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.
