A Beyer Peacock 2-4-0 (But Not From That Island)

[musket the dog]

Hello everyone,

I've not shared a lot of progress with my own railway for a while but I feel like my latest big build has progressed far enough to be of interest, plus recent world events have forced me to spend a lot of time evaluating the large pile of unfinished projects I currently have hanging around my workbench.

Like everything I start this project has taken a while to build momentum. It started in 2017 during a visit to the lovely museum at the Isle of Wight steam railway. While looking through the exhibits I learnt that before the island became synonymous with Adams' 02 and Stroudley's Terrier the island was inhabited by a large number of Beyer Peacock 2-4-0 tank engines.

There were several variations on the theme being built from the first half of the 1860's into the end of the 1890's. Many lasted to serve under the Southern Railway during grouping until eventually being replaced by locomotives inherited from the mainland lines. There are several pictures of the locomotives (and the island's railways) available here: Isle of Wight Railways

Like all my previous scratch builds I do my planning in CAD software. This allows me to move everything around and mess with dimensions to get a good balance between looking 'right' with my existing stock and there being space for batteries, the motor and everything else needed to make it go. My design is 'inspired' by they locomotives instead of actually being based on a single engine. I've gone for somewhere in the middle of the build life, with a more ornate cab, but a smaller boiler and simple smokebox. I try to stick to something around 1:19 and 2'6" gauge, so the W&LLR Beyers were studied too. To suit a narrower gauge, I've moved the cylinders outside the frames and proportionally made the cab taller.

 

[musket the dog]

The most complex part of this project for me would be the motor block. I couldn't find an existing available motor block that fit my requirements for large wheels but a small wheelbase. Eventually I sourced a pair of Piko wheels (I think from one of their Diesel shunters) via g-bits and set myself the perilous task of finding a gear train to suit.

After figuring out the pitch of the Piko intermediate gears I managed to track down a worm gear to suit and a shaft adapter to go from the MFA motor to the internal bore of the new worm. In CAD I designed an LGB style split motorblock. I added top hat bearings to the wheels and ordered the print of the block. All assembled, motor wired up to a controller and to my shock it worked. There's a couple of things I would change if I were to build a second, but I will wait to see how long this set-up lasts.

From the same printers I ordered the cylinders and connecting rods.

 

[musket the dog]

The main bulk of the build would be from plasticard. I used 2mm and 0.5mm from Slaters. The 2mm was used to build the solid bulk of the tank and cabs, the 0.5mm was used in layers where I applied rivets. I used a screwdriver sharpened to a point to press the rivets through from the back. The bulk of the body is made up of 6 components: 2 tanks, the bunker, the smokebox, the cab front and boiler. As well as allowing for the rivets the layers of the thinner card means I can add the curves the corners of the tank and bunker.

 

[musket the dog]

This weekend's work was to mark out and cut the front cab sheet to match the rear. Then rivet and attach the cosmetic cover. Then finally drill the holes in the front and rear of the cab for the windows. A little bit nerve wracking as by this point both points were fully formed and riveted.

Despite going slowly, in stages by hand, the large drill was quite rough on the thinner cover sheet. A generous amount of filler was required on each portal once the frames were glued in.

 

[musket the dog]

And the last update for tonight: a boiler cut from 40mm waste pipe. Slot cut out for the motor before being permanently attached to the smokebox and cab. Before having to trim the slot a bit wider

Still altogether now and starting to look the part when roughly laid out with all the other pieces. The next job will be the footplate and frame. Getting enough stiffness and fitting it all the the block might be a bit challenging but it looks like me and my isolation buddy will have plenty of time to figure it out.

 

[dunnyrail]

Interesting project nicely executed, a quick bit of research from the Oakwood Press History revealed that the IOW Central Railway had 4 all scrapped by 1929 the IWR had 5 the last one being scrapped by 1933. I have some recollection about the last one possibly being kept for preservation but the Southern Railway would have none of it. I also believe that 1 or 2 similar BP Locomotives exist in Oz. The current IOW Railway has apparently tried to repatriate one but with no luck.

 

[musket the dog]

... I have some recollection about the last one possibly being kept for preservation but the Southern Railway would have none of it...

Thank you for the comment on the progress so far. I think you're correct with the early preservation attempt, there's a board in the museum about it. If my memory serves it was W13 'Ryde'. I think it had been moved and stored on the mainland. A railwayman on the Island started a campaign in 'Railway' magazine to save it but it was broken up for steel in WW2 before the money was raised.

