Snowed in again

I was supposed to be at work today but the arctic blizzard outside put paid to that. The snow was shooting past the house at about 900mph... maybe a slight exaggeration; whatever the speed it had turned out well for me as all I could do was light the fire and set up the layout in preparation for a visit from the chief engineer of the WEKbahn later in the week.

The view from our kitchen window between snowy blasts

Once I'd had good operating session I decided that now I should be allowed to get back to making something. I started a Varikit bash some time ago which turned into Staithes and used virtually none of the kit so the rest of the kit was lurking about as was a Graham Farish 03 chassis.

Staithes at Underhill

I had a dry run the other night to see if something could be done to combine the two and it looked promising. Having spent so much time looking at Englands at work recently I've involuntarily come up with a sort of six wheeled mid period England type thing.

Plenty still left to do, filling and cleaning up the file marks for a starter. Then a fixing to join chassis to body, I think a small hole in the chassis and a small screw up into the smokebox should do it. It also needs some more weight adding as low down as possible as it is a bit top heavy. Hand rails for the cab and filler for the front indentations as I only want them at the cab end, might be a bit tricky fitting them to the back sheet.

I've got rid of the the jackshaft from the chassis and added a pair of cylinders but I haven't had the nerve to go to the garage to find some Minitrix piston rods which I think will be about the right size.

I quite like the chunky little thing, I decided to put an earlier version of this... thirty years earlier... on eBay this week as I never run it but I liked the general arrangement of that which is quite similar. It continues my 'one in, one out' policy with locos.

Continuing the England look I might see how a tender looks behind it. I've got a spare Langley one somewhere. I should be at work tomorrow, weather permitting but otherwise I might crack on with this. Name is to be Nancy.

Grace Alice with the new Parkside Dundas VoR coach and van bash 

A PECO r-t-r L&B wagon in action