Pete Armstrong

The HR OCT with ‘Chummy’ aboard pictured in action as part of a train in the scenic section of the Carlisle and District 0 Gauge Guild (CD0GG) layout at their premises at Carlisle Citadel station.

Most of my modelling activity revolves around the Highland Railway and though my engines are largely scratch-built my wagons and coaching stock derive from kits, though sometimes the kit is little more than a starting point. The recent issue by Lochgorm Kits, who specialise in the HR, of an etched kit for an interesting open carriage truck, was too tempting to resist. The prototype for the kit was an 18ft long truck built to diagram 47 at the Highland Railway’s Lochgorm Works in Inverness in 1920. There survives a well-known wide angle photo of Inverness station taken in the early 1900s. In the centre foreground of the picture, an OCT with a car aboard is sitting in the loading bay at the end of the island platform (See *Note 1). The post-1903 registration letters of the car are RS which are those of Aberdeen, so it might be inferred that the road vehicle has been shipped the short distance from there by rail to Inverness. The photo clearly shows that the car was restrained from movement on the truck by ropes or straps from the top of the side rails and by transverse bars fore and aft. I was much taken by the image of the truck with its motor car load and decided that my own model carriage truck would feature a motor vehicle aboard rather than a horse drawn carriage for which these trucks were originally designed.

The prototype diag.47 OCT first saw light of day as late in HR days as 1920, so I trawled the internet hoping to find a suitable die-cast model of the period but to my dismay found that such models are a rarity (*Note 2). I turned to the Guild website’s invaluable Product Directory and came up with South Eastern Finecast as a supplier of whitemetal motor vehicle kits. The earliest offering in their 1:43 scale range was the 1922 Austin 7 Open Tourer; the kit undoubtedly fitted the bill so I bought one. Although these little cars took to the road for the first time only months before the demise of the HR, in whose colours I planned to paint the truck, I thought they were on the scene in time to be delivered on an OCT in pre-grouping livery.

The Austin 7 OT or ‘Chummy,’ was so called because of the enforced friendship of the passengers due to the diminutive size of the vehicle, you just had to be chummy to ride in this.

The Model Chummy

SE Finecast’s well designed kit is largely whitemetal with a few etched parts such as the spokes of the wheels which need careful assembly. I soldered the kit together and added a little internal detail, refined the windscreen and added a gear stick. The headlights I drilled out and filled with epoxy glue to simulate the glass, otherwise it was a straight from the box build. A good many of these little cars have survived in the hands of enthusiasts and I found a wealth of pictures of them on the internet for reference.

The brake cylinder and linkages were scratch built from brass and nickel-silver tube, rod and sheet material using the drawing in Peter Tatlow’s recent book as a guide (Note *3).

The open carriage truck model

When working with any kit, I like to have a drawing to hand and a good one together with a photo of the diag.47 OCT can be found in Peter Tatlow’s recently published book on Highland Railway rolling stock; this was invaluable when I detailed the underneath of the vehicle (*Note 3). Though brake gear was included, neither the brake cylinder and its linkages nor the Westinghouse braking equipment was part of the kit so most of the detail below the sole bars was scratch built. I made patterns for the vacuum pipe and the Westinghouse connecting pipe that fit on the buffer beams; these I cast in the workshop in whitemetal from silicone rubber moulds made from the master patterns. While I was at it, I made a pattern for replacement springs for those in the kit which were over-scale, it was a hard day’s modelling but worth it. I don’t know if there was any lettering on the carriage truck in HR days as the only photo extant is from the LMS era. Space for lettering on the truck was very limited so I decided it would have to rely on its cast number plate for identification, a state of affairs not uncommon on the HR anyway. I commissioned a pair of oval wagon plates from Guilplates with the legend ‘Highland Railway’ above the number and ‘To Carry 8 Tons’ below.

