Margot Modifications

More of the essential modifications to turn our antique Hornby Princess from a locomotive into a piece of unpowered rolling stock have been completed this weekend.

Himself has very neatly cut out out the moulded plastic coal load in the tender and fitted a fake sloping top to the water tank.

In order to do that some significant changes have been required beneath.

The most of the metal block of the Ringfield motor has had to be cut off.

We've also needed to get rid of the two large metal weights which were positioned at either end, as you can see in this before image, below.

They also had a role in securing the motor into the chassis because two long screws passed through them to clamp the two parts together.

Himself has reduced the screws in length and used washers to do the same job.

You can also see he's added a vacuum pipe - which was missing from the model as it came to us.

On the engine he tells me he's removed the pick ups from the driving wheels which removes much of the rolling resistance.

One thing's for sure, this loco will never be self-propelled ever again!

On Tow

Once I get an idea for a model I usually like to make a start on bringing it to reality.

Which is why a very reasonably-priced, antique Hornby Princess arrived on the doorstep within days of us carrying out the first gauging trials on Minffordd, pictured here on my home test track.

The tooling for this one dates back to the 1980s, so it is less sophisticated that the version I was showing in the previous post, which has since been updated again.

The model I have was from Hornby's tender drive period, which is perfect for our purposes because I need a loco which will be towed, and so the driving wheels and motion has to be able to revolve with little resistence.

The other thing this old loco has going for it is that it is already in LMS crimson lake livery, and just requires renumbering and renaming, not an entire repaint and reline.

Making it towable takes just a matter of seconds.

With the tender body removed it's simply a case of removing the clip which holds the drive gears in place on some cast pegs, and they just lift off.

Now the Ringfield tender drive is nothing but a freewheeling chassis.

There will be little more violence required, however.

Princess Margaret Rose naturally had no coal in its tender when it was moved from Pwllheli, so I need to cut out the plastic moulded coal and insert a sloping base for the top of the water tank. 

However, the motor housing, and the large metal weights, will need to be cut down to make space.

Before I get out the drill and the cutting discs and permanently disable the loco I think it would be wise to carry out one more gauging trial just to check it will fit...