Peckett Pics

A few days ago one of our readers asked to see more pictures of our Peckett Harrogate and so I’ve dug back through the archive to find these.

For those who don’t know the background this is a famous ‘might have been’ from the early days of the FR revival.

It was built for service at Harrogate gas works - with a much more restrictive cab profile than the one it now sports - and was brought to the FR as a potential solution to the motive power crisis in the late 1950s.

Linda and Blanche turned up a couple years later and that was that for Peckett which was sold 30 years after its arrival having never seen service.

A stripped down chassis did make some exploratory adventures up the Vale shortly before its departure, but they only confirmed its unsuitability for the line.

There was a Hollywood ending, though.

Eventually it landed up at Statfold, acquired its new name, and steamed on the FR as a gala visitor - albeit only between Blaenau Ffestiniog and Tanygrisiau.

It also did some gala runs on the Welsh Highland up to Waunfawr, and a little application of Rule 1 sees us running it on Bron Hebog and Dduallt.

The kit is by RT models, and it's a little cracker.

Perfect running is guaranteed by the Farish 08 chassis and some simple etched motion parts.

The body is made up of a big lump of a white metal casting and a nicely produced brass etch for the cab and fake frames.

With all that weight sitting above on a simple, reliable chassis, it's just about all you could ask for in a OO9 locomotive.

Himself added some extra detailing, as he always does, such as the vac and air brake pipes, which really set it off.

With no lining, aside from the letters on the saddle tank, it was probably also his favourite locomotive to paint.

(Since our model was made the loco now bears the legend 'Statfold Barn Railway' which means Himself has had a lucky escape!)

Green Scene

One of the joys of operating a layout at home - as opposed to at an exhibition - is that you can run what the heck you like and there is no know-it-all standing a few feet in front of you to point out the error of your ways.

These days Dduallt is our trainset and we'll do what we like with it, thus...

I think the Peckett 'Harrogate' looks rather good on the '90's push-pull set, don't you?

(Even better in the passing loop at Dduallt too, but that's a whole other debate...)

The Wee Controller  (my 3 year old boy) had ordered that we get this engine out of the box on that basis that it looked like Percy (of Thomas fame) which accounted for its presence.

The R T Models kit makes a very tidy model.  It runs beautifully on the outside framed Farish 08 chassis and it's got a nice lump of white metal right over the driving wheels to give it decent traction too.

Such a shame the FR never got around to rebuilding it.

Pecket Painted

It's just over a year since I posted a photo of our Peckett 'Harrogate' in its first coat of green paint and it's only now that we've managed to get it finished, but, hey, that's railway modelling for you.

So here it is varnished and with its Statfold Barn Railway initials in place on the tank.

Like 138 it is also awaiting a set of plates to complete it.

Alas its appearances on Bron Hebog will still have to be filed under modellers' licence because currently it has ventured no further south on the WHR than Waunfawr, but it's a nice wee engine so we're going to run it anyway!

New Toys On Test

The show at the weekend was the first chance to give our newest locomotives a proper test run.

The one that did the most mileage was our 3rd Backwoods Garratt 138 which went into regular service straight 'off the workbench'.

It will in time be finished in the locomotive's current red livery and as running coal-fired.

Also getting a run out was Himself's impulse purchase, an RT Models kit of one-time FR resident Peckett tank Harrogate.

He was inspired to make a model after seeing the real thing in action while were exhibition the layout at Dinas on the WHR last year. It was on loan from the Statfold Barn Railway.

I believe I'm right in saying that the locomotive has yet to traverse the full WHR so this picture of it emerging from Cutting Mawr is a bit of futurology.

Even more improbable was our double heading of our new Brian Madge Britomart and Mercian Models Welsh Pony - not only because Pony is in the very early stages of a scandalously overdue restoration (in my humble opinion) but also because, as others have already pointed out, it's highly unlikely the pair of them could ever haul this length of train up the hill to Beddgelert.

