Winifred in 009: A Christmas cracker...

A few months ago I tried my luck and emailed Brian Madge to see if he was still doing kits, as I fancied building something small and well designed...

I didn't expect the result, Brian kindly offered to put together a custom kit for me, one that would require a little more assembly than his usual models but it would be possible to do any small Hunslet I fancied so I asked about Winifred. 

Winifred was one of three 'Port' class from Penrhyn (not to be confused with the Dinorwic 'Port' class which were slightly smaller and based upon the Alice class). These Locos were bigger than an Alice but smaller than the cabbed pair Jerry M and Cackler at Dinorwic.

Imagine my excitement when this arrived before Christmas! A lovely present! It lasted until today! I opened it up and looked through the parts and remembered how they went together from assembling Dorothea all those months ago... so I started with the chassis which I had to put together. This wasn't too taxing, although I had to split the axles to fit them with the gears. It went together second time no problem.

Once that was working properly, I made a start on the body. The frame was formed of three parts to form the dropped footplate. I soldered these with Carrs flux and 145deg solder. The frames were fitted next and then the bufferbeams. The cab sides were soldered using blu-tak to hold then together whilst I soldered the joint, and the same approach to add the top rail. Once all the cab parts were together they were also soldered to the footplate for strength and the handrails fitted, oversized for strength as this is an open can locomotive destined for an exhibition layout.

The cylinders were put together and now everything is ready to be assembled but I couldn't resist the opportunity to balance parts together for an impression of the locomotive. Note the chimney is from the part box as Brian's Quarry Hunslet one seemed a little small and under nourished compared to photos for Winifred.

I'm not sure on final livery, I'm thinking maroon with lining - but whether this is mixed traffic grey and red like No.4 single red like the Bagnall or orange black orange like Rheneas remains to be seen. More soon...