My Folly – well one of them.

Many moon ago in my early model making career, we’re talking 1980’s here, I set about trying to build a model of all the BR Standard classes in 4mm scale. Easy peasy you might think judging it by todays model availability. Not so then. Your options were, butcher some Hornby models, convert and Airfix kit or the kits by DJH and Model Loco.

Some examples: –

BR Standard class 2 78xxx 2-6-0. Then take a Hornby Ivatt LMS 2-6-0. Bin the valve gear and replace it with that from a K’s 2-6-2 kit. New motor and gears. Scrape all the moulded detail off the boiler and replace with wire and castings. Rebuild the cab. Saw about 15mm out of the tender body and mount it on a chassis from a Millholme Models Ivatt 4MT.

BR standard Class 4 76xxx. Take an Airfix kit and a Kemilway Chassis kit. On the body, scrape off all the moulded detail and replace with wire. Build the chassis and expend a lot of swear words trying to get the convoluted tender motor to loco rear axle drive to work. Remember, back then the height of a motor upgrade was to replace the Hornby 3 pole XO3 with an equally large 5 pole  motor. No can or coreless motors then. I eventually got it to work but it always sounded like an angle grinder used on a dustbin.

BR Standard Class 5 75xxx 4-6-0. The BR standard version of a Black 5. Take a DJH kit and rebuild the valve gear so it actually works like valve gear and then build and detail the kit with quite a lot of extras. I used to set the valve gear so it was actually in a direction rather than mid gear. On my DJH 9F lots of people noticed it was in gear but no one ever commented that it was in back gear.

The piece de resistance!

BR Standard Class 6 72005 Clan MacGregor. A Model Loco limited edition kit arrived as a Christmas present. This was a revelation with an enclosed gear box driven from an enclosed can motor via a silicon tube. I added a sound deadening foam motor mount. As its origins were the DJH factory I rebuilt it valve gear to be in forward gear. This was silent in running and if entered in our local club modelling competitions it either won or came last. Why the chalk and cheese reviews? Having done the fully lined out livery I weathered it. Back in the early 80’s that was a heinous crime with some modellers so it just depended on who the judge was.

It looks a bit dated now but it still runs silently once the tube becomes supple again. I have a kit and a load of detail parts in my stash to recreate it in 7mm scale one day. All the above and the other standards are, or have been, available ready to run from Hornby or Bachmann.

So, my current folly…..

A Lionheart BR Standard Class 3 Tank 82010 with DCC & Sound