Although I think I know a driver who given half a chance would give it a go!

Those there at the time also witnessed a minor miracle in seeing one of these Mercian England engine kits moving given that the gearbox, as designed, will not fit inside the locomotive.  It's taken all of Himself's ingenuity to make this model work.

I have a big soft spot for Welsh Pony - indeed I am one of the regular donors to the restoration fund - and I think this model's going to become one of my favourites.

Peckett Preview

You'll have to forgive the background to the picture - Himself had been nibbling at his brandy-laced Xmas cake when he took the snap a few weeks ago - but here's a shot showing progress with painting the Peckett 'Harrogate'.

Himself says he's getting quite fond of this wee beastie and it might end up seeing a lot more action on Bron Hebog that it has on the real WHR.

Peckett Painting

A trial run of top coat has been brushed onto our Harrogate Pecket, primarily for the purposes of approving the colour.

Colours are a moot subject among the Bron Hebog team on account of the fact I'm the only one of the three of us who can see them properly!

Despite this I find myself at a disadvantage on account of a) being in a minority and b) being 400 miles away from where the painting is being done.

And so I get sent snaps like this and expected to say yay or nay to the colour which has been chosen, or on other occasions a selection of samples to pick from.

Sometimes this goes a little wrong, as it did with our model of the Double Fairlie Daffyd Lloyd George. What I was supposed to be choosing - and indeed thought I had done - was a concoction resembling Heinz Tomato Soup (the nearest anyone has ever come to accurately describing the shade of the locomotive) but what we ended up with was a Fairlie that looks more like its been outshopped in the Strathclyde PTE Orange livery of the 1980's.

Our DLG is not so much a Soup Dragon as A Clockwork Orange.

So you will appreciate why I am naturally a little hesitant about passing judgement on this shade of green for the Peckett. But I have compared it, exhaustively, with all the pictures I took of the actual locomotive on the WHR in September and I'm pretty sure it's close enough.

I think I shall give Himself permission to proceed.

Primed Peckett

Himself has picked up the Peckett again and finished it off with the final detailing and it's looking pretty good to me.

The RT Models kit really has the squat, purposeful look of the prototype, even if it does rather flatter to deceive being designed for short bursts of power rather than sustained output.

Himself tells me that although the smoke box door looks crooked in the photo but isn't really.

He also reports that all the holes around the front of the tank have been pre-drilled or cast slightly off centre.  Oops.

It's now been given a first coat of primer to show up any faults of blemishes that need to be fixed before it is sprayed with a top coat.

I think it's going to make a nice little model - a shame it's only been a special event performer on the FR & WHR but I suspect we may find a few more excuses to run it.

Plugging Away With The Peckett

Although he's ever-so pleased with his new luxury 'Grandad Cave' Himself does come up for air every now and then and puts in a shift in the rolling stock construction centre upstairs.

Close examination of the clocking in machine reveals that he has spent an hour or two of the last week working on our RT Models Harrogate Peckett kit adding the handrails to the saddle tank.

This is a bit of the locomotive where form clearly had precedent over function.

To look at the saddle tank you would think it is rather capacious, but in fact the front portion, above the smokebox, is just a dummy and carries no water at all.

I think it certainly would have looked rather odd without it.

From this angle you can also see clearly what an outrageous overhang there is at the front and the back of this beast.

Had the FR ever got around to restoring it then it surely would have been given a very radical rebuild as a 2-6-2 or perhaps even a 2-6-2T with a Blanche-style tender cab.

Peckett Assembled

There's steady progress with our Peckett, Harrogate.

Here are a couple of snaps with the cab and saddle tank units in position although they have not been soldered together yet.

It's looking quite purposeful from the front.

There are lots of detailing bits and bobs, such as the cab roof, handrails and the couplings to be added but this RT Models kit is coming together really nicely.

