Hornby T9 in EM Gauge

[Stevers]

Who doesn't appreciate the looks of the lovely Hornby T9? Back in 2014 I bought 30726 with the six wheel tender thinking it would be a quick win conversion to EM using a SEF T9 etched chassis. How hard could that be? Some of you will know where this is going! The bogie was built up, and then the 'power pod'. This was offered up to the Hornby body, and it was quickly apparent that the SEF chassis was for one of those very rare birds a T9 with 9'9" wheelbase and the Hornby splashers did not in any way align with the SEF bearings. That power pod went on to be converted to 00 Gauge to go under the battered Wills T9 intended to run on Beaminster Road.

A drastic change of plan was required. Over the years I'd used a variety of Perseverance chassis, so I purchased the one originally intended for the T9 Westward kit from Chris Parrish not long after he had resumed production. The first problem was that the full length Perseverance chassis was too tall to get the correct running height where the axles should just kiss the valance. I also wanted to compensate the chassis on the twin beam principle and drive the front axle to keep the gearbox out of the beautifully appointed Hornby cab. By the time I'd finished taking enough material off the top of the chassis to attain the correct ride height and enough material underneath to articulate the bogie, it was in two parts with a power pod and a vestigial frames above the bogie. The twin beam design means that the bogie itself was the third leg and independent of the power pod.

The Persy chassis has provision for hornblock cutouts, so I fitted High Level hornblocks and filled the many voids in the chassis with lead to add weight. In a moment of madness, I came up with an excessively complicated method of side control for the bogie using a light coil spring that vastly complicates removing the bogie assembly from the body.

Attention then turned to the body, and as others have recorded there is indeed insufficient room under the splashers for EM or P4 gauge wheelsets; cue a lot of scraping and measuring to ensure that I didn't break through to the paint. Eventually enough material was removed to fit the wheels and turn it into a very successful push along toy able to navigate crossovers at very high speeds - all good so far, but without brake gear or anything else to get in the way or a gearbox to slow it down.

Somewhat disillusioned with the whine of later Escaps, I'd adopted the Multibox gearbox very early in my builds, and wanted to use one of those with a Mashima 1220 motor then readily available. It was in trying to fit the gearbox that (so to speak) the wheels fell off the project. Quite a lot of material needed to be removed from the inside of the diecast boiler and firebox and this was done with tungsten cutters in a mini drill. I was only able to remove just enough material to fit the gearbox, but not quite enough material to allow the hornblocks and compensating levers to do their thing, so that the chassis effectively rocked on the front drivers. So near and yet so far, the project was parked while I got on with other stuff - notably a full length Lima HST and then a Heljan/Penbits 33/1 + Kernow 4TC, neither remotely suited to Verwood - but huge fun to do.

Along the way the delicately detailed Hornby body suffered somewhat so will require some repairs, some of which have already been carried out. The experience I've gained with the Wills T9 build means that I will be tackling this as one of those (no doubt illusory) 'quick wins' by means of the more compact, but still excellent Road Runner gearboxes from High Level Kits. The chassis is currently in bits spread across my bench, and it would be nice to clear that mess up. As someone who is paint phobic it's unfortunate that in studying the two principal varieties of T9 for the Wills/SEF build, it's become apparent to me that the Hornby cab cutout on my narrow cab body is only correct for the wide cab version, and will need to be made deeper requiring the paintwork and lining to be revisited - doh!

 

[john lewsey]

It's a great hobby isn't it

 

[AJC]

Fine work (and familiar issues), Steve.

The first problem was that the full length Perseverance chassis was too tall to get the correct running height where the axles should just kiss the valance.

Interesting to note that was also a feature of the Percy' chassis for the Hunslet Austerity (mercifully I realised before assembly...). I wonder whether it was a feature across the range? It certainly wasn't noted in the instructions...

