Wally West scratchbuilt locos

Walter West passed away approximately two years ago and this category has been created to showcase his models that have been through my workshop, prior to the sale of most of them. He had spent his life building O gauge model locomotives from scratch, in finescale and one in scaleseven. The chassis of each being very fine examples of engineering in miniature. In the main locos from the constituent companies of the LNER. He was for many years a close family friend of that master craftsman Bernard Miller, who built and painted models for famous layouts of Stanley Norris, Neil Corner and David Jenkinson. I am sure that model making ideas and techniques passed from one to another, throughout their friendship. Jack Ray wrote in the March 1992 Gauge O Guild Gazette “No transfers were ever used by Bernard, every letter and numeral being done by hand – and shaded!” https://www.gaugeoguild.com/secured/gazette_archive/Vol11-10//offline/download.pdf
On checking with an eyeglass the lettering on the earlier models have unbelievably been painted by hand, confirming that Wally used him (an invoice from Bernard to Wally dated 18th Sept. 1970 for the painting of “Yorkshire” has been found) to paint his locos until Bernard passed away in 1980. In later years it is a known fact that Alan Brackenborough was his painter of choice. Having been asked by the family of Wally, to try to find buyers for most of his model locos, they are generally of such fabulous quality, so far it has not been a difficult task. All of Wally’s model locos on this site have been built using wheels turned from extremely good castings, probably by Alan Harris (AGH). The split axles and insulated spacers between the frames allow power to be collected, usually from the tender wheels, via sprung plungers mounted on the front face of the tender at drawbar level, connecting with contact faces on the back of the loco. All brake blocks are made from non conductive material to eliminate shorting across the brake rigging. All loco driving and tender axles have sprung hornblocks. All of these models are in fully working condition. At least five are around 50 years old, proving that Wally built his model locomotives to last.