More On The Peckett

Himself is continuing to make rapid progress with our RT Models kit of the Statfold Barn Railway - ex FR, ex Harrogate Gas Works - Peckett.

I mentioned previously that this is a mixed media white metal and brass kit and the cab is one of the main brass components.

Himself has pressed out the rivets, as you can see, and soldered it together, as is his way.

It's worth mentioning that this cab is a recent addition to the locomotive. When it was bought, and then sold on by the FR, it had a very squat and round-topped design which was required to fit the loading gauge at the gas works. It made the footplate accommodation on the England Engines look positively palatial.

This more typical Peckett design was added by the Bredgar and Wormshill Railway, who first restored it to steam, and it was interesting to note when I saw Harrogate at Dinas this month that even with this taller cab it still sits lower than that of Prince.

There would have been scope the FR to have fitted an even larger cab had they concluded that the rest of the locomotive - its chassis and boiler / firebox in particular - was ever a realistic proposition for adapting into a mainline machine.

Peckett Progress

Himself has been fired with enthusiasm following the show at Dinas, so he says, so I'm not surprised that he has wasted no time in cracking on with the RT Models Harrogate Peckett kit.

He's started with the chassis. You get a considerable head start with this kit because it uses the latest Farish 08 chassis which comes with outside frames, or to me more accurate, a handy set of cranks already on the end of the axles.

Onto these you attach new coupling rods from a fret supplied with the kit before making up the cylinders, slide bars and fitting the connecting rods.

This chassis then fits up into the base of the locomotive which, as you can see below, includes new false frames in brass.

The kit is a mix of whitemetal and brass and Himself reports that is it not necessarily the easiest to put together, although he admits he is complicating matters by soldering the kit together as opposed to gluing it as the manufacturer recommends in the instructions.

This entails quite a lot of messing about adjusting the temperature of the iron.

This next pic shows it with the saddle tank casting in place.

From this angle you can see how much overhang there is in the 0-6-0 design and perhaps understand why there was such concern when the loco first arrived on the FR about the damage it might cause to the track which was most certainly not in the best of condition back in the late 1950's.

Peckett Purchase

Himself was splashing the cash at Dinas last weekend inspired by one of the visiting engines at the Super Power event - the Harrogate Peckett.

He's bought the RT Models whitemetal & brass kit for the locomotive - which now belongs to the Statfold Barn Railway - and the Farish 08 outside frame chassis to go with it

For those that don't know the story of the locomotive I'll give you a quick recap.

It was built during WW2 to work at the Harrogate Gas Works in Yorkshire and was bought by the FR in 1957 in the early years of its revival when there was a desperate need for something - anything - to keep the trains running with only the ancient Prince and Double Fairlie Taliesin to haul trains.

The short version of the story is that Linda and Blanche turned up to save the day before anything was done about getting it into service and it spent 30 years tucked away at the back of Boston Lodge until it was finally stripped down and the chassis hauled up the line, which only confirmed the initial impressions in the 50's that it was never realistically going to make a useful mainline FR machine.

It was sold on in part exchange for a useful P Way diesel loco - which became Harlech Castle - and later on found a home at the SBR where the owners established a friendly relationship with the FR bringing a number of their locomotives to come and play on the line.

The Peckett - which was once going to be named Volunteer on the FR - appeared last year for some shuttle runs between Blaenau and Tanygrisiau and has spent much of this year lodging on the WHR where it turned a wheel for the first time last weekend double heading with Prince on a shuttle service to Waunfawr.

I've seen quite a few of these kits made up - there was one running as the present day Harrogate on Clydach which was also on show at Dinas - so I fully expect it to turn into a nice little model.

It has run all the way up the FR so we've got a justification for running it on Dduallt and although it arrived at Dinas by road - and so has yet to appear at Beddgelert - I'm hoping the temptation to take it for a spin all the way to Boston Lodge will prove too hard to resist for the powers-that-be at Porthmadog before it returns home to Staffordshire.