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!

Will It Fit?

It is just possible that some of you have been waiting with baited breath - not too baited, I hope - to find out the results of the gauging trials with the Princess.

The one you see in the picture is the 'reasonably priced Pacific' I bagged from the well-known auction site a couple of weeks ago.

After being adapted to tow-only mode by the surgical removal of gears from the tender drive it was passed over to Himself for testing on Minffordd.

As you may recall, the more recent version of this model, which comes with extra details like pipework beneath the cab (and some front footsteps which were added on by a previous owner) cannot get past the platform edge on our layout.

And so to the moment of truth...

You could say it is now 'full steam ahead' on Project Princess, but of course that would be an entirely inappropriate phrase....

Toned Down

Princess has returned to the test track from Himself's where it had been sent for the application of a little subtlety.

As it comes out of the box the Kato / Peco England has a number of things which betray that it was produced to a price - or for a certain aspiration of specification -  but these can be easily attended to.

Among the things Himself has done is apply some black paint to the upright at the end of the slidebars, which stands out like a sore thumb in silver.

A brush over with matt varnish makes the smokebox look like a loco that's had a fire in it, and the cab roof looks an awful lot better when it's not black and shiny.

It's also had the happy effect, to my eyes, of making the chimney look a bit fatter and much more prototypical.

The vac pipe bags look a lot more realistic when they are no longer black plastic colour.

The last thing he's done, which you might not notice until I point it out, but is one of those things you can't unsee once you've spotted it, is to run some black paint around the edges of the cab opening,

The livery finish on these models is really very good, but they are badly let down that in places like the cab doorway the black edging is only on the sides and doesn't extend to the edges which remain shiny, maroon-coloured plastic.

It really stood out when you looked at the engine in 3/4 view.

It's such a small thing but it makes such a difference when you fix it,

 

(Not) Ready To Run

It wouldn't surprise me if Peco's PR people are a little frustrated this weekend.

(And if they're not, then they ought to be.)

For days my social media feeds have been full of excited narrow gauge modellers receiving their England engines, but as the week wore on the pictures changed from delighted owners posing their new pride and joys on their layouts, to disappointed customers posting images of their purchases arriving in various states of distress and disassembly.

And then our one turned up.

Our Princess had been ordered by a customer as a thank you for a model I'm making for them, and I opened the parcel fearing the worst when I saw how it had been dispatched in an over-size cardboard box with plenty of rattling-around room, even with the protection of bubble wrap.

As you can see, a certain amount of owner reassembly was required - which is putting it mildly!

The cab was detached (which seems to be the most common complaint) and the tender and engine had moved around so much they had become decoupled.

Lifting it from the - obviously inadequate - polystyrene tray I discovered the whistles had also fallen off.

Fortunately the pins securing the coupling rods remained in place - others have not been so lucky.

Perhaps because of decades handling white metal and etched brass locos it's alarming how flimsy and delicate these 009 RTR locos feel - not just this England - and there is genuine trepidation when attempting to re-fit the displaced parts that you're going to further damage the model while handling it.

Fitting the extra knobs which come in the pack, on the sand pots and the front of the tender, can be quite tricky too.

It's a clever design with the plastic sprues which break off once you've inserted the details, but as I found to my cost, if you don't push them in perfectly perpendicular then they can snap off in the wrong place.

I had two which did this and had to be very carefully drilled out,

It's lucky they provide spares.

Now all that's been done I can get on with trying it out on the test track before passing it over for Himself to have a play about with.

One last thought is about opinions I've seen on some social media groups that owners should now cease posting pictures or comments about the state that their models have arrived in, and that we should just be grateful that they've been produced in the first place.

I have to respectfully disagree.

It's not for the consumer to be grateful for any commercial product, let alone one in which a substantial number arrive severely damaged because of packaging which, on the face of it, is not up to the job.

Retailers are replacing them without any quibbles, as far as I can tell, which is as it should be and very good to see.

But there's no getting away from the fact it really shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Model Rail Scotland Debuts

Excitement is building ahead of us taking Bron Hebog to Model Rail Scotland in Glasgow in a month's time, which will be our first show in more than two years.

While I was thinking about that the other day it occurred to me that there must be a number of models we built in that time which have not been seen in public yet (aside from on this blog and our social media).

I stopped counting when I got to 15.

So I thought you might like a reminder of what's among the new stuff.

The steam engines include NGG/16 130, which is all new, and in the last two years Himself has got round to painting Lyn and Welsh Pony.

The diesel fleet has been bolstered by the recent arrival of our green Vale of Ffestiniog, and the duplicate of Conway Castle in the livery in which it served with distinction on WHR construction trains and as the Dinas shunter for many years.

Now, we also have the locomotive which replaced it, the big yellow Baguley number 9, and at the other end of the spectrum the former Boston Lodge gofer Harold.

New carriages include 2048 and the fourth of the opulent observation cars Gwyrfai, as well the much less salubrious Ashbury replica 21 and the Pickering brake for the WHHR excursions / incursions. 

