I am building my first totally scratch built locomotive, which will be rather special. My previous loco used the chassis from a Bachmann 4 6 0. I am a member of the web group called &--8216;MyLargescale.com&--8217;(henceforth called MLS). They have with the Australian David Fletcher, who is a superb, and prolific loco builder put together, a Mini Class on building a model of the first loco in California, which and is called C P Huntingdon, henceforth called CPH.

This is a 4 2 4 tank locomotive, and Dave Fletcher has arranged with the American Loco builder Hartland Loco Works, via their spare parts contact, Phil Jensen to have a kit of parts available from their range to build this locomotive. In addition there is another member of the web group, Rick Raivley, who has made, and had laser cut in plasticard the parts (3 layers) for a simply superb rendition of the Rogers Locomotive works &--8216;Gothic style&--8217; cab. This has all the 11 windows with rounded tops cut out and this has made the assembly much, much easier. The cutting of this cab is a massive help and makes a beautiful cab, and additional detail can be added to it as well. In addition to the cab, he has also done a pilot, which is erroneously called a cowcatcher, and various other parts. They are well worth the money. Finally a specially designed and produced set of transfers are available in a variety of colourways for this little loco.

It was originally thought that about 10 or so would be built worldwide, mainly by new builders, and the Mini Class was written with new builders in mind, with continuing help available via MLS whenever required. This makes this article sound like a &--8216;plug&--8217; for MLS; I totally agree with that, for without them it would not have been possible, for what are now in excess of 50 of them, in various forms and colours, being built worldwide via the Internet.

My loco is much modified from the original CPH; which is what it started from. Right from the start I wanted a rather special loco, that is a locomotive and private car combined; say a very special Americanized version of the combined (small) locomotive and coach/baggage vehicle with the tender and my private car on one chassis. Members from the UK may known what F W Webb&--8217;s saloon was like on our pre-grouping London & North Western Railway, when it was paired with the locomotive Cornwall &--8211; that was the inspiration for mine with some modifications &--8216;en route&--8217;.

The loco was in my opinion with a single driving wheel had insufficient tractive effort with one set of driving wheels for steep (Colorado) Narrow Gauge purposes, I therefore, I decided that I was going to need a couple of driving axles and a guiding front truck; that meant the 4 2 4 was to be changed to a 2 4 0 tender engine, the tender itself being hugely modified along the way as well. That will make the loco a truly unique loco.

Considerable thanks are due to Dave Fletcher for sparing the time to make a set of PDF&--8217;s for the 2 4 0/2 4 4 version which is where I started from. The chassis is made first from the PDF&--8217;s that Dave Fletcher has made, and it two layers of 2mm plastic sheet. All the chassis is bolted together, so it can be undone and rebuilt several times whilst you are getting it correct. The motor and gearbox, and wheels and axles are all Hartland parts. I fitted brass bearings for the driving wheel axles; these came from John Dale at &--8216;Old Originals&--8217; at Shepshed, Leicestershire. He is on the web, and also makes an etched nickel silver chassis for a D&RGRR 2 8 0 in 1/20th scale. I have one to assemble and add the rest of the loco to it in due course; get the extra&--8217;s with it (cylinder etch and rolled (if requested) cylinder wrappers, + cast springs) as they are very good. Check that these bearing will fit the Hartland axles; mine needing widening out a tiny amount; I use a round needle file, check regularly that they fit as they do not want to be loose; at the same time ensure that the flats on the axle ends do not have a tiny burr on them; check with a magnifying glass, and remove it if one is shown to be there before enlarging the bearings.

The chassis, made from 2mm thick plasticard (with 2 layers for the sides) and is basically an extension of the single version, with the cylinders pushed outwards to accommodate the front end of the coupling rods. I also ground down the front crankpin fixing bolts on these (short) coupling rod pins top give a bit more clearance. The yoke that holds the end of the slide bars is also moved back; therefore new slide bars are made and fitted, from Plastruct square section rod, the rear end of which is fitted to the cross yoke with a screw at the rear of each. There were also new valve rods, which required new rear holes as well. The valve gear cranks are fitted to each end of a drinking straw filled with a plastic tube (kids lolly stick!) for strength. To hide the casting dimple on the ends of these I added a plastic disc to each to replicate the end of the cross shaft. My cross shaft is wider than normal, but I think the usual version will still need a tube for the cast ends to be fixed into. The front truck has some lead sheet added to the top of it to give it some weight, I fitted a couple of pieces to mine, and again this truck is all plastic.

Paint the chassis, and add the pre-painted wheels. I worked out that the driving wheel fixing screws can be ground down a small amount and still be OK, and that will allow on the raised circle edging around the center hole, a small disc to be fitted to each end of the axles. This will cover the fixing screw, but be easily removable if necessary, the photo shows one of the discs painted the maroon of my wheels in position. Here is a photo of a finished wheel showing the disc in position.



Get the chassis working correctly before starting the boiler, there is only one pickup (the rear wheels ) for current at the moment, I think I am going to try to add extra connectors on the front truck; there will eventually be more on the two bogies under the tender/private car as well. The wiring has not been completed and is still loose, and can be seen, in the photos below at the back of the cab. I will fit a plate for the base of the firebox that is easily removable if required, and it will clean up this area. One could also be fitted forward of the motor gearbox, possibly with a hole to allow the axle bearings to be oiled.

