I’ve not contributed much here lately, so I wondered if forum members might be interested to see the most recent addition to the locomotive fleet. Like my Beyer-Peacock Mogul, No. 71 is built on a much-modified LGB chassis which was acquired cheaply on eBay minus tender. It ran so well that I just attached a spare Bachmann tender to it and painted it black, but it was always intended to be the basis for something else. A friend told me that I needed a project, so I took a deep breath and stripped it down, thinking to myself that it never looked like any American 2-6-0 that I’d ever seen anyway. Then Flu struck, and the project proceeded much faster than my usual glacial pace! The inspiration is a series of 2-6-2T built for Spanish railways by Sharp Stewart around the end of the 19th century. The intention was to model a La Robla example, but I couldn’t work out how to reproduce the outside Walschaerts valve gear. Then I came across a couple of photos of a Vasco-Asturiana loco which appeared almost identical, but had inside valve gear so I had no more excuses not to start. I had to make my own drawings from photographs for this one, and like my other locos it has detailing in the house style (e.g. air brakes) rather than being a wholly faithful copy of the prototype. Construction is much like the Beyer in plastic sheet. The boiler is an acrylic tube and rivets are applied individually (don’t look too closely). Power is from the track, picking up on all wheels with the pony wheels running on split axles, and performance is as smooth as the original loco though the haulage capacity is less as it’s quite a bit lighter, but she’s quite happy with the four coach local which is her regular job.
Phil
Phil
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