Adam

 

[Stevers]

Westward T9s do seem to sit too high and that does spoil the look. I have a Westward T9 kit plus the Persy chassis supplied with it. The watercart tender has been built on SEF T9 etched bogies and that worked out really well, and was the third build that that particular chassis kit has contributed to. The problem is that I'm not sure that I'm brave enough to have a go at the loco with the quite crude riveting on the smokebox, the splasher clearance issues that are likely to result from finding a way to fix the ride height, plus the most crooked of running plates as foundation to it all. A good point of the kit is that either the cab floor or splasher castings can be trimmed to suit 00 or EM.

 

[Stevers]

A fair amount of effort to get me roughly back to where I was - a high speed push along toy, but hopefully a better engineered one to move it forwards.

First of all I created a set of Romford build wheels, to make setting up the chassis less fraught. As with the wheels for the 700 and Q, I 'machined' them in a cordless drill with a small bastard file to match the width and flange depth of AGW wheels. Once the first wheel was at an acceptable flange depth I used a vernier gauge to make the other three the same. I then thinned the flange slightly from the back and rounded the profile on each wheel. Finally I reduced them all to the width of the AGW wheel by taking material off the outside. Crude, but good enough for my purpose. A surprising issue was that the 'back to backs' were miles off as demonstrated by there being no slack when placed on EM track. This was quite a challenge to my limited machining capabilities. I needed to remove about .005" leaving a boss of about .005" proud of the rims, and the bosses had to be absolutely true after I had finished. The solution was a square of .005" nickel silver the size of the wheels with a boss sized hole in the middle. The surplus material could then be removed by rubbing the centre of the wheel on the NS shim on a slightly bigger bastard file, until the shim relieved the pressure on the centre. Pleasingly the assembled the wheels still ran true! These wheels must have been very old stock as the boss isn't drilled and tapped for a crankpin. This means I could set the crankpins at the short Drummond throw (9") - which is tempting, although I actually bought them originally for a Schools Class chassis build with a conventional throw. The thirty year old AGW bogie wheels look a bit rough as they had been rejected off my M7, but with the tyres stuck back on they will serve for the build stage.

It was at this point that the trouble really started! The SEF bogie, as first conjured into existence, seemed poorly engineered after the Wills T9, especially with the otherwise desirable side control being up between the frames, so I decided I'd move it to the bogie with a conventional centre screw with bushing to fasten it. I also wanted the weight of the engine to be on the centreline of the bogie on curves which I'm not convinced was the case before. The bogie frames weren't deep enough to hide all this, so I fitted a part section of tube that created a 'ground effect' bulge on the bottom. Above that goes the original tube with bushed centre hole and slightly shortened springs. Retaining that is the bogie top with wider slot to allow the bogie to pivot fore and aft. This is secured with the tiny screw and keeps those pesky springs from flying everywhere on removing the bogie. The top of the bogie has a couple of curved runners to allow pivoting from side to side.

The vestigial frames above the bogie have the mounting hole for the bogie in the centre and screws each side of that to fasten it to the mounting plate that is pinned and glued to the plastic body. Incidentally for a superheated T9 the centre of the bogie rear wheel should be 3" behind the centre of the front step, for a saturated engine they should be in line. This change must have been made to shave some weight off the driving wheels for what was a heavier and more powerful engine. [Edit. Not true - I had completely misread the Eastleigh Weight diagrams to come to this conclusion]

Also shown is the 'power pod' all cleaned up with the carefully sculpted lead weights that fit between the frames and the strange shaped equalising beams necessitated by the rear axle being under the cab floor. To make those work one cheek of the hornblock needs to be reduced by about 1mm as we're not looking for a huge amount of movement to make the compensation work. Previously the pickups were at the top of the chassis applied to the back of the wheels through gaps cut in the frames. This made the top of the chassis a very congested place and there will only be less room with the lower profile gearbox. As a result I've made good the gaps, and will fit the backscratcher pickups underneath as per the Wills/SEF T9. Happily the fastening for the PCB for these pickups will fasten the large weight in place, the smaller weight will be epoxied in once I know it won't foul the RoadRunner gearbox. The large weight will also be the fixing point for the four way PCB to connect to the tender pickups and DCC chip socket which will probably be retained. Also fitted this time round were the brackets to mount the injectors although the pivot for the equalising beams made this a bit trickier than with the SEF chassis design with lower pivots.

