HR123 Loch Class 4-4-0 Progress

HR123 Loch an Dorb

I bought only the superstructure kit from Lochgorm Kits, the chassis I decided to scratch build to my own design. All castings are lost wax cast brass and have been sourced from Laurie Griffin at LGM.
A substantial number of the etched components in the kit have been replaced with parts that I've made myself. The boiler as supplied had rather oversize bands so was the first item discarded followed closely by what seemed to be a rather clever cab interior fold-up which it proved on closer inspection was better replaced by something nearer the real thing. The boiler backhead was scratch built as LGM had run out of castings of this item; making this was quite a mini project in its own right. The boiler castings, chimney and dome that is, are very good however the safety valve casting leaves much to be desired, the upright valves are too far apart and too slim, and will need working on.

Wheels with the correct crank pin position are only available from JGM, these are cast iron ones which it seemed a good idea to try. As supplied the wheel castings needed a good deal of work to clean up and still need attention with some sort of filler here and there, I doubt that I'll go down this road again.

Power will be provided by an M1833 running in an ABCgears Mini gearbox which will be mounted on the front axle, pointing backwards towards the cab, which just leaves room for a flywheel which I consider essential, the running qualities of the engine being paramount.
Inside motion is a possibility however I'm not sure at this stage whether to complicate matters further, you can't see much under the boiler.

HR Loch Class cab details.

Four Recent Scottish Wagons.

GNoSR coal wagon

Built from a Dragon Models/Celtic Connections kit with minimal improvements, though I did make a wagon plate from a hand drawn original, sized on the computer and printed on the ink jet. Though flat, without relief, these "trompe l'oeuil" printed wagon plates nevertheless fit the bill nicely. The coal load is real coal laboriously glued with thin wood glue to a Plastikard support.

HR d.6 coal wagon

Built from a recently issued Lochgorm Kits "aid to scratch building" with a good many improvements to the basic etches, addition of a printed wagon plate and coal load. The wagon sides were thickened to scale with Slaters' Plastikard planking which was glued to the interior; the join along the top edge of the wagon was disguised by the addition of a thin metal strip which was soldered to the top of the outer skin and slightly overlapped the inner.

I painted all three of the HR wagons with Precision Paints' P953 Dark Brick Red (Matt), transfers are from HMRS. Weathering was by hand dry brushing helped along by a judicious air brushing of my own weathering mix and a good deal of scrubbing with a stiff bristled brush.

HR d.15 open goods wagon.

 

The HR d.15 wagon above is described in an earlier blog posting of March 2016 and is included for comparison with the d.16 open goods wagon below which is built with the help of Lochgorm Kits' recently produced kit for a d.16 open wagon; it is 6" longer than the d.15 above and displays a number other subtle differences of detail which give interest to the pair of opens.




HR d.16 open goods wagon.