4555 was fitted with ATC gear and the shoe is correctly fitted below the rear buffer beam. The ATC fittings in the cab and the battery box, however, are not represented. I noted 4555 had the battery box fitted in the cab, whereas some of the class had this item fitted behind the cab step on the driver’s side. Also, as part of the ATC gear, a small vacuum cylinder fitted on the tank top, which passed through to the cab by means of a hole cut in the front cab sheet. The cylinder was turned from brass as two separate items and fitted on the tank top either side of the cab front sheet. The securing strap was from brass strip.

The (working) cabside doors lack handles and, as I could not find any castings available for them, they were made up by modifying 4mm scale lost wax smoke box door handles. These were fitted in holes which were drilled in the doors by holding a piece of wood behind the door to support it whilst using a pin chuck.

The cab roof is .020in brass and secured to the loco with magnets, making for easy removal. Whilst the rainstrips are located along the eaves, correct for the loco during this period, none of the rivets are present. There is a row of nine rivets just up from the rainstrips either side, and I made up a collar to fit over the dolly on my Graskop rivet tool to space these off the rainstrips. This worked well, so others were added, with the positions judged from photographs. I have since visited the preserved example and taken my own photos, so I may now add a few more! The roof was sprayed to cover the now shiny brass rivets.

The horizontal handrails on the cab side and bunker are fitted virtually flush to the body, likewise the handrails on the boiler by the front of the tanks, making life difficult for our 7mm scale loco crews to get a hand hold. I deliberated for some time whether to attempt to correct them, unsure if this could be done successfully without damaging the finish. The handrails look OK from some angles, Hmmmmm.

I decided to ignore the problem and weathered the loco to represent it as recently having had a smoke box job, but otherwise not having had a clean for a while. I was pleased with the result, but those handrails kept playing on my mind. Eventually I decided to see what could be done.

With the chassis removed there are eight small screws, six along the inside of the valence (or hanging plate), and two more under the bunker which, when removed allows the running plate to be detached. This in turn gives access to four screws retaining the cab floor and backhead.

Once the cab floor/backhead is removed, the wires from the DCC chip need to be unplugged, as the chip is attached to the front of the backhead (if you see what I mean).

At this point the remaining loco body needs to be handled with care, as the bunker is only supported by the small amount of metal above the cabside cutouts. Now it is possible to remove the handrails, which are attached with solder.

I did not consider it a good idea to unsolder them, on account of possible damage to the paintwork, so after carefully prising them away from the body at their centre, I snipped them in two. The two legs were then twisted until they either came away or snapped off, unfortunately only four came away cleanly. The ones that had snapped off, leaving a short stub of wire then had to be drilled out. This was done by carefully filing the end of the wire flat and centering a .45mm drill on the end of the wire. To my amazement this worked quite well, and after a short while I had all the holes clear ready to fit the replacements using .45mm wire.