Although scale speeds through my test crossover are managed well, it is the tender that lets the side down on high speed runs, and even with the lightest of pickup pressure, not all of the wheels turn all of the time. This means that the tender will require some remediation, and before I tackle that I need to consider if it is indeed the correct type of tender! My engine will become 30729 a Bournemouth engine from 1958-60. The tender supplied is a 13' WB example which is correct from 1928 when 729 was transferred to the Central Division, but then according to Derry, there were two further tender changes in 1938 and 1954. In my period it was tender 2704, and I have asked on the SREmG forum if someone can confirm the wheelbase of that tender. [Edit. The reply was that tender 2704 was first fitted to a 700, so it must have been a 14' WB tender.]

The order for the RoadRunner gearbox (45:1) has been placed, and once the pickups are on, fitting that is probably the next step.

 

[Stevers]

As far as I can tell, the 14' WB tenders had the same bodies/tanks as the 13' WB tenders. The extra wheelbase results in a shorter overhang at the non-loco end of the tender. Once you know this the 13' WB tenders do look slightly odd!

Hornby sell the 14' WB chassis and keeper plate for the Black Motor separately, and I'm taking a punt on them fitting (or being made to fit) the T9 tender. Part numbers are:
X6944 Drummond 700 Tender Chassis Assembly With Pickups
X6946 Drummond 700 Tender Chassis Bottom Wheel Retainer

 

[Stevers]

Seeking just the gentle pitter-patter of wheels on rail joints, I decided that perhaps I shouldn't have to live with the SEF bogie being uncompensated, so at the rear of the bogie (to minimise the visual disturbance) I added a brass centre bearing exactly on the line of the outside bearings partially supported by a beefed up stretcher at the rear. Once all this was soldered in, it was reamed to achieve a good spin from the wheelset, then the outside 'bearings' (strictly speaking there aren't any) were carefully opened out vertically. This slotting is minimal, and the bogie will now just about cope with a 030" piece of styrene under one wheel.

Tapping the lead weight for brass screws didn't work for me, so I drilled clearance holes and then wider shallow holes to allow me to solder brass nuts in to take the 8 or 10BA screws to secure pickup PCB to the chassis and/or lead weights, and then at the top of the weight a screw for the motor wiring PCB. With the bogie freshly compensated and my patent 'bottomscratcher' pickups fitted, the loco and tender were taken down to the YMRG clubhouse for a push and pull round South Junction. Although this was broadly successful, the tender as expected proved a little wayward, and finally viewed head on, one of the front bogie wheels had a wobble on.

Interestingly, one of the driving wheelsets still didn't have the slack it should have on EM track, although I don't think it caused a derailment. It had occurred to me that my improvised 'machining' of the bosses might not have been 100%, but this was not the case. Finally, in desperation, I measured the Romford EM axles with my vernier calipers and yes, one was slightly longer than the other! The shorter one compared well with axles from a recent purchase, so the longer one was replaced with the result that the back-to-backs were now the same, tight on the back-to-back block and perhaps more importantly felt like they had just the right amount of slack on the track.

The Hornby body, not being compensated in vanilla form, is very light at the front, something that is a disadvantage to me. There is a plastic plug in the smokebox that currently stops me fitting weight in there, but I thought some weight could usefully be added between chassis and bogie that would also give the impression of the frames that should be there. There should be room for more carefully sculpted weight to be added between the frames once the RoadRunner gearbox is in, and hopefully in front of and above the drive in the body.


