Dunrobin, construction complete.

Construction of Dunrobin is complete, note that all the fittings are cast brass. The brass nameplate displays the name in incised letters, it was etched by Narrow Planet.

Construction of Dunrobin is now complete, here are a few photos of the engine. Painting and lining will I hope be undertaken by Paul Moore, though I'll probably paint the cab interior and its details myself. The crew will be from Invertrain's Heroes of the Footplate range, which I sculpted myself, and I might paint a figure or two to go in the cab seats too.

Much buffer beam detail was added, brass rivets, safety chain suspension rings and horse hooks.  

Tank top inspection panels were added from photos from Beamish. Note the quality brass fittings.

Below the footplate is a busy place, the sandbox and the iron picnic box above the rear bogie wheel are brass castings.

I have added all the detail to the cab interior that I have evidence for, though I have omitted all the Canadian fittings which have also been removed from the real engine.

There is seating for four passengers above the coal bunker.

Dunrobin is due to be in service at Beamish in 2021, however I hope that my model will be painted and lined and in service herself before then.

Merrie Carlisle, more progress

LMS 5050, Merrie Carlisle

When we observe a real steam engine the viewpoint is usually low, however in the case of a model it's quite different, we view the model from above and one of the first things we notice is the space under the boiler between the frames where the inside motion sits and a Precedent displays her inside motion quite prominently. At the moment Merrie Carlisle has no inside motion, a very noticeable omission which needs to be remedied. I'm working on it and if I can make the motion work then I will, if not then it'll have to be simply cosmetic motion, non-working that is, either way it'll fill the gap.

The crew's working space...

I'm working on the loco crew now, they need to be designed so they don't both stand in the cab which is a very restricted area and even more so since the splashers are closer together than on the real engine, it's tighter by about a scale 5 or 6 inches, so watch this space...

The cab and backhead in detail.

The pale green floor area is Milliput into which a brass fret had been pressed to simulate the small wooden blocks that formed the lower cab floor on these engines, it'll work better when it's glued down and painted. There are two wooden inserts in the upper cab floor which have been made out of planking from a model ship kit. Most of the backhead detail owes something to castings from LGM. I think I've included everything you can see on the real thing though I never found room for the blower handle which I think was in the right hand corner somewhere.

HR Passenger Tank backhead and cab interior.

HR46 Backhead complete.

I based the Drummond Passenger Tank backhead, to some extent, on that of the HR Loch class engines, for which a GA drawing exists. My presumption is that the Loch backhead followed standard Highland practice, so in taking this as my example I should be working on the right lines. I also took note of the backhead of the preserved Caledonian Railway 0-4-4T which my wife photographed from inside the cab. I thought that a Scottish engine, similar in many respects to the Passenger Tank, might afford some insight into the mysterious world of backheads c.1900.

The castings used in my reconstruction were mostly from LGM though I found the castings on offer from 62C Models useful too and of good quality, the injectors being from that source. Most of the castings I used were reduced in size and remodelled to some extent to suit the miniscule backhead. As an example, the bottom parts of the water gauge castings were cut off and replaced by a small tap, made from a hand rail knob and a length of fine wire, which reduced their length and enabled me to fit them above the shelf over the firedoor, which I reduced in width to leave room for the firedoor opening lever which is on the right, you can see its handle just below the water gauge.

On the left hand side of the spectacle plate can be seen the driver's brake valve which is connected to the injector on that side by a "flexible" connection. In reality the two are not connected at all, the flexible hose only butts against its continuation in the dark corner of the cab to enable the inner spectacle plate and backhead assembly to slide upwards for removal. There is an inner and outer spectacle plate, which much simplifies glazing at a later stage.
There is a metal plate on the cab floor under the firehole which is a detail I took from the preserved Caledonian engine, the floor planking, which is flush with the metal plate, is made of stripwood from a model ship kit.
The handle of the token exchange apparatus, which is out of sight outside the cab, protrudes into the cab behind the cab door stanchion.
The reversing lever, which attaches to the inside of the left hand inner tank, was a mini construction project in its own right. The tanks flank the backhead on either side of the cab and detract from the already restricted area of the cab, leaving little space in the model available for an engine crew ( see my previous post for a solution to the crew problem).

HR Passenger Tank... more progress.

HR 46 Superstructure practically complete.

The superstructure is almost complete and detail work is well under way. Castings for the tank top water fillers need a little modification and the dome needs rather more drastic surgery as I had to remodel the (wonky) safety valves which are mounted on top of them.
The smokebox door is made from 0.45mm nickle silver sheet cut to shape and persuaded into a convex shape in a doming block after which much filing produced the result above.

