A Tale of two Locos :: Fotopic.Net

Shifting Sands - Colin Peake's O9 Railway Modelling

A Tale of two Locos

11th January 2008

Regular readers of this site will be familiar with my first O-9 loco, a combination of Dapol railbus and Drewery shunter kit parts on a Bachmann US chassis. This was always a little on the small side compared to my later locos and had recently been sidelined as it needed a very different touch on the controller than the other power units.

In the summer of 2007 I rebuilt the loco on an Atlas chassis and incorporated an underframe below the existing body, adding about 3.5mm to the height of the loco.

I'm often asked how I built the model, and as I didn't take step by step photos at that time, I have taken the oportunity to do so whilst building a second loco to the same design, but incorporating the revised underframe style. This actually sits on the original Bachmann power unit!

Rather than have a class of two, this second model is destined to become a version of the same loco in an earlier timeframe to the SMR example. This is part of a project through 2008 to add some 'history' to the Shifting Sands loco and rolling stock fleet, by creating past identities for stock and modelling some of them. I call it 'Project Backstory'....

The story behind what is now the SMR's 'Intrepid' is that it was built for the Crimdon Dene Miniature Railway in the North East, where it will feature in 1970s form on Andrew Blackwell's project. In the 1980s the loco moved to the Somerthorpe Miniature Railway as represented by Shifting Sands, and where it will be seen in 1990s form...

My original loco gains a new underframe, seen here at an early stage.	A head on view, the new buffer beams are attached to the loco frame, rather than the bogies as before.	A side on view of the rebuilt loco, which was actually further modified before painting.
Sides, ends and roof reassembled from Dapol components with a little bit of scratchbuilding.	With one end attached to each side, a dry run of assembly was made.	The bodyshel assembled and filled.
The next stage was to add the underframe shape and sort out chassis fixing.	A quick comparison with the original to check all is well.	Door, roof and front end detail is added.
The bufferbeams have an overlay of 10 thou plasticard bent to shape.	The other end of the loco. Roof detail is largely from the scrap box.	The lights on the cab ends are Peco track pins and a turned 4mm scale wagon buffer head!
The shell is seen in primer, at the gap finding and filling stage.	Another view of the shell in primer.	The underframe and roof were masked off and the dark green sprayed from an acrylic car aerosol.
Buffer beams and roof were hand painted using enamel paints.	'Whisker' transfers are from the original kit, lettering from an old SMS sheet.	Completed, varnished and glazed, with couplers and all details added.
A comparison with the original at Shifting Sands shed.	The various detail differences can be explained by the models being at least 20 years apart in their timeframes!	An 'archive' view of the loco on arrival at Shifting Sands from the CDMR.