Here are a couple of photos of the chassis fitted with the wheels; these fit onto Hartland axles and they have a couple of flats to ensure a good fixing; the wheels are tight; using a rotary diamond burr in my motor tools I removed a tiny amount inside the central hole; this makes them easier to fit. This is important for the driven axle as the plastic gear that is pre-fitted to the axle should not be moved. I am lucky, as I had a plain axle to use as a &--8216;check axle&--8217;, and did all my &--8216;fettling&--8217; using this. On the driven axle the trial fitted wheels can be easily removed by using in the centre hole (this will eventually take the wheel fixing screw), a fine nosed pair of pliers to keep the axle still when pulling the wheel off. The very small opening out of this hole as above will help to reduce the number of times this wheel needs to be removed or put back for checking; finally also check the the centre of the wheel casting is free of any flash, as the wheel must seat totally home.








The boiler is the same as CPH; I had some trouble with the one of the bottom corners of the tapered section which was cured by more epoxy resin glue being added here with some filler until I had a good result. The paint on the boiler is Humbrol 27004, with gold painted paper boiler bands on .5mm plastic bands. The sand dome has swapped places with the bell; I had no bell bracket, so this is made from 3 layers of 1mm plastic card and the sand dome will have pipes to the front driving wheel. The steam dome is all scratch built &--8211; the top hemisphere is from one of the two part spheres available at our Motorway(freeway) service station that contain chewable toothpaste with a small polythene brush included &--8211; 2 for a pound = 4 domes in due course &--8211; discard the toothpaste if not required. Lateral thinking in action; well that&--8217;s what I call it, my wife has other ideas, she calls me a squirrel &--8211; always collecting bits of dubious value!

The smokestack is the Inyo version from Hartland, and has been fitted in preference of the higher and wider version to allow me to put the sand dome at the front of the boiler. I found that I could not get the headlamp bracket to fit, and allow me to (later) fit the smokebox braces, so they are the short versions fitted to a new base for the headlamp, as this also could not be fitted. With small plastic tube pillars between the two; these occupy the space between the new headlamp base and the upper edges of the shortened side brackets for the headlamp: it looks much better now. I have also fitted 2 smokebox door dogs that Dave Fletcher fitted to one of his versions of this locomotive (I think he has built 3 so far!); finally the outer ring on the smokebox has been polished up, as I like this style, so it is now painted silver.

The cowcatcher is Rick&--8217;s superb kit, with 4 escutcheon pins added between the spokes to assist the glue in fixing it in position. The rear of the wooden pilot beam will be slightly cut away to give extra clearance for the truck wheels. These came from John Dale and they are the small (24mm) 1Bachmann ones, the coach size,at 31mm are too big. Cut away the projecting axle end, grind it smooth and add a disc of plastic card over the end; this will then be able to accept one of the special transfer stars made for it.

All the driving wheel rods are all plastic. The rear (long) securing pins are from Hartland, as part of my extras that were a special order.

The cab is again from Rick Raiveley; and is a quite magnificent piece of work. I certainly could not make such a good job of it with all those round tops to the windows, and the clearance at the sides of some of the layers! The center one, the front is filled in with plasticard, as it is obstructed by the massive steam dome. Before assembling the cab, cut your window glass to size and store them away until it is painted. In addition I added some window sills, and also a set of &--8216;eyebrows&--8217; over the window tops to go with Dave Fletcher&--8217;s tiny &--8216;tubes & acorns&--8217; that he added. The roof has been reduced in length (there will be a small tender so it looked wrong being so long. Inside the roof I will add my usual light & dark painted alternate planks, made from 4mm wide planked 1/2mm thick plastic card, the roof exterior is done in my usual style, with end to end pieces of 1/4mm plastic rod, and scored lines for the cross joins of the lead sheets that comprised the roof covering. This replicates the soldering that joined the edges of the lead sheet roof covering; add roof rain deflector strips to your choice. It will be a mucky dark to medium grey. I add some non-regular washes of a darker colour at the end of this painting to finish it off.

I decided that it was going to be Rocky Mountain azure (or thereabouts), blue for a loco color, and Dave Fletcher beat me to it! Eventually I found a color that I was satisfied with, it is not quite an azure blue but it is still the sort of colour that I was looking for. The color is Revell reference number 51, and is painted onto a dark slate blue undercoat which is very necessary, as the blue is quite a thin color, with not much density. Cab window frames are a nice orangey Burnt Sienna. The interior of the cab will be a cream colour to replicate the polished wood interior of these cabs. The cab floor and the boiler step boards are both painted a brown red oxide colour (Gunze Sanyo H47 &--8211; Red Brown), the boiler stepboards are edged with a 1/4mm thick strip that will be brass color.


The handrails are piano wire with home made ball ends (1 bead, and two small bits of tube each) for the front ends of the rails, possibly they are a bit short, this is to allow for the scratch built (bits of tube again) ash removal chute on one side of the smokestack and they are both the same, there are fixings on the front sheet of the cab, which are also two bits of tube each. The rail will eventually be painted brass color. There will 4 flagstaffs &--8211; they are made, as are the housings for them; e again bits of plastic and tubes have been used, with the very tiny ones on the front of the headlamp shelf are however brass tube for strength. No flags yet, not decided if they will be fitted, other than a couple of white (extra train) ones by the sides of the headlamp.

All the bits have been assembled together for the photos, not fixed yet as there is still work to do, but it is coming along well. The tender/coach unit is still to do, and will be complicated!

That&--8217;s is as far as I have built so far, much more is still to be built, but it is in my opinion looking very nice. Again a great deal of Thanks are due to Dave Fletcher, and also Phil Jensen, and Rick Raiveley for all their work in getting together the bits for a set of unique (in the proper sense of the word) locomotives, of which this will be one of them.

Finally here are some photos of the work so far, the first two show all the sub assemblies placed in their final locations but not yet fixed; the next shows everything together with some of the sub assembles in front of the chassis & boiler/smokebox unit still in location, the last photo shows of the firebox unit for inside the cab, this will hide the motor when fitted.












©Peter Bunce 2006