The GCR had a lot of old Manning Wardle locos on their books, most of which were used for shunting work at Grimsby and later Immingham docks. 407B was perhaps one of the longest surviving ones, bought in 1880's and withdrawn in 1929:0 see here: http://www.lner.info/locos/J/j61.shtml
So I thought I'd have a crack at modelling one- I chose 'Moltke' (named after a Prussian General no less!) which with its sister engine 'Bismark' was built around 1876, and was purchased from contractors in 1880, finally being withdrawn from Grimsby in 1920.
The model is mostly scratchbuilt in nicklesilver- the tank and smokebox casting coming from an old (1970's) Peco kit. As you can see below, a lot is to be done, namely footplate detail (toolboxes etc) and dreaded things like handrails, plumbing etc.
It sits on a Farish O4 class chassis, which with its short wheelbase of scale 11ft is pretty much spot on for the Moltke/Bismark locos (just too small for my preffered choice of 407B- d'oh!)
Any pointers/constructive criticism would be received warmly- this is a first attempt at N gauge modelling AND first attempt at scratchbuilding anything in Nicklesilver!
Will
p.s- please forgive the 'wonkyness' of the loco- nothing is soldered together yet- it is all built in sub assemblies.
inside cylinder engine, probably an M class, but to be honest this is a fairly generic model-
I will remove the jackshaft (crank) and shorten the coupling rod. It is just about right although the very short wheelbase is waay out really- what else is there in this scale with see-through spokes/ blackened wheels and tiny can motor that we can use instead?!?!?!?!
It will hopefully look a lot less odd when the buffer beams and sandboxes have been fitted. Also the cab will sit at least 1mm lower- my measurements were slightly out on this piece and it need some height removing- do'hh!!
