end is still remains banana. The one in front is a cut down Graham Farish, 00 not n. The bogie is a plastic kit from Ratio LNWR type, suitably old fashioned enough for me. The roof is a wooden pre-cut one, It was going to be for the Pullman but was too narrow so ended up on the Graham Farish. Banana-ish, white is Plasticard, grey is original roof plastic. Any ideas would be useful.

Looks like a neat and tidy model.

Bestwood Colliery and Iron Works locos. Which seem to be 0-4-0 saddle tanks. Seems to be an 0-4-0st. Top down. Rear of cab near the iron works. Shunting the iron works.

Bestwood Colliery and Iron Foundry The colliery opened in the 1870s..... A deep mine down at the Barnsley Hard Coal seam level. The first winding engine House and tower built still remains and is open to the public for their inspection and wonder. Nearby by is the dynamo house which once housed electricity generating machinery. Now it is a visitor centre serving tea and very nice home made cakes. Bestwood Colliery id s record holder the first mine to dig out one million tons of coal in a year in 1952 first in the world. Closed by 1970 A busy rail system around the site once served it, supplying equipment and taking away coal. In the Engine House is a model railway depicting it to a scale of very very tiny, gauge of about 4 mm with little carved steam locos and wagons. Overall it is about 8 ft long which is about just over one fathom in metric. It is encased in a perspex box, other acrylic materials are available which gives the photos a bit of a foggy look. Or it could be industrial smog of the steam and coal age or a model version there of contained inside the perspex box? The website is here; http://www.fbcp.org.uk/dynamo-house.html Bird's eye views below. Rails are metal and about 4mm gauge, seems to be commercial track is it T Gauge? Winding engines and towers and screens and wagon loading area. Everything is gone and is now a grassy park. Except the tall three storey engine house and winding tower and wheels at the back.

Dec 22 For me the modelling stream has split into to many channels. To extend the fast flowing river dividing into many smaller slow moving rivulets analogy, as it approaches the sea and becomes a swampy slow moving delta. Full of many dead ends and muddy traps So my modelling stream has become divided into many different little projects and overall progress and slowed and almost stopped. I'm stuck in a swamp of a messy worktop with boxes of different half done models blocking easy progress. The sticky mud of my swamp is when there is some problem that stops progress of any particular model. Each has to be thought about and a solution invented or tried, that's a lot of deep thought for me as I am a modeller of little brain, it seems easier to start something new than to clear the work top and just concentrate on one model and get that model done and ignore all the others. Also there are the real world things that need to be done, bills to pay etc. Study, house hold chores they can get in the way too but demand attention. So with modelling time I know that it will be quicker and a lot less frustrating to only work on one until the end as a finished model gives a sense of achievement which is part of why we follow this interest. So to follow some muddy islets in the swamp of my modelling life. Wagons after a surge of modelling of some old time wagons, getting the main bodies built and wheels running they await final detailing, a long and careful process that needs steady concentration and application. J94 I finally got hold of an old Airfix kit of their old J94 saddle tank so that I could chop it about to do the modifications I have had in mind for ages. Which was not as easy as I thought. 0-6-2t I got a cheap non-running Hornby L1 2-6-4 tank and thought I could use the chassis to be an old style 0-6-2. It was easy to get running, a wire had come off inside. But the motor was far to high for the job I had in mind and I had to do major hacksaw surgery on the chassis to tuck the motor down low and out of the way in the much smaller body of an 0-6-2t. Now it does not look right under the M7 body the wheel spacing is far too short and towards the front but it does look good under the Wren 0-6-0 body that I have already extended to make an 0-4-4 t. so folks which way to go long M7 body or short Wren body ? More distraction and body chopping on the way Then along comes the pretty little class C Now 33C posted a few photos of his motorisation of a Great British Locomotives static model of a SECR class C and implied it was “easy”. I thought as I have most of the same ingredients as he started out with I could also do a quick and “easy” motorisation too. You must think I am naive as I immediately picked up my junior hack saw and set to. After all I have been lead to think it would be a quicky. Hope over experience. I am like a child locked into a sweet shop overnight when I am really a bull in a china shop panicking and can't get out. Picking up the hack saw yet again too late in the evening when I am really a a bit too tired to carry out much. It gets worse as I was picking through one of my many scrap boxes to find something for the current project I see something else and start to think. I vague look comes in my eye and a new plan starts to form. Another diversion. For instance I found an old short 0-6-0 chassis that would look good under a Triang Nelly with just a bit of hack-sawing and modification if only I could find that missing worm gear......... It's gone all swampy again. >>> A new distraction has come along, in the past I have always tried to post a photo along with each of my modelling entries. To illustrate what I've been trying to do or show the problem. Show and tell. Now since the photo apocalypse and there now here seems no chance of our old pictures returning I sometimes get requests via Notifications and Messages to repost old pictures. Several problems with this; I have to hunt them down if I still have them. I had my own photo apocalypse when I wiped the memory card or DS? on my digital camera. Pressed the wrong button somehow. The surviving photos on my computer hard disk are not labelled but just roughly place in monthly order, sort of but not always, so it all has to be sorted through and then each original picture photo-shopped, reduced in size and sorted through. It all takes away valuable modelling time and energy. Also when looking back at old posts I feel the need to check spelling and correct my dumb grammar. And looking at old post and pictures there is the painful reminder of my failures for many of the models featured where never finished for one reason or another. Or only ran in a so so fashion. Even writing this and correcting it takes valuable modelling time. So I'm not so keen on finding the photos. I might do it occasionally when I feel like it. I would rather be modelling working on the current project. Or revisit the thread entry only if I take up that old project and have another go. The sticky mud of the swamp clings. Or the siren song of the never finished model in it's little box calls faintly. Make me, make me. So the conundrum is, shall I use my spare time for modelling or hunting out and editing old photos? I'd rather model and encourage followers of threads to post some entries of their stuff? An on going insurance. Maybe for models that inspire me I click on and save the image, especially at the half built stage as this shows its construction method. Then I have a library for future reference on my local storage device? Here's muddling on.

