Peckett “Thurwhit”, Alpha Cement, Purfleet, 7th August 1963 Picture by Geoff Plumb and used with permission.

What started as idle thinking about different Peckett loco’s as I was sound fitting a batch of Minerva 0 scale Pecketts has turned into a full blown project. I was musing that this Peckett, Thurwhit, would make a bruiser of a model with its dumb buffers, open cab and an air of industrial muck.

The full caption for the photo is, “A Peckett 0-4-0ST “Thurwhit” (Class R2 No. 1734 of 1927) has returned from the exchange sidings with BR into the yard at Alpha Cement works near Purfleet in Essex, Wednesday 7th August 1963. The three cement silos can still be seen to this day, just to the west of the M25 on the north side of the Dartford crossing of the River Thames. Slide No. 237.”

Peckett “Thurwhit”, Alpha Cement, Purfleet, 7th August 1963. Photo Geoff Plumb

Initially I was just thinking about doing a model for myself. Then I showed some of my ideas on social media and now I find myself doing several.  The donor model isn’t an R2 class but it has enough similarities to be a good starting point to alter and modify. There were two colour pictures of `Thurwhit’ that I found on the internet by Geoff Plumb so a first move was to seek permission to use them.

This was generously granted by Geoff and he pointed me to two earlier images online which opened a can of worms. Geoff’s photos showing Thurwhit with an open back cab were taken in August 1963 and it looks like its a warm day. The other photos were taken in April 1959 and show Thurwhit with a full cab back. So, is that winter/summer  options or did it lose its cab back completely at some point between 59 & 63.

An internet search hasn’t revealed any further images of Thurwhit but records it was scrapped but not when.

I’d be delighted to learn more of its fate and to see more pictures of it. I know film was expensive and they were photographers but if only they had taken a picture of the other side and of the back.

CAD image of the dumb buffers

The model started with me doodling the dumb buffers in CAD which quickly became a set of 3D prints.

The first set, as is often the case, revealed some opportunities for improvement in a mk2 version.

I intend to redo the injectors as the donor models has some iffy red plastic impression of them.

Luckily, I know an man with a Peckett in a shed and I’ve asked him to take photographs with a ruler in shot.

It was about this time that I mentioned it in my newsletter and it generated quite a lot of interest and one of my readers then said “are you going to change the smokebox door”. Doh, I looked again and sure enough its hinged on the other side and has some extra dogs to keep it closed. My response was a bit cagey at the time not knowing how much apart the donor loco comes.

A lot is the answer.

The door comes off as does the ornate curved facia to the smokebox that Thurwit doesn’t have so it was out with the CAD again.  So far this has produced a first sample to test the fit of the replacement and again, as usual, it revealed a slight adjustment to make prior to adding more detail to the door.

So to the O scale model:  The base spec is to be: –

That probably isn’t and exhaustive list as I keep spotting more stuff as a stare at the photos. The locos will be finished with a pristine paint job that I will then weather to look like Thurwhit that summers day in 1963. Target for completing the models is August this year (2022)

I’ll finish this piece with a few photos of some Ixion Hudswell Clarke locos (from Minerva’s predecessor) I did a few years ago and I’ve learnt a lot more about weathering since.