Somewhat boldly I had positioned the bogie pivot in relation to the front step, but going back to basics, I was pleased to find that front driving wheel to bogie pivot was the correct 39mm (9'9")*. [Edit: Not true see below] This side of the engine should surely have the sort of steam pipe that I laboriously made for the Wills T9, but this one just seems to have a second brake pipe to match the one on the other side. Despite that observation, you're only viewing this side because I realised that the tender step on the other side is damaged, luckily I bought a gash T9 loco body to provide a beautifully detailed cab for my Wills T9 build, and looking at the above I should also have just the step I need for a repair!

[Edit] * I had got this idea from the Eastleigh Weight Diagrams, but on looking at them for something else I realise I had completely misread them, and it should of course be 10'/40mm as per saturated. Any appearance of the steps being in front of the trailing bogie wheel must be camera angle. Now I have some rework to do! :-(

 

[AJC]

I do like that compensated bogie, Steve, very nice, especially with regard to the pivot arrangement - and you have my sympathies with regard to four-coupled locos with a bogie at one end: tricky beasts. I'm sure, by the way that the 'second brake pipe' you note must be for steam heat: I can't think of anything else with more than one vac' pipe (and even Brighton loco's with air pumps and pipes were discreet in that department).

Adam

PS - I was back at home over Christmas and dad showed me what he'd done to the rear end of my O2 which looks much more 'proper' in terms of lateral control for the (compensated) bogie hanging off the compensation beam. What with the two-year old playing trains at the time I forgot to take a pic'...

 

[Stevers]

Hello Adam, I was watching your 02 smoothly circling South Junction with interest on in the Clubroom on Wednesday. I understand it has twin beams on the driving wheels, so I'm wondering why the bogie has a beam going to it when it's not strictly necessary. One thing I hadn't noticed before was how the guard irons run down the outside and next to the rear of the bogie wheel before diving under to be above the rail. 'Tight' doesn't begin to describe the limited clearance under there!

On the T9 the brake pipe has a number of right angle bends and is smaller diameter than the steam pipe which looks quite different especially where it burrows under the valance at the front and rear in swept bends. Luckily, I made one in error for the wide splasher T9!
Steve

 

[AJC]

The extra beam is all about weight distribution - making the lead in the bunker do something useful. It may or may not help, but it was *fun* to do. This was an Iain Rice idea. No sure I'd go this way again, necessarily, but it performs well, after nearly 20 years of use.

The guard iron clearances are, as you note, absolutely tiny, but I did get them right first go. Same goes for the (even smaller) clearances around the steam brake cylinder on the driver’s side: most satisfying. Clearances must have been an issue on the real thing because quite a few O2s had bogie-mounted guard irons which is the obvious thing to do.

Adam

 

[Stevers]

Bogie back where it was originally, and frames extended to fill the gap. The holes in the Hornby running plate were drilled and plugged with styrene rod, and new holes drilled. Embarrassing to have to do, but not difficult!

The loom from my 13'WB tender fitted to my 14'WB chassis. I am somewhat relieved to report that the 14' WB and 13' WB tender chassis are completely interchangeable, the only complication being that the wiring loom has four wires (two red, two black) that are fed through two holes in the floor. These need to be unsoldered for the loom to be re-installed. Illogically, a black wire goes to each set of pickups, and a red wire goes to each leg of the capacitor - care needed when re-soldering those! The other difference noted is that the metal tender coupling spike on the 13' WB tender has been replaced with a sort of push fit plastic rivet to retain the tender coupling in place - a good thing for the loom, but fiddly to set up. The metal spike was turned down in my cordless drill to fit the slightly smaller hole. This will be used for quick coupling and uncoupling before the loom goes in to the loco.


Delaying the gratification of seeing the corrected tender with loco is the minor faff of building a compensated Comet chassis the hard way. As with the Q I have elected to fit HLK MiniBlox which has meant that I had to open up the 2mm slots on the chassis to 4mm, although this time I remembered to use a compass to scribe the necessary cut lines. The hornblocks require material to be removed from the corners adjacent to the spacers that are at each end. The bigger issue will be quite how the frame spacer at the loco end will relate to the socket and coupling spike, and that socket will need some protection and restraint. The frames will sit on the existing floor, and if I remember rightly the wheel slots will need widening for EM. The Hornby axle supports will be cut short, and the Hornby fixing bosses for the keeper plate used to retain the chassis via extra spacers across the bottom of the frames.

