A couple of weeks we were delighted (and very grateful) to be offered the chance to buy - at a sensible price! - a fourth Double Fairlie in order to make a model of the forthcoming James Spooner.
Himself has been unable to resist the urge to start building it, although I have cautioned him most earnestly not to get ahead of Boston Lodge Works as they build the real one.
So far just the boiler cradle has been completed, and mounted on the bogies formerly running under the Earl, and that's probably as far as we'll be able to go with the model for the moment, too.
In the light of recent experience with our eldest Fairlie, Merddin Emrys - which needed a brush transplant - Himself has decided to follow the adaptation suggest by Nick Welch in his book Ffestiniog Odyssey, to allow the motor to be removed from the locomotive, rather than trapped forever inside the firebox as the kit was designed to be put together.
This involves making a small bracket and drilling, tapping and inserting screws into the fronts of what, on the real engine, would be the ash pans.
You also have to cut an additional slot in the cradle frame which holds the motor.
Now in future, once the firebox wrapper and the cab roof are lifted clear, you will be able to undo the screws and either lift the motor out from above, or drop the whole cradle out from below the engine.
The next move will probably be to build up the power bogies, and you will, of course, be able to follow the progress here on the blog.
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