

The model is largely complete, just needs a clean up and some casting for the axle boxes, lamps and buffers and a decision on couplings. Now I must get back to some locos!
This week has seen progress on the loco chassis and fettling the body to fit.
The chassis has had the wheels added and sprung and basic mechanical testing started.
The chassis uses some more of the London Road Models springing units:
Parts of the underside of boiler, firebox and cab front have been trimmed to accommodate the wheels and the body now sits happily on the chassis and is beginning to look like a loco:
Next to be done are the outside cranks and coupling rods.
This is to record my progress building a P4 version of the new EB Models etched brass kit for a Belgravia.
I am building No.206 Carisbrooke with the larger Craven tender. To meet my particular requirements I will be modifying the recommended construction method in a number of areas:
The tender was part finished in time for the Brighton Circle AGM in October 2007 and had the following modifications:
General view of the tender body:
Work then started on the loco body which has given some challenges:
General view of the loco body parts to see how they fit:
The instructions sensibly recommend building the chassis once the main part of the superstructure is complete. This allows inspection of clearances for the motor, wheels and chassis frames.
I wanted to fit sprung axle boxes to all axles, and this meant adding a strengthening plate to the chassis behind the rear axle and cutting out a horn block slot to match the other axles. For the loco I have used the High Level fold-up horn guides and axles boxes, together with the London Road Model spring mounts.
I found that a Comet GB4 38:1 gearbox and Mashima 1020 motor will fit at an angle in the firebox and drive the centre axle.
With the outside framing, I cannot see an easy way to provide split axle pickup without creating a 5-part extended driven axle! So I will probably use CLAG style stylus pickups on the drivers. This together with the tender pickup and springing will mean that there should be five electrical points of contact each side of the loco.
There will be a 4-way connector between the loco and tender to connect the loco pickups and motor wires to the DCC decoder in the tender.