Most of the metalwork is complete, the etched planks have been scored with the side of a coarse file to simulate wood grain. The replacement nickel-silver buffer beam is in place and the white-metal buffer shanks are in turn soldered to it.

There is a notched track along the top edge of the side-rail, which carries a moveable attachment that hooks over it, from which leather straps for restraining movement of the load are suspended. I modelled the moveable hooks from thin strip metal with a tiny brass ring attached to take the straps, not quite the same as the photo but I think the effect is acceptable. I cut the straps from sheet pewter which I think simulates the pliable leather straps ideally. However the wire spokes of the car wheels prevented me putting the straps through them in the way they appear to attach to the car in the photo referred to earlier, so I left them unused on the deck, perhaps they’re really designed for use with horse-drawn carriage wheels. Apart from the wheels there was little else in the way of protrusions on the car that I could have fastened the straps to, so I relied on wedges cut from finegrained wood which I put under the wheels fore and aft. These are backed up by horizontal cross-bars that snugly locate up against the car and effectively immobilise it on the carriage truck deck. The straps and the manner in which the load is secured to the truck are the very essence of the model in this case, though in reality I screwed the car in place with a 12BA bolt through the floor into the decking.

Both the vacuum brake and Westinghouse cylinder and their respective linkages were modelled as far as possible, though the presence of a rocking-axle and other un-prototypical assemblies under the truck rather curtailed the depiction of all the pipe work.

Painting the model

I cleaned both car and truck separately, first mechanically and then chemically to rid the castings and metalwork of any trace of grease. Next I burnished the car radiator to bright metal with the side of a needle and masked it off so I could spray the rest of the model with Halfords Acid 8 primer. Similarly I masked the wheel treads of the OCT then gave it a coat of the same. The colours I employ are Humbrol, Precision and Revell enamel paints, which are all oil based, they mix together well so I use them indiscriminately on the same model. The underside of the OCT I sprayed with Revell satin black. Matt black can be used for the same job though the best effect is gained by buffing matt black paint with a stiff bristled brush which relieves the dead matt effect and enlivens the surface of the model. The side rails and superstructure were airbrushed with Precision Paints’ Highland Railway Dark Green with the underside and wooden deck masked off. Then the deck, which had been well scored with a file to represent the grain beforehand, was drybrushed with various wood tones from dark to light to give a grained effect to the decking.

The cross-bars that keep the car in place are in position though the leather straps which attach to the top rail are yet to be modelled. The springs and axle boxes along with the Westinghouse connection and vacuum pipe on the buffer beam are white-metal castings produced from silicone rubber moulds made from my own master patterns.

I sprayed the Chummy’s bodywork with Phoenix LMS crimson lake which I thought would suit a Chummy just as well as an express engine. Then I masked the crimson bodywork with Tamiya tape and sprayed the wheels, mudguards and underside of the car with the same black paint that I’d used on the carriage truck. I finished painting the car by hand, first tidying up the airbrush work then lightly dry-brushing both the crimson bodywork and the black areas to bring out the relief and to suggest a little wear on the seats and interior.

Both the car and the carriage truck are painted with the same enamel paint which helps them work together and unifies the separate elements into one model. The days of the model railway truck with a toy car sat on top are behind us. The figures are workmen from Pete’s own ‘Heroes of the Footplate’ range. The leather securing straps attached to the top rail of the truck can be seen in place.

The deck of the OCT had been dry-brushed from dark to light to represent the wooden planks. The car is held in place by wedges under the wheels and cross-bars front and rear.

Notes

1. Frontispiece to Peter Tatlow’s Highland Locomotives OPC. ISBN 0-86093-048-3

2. Recently Oxford Die-Cast have produced an accurate and modestly priced Austin 7 saloon in 1:43 scale in several colours which would also suit the OCT though their model needs toning down or even repainting to relieve the straight-from-the-box glossy finish which is just too toy-like.

3. Peter Tatlow, Highland Railway Carriages and Wagons, Noodle Books. ISBN 978-1-909328-13-6