Buzz Models NER Snowplough kit
Purchased and reviewed by Nic Ashmore - Gazette - August 2018 (Vol 20 No.8)
http://www.buzzmodels.net
As an ex-pat Geordie now living in Weymouth, I remember seeing snowploughs
as a child on my way from Newcastle to Whitley Bay on the Tyneside electrics.
I bought this kit at Telford in 2017 as I had seen a preview model the previous
year and just had to have one.
However, I am no expert on these ploughs. All authoritative statements are
based on the book Railway Snowploughs in the North East (ref.1)*
The Prototype
The North Eastern Railway, (NER), had 24 snowploughs, built between 1887
and 1909. Numbers 11 and 12 were built in 1891. Number 12 is preserved at
Shildon, at least it was when I saw it there in 2012. They were both allocated
to Newcastle in 1947.
The Kit
The kit comes in a stout box only just big enough to take the finished model, I
use an old Hornby No 1 Locomotive box which is exactly right.
The instructions, a single type written sheet, say that the model is based on
number 12 and add that similar ploughs, (No's 18 and 20) are preserved at the
North Yorkshire Moors Railway and at Beamish Museum. However these have
vertical boards to the body, not horizontal ones as per the model and the cab
windows are different.
The contents of the kit are shown in Photo 1. The two angled pieces are for
mounting the wheels, the piece of tube is the chimney. There was also a piece
of plastic sheet for the cab roof.
No suggestions are given as to what adhesive to use. I used Araldite which
has worked so far.
planking and windows lack the sharpness of injection moulded kits. The rear
end was particularly poor in this respect. Also there were many small (tiny)
blowholes which showed up later when painting. The body is bowed making it
about 5mm wider in the middle than at the ends. Again, this is not noticeable
in the finished model.
I attempted to clean up the planking joints and other surface details with
only a little success, be warned that the material is very soft and does not suffer
fools gladly. A lot of surplus material, about 3-4 mm, had to be removed from
the bottom of the main body at the front. This was done on a sheet of
sandpaper glued to a board, the softness of the material is a great help here.
I was not keen on the wheel mounting arrangement. To fit the two angle
pieces shown in Photo 1 into the body would have required removing a lot of
material from the body internal divider and mounting them accurately would
not be easy.
Fellow club members will agree that I am always keen to add complication to a model and I do like to have all wheels on the track at all times. I could not see me achieving this with the proposed method of mounting the axles so I decided to build a sub frame as shown in Photo 2.
In my defence I have a garden railway and the track is not to indoor standards. The sub frame is made of brass. The front axle is mounted in hornblocks and is pivoted in the centre, the middle axle is also mounted in hornblocks with vertical and sideways movement and the rear axle runs in fixed bearings. Well, it all seems to work. It also gave me a chance to use some cast iron wheels I bought about 40 years ago.
Some material had to be removed from the body, though not as much as
might be necessary if the original wheel mountings were to be used, to enable
it to fit and mounting plates were glued onto the existing steps in the body.
Packings were used here to get the ride height correct. See Photo 3. The
assembly was now test run and then removed for painting. Some lead ballast
was also added.
The joint faces of the main body and the top section were cleaned up and Araldited together. The piece of plastic sheet was shaped to a curve in hot water to form the cab roof and a chimney made of brass tube fitted, this is much stronger than the plastic tube supplied. No coupling is provided in the kit, probably because the buffer beam is 6mm thick. I made one by soldering the front of a standard hook to an 8BA bolt, however I decided springing was a step too far. This can be seen in Photo 4. I also added a front coupling made out of nickel silver wire.
I decided on the 1895 livery. The main colour is Precision Paints NER Brake Van
Oxide and the rear end is Vermilion. The roof is white from a rattle can. Filling
the tiny blowholes took quite some time.
When all was dry I glazed the windows with clear plastic sheet and fitted
them with canopy glue. This is used by aero modellers and has the advantage
of drying clear.
Transfers were not available when I bought the kit but were received later.
These covered a variety of eras as can be seen in Photo 5. They were of a style
new to me where the background was in body colour, inevitably not quite the
body colour I had used so I cut out the letters and applied them separately.
Incidentally the transfers are based on the preserved plough at Shildon. Ref 1
states that the number on this is that used post 1908 whilst everything else is
c1895-1903. (Where's my anorak?). I am afraid that I took the easy way out.
The body was then attached to the subframe to complete the model.
Conclusions
On the Weymouth Connaught Road layout it runs well at speeds appropriate
to a snowplough and hand propelled it really worked on a rare fall of powder
snow we had in March. I wonder what the neighbours thought.
As to the kit itself, I was quite disappointed and I feel a bit more development
is called for. The detail of the body is not sharp, the wheel mounting could be
improved, and it is certainly not cheap. However it has produced a model that
looks good on our layout, provokes a lot of questions and it does bring back
many memories, NER kits, and an unusual prototype at that, are not that
common. Top marks to Buzz for that. This was my second resin kit, I have also
built an NER P4 wagon from another supplier. My experience of these two
makes it unlikely I shall venture into resin kits again.
*Ref 1 Railway Snowploughs in the North East by David and Claire Williamson
published by the North Eastern Railway Association (NERA)
A copy of Nic’s review was sent to Buzz Models, Andrew Evans responded: The article has made interesting reading and Nic has increased my knowledge of the prototype which should help with future production. I now have the patterns from the original producer of the kit and plan to have the parts cast to a better standard. I will also make some improvements to the instructions.