Shunting the mill: modifying a Yorkshire Janus...

I can't resist a bargain, and when the chance to pick up an Oxford Rail / Golden Valley Janus at a superb price came along I decided I wanted to model one of the prototypes used up the road at the old United Engineering Steels Brymbo works near Wrexham...

The works is long gone (in my earlier years I remember it being sold and moved to Japan IIRC) and so as with my model of Hornet, the cut down Peckett that worked at Bersham, it's local interest that fuels these creations. The Oxford model is pretty good out of the box and unlike last time I did one of these I'm keeping the yellow wheels of the donor Allied Steel and Wire livery. However there are a few changes, can you spot them?

I've filled the buffer beam coupling holes, added rain strips over the cab windows, filled the filler hole on the left hand of each side valance, modified the front buffer beam corners removing the wire handrails and filling the shape back to a square edge. I decided to also model one of the footplate box doors open, as one of the photos I found showed this - 10thou styrene on a modified base, I filed a slot to ensure it sat smoothly int the hinge. Finally, a set of buffers from Peter's Spares (Hornby/Dapol Class 56). (Note in these photos the handrails and sand boxes, along with a few other details have been removed).

The last thing was to add a second flywheel on the chassis - the one on the left above. The chassis drawing shows a second flywheel, but the model doesn't have one. The small diameter motor and low gearing give good performance, but there isn't much mass, somehow, and so I thought adding a second would improve matters. It's certainly improved running further and was worth the money (less than a tenner).

Once it has hardened up, I'll start the repaint, a fairly straightforward yellow with red buffer beams - but with the odd neat touch (white footwells) - however I'm not looking forward to doing the black louvres in the bonnet doors! Until next time, more soon...