If Rule One is enacted at any point over the three days at the SEC you might also be lucky to see some of our new tow-along amusements including a derelict Livingston Thompson on ambulance bogies, and a freshly un-plinthed Princess.

Both are completely out of era - being 1980s representations - and completely out of place on the Welsh Highland section, but you never know...

More prototypical is a deconstructed NGG/16 loaded onto DZ flat wagons for transfer between Boston Lodge and Dinas.

This little tableau is a consequence of us being offered the chance to buy the remains of a Backwoods kit which someone made such a Horlicks of building that the best thing to be done with it was recover any parts which could be used as spares and turn what was left into a conversion piece.

Englands Glory?

The appearance last week of images of decorated samples of the Peco / Kato FR England models has been greeted with almost universal acclaim in the online 009 community, so I suspect I am not going to make myself very popular by giving a more nuanced appraisal of what we've been shown.

Like everyone I am overjoyed to see the appearance of a ready-to-run model of my all-time favourite narrow gauge engines, and I have no doubt at all that these will be a terrific commercial success.

They look to be night and day by comparison to anything that has been possible with the many kits produced over the decades, and for that the designers and manufacturers are to be congratulated.

As far as can be seen from these images the finish looks to be superb, and there's no doubt they have captured the look and feel of these iconic FR locos, and I am very pleased indeed to see the very distinctive Small England wheels have been replicated, and the motion - although apparently not to the fish belly profile - looks suitably slender.

The lining looks crisp and the rivet detailing delightful.

Do you sense I'm building up to a but?

You're right, and more than one.

Judging from these pictures I'm left with a nagging feeling of frustration of what might have been if the makers had gone the whole way and striven to make the most accurate representations of the individual locomotives rather than compromise on a generic tooling.

Let's face it, if there's just one thing readers of this blog must have realised by now it is that identical' is not a word in the FR lexicon!

To begin with let's look at the most obvious example on this pair: the nameplate on Prince.

It's the same length as the one on Princess.

Since when? 

Anyone who has cast even the most cursory glance at the real locomotives, or any photos of them, surely cannot miss that the plate (and mounting block) on Prince is so obviously shorter.

I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but when they've gone to the effort of fitting different smokebox handrails on the two models to not find a way to alter the nameplates is a poor show.

The slidebars and the mounting bracket also look a little toy-like from this distance - a bit too much like what we've got on the ancient Ibertren chassis under our existing Langley white metal kits.

Other reviewers have picked up on the whistles and the lining around the rear of the cab.

These may seem like trivial complaints, especially in the context of the decades we have waited for manufacturers to discover 009, but the reality is that now that they have these compromises on models such as these are not where the rest of the market is.

(They'll still fly off the shelves, though...)

When this project was announced there was great anticipation of the Kato chassis, but I see now this model will be fitted with a traction tyre - is this the 1980s? - and I have seen conflicting reports about whether or not it will be DCC ready or even DCC compatible?

Let's not pretend that it's because the model is too small.  Bachmann have found a way to make room for decoders in their Quarry Hunslets which are tiny compared to the capacious saddle tanks on an England.

That won't affect whether or not we'll buy some - we surely will - because our layouts are DC, but some of the translated literature suggests the prototypes have hauled 3 (!) Peco carriages on level track, even with their rubber tyres.

That's a little worrying if, like us, you have a layout with gradients. Hopefully something was lost in translation there.

Ultimately, I know what is at the route of my comparative disappointment at this model.

It was an open secret that another manufacturer was intending to make 4mm models of these locomotives - indeed, had gone so far as to measure them up - and it would appear that these models were announced as a spoiler.

Well, I guess all's fair in love, war and business, but I believe what we have ended up with, in this very pretty, slightly generic England, is a far cry from what we were likely to get (eventually) if the other firm had been left to it.

And that's a shame.

2020 Review - Part 2

April

I finished off the previous post saying we had plans for an old England engine kit and a dead chassis which were lying around in the bits box, and this is what we turned them into.

I've got a real fascination with the FR of my childhood in the 1970s and 80s.

While Princess may look splendid now in her lined out maroon livery, this is how I first remember seeing her, when she was freshly liberated from a plinth in Blaenau Ffestiniog.

This model is an unpowered tow-around which may make the occasional, fantasy trip up and down the line.

Himself also finished off the construction work on our own version of Van 51 using one of my kits, improved with a brass roof, resin ventilator and railings on the balcony.

And we started another one of my wish list projects, to create a model of Livingston Thompson at its nadir, when the remains of the locomotive were removed from storage in Minffordd yard.

The donor in this case was Langley white metal kit which had been donated for the purpose many years ago.

May

Out of the blue were were offered the chance to buy another Backwoods Garratt kit at a knockdown price.

As you can see from the picture it was a bit of a wreck, and we had no intention of getting it going as a runner, but it came with a Farish 08 chassis - which is always handy - and we had an inkling of an idea of what we could do with the very battered body...