The motor is in the cab because it is so large, can't fit inside the body. The crowded wheelbase would suit one of the Taff Vale Railway 0-6-2 tanks rather than the long M7 style body. Like the survivor Taffy tank, is it at the Keithly and Worth Valley line? The old Hornby 0-6-2t is too large and over scale. This chassis with the shorter body is nearer in style to a Taffy tank where their fireboxes where above the rear axle. The fun of imaginary locos is chopping and changing and making one's own version, is that not so.

So far the chassis runs but after just a few dozen inches the white tube slides towards the motor and disengages. Bzzzzzzzzzz. It's a push fit on the two metal shafts and helps align the motor and right hand gearbox shaft but not tight enough to stay put as soon as more than about one quarter power is applied. I managed to saw a slot into the end of the gearbox shaft as I had heat treated it so the steel was soft enough to cut it to length. That's where the piece of wire passes through and makes a flexible joint. But when the motor is running in one direction the white tube unwinds back towards the motor and the wire disengages from it's slot. That's why the motor end is packed with washers and loose nuts to act as spacers. Allows no room for the tube to slide. This has introduce some friction which is not good. I could not cut a slot into the end of the hardened motor shaft. Saw blades just skate of of it. I dared not heat treat it as I would just melt the motor innards. Heating the gearbox shaft was easy as it can be separated from everything. Iain Rice in his book on chassis building recommends a length of neoprene rubber tube to connect two shafts, if I can find some? I need a fixing to hold the front of the motor more securely. Thanks for the suggestions Manna and 313201, what is your avatar 313201? I'll try them or something inspired by them next. But remember I am totally incapable of any sort of precision metal work so making brackets to hold the motor exactly in a precise position is unlikely. Don't worry about the gear box end when the top piece is screwed down the yellow cogs which are really a bearing as used here are held in the correct place so the worm and cog wheel fit together.