 

[Stevers]

What a difference a few days make - a T9 with correct wheelbase in all respects... The gentle pitter-patter of those tender wheels can now be heard on my test track, and I can confirm that it is now a very fast and capable push-along toy! How did we get here? Well, it wasn't entirely straightforward. The Comet chassis was built up and the equalising beams drawn up on the assumption that the chassis was flat on the floor and the existing axle positions would be retained. The front frame spacer was reversed using extra slots that I fretted in. This gave me the third suspension point and meant that I could leave the socket where it was on its original fixing. The trim adjustment is an 8BA screw and captive nut with locknut underneath. The head was substantially reduced in thickness and diameter so that it wouldn't intrude into the Hornby floor, and the screw cut to the exact length required - give or take a turn or two for trimming. The corner of the front spacer did have to be horribly ground out to clear the socket motherboard and screw - ugly! Photos will be taken when it's apart again.
The twin beams are threaded onto 1/16" tube with 0.71mm piano wire as pivot. Some brass strip was bent up and soldered to the insides of the frame so that the existing Hornby mounting points could be used, the plastic spacers are there because the screws didn't seem to want to go down tight. In fact the frame was reluctant to go down tight to the floor and I ended up spacing it up with .020" styrene to win myself a little more room for the trim screw and socket wires - this required 0.5mm to be removed from the twin beams, after which they were levelled side to side, one side being slightly high against the engine. The Hornby wheel openings needed widening, but not lengthening. The Hornby pickups were completely incompatible with compensation, being far too short to cope with axle drop, so have been removed. The original Hornby coupling spike went missing, and this is a brass replacement that I turned up in my trusty cordless drill. The Kadee coupling was from a #26 packet and has an unusually long shank ideal for UK prototypes. It's drilled, tapped and screwed to a little Hornby Mazak weight that lurks at the back of the tender interior, with the height set with a styrene spacer block. I still need to fabricate a surround for the socket and fit some brake shoes like the ones I fretted out for my 700.

The RoadRunner gearbox arrived today, and tomorrow has the potential to be more exciting than today. I've decided to drill and tap the gash Romfords for 9" throw, so could fit the coupling rods too - there would be little to no chance of that working with the standard throw!

 

[Stevers]

​

Tuesday was every bit as successful as it could be, but then life got in the way, delaying the supporting photographs. Anyway, the gearbox was indeed built, and there was even room for the M1224 motor that had previously been in the loco, although I did have to remove the remaining stump of the rear shaft for it to fit in its new position further back. I was able to leave the two sheets of lead that I had glued to the front of the backhead, and there should now be room for at least one strip of lead along the top of the boiler. More lead can go in front of the leading driving axle, and above that area in the boiler. A piece of fibreglass copperclad was thinned and divided into four strips ready to wire the tender in eventually. In the meantime I put some jumpers in between orange and red and the black and grey DCC 'channels'. A couple of epoxied fibre washers ensure that the low profile countersunk fixing screw wouldn't cause a short circuit.

Underneath the chassis is the jig used to drill the crankpin holes in the Romford Wheels at 3mm throw. The pins go each side of the inline spoke and were bent to achieve the best fit. If nothing else the crankpin holes are dropped in the same place, if not the perhaps exactly the right place. My mini-drill stand was used for this, and the resulting holes were easily tapped 10BA.

​

The Markits Deluxe crankpins were threadlocked in place (Loctite 243), and the coupling rods fitted. Surprisingly there was no binding, but then there was already a bit of slop in the coupling rods from when the AGW wheels had been fitted with these cranknuts on pukka 14BA steel screws. I hadn't noticed until now that my gash build Romfords have different sized weights!

