A New Loco

After a lull in modelling during the summer, I returned to the diorama and later in the autumn started a new loco. My model in the Vale of Glamorgan is slowly acquiring a landscape in this south-easterly view, in which the trees act as an easterly view blocker. The Aberthaw power station chimneys are just visible on the Welsh side of the Bristol Channel (on the left past the lower branches), while on the English side Weston-super-Mare is lost in the haze below the distant line of low-lying clouds.

By the middle of September I was collecting information on the GWR 2884-class 2-8-0s with help coming from Devon, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire (thanks Ian, Ian and Nick). The inspiration for a model of this class was finding out that it shared a Swindon No 1 boiler with my Hall and has a similar side-window cab. I like the idea of building a pair of locos with design similarities, as with the two Caledonian 4-4-0s I made for Kyle of Sutherland.

One of the very few colour photographs I took of ex-GWR locos in steam was of 3842 at Cardiff in the spring of 1965. The model will be of 3832, the first of this class I saw in November 1962 at Worcester on a school trip to Stratford-on-Avon. A heavy freight loco for St Donats 1963 is not as illogical as it sounds: the real Vale of Glamorgan Railway regularly hosted trains diverted from the main Bridgend to Cardiff line because of engineering work.

This mock-up of 3832’s cab, footplate and smokebox saddle was paired with Toynbee Hall’s boiler to test my boiler theory against the 1965 photograph taken alongside the then-new Cardiff Canton diesel depot. 

Hall Chassis Progress

 The final job on the body, before turning to the chassis, was the cab roof.

The first job on the chassis was the bogie. I was off to a flying start with a spare P4 part from a Martin Finney kit: Part 18, the fold-up etching for the basic frame. The remaining dozen parts used measurements of the Finney frame to supplement the few bogie measurements I did have. I incorporated my usual style of side control springing acting at axle level on the 3/32" brass tube mounting pillar.

Toynbee Hall now has a chassis with spacers temporarily soldered one side only, loosely assembled with jig axles, a trial cylinder assembly from a set of  Kemilway parts I bought in 1985 through the Scalefour Society, and a painted bogie with jury axles. I made up a cross-frame slidebar bracket from spare Finney Parts 39 laminated around a central core at the appropriate spacing. And to help with the illusion, I fettled the smokebox door rescued from my old Triang Albert Hall bought in 1967/8, added a nickel door dart and a front number plate for 5961.

Hall Boiler Progress

At long last I sourced a sheet of 8 thou nickel silver (thanks for the recommendation, Frank) allowing me to continue with Toynbee Hall’s taper boiler – see post of 4^th October, 2020. I also found it so much easier to in-fill the cut-out in the cab front rather than make a new item, and the Finney chimney certainly helps the look of the model.

The boiler and firebox bolt together, and the boiler is a push fit onto the extended smokebox inner. The complete boiler unit sits on the saddle at one end, bolted to the smokebox, and is bolted to the cab front at the other end. I finished this stage of the work by preparing a nickel blank for the cab roof, then put the project to one side to take a break.

Scenic Development

St Donats 1963 has very few structures, and only a single track to carry trains from one side of the diorama to the other. Consequently, the scenery and particularly the trees form an important part of the illusion of recession. Trees salvaged from Kyle of Sutherland are used here to help create a mock-up view of the diorama with an out-of-region goods passing through in the direction of Llantwit Major.

The choice of the horizon height, 5 inches above the baseline of the 13 inch deep viewing window, will be key for the success of the finished diorama. This will hopefully also be the natural viewing height, and is the height at which the photograph was taken, just slightly above the height of the mock-up mini-view pinned to the backscene. This is above the model height of the bridge and so I've artificially compressed the bridge perspective and “pointed up” the parapet towards the horizon.

At this stage the trees, scenery, bridge and track bed can all be removed in order to work on individual items away from the diorama.

Lockdown - The First Six Months

I’ve worked on a number of modelling projects this past six months on average for maybe an hour a day, more or less. My main project continues to be the diorama and the egg-box ground cover is now almost ready for its paper and scrim. I will report on that separately.

On the loco front, I continued making progress with the Peckett, that is until I realised the kit was for the wrong variant. My loco is to be 1151 and this has entailed making a new scratch front end, including a laboriously hand-filed smoke box door. It’s strange I didn’t notice the discrepancy earlier.

Meanwhile, I’ve continued to work on the two separate chassis: the standard kit one and a split-frame chassis, now in P4 (see "Peckett progress, 6th March 2019"). Both frames are now assembled, but I decided to take a break when it came to shorting the wheels.

I then moved on to 5961 Toynbee Hall: having built the footplate and cab way back in 2009, I thought it was about time I tackled the boiler. After making the smokebox and firebox I ran out of 8 thou nickel. At this stage I also realised that I would need to make a new cab front. I made the current one similar to that on my Brassmasters Black Five, which had a cut-out allowing the resin boiler to fit just inside the cab. In the Hall, the firebox will bolt in the normal model fashion to the surface of the new cab front.

Along the way I also added further detail to the pannier 1649, which is still not quite finished.

And that’s the first six months of my lockdown.

Dornoch Branch Train Anniversary

 The Dornoch Branch train last ran 60 years ago, on the 11^th June 1960.

The branch loco 1649, inherited from Kyle of Sutherland, has been undergoing a detailing upgrade and will eventually be re-numbered 1643 for St Donats 1963. Here it is with a Dornoch train modelled on a Douglas Twibell photograph taken in September 1959.

Diorama In Progress

The diorama, now with track, scenic jigsaw foamboard bases, a trial horizon and the trial bridge shaped to accentuate the perspective, is at an experimental stage. The temporary, wallpaper backscene is pegged to a semi-elliptical shape with cocktail sticks in the foamboard bases of the scenic jigsaw.

The proscenium arch is clearly too high and reveals the top of the backscene, but if the viewpoint were raised to hide this, the horizon would cease to be horizontal. Already it is very slightly curved up in the middle. The scene is lit by LEDs, the position of which need adjusting to flatten the sky.


The objective is to be able to photograph (or view) the scene at horizon level with the backscene appearing flat to the rear wall of the diorama for almost its whole width, the view being limited only by the proscenium arch and wings.