Rolling Stock

In conjunction with the loco shed a start was made on the locos, the first to be built was the battery shunter as seen above; this was based around a Wren R1 chassis simply as this had a cast chassis and good motor the body was built up around a shell of Lego blocks covered in plasticard and sprayed up in a Ford Highland Green from Halfords.

The base coat under this was done in a dark brown and red primer so this could be scratched through to show wear and tear – part of the weathering was done using salt crystals and spraying over these before removing to show paint flaking off

A start was also made on developing rolling stock; using a Hornby wagon chassis a batch of small flat wagons were built, at first these have been fitted with our own link and pin coupling, this may well change as the project develops to give hands free uncoupling.

The bassic wagon is built up around a Hornby wagon chassis as can be seen on the left, a set of plasticard sides are cut along with internal corner stiffners

The box is then made up and a set of wooden bearers epoxied to the chassis to raise this up to the correct height

Once the sides had set then some angles section were added on the corners and a shallow L section cut to form a tray that the plywood panel for the wagon floor would fit into, the link and pin coupling blocks were then bolted in place

Lastly the brass castings for the dummy axleboxes were fitted ready for painting in a rusty brown finish with stained timber deck

The completed Loco and wagons on a photo shoot in the back garden, gathering up a load of logs for winter time

A second loco has been started based on the ex WW1 Baldwin Mechanical locos this again used an R1 chassis

This is currently undergoing a rebuild with a fine scale gear drive to replace the tired Wren motor…

…as can be seen the driver is a tight fit!

To Stationary Boiler