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Following the success of the Ready to Run, Ixion produced Hudswell Clarke a few years ago, Chris Klein of Ixion has cooperated with Chris Basten of Dragon Models to produce a model of the Peckett E Class 0-4-0ST under the Minerva brand. Peckett & Sons, (from 1914 Peckett & Sons Ltd, the builders plates changed) built about fifty between 1903 and 1940. The main customer seems to have been Ebbw Vale, presumably the steel works, though the most well known would be Swansea Harbour Trust. The SHT locos were eventually taken over by the GWR and lasted into early BR days. Even this history is more complicated as some E class used on Swansea Docks were owned by Powlesland and Mason who seem to have been some sort of contractor.

Models are only supplied directly from Minerva (standard DC) or from EDM Models who are supplying with added DCC or DCC and sound. I pre-ordered a standard plain black version from Minerva. There is a choice of the black, a dark Brunswick Green (GWR) and a light green lined in black and white, similar to one of the options for the Hudswell Clarke. What you actually get in a very substantial double box is, I think, one of the late surviving GWR examples in whatever colour, with a choice of three dome/safety valves and a comprehensive set of brass etched GWR plates for the early numbering, later renumbering and BR days plus smoke box number plates. This etch also contains two flat brass rectangles to make the cab side sliding shutters and a full set of GWR style lamp irons which you have to position and fit (and paint) yourself. These irons are of course the GWR side fitting style, there are no conventional irons for slot on the back lamps though as far as I can see Peckett fitted one on the saddle tank front just below the top and another above the waist band on the cab rear on their industrial versions.

The choice of domes is a late type with pop safety valves, a version with Salter safety valves, with which Peckett persisted after most other makers had changed and a fancy dome used on several of the small industrial locos that the GWR took over.

There was an article and drawing by Ian Beattie published in Railway Modeller for October 1989, which I suspect has more than a little influence on this model. There is a photograph of 1143 taken in 1953 in this article and another of the same loco, but the other side, at the same time in Russell’s GW Absorbed Locomotives, now that must be a first. Note that at this date 1143 carried much bigger Swindon style injectors. Peckett & Sons Ltd, An Album of Official Photographs compiled by Andrew Smith and published by the Industrial Railway Society also has pictures, but they are what the title says and are almost all in photographic grey and not necessarily how the loco reached its buyer. Note that the number which Peckett painted on the tank for the works photograph might not belong to that locomotive. A search on the internet will turn up more pictures. Photographs of 1143 and Beattie’s drawing show a plain topped dome still with Salter valves, many of the works photos show a highly polished (brass?) dome with a lip, rather like the top of a chimney. Now whether some poor apprentice was sent off to polish a suitable one for the works photo and the buyer got something else, who knows, but there are several pictures on the internet of other Pecketts in preservation with this lipped dome. Beattie's drawing shows the chimney just taller than the plain dome, whereas from photos, I think the chimney on the industrials looks to be a fraction taller again.

Frank's modified and lined version

I bought a plain black version, although the buffer beam is red, as are the injectors, associated piping and the sander operating levers. I've noted that some preserved locos have these in red, maybe it was Peckett practice but I thought looked a touch 'Thomasesque'. I'd already decided that I wanted mine in lined red. Another Peckett practice was to polish the raised band half way up the cab back and under the cab side cut outs. The strip is on the model but painted base colour. You cannot tell from monochrome photos, but this band looks like polished steel. Keeping it clean must have been a footplate crew's nightmare and I suspect it didn't survive the first repaint. This though posed an aesthetic problem. It just wouldn't look right to have steel band round the cab and a brass dome. The decision was to some extent made by breaking one of the plastic knobs holding the curved handrail on the tank front, I'd specify brass dome and hand rails in my order to Peckett and have the steel band over-painted.

