The accidental shunter...
I love this damn thing...
D2112 is seen in that video scurying about - it was a matter of hours later that I ordered the Network South East liveried model from Kernow. Two days later it was in my hands, and moments later it was in IPA!
The model. I mean, you know I have a spot spot for Class 03s that goes back to very early childhood memories of my Dad's Mainline example in OO gauge. More recently I recreated that 03382 in N - itself becoming the motivation behind Gerald Road.
It was a post-Covid virus that put me to bed to rest a few weeks ago - and somehow I ended up watching a wonderful video, one that lit the fire underneath this project. The video, a mix of static track side and cab footage felt personal, as if we're there with the men operating the railway. Simple back and forth, shunting and assembling trains, tasks we perform on our models in minutes that on the real railway stretch across hours... personal... relatable...
I believe that at the time D2112 was owned by Malcom Heugh. He had the contract to operate the dock railway at Boston, which had narrowly escaped closure in the early nineties. In 1990 Speedlink pruned Boston from the network - but Railfreight metals introduced a service, and by removing the BR shunter and crew managed to make the connection cost effective. Thanks to the management of the railway at the time, and the positive attitude of the docks to rail we continue to see trains using the track to this day.
There is nothing complicated or noteworthy in its finish - Precision paint supplied the colours, Fox the stripes and Rail-tec the custom numbering. Tucked inside the cab you will find a mini me (and mini Steve - from the Planet Industrials crew still available and hence in any scale from Modelu). Ugly N scale couplers replaced by DG and the buffer beam filled, pipes fitted. Chunky coupling rods dulled down but embraced. This is a toy, it's tiny and it's wonderful. I make no excuses, it doesn't need to either...
I didn't need it and it isn't Scottish - but I don't care. Seeing it scury about on Paxton Road fills me with the same child like energy I felt watching it in that video, perhaps even watching Dad's 03 on the carpet as a child. This model doesn't need some fancy reason for existence - only my love.
Until next time, more soon...
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We all have our favourites, and that is the way it should be! I myself am particularly drawn to the 08 and the 37. Personally, I am hoping to get one of the new Bachmann 08s in the summer and that will become a main actor for any layouts I am able to build. Yours is incredibly flexible, given that it is modelled on an era 8 locomotive, but could appear on anything going back as far as era 5; that should prove to (hopefully) keep it in your stable for a long time to come!
ReplyDelete37s and 08s are lovely too - in fact my love of 08s stretches to 6 examples and still holding on to one in OO! You made me smile with the assumption over flexibility - this is no BR blue 08... sadly it was soon repainted into proper BR green with the right font numbers and the crest - but it remained air braked (which obviously wasn't done until it was blue). I loved the look of this understated green in that video, it was the blend of the past, the idea of semi-preservation yet still earning a crust, a very honest little thing that probably led to this love affair... I have no plans to sell her on, she doesn't owe me much (the donor was on sale) and she takes up no room at all!
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