Month: May 2020

RSH 0-6-0ST Aberconway

Mick Bayliss Loco commissions, Wally West scratchbuilt locos
Aberconway, built from scratch with fully working inside motion, circa late 1990’s by Wally West using wheels turned from good quality castings. The split axles and insulated spacers between the frames allow power to be collected through the non-insulated wheels and the frames to the JH motor and a double reduction gear unit. All brake blocks are made from non conductive material to eliminate shorting across the brake rigging. All loco axles have sprung hornblocks. Superbly painted in fully lined green livery by Alan Brackenborough. The detail of the hand applied lining in particular should be admired. A superbly built and painted model in every respect. The full size locomotive, which Wally fired as a lad, was a Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns 0-6-0ST no. 6942 of 1938 and worked at Cadeby colliery near Doncaster. She was scrapped in late 1963. I have had the model working with my rake of 20 mineral wagons and brake van. She has a modest top speed which is perfect for the job and would certainly pull twice that load, quietly and with no fuss.

BR(SR) N15 class 4-6-0 no. 30788 Sir Urre of the Mount

Mick Bayliss Loco commissions
30788 Sir Urre of the Mount
30788 Sir Urre of the Mount
BR(SR) King Arthur class 4-6-0 no. 30788 Sir Urre of the Mount

Built from the Gladiator kit, which was originally designed by Adrian Rowland under the North Star Design label. I started building this model on the 11th November 2019 and finished it on April 30th, taking 131 hours. It has been built with sprung hornblocks on the first and second axles, otherwise straight from the box, with Slaters wheels and an ABC motor/gears unit. The superb painting and lining is by Warren Hayward.

During the final stages of the build I got myself into a spot of bother with the left side motion. Throughout each stage of the build I had kept ensuring that there were no tight spots, with the coupling rods, then with the slide bars and crossheads, as any experienced builder does. Then when it came to the Walchearts valve gear. I built up each set exactly the same, (other than opposite hand of course) and fitted the right side first with no problems or tight spots. But when it came to the left side, something was wrong, too tight when the crosshead was at it’s end of the stroke on the slidebars. It took me some time to find the problem. As the right side had gone together so well, it couldn’t be a fault with the etches and I checked each side was built exactly the same. I can only put the cause down to tolerances (there is always a plus or minus tolerance on the location of everything) stacking-up all one way, needing the crosshead link to be extended by 1.5mm. All’s well now and he runs very smoothly.

When this kit was originally released, I was in the market to buy a King Arthur to build for myself and had a choice between the Modern Outline Kit and the North Star Design. I chose the MOK and enjoyed building it and have never regretted it. So when asked to build this on commission I looked forward to making the comparison. I can now advise that the MOK is a superior product, but is a good deal more expensive to buy. Sir Urre of the Mount here has built into a very nice model and I would say is good value for money. You pays yer money and makes yer choice.