Minerva say they are testing every one, and mine ran almost smoothly out of the box. I say almost, watching the loco move even at very low speed the linear motion was fine, there just looked to be a slight dither if you watched the wheels turning. There are fairly basic instructions of how to get the bottom plate off for lubrication and how to remove the body to add DCC. Fortunately the body is held together with non stick glue. I can best describe the adhesive used to fix cab floor inside the cab shell, the cab front to tank and tank supports into the footplate as having been of the impact variety, well past its sell by date. With care I dismantled the body, but left the injectors and piping on the tank and sander rodding on the footplate. The same adhesive had been used to fix the brake hangers which I eased out of the chassis. One side of the brake rodding runs to the rear and connects to the cross shaft at the rear. The cross shaft moulding can be pulled out of the chassis casting. The brake rigging is most peculiar. On mine, the brake rodding only ran to the cross shaft at the back on one side, on the other it finishes at the rear brake hanger. I don't think it was broken as there was no sign that there had ever been glue on the left hand end of the cross shaft, which incidentally floats unsupported. I've since seen another model which is identical, but surely it couldn't have worked like this. Beattie shows the rear section of rod in his side elevation, which is the right side of the loco, but the photograph in Railway Modeller of the left side doesn't have it. However neither does the right hand side in Russell's book. My suspicions would fall on the GWR, perhaps they changed the rigging to a centre pull with a yoke to the rear; did it perhaps have a steam brake added?

The buffers are held with spring circlips, if you want them off, keep a firm grip or the carpet monster will devour them. Under the very shiny black paint the buffers are I think brass. I rubbed down the faces to give a key and painted then Humbrol gunmetal. If in use they wear through the centre of the paint to black they'll look even better. The cab interior is black, so whilst I had it apart I painted it a cream/buff shade. Since there is interior detail, might as well be seen.

Once the brake rodding and hangers are removed the wheels can come off. There are springs under the bearings on the front set.

I removed the motor, unsoldered the pick-ups and speaker wires and found the gears very loose on the shafts. There is a lot of side drift and the gears are able to wobble slightly. The idler gear wasn't fully meshing with the gear on the driven axle. I wondered if this accounted for the apparent dither on the wheels. I tapped out the shafts to both worm and idler gears and put them back with washers either side to align the worm gear dead centre under the worm and the idler so that it meshed with the spur gear on the worm gear and with the gear on the driven axle. Note that you have to gain access from the bottom, and though not obvious, the slot narrows towards the top. Stick the washers to the gears with a minute spot of superglue. All was then dither free on reassembly. Whilst I had the gears out, I remodelled the rear sanding pipes. The bent version provided is right for the late GWR/BR era on 1143, Pecketts more often had a sweeping curved pipe supported off the chassis side. The support is a handrail knob, one of those long ones of no set length. The pipe itself doesn't go into the footplate any longer but is held by another knob right at the top of the chassis where hopefully it won't be seen. Also whilst I had just the chassis casting I removed what I think it is a crude representation of the tank balance pipe under the boiler. That was eventually replaced by copper wire, probably 6 amp cable. It stands further out and passes through the sanding levers. This has to be put in as two quarter circles, one each side. I drilled holes for them in the underside of the tank and fixed them with some very old Bostik, as they'll have to pull out to remove the body.

As far as I can tell, having fought off the kids at Middleton Railway's Santa Special to look at the Peckett in the museum, the sanders are operated by pushing a lever in the cab on the right hand side which moves forward, presumably to operate the front sanders and back to operate the rear ones. Motion is transferred from the right hand side to the left by a cross bar operated by the upright piece under the tank. As supplied there isn't a rod going back to the cab, Beattie missed it and it is difficult to see behind the injector piping on photographs. I added that, it goes inside the tank support bracket at the rear. I haven't yet found a photograph of an E class taken from slightly above, but Peckett's normal practice seems to have been for the sander operating rods to terminate in a crank on top of the sand box, not one that disappears down the back. I haven't done anything about that until I find out for sure. Note that the operating lever for the Peckett injectors goes outside the rear tank support bracket. On the GWR version with the bigger GWR injectors it is inside the bracket. I've repainted the pipework brass and copper but left the sander operating rods red.
What Beattie missed in his drawing, and the model hasn't got them either, are the springs. The tops of the springs should show clearly above the footplate. A bit of bodging with Evergreen strip and tubing for the hanger tops made something presentable. Having gone to the trouble of making them I painted them gunmetal so they can be seen.

The wheels aren't black but a shiny plastic dark grey. I painted them black and lined them. I should have protected the gear and axles and grit blasted them as a key. Time will tell if the paint holds. I've said that I think one of the brake pull rods is too short for an industrial version, I remade both from brass strip. Getting the original off the hangers broke the locating pips so I drilled and fitted the new ones with cut down Peco track pins superglued in place. I also mentioned that the brake shaft 'floats' at the left hand side, it doesn't now, a long split pin into a hole in the chassis casting cured that.

I don't like the springs which are on the rear of the coupling hooks. They are so weak that the coupling pulls a long way out even with a fairly light load. I've replaced them with compression springs up to the rear of the buffer beams.

