PhilC's workbench: old, present and future.

[Philc]

In my 'Hello from Scotland' thread in the new members forum, I mentioned my three interests which are primarily BR (GER), then BR (Midland) and industrial. So, I thought I would post items of what I've done in the past, what I'm doing at the moment and what I hope to do in the future.

My first piece is about a BR(E) E4 2-4-0. This class of loco were quite prevalent over the East Anglian lines with the last one, 62785 (on which this model is based) mainly running on the Stour Valley lines until it was retired from service. It's now been cosmetically restored and is part of the national collection.

The basis of the loco is a Nu-cast (ex Stephen Poole) white metal kit. The chassis was built from Alan Gibson milled main frames with the motor being a Mashima can (can't remember the size) driving the rear driving axle of the locomotive through a High Level gearbox. There is compensation between the first and second axles, the beam being biased 2:3 to the driving axle.

Somewhere, I have video of the loco running on Blackwell Brewery Company, the EM gauge layout of Mid Essex MRC. I'll dig them out so you can see the loco in operation. Yes, I'm biased, but it does run well!

More to follow.

 

[Philc]

And here is a video.

 

[Philc]

Thanks for all the likes to my earlier post about the E4. I love small, quirky locos like this, but I also adore big mainline locos. To this end, I wanted a Britannia and was offered, very cheaply, a DJH kit. By happenstance, I learned that 70053 Moray Firth was transferred to the GER main line for trials as well as being mainly based in northern England and running down the lines to Leeds etc., so I hunted around and found a white metal kit for a BR1D (I think!) tender. It may not be the exact tender, but it looks right, and that's what I'm really interested in!

The loco is mainly the DJH kit, although the bodywork pipework came from John Brighton of Steamline Sheffield. The chassis is the DJH frames with Comet chassis sides overlaid to hide the cut out in the DJH sides for the motor. The motor I used is a big Portescap.

I don't, currently, have any still pictures of the loco, but as, to me, the ethos of building locos like this is to see them run, I've got two videos of it running on Retford. I was very chuffed to receive compliments from Roy Jackson about it's looks and performance. He put it on his heaviest train and it handled it with ease.

Again, more to follow.

 

[Philc]

As well as big locos and ex GER locos, I also love small and industrial locos. To this end, I built a Y7 from a Connoisseur models kit. It's very important that any loco I have runs smoothly and to ensure this, I used a very small can motor (Mashima, 1012, I think) with a Porters Cap gearbox at 80:1 ratio. The motor is very high revving and with such a high gearbox ratio and small riving wheels, the loco runs very smoothly and controllably. It's also important to me that devices such as motor, gearboxes etc. aren't visible. In such a small loco as the Y7, this wasn't easy, but I managed it.

The videos are of the first run of the loco on my workbench. The second video shows that the loco is a lot stronger than it looks! In reality, it also shows just how valuable brass bearings and pin point axles on rolling stock are!