The story is that I purchased a Ragleth power unit with the intention of building a steam railmotor around it. These vehicles have always fascinated me and, although they were rarely very successful in twelve inch scale, I thought it would be an interesting and unusual model for a garden railway. However, like most commercial 0-4-0 chassis the wheelbase is set well forward in the chassis with a large overhang at the back. This would make it a bit unstable with the weight of a coach hung from the back of it. I did come up with ideas to transfer the weight forward but in the end decided it just wouldn't look right, so shelved that idea.
So what to do with my power unit ? Being an L & B fan I had always liked the Manning Wardles and at the time there were none commercially available - the Accucraft Lew was still expected at some nebulous date way in the future and anyway I prefer the look of the original three locos. So I thought why not make a sort of might-have-been body in the style of the Manning Wardle.
So I took an old Shreddies box and started making cardboard patterns to see what it might look like and eventually ended up with something which I thought looked right. I bought some sheet brass and after many hours of sawing, drilling, filing, rubbing down, soldering, cleaning, tweaking and more filing and rubbing down this is what I ended up with
I must admit I thought it looked so nice in its naked brassiness that it seemed a shame to paint it, especially as I wasn't sure at that stage if I could make an acceptable job of it. But it had to be done so here it is in etch primer
At this stage, knowing what space was available, I fitted the radio control gubbins, battery and regulator servo under the floor, receiver, switch and reversing servo in RH side tank
Then the nerve wracking bit began. Having sprayed it all over in Southern dark olive I set to work on the lining using a Peter Spoerer ling pen - after much practising on pieces of scrap first. There were one or two places where it didn't quite go according to plan and needed tidying up a bit but generally I was well pleased with the results. I did the white lines first and, once dry, went round again with a black line outside the white, filling in up to the panel edge with a small brush as I went. After applying the transfers the whole thing was sprayed with varnish. Some satin varnish is a bit too matt for my taste so I used a mixture of gloss and satin.
Here is the end product
I couldn't find a spare unused number in the Southern number series but found no 195 which was originally carried by an O2 class 0-4-4T and became redundant when the loco went to the Isle of Wight. This appears to be how Lew got no 188. Looking for a three letter name that sounded like an L & B name I thought of my daughter Becky whose name gets shortened to Bex in text messages. Perfect !
The only slightly negative side to the whole project is that the design is necessarily tailored round the Ragleth boiler which is quite fat and bulky for a little engine. This makes it seem slightly overscale with L & B stock but all in all I think it's quite a pleasing looking loco and I was well pleased with my first attempt at scratch building a body and painting and lining.
Brian
