Double Bogies

A significant milestone has been reached in the 143 project.

Both the bogies have got their valve gear fitted and run smoothly when the motor is connected up to the juice.

Neither have their pick ups fitted test so they haven’t done any running under their own power on track, and there are still those pesky little pony trucks to add.

The inner ones are especially awkward to re-rail if there’s an incident out on the line.

Control Panel

Lots of different bits of the Garratt kit are being built at the same time.

As well as the work on the two power bogies and the central boiler unit Himself has also been doing some of the smaller jobs such as the boiler backhead.

This will be glued into position inside the cab in due course, but it will be painted first because access inside the cab is tricky.

It's not a faithful miniature of the controls of an NGG16, being something more generic, but who's going to see it anyway?

It's still a nice piece of work, though, so I thought it deserved a picture here.

Plumbing

Himself has been working on adding detail to the boiler unit of 143.

Various pipes, manifolds and whatitsnames have been bent and soldered into position but - most importantly - not before the holes for the handrail knobs were drilled.

The chimney is just resting in position for the moment but has been turned down at the top to lose a lot of the flare on the original casting.

There are also various cylinders and rods and levers which live beneath the boiler which have been attached as well.

He's been paying very careful attention to research pictures because many of the things these pipes connect into are in different places compared to sister engine 138.

Kit Building

Occasionally I get asked if, as well as manufacturing resin wagon kits, I could supply them as ready-to-run models, which I don't mind doing - for a price, of course..

So that's what I've been up to this past week while Himself has been plugging away on the new Garratt build.

This time the client is looking for a pair each of my B and NG-Y ballast wagons.

I cast the parts last weekend, cleaned off the flash and now I'm in the process of gluing them together before adding the brass detailing parts which come with the kits.

If you fancy having a go at building one yourself for your fleet may I point you in the direction of the Narrow Planet shop who keep my range of kits in stock.

Outline Vision

143 is starting to take on that iconic Garratt shape now it's got to the stage that the three parts can be posed together.

While psyching Himself up to tackle the valve gear on the rear power unit (see what I did there?)  he's been working on forming an ashpan beneath the firebox which more resembles the one on the locomotive as it's currently running on the Welsh Highland.

At this stage the boiler unit and its frames are just resting on the ends of the power bogies and haven't been connected, nor does it have any pick-ups fitted so there hasn't been any test running yet.

Hopefully that won't be too far away once the Walschaerts is in place on the back end.

Front And Back

More detail has been added to the bunker and tank on 143.

Himself has attached the sand boxes on the front and what I presume is the battery box which sits beneath the lamp bracket which he has added in styrene.

A nice little detail is the thingies (I can't be more specific that that such is my lack of knowledge) which hide under the hoods on the front footplates.

Our own design of vacuum pipes have also been fitted now.

Work on fitting the valve gear to the rear unit continues...

It Runs!

So here's what you've been waiting to see!

The first power bogie of 143 is finished and is being tested.

Doesn't it run beautifully?



I could watch that all day!