​

As seen here, there really are only working clearances round the coupling rods and those bulky crank pins, so I think we can safely assume that the coupling rod splashers have been modelled a tad overscale by Hornby - something we should be most grateful for! The result of all the changes is a smooth running, but not stupidly fast Hornby T9. The Hornby fastening screw is currently missing, but to compensate the tender coupling prong has turned up. The 'ground effect' bulge under the bogie needed to hide the centring springs can be seen here. With the fundamentals addressed, from here I just need to put back all the detail that the lovely Hornby model came with - with just a few 'improvements'.

 

[Stevers]

Neither of the Comet brake shoes options were right for the T9, so I dug out the ones I drew up for my 700 and printed them out ready for a spot of fret sawing. Accuracy in this is usually everything, but in this case as they're almost invisible, it's no good getting too hung up on them. The astute amongst you will have noticed that the brake hanger holes were at the wrong end - that was a mistake on my part when I turned the wrong spacer. Having worked up a drawing that I thought mated the Comet chassis to my brake gear I drilled them all in slightly the wrong place requiring the top wires to be cranked to make them only sort of fit. The top wires ran right through the equalising beams and I started out with a hole, but struggled to get quite enough movement so opted to reinforce the top of the beams and open out a slot. No attempt has been made to clean anything after an agreeable soldering fest. Note the gouging out of the front frame spacer to gain clearance for the socket board and wiring, and further excavation for the Hornby mounting point.

Little legs in the air showing the Comet pull bars - and it does look much cleaner this side. This view reminds me that I ground away the boss of each wheel to gain some more clearance between the 13' WB frames. Oddly with the compensated etched chassis clearance doesn't seem to be the same issue, unless of course there is just more room between the 14' WB 700 frames.


Next I tackled the broken step on the tender by grafting on a right side loco step from a damaged Hornby body bought primarily for the cab detail for another build. The illusion of it being any sort of satisfactory repair is completely ruined by it being in lined olive green! Barely glimpsed through the frame cutouts are those time-consuming brake shoes - they should show up better once painted a light rusty brown. The 'power pod' isn't fastened in so a little too far forward in this shot. Ahead of a test run at the clubroom with the green train of Kitmaster Mk1s I've been adding weight to the loco, primarily in the boiler ahead of the gearbox and some more between the frames under the cab.

 

[AJC]

Ahead of a test run at the clubroom with the green train of Kitmaster Mk1s I've been adding weight to the loco, primarily in the boiler ahead of the gearbox and some more between the frames under the cab.

That rake is a challenge (though I think dad has retrofitted pinpoint bearings?). I look forward to hearing how many the T9 will take, especially round the flyunder. Not scientific, I realise, but I think the record - that we've tried, anyway - was 54 minerals (108 axles) behind my converted Bachmann 66xx. My industrials with either 1220 or 1224 motors will shift around 30 wagons (60 axles) so that would be a reasonable benchmark?

Adam

NB - there are those, quite well-known modellers some of them, that aver that modern RTR mechanisms can't do such things. They are wrong.

 

[Stevers]

RTR mechanisms absolutely can, but they do tend to stumble over the baseboard joints on South Junction. Anyway after a bit of familial mingling at a christening in Surrey over the weekend, we both started the very mildest of cold symptoms, so to keep the incumbents of the YMRG Clubhouse safe, the Kitmaster test by ordeal will have to wait another week. Meanwhile the relevant bits of the GA in Bradley were scaled and traced in Bradley, then printed out, UHU'd to some .015" nickel silver sheet and fretted out to 'help' produce this partly assembled set of parts:



'Help' as the hangers are from the Perseverance etch. The brake shoes provided were nothing like those seen on prototype photos and these are my own. What could go wrong?