Cab interior partially finished

Some of the cab and backhead fittings are in place in this view, most of the castings have been sourced from LGM and need modifying for best effect. On the left cab side wall is the driver's brake valve that I cut down to size and at the same time moved the handle to the nearside, this apparatus will have a pipe that connects with the left hand injector which has yet to arrive though I've ordered what looks like an appropriate pair from 62C Models. Fastened to the the right of the spectacle plate is a lubricator again cut down from an LGM casting to a more reasonable size. The backhead water gauges look too big and need reducing in length, I may cut them down and add a small tap to the bottom which might leave room for me to fit a firebox door handle. The handle for the tablet catcher can be seen protruding into the cab between the stanchion and the inner side tank.




Opening door with cut-out to accommodate the tablet catcher mechanism. 

The hinged door has a sneck which fastens behind the front cab stanchion to keep the door closed. Inside the cab can be seen the coal hole door which opens by sliding upwards : beyond is the brake stanchion.

HR 46 Crew in action poses.

The driver is from the "Heroes of the Footplate" range which is now available from Chris Smith at "Invertrain". The fireman is my first essay in producing a shovelling figure, moulds for this are currently under development. Adding figures to the cab points up the very restricted space in which crews worked in these little engines.

HR Passenger Tank Progress

Cab interior and backhead detail

My aim is to finish the sheet metal work first before adding the castings to the model. The brass backhead seen above is made from an etched fret supplied by Lochgorm Kits, it awaits fittings from LGM's 2-24 Drummond Backhead set. Though there is no drawing nor other direct evidence for the backhead fittings I believe they must have been fairly standard ones, much like those of the Loch class, for which there is a drawing, though adjusted to fit a smaller prototype. There is an inner front spectacle plate, to which the backhead is attached, which slides upwards so that this unit can be removed and worked on as a separate module. The circular brass window surrounds were etched to my own design.





HR 46 sheet metal work nearing completion.

The Highland built four of these little Passenger Tanks in 1905/6, based on Drummond's solitary HR53 of 1901 which was the subject of an earlier scratch building project on my Blog.

From the four possibilities I decided to model HR46 in original condition with the boiler bands on show rather than being covered by a saddle, which seems to have been added later across the side tanks of all these engines. Both front and rear spectacle plates are double to facilitate glazing.






Cab interior showing coal hole with sliding door.

You may notice that there's an "L" shaped angle piece covering the join between the boiler and the spectacle plate. This was made from "T" section brass, which can be persuaded to adopt a curved shape rather more easily than "L" section, which is quite intransigent. The rear flange is filed off the "T" section after it has been bent to shape to form the required "L" section.

The coal hole has a sliding door which adds interest to the interior of the cab, there will be much more detail in the cab before the model is finished and of course consideration is already being given to the poses and positions of the crew.





HR46 showing opening cab doors.

I've been poring over photos to try and understand the way that the sneck that holds the door shut from the inside works and I think I've got it; it's quite simple really and I'll see if I can replicate it in miniature tonight! There's a tablet catcher attached on the left hand side of the engine so the door will need a slot cutting in it to accommodate the operating mechanism of the apparatus which goes between the door stanchion and the tank side sheet.

HR Loch Cab details.

HR Loch an Dorb cab details

My previous post shows the backhead before I opened up the fire hole and added the mechanism which closed the hole. I modelled the details from photos I'd taken in the Transport Museum in Glasgow of the Loch's near relative the preserved Jones Goods. It seems that the hole was closed by a baffle which was hinged from the top and operated by that ratcheted handle on the right. A hinged grille closed onto this from the bottom though I've modelled the grille simply as a solid plate as I'm not sure how I can represent a grille in this scale.

An oil can, which I modelled on an example on display in Glasgow, is positioned to hide a joint in a pipe on the left hand splasher top where a pipe attached to the backhead meets itself as it emerges from the floor and makes its way to the splasher top rendezvous. The gap is necessary to enable the backhead to be removed.

The slight gap between the roof and the cab front will disappear when the roof is fastened in place at a later stage.



The two locating holes for the crew on the floor and splasher top are hardly visible.

I might try a coloured LED behind the fire hole to give a warm glow effect to the cab, possibly even a flicker, but I need to experiment with this, I don't know if I can make it work yet.

Lybster Backhead

Backhead for HR53 Lybster.

Lochgorm Kits supplied the etches that make up the basic shape of the backhead, the castings are from LGM's "Jones" backhead set. There's little information available to work from, photos that show part of the cab interior are tantalisingly blurred so the model is a reconstruction based on minimal evidence. I think there should probably be a driver's brake valve in there somewhere but I'm really not sure and there's no room for it anyway!