Ubiquitous Pannier arrives...

When I was a very little boy I was given a Hornby Pannier tank, dark green with gold GWR on the side tanks. This was a gift, I think from my grand father, and my Dad built a small 00 gauge layout in our first home in London where it ran (rather fast) for many years...

In my teens I bought a Bachmann 57XX Pannier, based on the Mainline mouldings but with allededgedly a re-engineered chassis with 'flywheel' (which was actually just a large heavy worm wheel. This ran like a dog, but I repainted it into 'GREAT WESTERN' green as 7754 based on the Llangollen Railway.

My new layout, based in the Dee Valley and featuring a slate tramway has a standard gauge interchange, and I wanted to be able to shuttle wagons in an out of the scene... I toyed with using one of my older Mainline engines still in the cupboard (I have a Mogul and a Collet that still run ok) but I decided to re-live my youth and pick up a second hand Bachmann collet cab 57xx. This matches the outline and livery of that childhood model, and is to be honest a little bit of a nostalgia trip!

Here you can see it with the Brian Madge Hunslet also on the workbench along with some of the rolling stock for the new layout which has been painted and weathered using a mix of Humbrol enamels and Games Workshop 'Citadel' washes. What I like about featuring standard gauge on this model will be the comparison in size between the small and large engines.

This is an exciting new project for me, and I hope to be able to start on the baseboards in the spring. In the meantime I have a few more kits to assemble and a few buildings to scratch build. More soon...