So with the top pivots added in the pre-supplied etched holes and the brake hangers attached, this was to my eyes the most unsatisfactory result. By my reckoning at least two chickens have come home to roost. Anyone who also thought there was an awful lot of firebox/grate was absolutely right, and with everything dismantled for the brake fitting it was clear that the bearings were within a whisker of the top of the available travel in the hornblocks. Not a problem in itself, but a symptom of a deeper malaise in that the chassis is sitting about 1mm too far out of the body. This is confirmed by the position of the top pivot points for the brakes which should be 1.5mm below the valance and not 2.5mm. That 1mm would set the bearings in the centre of the hornblocks. So what of the other chicken? Well those Perseverance hangers are too long, and the front one not quite the right shape, so I shall be fretting out some replacements. Next job is to add 1mm to the equalising beams, somehow lose 1mm at each end of the power pod, and then redo the hangers and try again.

 

[Daddyman]

Respect for not giving up. Good luck!

 

[Stevers]

Respect for not giving up. Good luck!

Thank you! At some level suffering is I suppose good for the soul, but probably mainly when it stops, and to be fair things are looking up as I edge ever nearer some sort of truth. The extra daylight under the grate has already made a huge difference to the 'look'. That heavy look in that area was something I had noticed since resuming the build, and should have acted on before. Looking back at my photos, I started this in 2014, had another go in 2020, and this time it will be finished!

 

[Stevers]

What a difference a day makes! There's no doubt that having things near enough in the right place, and the right shape and size, works some sort of magic. The cross pieces have a bit of flatted wire added to the tops and the whole stub rounded off. This better matches the prototype, but it might also give me just enough room for my pickup PCB.

To keep me on my toes, there is a bit of a hump developing in the plastic running plate, and the chassis needs to move back in the body just a fraction more.

 

[Stevers]

Once I'd moved the chassis up in the body it became obvious that the chassis was now too far forward, so I ended up dismantling the rear end of the chassis to make a 'proper' job of it. The solid brass dragbox (probably made from the pin of a 13Amp plug) had been epoxied in and was now in the way of me moving the chassis back to where it was supposed to be, so it had to be prised out, cleaned up, material removed and then re-instated with new drilled and tapped holes. The top one fastened the drag box to the rear spacer and also secures the rear lead weight. The bottom one holds the tender coupling and is used to mount the brake arm bracket. There was a bit of argy-bargy to get the lead weight the right thickness to exactly fill the available space. The channels each side are provided to take the tender wiring.


This is a general view of the undergubbins. The brake rigging was traced from the GA in Bradley and fretted out, the pull rod from the brake cylinder lever plugs into the slotted end of the main pull rod and is retained by a loop of .005" shim. The mounting point for the tender drawbar has been moved back out of the way of that brake lever, requiring a much shorter drawbar retaining only one end of the Hornby one.

Next, I had to determine why the running plate had developed that hump. This did seem to be related to the Hornby fastening screw, and this was found to be putting a transverse bending force on the running plate via the Perseverance chassis frames each side - pulling down in the middle and thus lifting the sides. The thin running plate had been weakened when I had removed a styrene packing piece when I raised the chassis, making the situation significantly worse. The solution was to make a lead weight that exactly fitted the space between power pod and bogie mount - simulating the frames that should be there, and to ensure that the chassis was fastened down only to the centre of the running plate to remove the bending force.

After that I spent a fun couple of hours levelling up (and down) by adjusting the compensating beams and trim points until everything was close enough to where it should be side to side, fore and aft and loco to tender. Looking at the left pointing photo though, it looks like the loco might need just one more cycle of levelling up.

Next up is adding sand pipes in conjunction with an extra lead weight in front of the gearbox, and making the brakes demountable by fretting through the top pivot wires and sleeving them with microbore brass tube. On test it was already heavy enough to make spinning its wheels sound like hard work - and that's with what look like slippery nickel silver tyres... It would be nice to have it painted and back together in time for an encounter with the green Kitmasters on Wednesday evening. A T9 should be good for timing eight Mk1s up to Waterloo, so that's the target.