 

[Tas devil]

Interesting project nicely executed, a quick bit of research from the Oakwood Press History revealed that the IOW Central Railway had 4 all scrapped by 1929 the IWR had 5 the last one being scrapped by 1933. I have some recollection about the last one possibly being kept for preservation but the Southern Railway would have none of it. I also believe that 1 or 2 similar BP Locomotives exist in Oz. The current IOW Railway has apparently tried to repatriate one but with no luck.

I was thinking, “now which locos on New South Wales Government Railways were ex IOW, or very similar.”
After a quick visit to Google Ferroequinology, my memory kicked on - yes numbers X1033 and X1042 at least are preserved. And I used to go past 1042 every working day, in my commuter train whilst it was still working as workshops shunter at Cardiff Workshops- until 1973. And until 1972, my commuter train was mainly USA style “cowboy cars” hauled by a C30 class baltic tank. Ah, such memories, those were the days!

 

[Riograndad]

Great build so far and watching with interest,keep us posted on your progress

 

[musket the dog]

Thanks for the encouragement so far, a little more progress over the past week. I don't have much of a plan in place after all the big pieces are in place. I add details as I notice them in the pictures. I find that my progress tends to slow during this phase as I try to figure out exactly how to carve them out of bits of plastic and odds and sods.

First small update was to mark up and carve the cab side boards/weather boards. Basic height and width taken from the CAD model and then a roll of tape with a suitable radius is used to mark a curve between the bottom corner and a mark on the top edge. To make the cut I trace the line of the curve with a sharp craft knife for a few strokes. The the bulk of the material is removed by carving slithers out of the arc until I get down to the cut line at the curve. One cut can then be made perpendicular to the piece to cut off all of the tails.





These were the last major structural piece missing from the cab area. Once they were tidied up the tank tops were marked for the fitting of the cab front and the side boards. All parts were permanently fused together with a mixture of polystyrene cement and Slater's Mek-Pak.

 

[musket the dog]

The next stage in attaching the boiler to the tanks was to add the braces the exist about half way along the top of the water tanks. Again, I started in CAD where I drew up the part I would need to match the height of the tanks to the particular section of curve on the boiler.

Starting from a rectangle of card the measurements from CAD showed me where a arc of 20mm radius would intersect the bottom edge of the rectangle, taking into account the relative heights of the boiler and tank. I have been measuring as I go long to ensure that the real thing is dimensionally accurate to the CAD model.



The same technique was employed to cut the curve to suit the boiler with a little excess left so the piece could be sanded against the boiler barrel for the final shape. Please excuse the fact it looks like I've skipped a few steps, I neglected to take a picture of the braces in place at the time.





The first of those 'little details' I added was the steps on the front of the tanks. The real things look to be made from a single piece of bent steel and I wanted to try and replicate that in the card, if I could convince it fold and not break. 0.5mm plasticard was marked out to form two steps. The lines marked 2mm in from the edges were scored using a paper-art scribe and gently the plastic was coaxed into folding along the scribe line. The process was repeated to create a brace for each side.

 

[musket the dog]

The final update from the last night's progress was the cutting of the base plate. Nothing too complicated here, just one large rectangle with another rectangle cut out of the middle. If I had thought ahead a bit I perhaps would have left the bulk of the center in and made two slots for the wheels as quite a lot is visible under the boiler.

The pictures below show it temporarily bolted up to the motor block with the bodywork perched on top. Whilst not trying to get too ahead of myself I lined up an LGB van next to it to make sure that everything was still looking 'right'.

 

[musket the dog]

...yes numbers X1033 and X1042 at least are preserved. And I used to go past 1042 every working day, in my commuter train whilst it was still working as workshops shunter at Cardiff Workshops...

Thank you for the additional info, I knew about the Australian locos but I had really been struggling to find any info on them. A lot easier to do once I knew their numbers and where they worked. I've found lots of great pictures of the two now . I would love to see one back in steam on the island one day but I can understand why their current owners would not want to let them go. Maybe it would be a sensible and achievable candidate for a new build one day.

 

[ge_rik]

Looks great so far. I like the way you've combined 3D printing with Plasticard. Quite a few clever ideas here which I might 'borrow'.....


Rik

 

[casey jones snr]

Nice project Ricky.

 

[Northsider]

Congratulations from one who models the BPs and stock on the 'other' island! Your CAD work means you have planned the stages out and have avoided the pitfalls of prototyping with materials. The chassis block print is a great solution I suspect there are a few people on here who may copy that idea. It's turning into a really nice model -can't wait to see it painted!