 

I'd finished making and fitting the interior on Gwyrfai and by this time Himself was well advanced with the painting, which is an epic job on these observation cars.

The paint job was also complete on Van 51 which looked very smart and was just waiting for the glazing to be fitted.

June

Some running repairs were required on Bron Hebog when we noticed one of the crossing gates was damaged.

Himself knocked up a replacement out of styrene strip.

The very intricate transfer work on Gwyrfai was complete and all it now required was a coat of varnish.

And so while he was in the mood for tackling tricky transfers - and getting through incomplete projects - Himself started re-doing the lining on Conway Castle which hadn't been touched since before he moved to Scotland.

2020 Review

I expect you're probably already heartily sick of reading posts about how **** a year it's been - but don't click away, because this is not one of them!

One of the few Christmas traditions that isn't being altered this year is that I like to take a look back at all that we've achieved in the last 12 months on our respective workbenches.

I always find I'm surprised by how much we've got done and the things I'd forgotten about.

January

At the start of the year I was working on the latest WHR Pullman observation carriage Gwyrfai which I was scratch building mostly from styrene except for the curved front and roof which were to be bent from brass.

Himself was having an adventure in 3mm standard gauge building a very complex chassis for a GWR 2-8-0 tank for the Engineering Consultant.

February

A few weeks later and the body was at an advanced stage with a very crisply cast boiler and that classic huge bunker at the back.

And by this time Himself had also bent and soldered up the front for the Obs which was being offered up to test.

The idea was that once we were happy with the shape I could apply a thin plastic skin and beading to make it match the styrene body sides.

March

We'd been closely following progress on the rebuild of 130 at Dinas, and as reports were published on the web Himself would add more bits to our Backwoods kit build which had been started the year before.

In this picture of the boiler bands have just been fitted.

This was the point in the year when we entered the first lockdown, and Himself starting looking around for other projects to keep him busy and hit on the idea of doing something with an ancient white metal England engine body and a knackered Ibertren chassis from the bits boxes.

In the next post I'll show you what he ended up doing with it....

The Princess

That’s one job ticked off the lockdown wish list!

Himself has completed the painting, lining and (matt) varnishing of Princess.

It almost looks too good to be unpowered, doesn’t it!

I’ve had an ambition to have a  model of the engine in post-Blaenau plinth condition for as long as I can remember.

On this model the green is very faded from exposure to the elements but in all other respects it’s in peak Garrawegian condition with unique red frames and the wheel rims picked out in white.

Sadly, the loco made its way back home to Boston Lodge on the back of a lorry (much like its first arrival in Wales) but ours will be towed around Dduallt as a bit of self-indulgent modelling make believe.

I can imagine it might also spent much of its time parked on the truncated siding behind the signal box as a reminder of what might have been....

Fade To Green

Princess is beginning to look suitably distressed.

The choice of which era to depict our new tow-along model was left to me, and I decided to go for the period which fascinated me most, when it was rescued from its plinth in Blaenau and brought into the museum at Porthmadog.

In this state it was so obviously a non-runner,  whereas these days it looks as immaculate as any of the other FR engines, and the urge to shove a motor in it would be overwhelming.

An FR figure recently shared some correspondence from the late Alan Garraway where he recalled his fear that there would be moves to restore it to traffic in the early days of the restoration - the last thing he wanted with traffic booming was another puny small England engine.

Hiding it in plain sight in Blaenau, as a promotional tool and statement of intent, probably served a double purpose for AGWG.

One point of modelling interest in the picture is Himself’s trick for using black lining as a guide for getting your black infill and edging to look flawless.

And don’t you just love those white wheel rims?

It’s like a 1970s Ford Cortina on rails!

Primed Princess

New images have emerged from within Himself’s isolated bunker of progress on our unpowered Princess.

He’s added some extra details to the kit, such as the vac pipe at the front and extended the nameplate block.

I’ve decided to go totally out of period and gone with heart over head on the finished livery.

We’ll turn it out in peak-Garraway era condition green with frames highlighted in red and white tyre walls.

That’s the condition it was in on the plinth at Stesion Fein and then in the goods museum at Harbour Station where I first remember seeing it.

Does anyone have a photo, or the rights to a photo, I could share?

There are lots on the internet but I try not to do copyright theft.

Princess

There are two options here - either Himself is very bored with his self-imposed confinement already, or there’s a tricky task he’s trying to avoid!

Out of the blue last night there popped into my inbox news of a new project to make up an ancient white metal Small England as an unpowered, tow-around Princess.

Naturally I approve of this plan because I just love the England engines.

We already have a redundant old Ibertren chassis to mount it on.

The question, of course, is what livery to paint it in?

The current Victorian lined maroon in museum condition?

Or just liberated from the plinth in Blaenau condition with faded green and red frames?

For some reason I’m fascinated by tatty, Garrawegian brutalism, perhaps because it’s something I just have a vague memory of as a child?