Garden Railway Forum

Hi folks, first of all thanks for this great resource. As a lockdown project, I have been putting together a PDF models 3D printed Fowler Peldon kit. It whetted my apetite to try something a bit more ambitious - building my own loco from scratch. I've never tried this before, but I was inspired to do so by Rik's Peckforton Light Railway blog, where he details in a pretty much step-by-step way, his process for scratchbuilding steam outline locos (if you are reading this, Rik, thanks very much!).

My loco will be based (loosely!) on the Bagnall 2-4-0 locos that ran on the Rye and Camber Tramway. My reasons for choosing these locos were:

- They look relatively easy to build
- They were very small, and most photos show them pulling only 1 or 2 coaches, meaning I could use a cheap budget chassis and it wouldn't matter if it cannot pull much.
- I just love the way they look - idisoyncratic and almost like a toy engine.

Mine isn't based on either of the Rye and Camber locos in particular. The idea is to make something that Bagnall might have made around the same time, but to 2ft gauge (Rye and Camber was a 3ft gauge line).

I found a second hand book on Amazon about the Rye and Camber tramway, which contained drawings of the locos. I scanned these and blew them up to 'real life' (16mm scale) size to make measuring straight forward. I then furnished myself with a little motor chassis kit found on ebay, for £16, some plasticard in various thicknesses, and a length of plastic pipe of more or less the correct diameter for the boiler, and blithely got to work. The intention is to build a body from plasticard, buying as few proprietary fittings as possible. Power will be from in-built nimh batteries and an IP engineering manual speed-control kit.

Here's what I've done so far.

Looks like a good start to me, please keep us updated as you go.

Cheers, will do, been really enjoying the project so far.

The parts so far look well cut out. Good luck with the rest of the build, and above all keep enjoying it !!
Grant.

Looks really great so far and you will get so much more satisfaction from building from scratch your own models. They are so unique to you and much better than 'off the shelf' kits in a lot of ways.

Keep the updates coming please.

Great to see a new scratchbuilder in styrene/plasticard. Keep the progress pictures coming.

Very neat. But - Watch out! It’s a slippery slope. It’ll take over. You’ll become a drawn, twitchy shadow of your former self... You won’t be able to go to the supermarket without checking the packaging (of products you’d never normally consider) looking for that container top that might make a dome, the plastic picnic glasses that might do for a tapered boiler, the clear, vacuum formed tray you might get that cowl above the smokebox door on ‘air-smoothed’ Bulleids out of, thick cardboard that’ll be useful for templates... Aaargh!

BertieB wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 3:41 pm Very neat. But - Watch out! It’s a slippery slope. It’ll take over. You’ll become a drawn, twitchy shadow of your former self... You won’t be able to go to the supermarket without checking the packaging (of products you’d never normally consider) looking for that container top that might make a dome, the plastic picnic glasses that might do for a tapered boiler, the clear, vacuum formed tray you might get that cowl above the smokebox door on ‘air-smoothed’ Bulleids out of, thick cardboard that’ll be useful for templates... Aaargh!

You almost sound as though you're talking from experience Bertie...

This looks like a great project - lovely choice of inspiration, and it looks like you're getting on really well.

One of my earliest railway memories is from Camber - not the tramway, of course, but watching the Rainhill cavalcade in 1980 on the telly in a little chalet with my Dad. Looking back, the day in question was also my Mum's 30th birthday - I wonder if she was entirely pleased?!

Apologies, I got side-tracked - I very much look forward to seeing your progress, thanks for sharing your work so far.

All the best,

Andrew.

Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. Today I completed the chassis, making and adding the front pony truck, then the connecting rods and cylinders. So my brass work might not be the neatest, but this is literally the first time I have soldered two things together that weren't wires!

The connecting rods were cut out and filed to shape from brass sheet, and the cylinders are sections of a biro. I chickened out of trying to construct working motion for the cylinders, but one advantage of the prototype is that this was hidden by a flap (the only concession I can see by the Rye and Camber to 'tramway' type safety features) meaning I could get away with a simpler arrangement.

Looking good! I approve of anything that uses bits of old biro and am impressed by any soldering skills - mine are hopeless!

I believe the flaps were to stop sand from the beach getting into the motion - the wagons had bits of sack over the axleboxes for the same reason, I think...

Cheers,
Andrew.

Looks very nice to me. Brass soldering, now that's an art in its self. Well done...

Tom85 wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 11:37 pm ..... if you are reading this, Rik, thanks very much! .....

I am, and I'm delighted my ramblings have inspired someone to have a go themselves

Tom85 wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 11:37 pm My loco will be based (loosely!) on the Bagnall 2-4-0 locos that ran on the Rye and Camber Tramway.

An excellent choice - by coincidence, that was going to be my next choice of prototype, so I am following your build with interest. It just so happens I have a Phil Sharples chassis sitting on my ToDo shelf as we speak. I was considering using an LGB Feldbahn loco motor block but the cheapest I could find was £270, so I might follow your lead - and hopefully learn from your experiences.

Keep up the good work!

Rik

BertieB wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 3:41 pm Very neat. But - Watch out! It’s a slippery slope. It’ll take over. You’ll become a drawn, twitchy shadow of your former self... You won’t be able to go to the supermarket without checking the packaging (of products you’d never normally consider) looking for that container top that might make a dome, the plastic picnic glasses that might do for a tapered boiler, the clear, vacuum formed tray you might get that cowl above the smokebox door on ‘air-smoothed’ Bulleids out of, thick cardboard that’ll be useful for templates... Aaargh!

And we all thought Coronavirus was the greatest threat ......

Rik

After an enjoyable afternoon's work today, it's beginning to look like an actual loco...

Coming on well,Tom. Keep up the good work.

Tom85 wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 6:22 pm it's beginning to look like an actual loco...

It certainly is Tom. There's no stopping you now, your hooked!
Grant.

Impressive. Certainly looks like you've needed less filler than my first scratchbuild!

Thanks for the encouragement folks. I have used quite a lot of filler... And I haven't attempted the dome yet!

Tom85 wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2020 10:25 am I have used quite a lot of filler...

Haven't we all?

That's looking very good indeed, nice one!

I look forward to seeing more progress in due course...

Andrew.