Philip Hall
No 4 is a Riceworks kit for the NBR Class 'R' 4-4-0T.
You may well have seen the one that Editor John's predecessor built and painted correctly, but I always have thought LSWR Goods Green a fine colour for an engine, and after all, Drummond was an LSWR man even if he did work for other railways before he saw the light and moved to Surbiton. So after mine was finished that's the way I went. I was going to have find some considerable excuse for running it in the south-west in the early 1950's, and in the end I didn't bother. It's such a pretty little engine, after all.
The name? Well, that was my mother's (Robin Arkinstall had etched the plates for me many years ago) and the number reflects her birthday. A little more fiction seemed understandable.
As for mechanicals, she rides on Sharman wheels and has Ultrascale 50:1 gears and a 1224 motor.
111 is a straightforward conversion of a Hornby M7 to EM, using Alan Gibson wheelsets. Unfortunately the model was completed with Alan's original wheels for the bogie before the improved LSWR pattern with the different rim and larger boss were produced.
The frames were padded out with Plastikard but not behind the drivers as the steps are in the way and it doesn't show. Widening the frames means that the guard irons and brake gear stay in the right place. The bogie was simply cut in half and widened with Plastikard, a new pivot pin being added from a 10BA bolt inserted from underneath, with a 2mm sleeve of brass tube above.
It runs beautifully, and has pulled five heavy Kirk kit - based Maunsell coaches around a testing EM layout with not a hint of a wobble or slip; just glides around.
Another M7 conversion done to P4 for Peter Swift, using Ultrascale wheels.
Peter did a much better job of the bodywork than I could ever do!
This is a straightforward conversion of a Bachmann LNWR G2A to P4.
Alan Gibson wheels with Milliput balance weights (a real pain!), widened frames and a touch of weathering with craft acrylics. It ran beautifully in 00 but like a pig in P4, until I discovered that the coupling rod centres didn't match the chassis by about half a millimetre on one side...! I know absolutely nothing about engines from North Of Watford so worked entirely from a couple of photographs. Hopefully I got most of it right.
A Hornby Stanier 2-6-4T converted to P4.
I had quite a bit of fun with this one as the motion bracket was quite fragile and had to be repaired in several places. Even now I think it's not quite right, but it all works smoothly enough.
Alan Gibson wheels throughout and frames/pony/bogie widened with Plastikard.
I left the valve gear largely as supplied, not wanting to take it all apart to thin down the rods, but I did add another layer to the connecting rods and refitted them to the crossheads so as to be more in line with the piston rods. I reckoned this would give me more clearance for the front crankpins, but I needn't have worried as Hornby have pushed the piston centres out by quite a chunk so there's bags of room anyway.
As I said about the G2a, my knowledge of LMS and LNW engines is severely limited but with the help of information from Dave Holt I think it passes muster. Quite heavily weathered with craft acrylics again.
Return to Members Portfolio