Project 620 - the other one...

While i'd been working on my model of preserved 621, i've also had a second loco on go at the same time. This one for my brother's birthday present. He wanted a black 620 with red lining (as per 624 preserved at the National Railway Museum)... so this naturally jumped the queue in order to get it finished for mid march.

I'll provide the details later on, but an overview is as follows:

Body - styrene, RRM 720 class Polyurethane cab (with staff exchangers cut out), brass.
Chassis - heavily kitbashed Mehano USRA light pacific frames (centres cut and shut to be correct), Mehano kitbashed trailing and pony truck (both fitted with SEM wheels), Romford 19mm drivers, High-Levels gear box and Mashima motor
Tender: Heavily cut and shut RRM 720 class tender, SEM bogies, scratchbuilt underframe, RRM marker lights, Model etch air hoses and 710 class tender ladder.

Project 620

This has been one of those idea's i'd had floating around in the back of my head for several years now, but was always dropped into the "too hard basket".

For some reason (maybe an act of madness), I finally decided to get stuck into building an SAR 620 class light pacific. Now, unfortunatley there's no RTR chassis (that i'm aware of anyway) that had the right wheelbase and driver size for the 620, however the old Mehano USRA light pacific (later IHC) was "that close" with wheel spacings about 3mm too far apart - nothing a bit of surgery couldn't fix. More on that later.

I started work on the superstructure first - the lads at Rocky River Models kindly provided me a 720 class cab, two 720 class tender bodies, some marker lights, smoke box door and water treatment equipment castings (Thanks Stu and Peter). The body quickly took shape over a period of three weekends - working in styrene actually made this process easier.


The loco body takes shape

Fast forward a few weeks, and the mechanism had been fitted, and is in the process of having the unique baker valve gear assembled.



Having managed to get rid of a slight bind that was annoying the say the least, the drivers side valve gear is almost complete - just have to fabricate the gear hanger, to enable me to add the eccentric crank and rods.

More to follow.

OBF Kits Now Available

Hi All,
As alluded to in previous blog posts, my Brother has been working on a kit of the Fabricated OBF 4 wheeled wagon.

The polyurethane kit includes decals, Model Etch brass shunters steps, Model Etch brass handbrake, K&M wheelsets and brass top hat bearings - all of this for $40 AUD. If anyone is interested, contact Nick at sarail507 AT gmail DOT com

Below is a shot of the sample kit I assembled a few months ago - the castings are far better quality now, having been cast by the team from Rocky River Models who were kind enough to look after the casting, as they had access to a vacuum tank.