Garden Railway Forum

I'm getting ready for the garden railway by working on some budget stock that the little one can play with. We're having an extension put on this year so the track laying will have to wait until that is done.

In the mean time I've started with a Ruston 48DL inspired battery loco built out of stuff I already had. The chassis is a big-big train powered bogie from a hymek where the body had cracked, the body is being built from 3mm ply with car body filler to neaten it up.

I started by making spacers for the chassis so the footplate would sit level.


Next the footplate with holes cut so it doesn't interfere with the wheels.


I then shaped the radiator and a firewall for between the engine and cab area and fixed them on.


Then glued the rest of the pieces for the front in place.



Mounted on the chassis.


I've started using body filler to fill in gaps and smooth things out, it also has a skim of filler inside the shell to make the body stronger (hopefully toddler proof).



There's still some sanding and filling to go, the next stage will be to build the cab area and the buffers.

I think this'll look good when finished

Looks good so far, you've really captured that distinctive Ruston look.

More work done....


The colour isn't very clear, it's the same blue as a pale blue Morris Minor (because that's what I'm spraying in the garage at the moment ) I'm planning on wasp striping the buffer beams before putting the coupler on and will add a bit more detail in the cab, but won't go into full detail as it is going to be played with by a small child.

It's turned out a bit more wonky than I hoped, but given I haven't tried scratch building anything for close to 20 years I'm happy enough with it

And done....



I decided to detail the cab a little bit, but not too much as it is a small persons train. The wasp stripes were a nightmare as the paint leached under the masking tape and then refused to dry for three days (I finally ended up cooking it on the radiator!).

I gave it a quick run on a loop of mamod track and it runs nicely, pulling the coach with no difficulty

Nice job.
I know what you mean about painting wasp-stripes. I had similar problems painting my current loco project. Maskol works quite well but can be a sod to apply.

Looks good - is that the same type as one of the Tal-y-llyn diseasils?

It's based on a 48DL a lot of them were used on military lines from what I've read, one difficulty is that Ruston Hornsby seemed to do several body styles for the 48DL and I based this one off of pictures from the internet so it's an amalgam of a few similar styles. Midlander is a close relative but with a higher HP engine.