A Black Hawthorn folly in 009...

A few months back I became aware of the drawings of Brian Clarke, and in particular was drawn to his wonderful book 'Slate Railway to Churchwater' and since then I've been influenced not only by the sketching, and style of drawings but the content themselves...

The book describes a fictiticous 15" gauge line around Churchwater and starting in Lower Vowchurch which was a real location on, IIRC, the GWR Hay Valley branch line. The tiny 0-4-0 saddle tanks may feature in a future 006.5 project but I thought the Black Hawthorn 0-6-0st could work in a larger scale and did some sketching (above) to see what it might look like...

So with a 'spare' Minitrains Porter chassis on my workbench for another project I started measuring up and cutting plastic. My intention was to make this new 'folly' close in size to my Bagnall IST on the Minitrains Krauss chasssis, and to take the style of the Brian Clarke creation and cross it with a real Black Hawthorn I'd been reading about (Mary) in the excellent 'North Devon Clay' book (by Michael Messenger) that I got for Christmas. The cross between both ideas hopefully has worked and produced something with a little of the character and cuteness of the original, and very much in my 'Creech Bottom' style (see Rheneas and Porthgain for more examples).

The chassis was 40 thou, the cab front 30thou styrene and the cab sides are 20 thou. The spectacle plates are marked, drilled and reamed out to fit the RT Models etches spectacles. I decided to go for an open cab back, rather than the small bunker, so I could incorporate a wooden back sheet and Brian's rectangular windows...

Here is a photograph of Brian's drawing, the original inspiration, and below is a photo of Mary...

Work has been quite swift and in the first few hours I had not only a chassis, but a complete cab and saddle tank frame...

...which after drying for a few days had a 10thou wrapper added and I began to add some more detail. The etched spectacles (RT Models), safety valve pipework through the cab roof, the water filler, chimney (from the spares box - similar size to a Quarry Hunslet?) and sandboxes, along with (RT Models) Penryhn couplings...

...and then once this was all dry I've been able to add a few more items, the handrails (using Eileen's short knobs and 0.4mm wire), sandbox actuator and levers, whistle, lubricator and cab footsteps...

...which has now really created the character I wanted - so I'm looking forward to adding the dome and smokebox door so I can get some paint on her!

The chassis is largely untouched, and slides in and out - although I have added a brace to the slide rods for the cross head. I have used some plasticard at the rear of the chassis, either side of the frame, and at the front, between the cylinders behind the buffer beam, to keep the chassis in the right place. At this stage it's still a loose fit, I may add some blu-tak when it's finished so I can remove it for use in other locomotives. My intention is to have this finished in time for Narrow Gauge South West to run on Tim's Grindley Brook Wharf so come along and say hello and have a chat. I'm happy to talk about my models, and techniques, or just about narrow gauge railways in general :)

More soon...