 

[musket the dog]

Thanks for the comments again chaps, been making steady progress over the last few days, filling the down time while the IT systems that make it possible for me to work from home collapse.

Looks great so far. I like the way you've combined 3D printing with Plasticard. Quite a few clever ideas here which I might 'borrow'.....

If there's anything you would like to 'borrow' Rik, that I could explain a bit better please let me know. Your excellent write ups and blog have been pretty instrumental in me building up the courage and skills to actually give something like this a go

I've spent lots of time on the Beyer over the last few days but as usual; the greatest amount of time goes into the smallest changes. The front frames have been the most difficult piece to cut yet. There's a lot of intricate shapes in there to support the cylinders added to the fact it all needs to be done twice. Once again I started in CAD to get the dimensions to transfer onto my Plasticard.



And below shows what it looks like transferred onto the card. Unfortunately the shapes make it pretty difficult to use the usual method of scoring, bending and snapping. I couldn't think of any way around it except for a lot of time carving the shape almost all the way through with the craft knife.



The foot plate was measured up and the frames attached. The steam chest behind the cylinders was boxed up to add some additional strength and a support was added to the rear hanger for the slide bar bracket.



I moved the buffer beam back a few mm from the CAD pictures in the first post. This was so that I could include a wooden buffer beam into the existing footplate space. Wooden beams seem to have been a feature on some of the locos and it was one I decided I wanted to include quite late on. The frames will get some additional relief from the .5 card and some riveting detail.

 

[musket the dog]

I'm not sure exactly what the rodding on top of the dome is but I wanted to try and find a way to incorporate it to reinforce link between the model and the prototypes. I would think that it has something to do with the control of the steam from the boiler?



I started with some electrical cable I had left over from repairing my Kitchen. 13A cable gave up its single core insulated wires. Some 38A cable gave up its thicker bare earth wire.

With the anvil and the hammer (and all of my neighbour's patience ) the 38A earth wire was worked into a square section. The additional benefit with this method being that work hardening the wire makes it very stiff indeed. The wire was cut the length using a razor saw as pliers would have crushed the section to a point. A chamfer was filed into one end of each so that both would sit flush when assembled at the desired angle. The two square sections were then soldered together to make the 'V' that sits on top of the dome.





The make the upright rodding the insulation on the cable was cut by rolling it under the blade of the craft knife. My usual wire cutters leave an untidy edge to the stripped insulation. A section was left in the middle to represent the thicker section of the rodding. On the finsihed model this will all be painted black. A small ring of insulation was cut and retained to make the collar where the rods pass though the boiler cladding. The uprights were then soldered to the V. They will be trimmed to length once I have finished the dome.




Once everything was cooled down I cleaned up the joints with a file. The dome will be made from one of those small disposable CO2 canisters visible in the pictures above. Unfortunately all of my heavy tools and my vice and bench are still at my parent's house and unobtainable during the lock down. I'm still being called into work a couple times a week so I will be able to fabricate it when I get a spare moment in my workshop there.

 

[musket the dog]

Finally for tonight, I had foolishly forgotten to add the boiler bands before I trapped the boiler permanently between the water tanks. With a lot of fiddling and after gluing myself to the boiler a couple times I managed to squeeze the plasticard strips securely into place on the pipe.




You might have also spotted in the above picture I have cheated and purchased a cast smokebox door from GRS when I was ordering a couple of other bits for the build. I was very impressed with how clean and straight the casting was, requiring very minimal finishing on my part.

The interior step in the cab has also been added where it sits over the wheels. I think maybe this would have more likely to have been wheel arches and a small flat floor on a prototype, but it is very cramped cab and I am quite happy that it is sufficiently hidden. In my order from GRS was also one of their cab detailing packs that will be added in the coming days.



The wooden buffer beam was added and super glued onto the plastic chassis plate. When I add couplings these will be bolted through the sandwiched parts for strength.



The last picture is a quick mock up of the progress so far with the cylinder blu-tacked in place. I did order a nice set of metal Tenmille spoked wheels for the guiding pair. Although they were of a very high quality these were only 25mm and in my eyes looked far too small. I placed a pair of 30mm plastic wheels from an LGB wagon in as a place holder and I think they look about spot on. I had resigned myself to the fact I was probably going to have to pay £10 an axle for a pair of LGB's metal spoked wheels but I've since discovered that in Lilliput's fleeting foray into G-scale they produced spoked metal wheels of the same size for pretty much half the price. I managed to track down a set and I should have time to figure out how I'm going to attach them before they arrive.




Thanks for reading this far
Ricky

 

[Paul M]

Great looking loco, and very inspiring