The cab floor and firebox somehow don't look quite right. There is what I think is the sander lever, but no reversing lever though there's a square hole in the floor to take one. I've put one in, probably totally wrong, especially as it is an American casting. There are no sight glasses, just some little mouldings where the top and bottom of the glasses should be. I removed them and added some sight glasses which are probably ABS or Wrightlines. I've also added a bit of brass wire coming up vertically from the fittings on the firebox top, otherwise how would steam get to the whistle? Similarly I've added a bit of copper wire coming down from the pressure gauge.

Unfortunately I lost one of the little mouldings from the sight glass positions. I hadn't thought of a use for them until I read the list of sound effects that EDM's chip contains. Drain cocks, interesting, as there aren't any on the model, these mouldings might have done. I made some in brass.

As I reassembled the model I found a couple of tight spots. The slide bars and crossheads are coated with some sort of lacquer. It is worth filing up the lands on both bars and crosshead and polishing with fine emery, a fine nail board is ideal. The piston rod is a very tight fit in the cylinder and I opened the hole out and polished the piston rod. Holding the cylinders slidebars up, the crosshead drops in under gravity, it didn't before. That possibly solved another potential problem. Paul Martin at EDM says some locos have a 'tick' which he has traced to the cutting off of the crosshead/piston rod casting which, on some models, has left a burr on the piston rod end.

A conundrum. The buffers are brass, as is the top of the chimney and I think the tank filler, all painted black. The dome could/should be brass but it is black plastic. I've picked the Salter valve version and added the lip from Evergreen tubing. I'd looked for what military modellers use for brass, they usually are better painters than railway modellers. Most that looked remotely presentable are multilayer systems so I was amazed to see a can of Valspar Brilliant Metallic Brass in B&Q. I speculated about £8, and tried it out on the fancy GWR dome, thinking to keep the pop valve version as last resort. It doesn't come up like the cap on the spray can but as tarnished/end of shift I think it is acceptable. Since I sprayed it the dome has I think tarnished to a slightly more coppery shade, I wonder now how it would look over coated with gloss varnish. However by then I'd already sprayed and fitted the Salter valve version and added something inside to represent the business bits. Only then did I find that EDM are having proper brass domes cast.

I've raised the chimney a fraction, added lamp irons front and back and fitted a handrail across the cab back. Some Pecketts certainly had it and without it I don't see how my crew could balance on a buffer and hang the lamp without infringing about a dozen Health and Safety Regulations. I've put a straight hand rail over the smoke box, not all had curved ones. One thing nearly all Pecketts seem to have is a Roscoe lubricator on the rear of the chimney. Laurie Griffin 19-35 is suitable, 19-34 is too tall.

If there is such a thing as a standard Peckett livery then the main body colour is edged (banded) in a darker shade or maybe black. It is lined between the two, in the early days with incised corners. Rather like persisting with Salter valves Peckett seem to have persisted with incised corners. On the tank, cab side and cylinders there's a double line also with incised corners. I've lined mine as if both body colour and banding were black. It is done with Fox transfers, 0.35 mm red for the edge lining. The panel lining is 1mm red lightly varnished then with 0.35m black added down the centre later. Brilliant it isn't but better than I can do with a ruling or lining pen. I've spray varnished to finally seal the lining with Railmatch satin but it has come out a bit matter than I expected or wanted. If you buy a lined green version, edge the panels with black and line between in white you will be quite close to Peckett's style.

Add a crew and it only remains to pick a works plate. Those supplied are beautifully etched with fully readable, raised letters. Unfortunately, Peckett's plates were flat with the lettering cut in, a totally different style.

Therefore, what you get, whatever the livery, is the GWR version a` la Beattie, albeit with Peckett injectors, and that if you want an industrial, and I suspect many will, to get it into that condition will require a bit of effort. If my research, two books, one RM article and the internet can pick up these apparent anomalies, it seems to me that a little more care might have been taken before committing to production. That would have eliminated the questionable brake and sanding rodding, and a careful look at almost any book on Pecketts or even the internet should have caught the plate problem.

The loco runs just as smoothly as before but without that slight dither. What is noticeable is that it now starts on just one volt, not nearly two, and draws 60mA instead of just over 100. I suspect that easing the crosshead slide bars accounts for most of that. It may seem I've done a lot of work to 'improve' this loco, but mostly it has been a case of making it into what I wanted. Would I buy another? If someone can come up with a photo and livery details for Powlesland & Mason or Swansea Harbour Trust, yes, like a shot!