During one of Linda's FR overhauls - in the mid-80's I believe - her safety valves were moved from their position inside the cab onto the top of her big, shiny dome, which was given a little upward extension, which some people refer to as a 'Roman Helmet'.
You can see it here in this mid-90's shot of Linda leaving Tanygrisiau.
This is all relevant to Bron Hebog because Himself is in the process of building a Backwoods Miniatures 'Linda' to replace our ageing Dundas / Ibertren model.
Our intention is to finish the loco in the Midnight Blue livery as in the picture above.
If you look back through previous posts - or indeed if you've been reading this for a while - you'll see how we had to call in outside assistance to turn up a new dome for our Backwoods 'Blanche' because the one supplied with the kit is a little undersize.
Our friendly man-with-a-lathe, Chris Veitch, also volunteered to take on the tricky task of turning up a dome for Linda complete with her helmet, and here is a glimpse of how he's getting on.
It still needs something to represent the actual safety valves in there but I for one thing it looks terrific.
The helmet, incidentally, is now history, with Linda's safety valves returned to their original position during her most recent overhaul and her dome restored to its proper dimensions.
She's always been my favourite loco, despite being less than sweet tempered compared to her sister...although it is many, many years now since I drove her. I often wonder how she would have looked if the experiments with draughting and combustion had been taken to their logical conclusion back in the seventies. With the price of oil going through the roof it might have ensured that Linda had remained "front line" with her sister. I wouldn't have minded some major changes for the sake of progress...but I'm mightily happy with the current overhaul! And your model...so far it looks very nice indeed!
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