Throwback Thursday

Whilst having a clear up (and a bit of a clear out) in the model room and straightening everything out to restart layout building, I unearthed the stock boxes I used for taking my stock to run on our group layout when we had one. Whilst some stock has been running on Wheal Ponder, much of it hasn’t and been laid up in the boxes.

Two of the locos had fouled the vegetation when Wheal Ponder was first built so they’ve languished in the stock boxes ever since. However, the thought struck that maybe they might be alright now that I’d given the vegetation a trim to allow the Bachmann Quarry Hunslets to run. Pleased to report that they both can now run on the layout and will no longer reside in the stock boxes out of the way.

Both locos were built twenty five years ago in my early twenties. And were before the days of Narrow Planet bespoke nameplates becoming available. They were also influenced by the birth of Bachmann’s American on30 range and the fact that some British lines had imported American built locos in the late 1890’s, with the Henmore Dale Light Railway being just one of these.

‘Falcon’ is my first Bachmann Porter bash and was the first loco I messed around with when getting back into modelling after university. Heavily influenced by the version the late Tim Allsopp had finished just before me, it uses a modified Banta cab, styrene and plenty of Wrightlines and Branchlines fittings. The cab detailing with all the pipework is something I’m still proud of today.

The second loco ‘Merlin’, is a Backwoods Miniatures ‘Selectakit’ loco, this one being the closest I thought to a little brother to the L&B’s Lyn loco. I had a kit for the saddle tank version as well for a time but that found a new home several years ago as being a less convincing British style loco.

It’s a compact prairie tank and by sheer fluke, clears the linhay loading dock steps by a whisker!

Both have been extensively tested in an enjoyable running session.