NER Y7 built from Plasticard
Will the real Y7 please step forward?
John Mileson
Issue 406 of Steam Railway magazine included an interesting article by Mark Pearce concerning what he described as ‘the humble H class 0-4-0T.’ Developed by T W Worsdell, these diminutive locomotives were designed for the North Eastern Railway for use on docksides and went on to lead very mixed lives following their retirement from railway company service. They moved on to work at quarries, gasworks and Royal Ordnance depots and from there to preservation, where two examples have survived.
It just happened that when the magazine appeared I had, rather unusually, completed the majority of my locomotive building projects. The magazine contained a large photograph, spanning one and a half pages of the journal, showing one side of an H class locomotive ex-works in 1923. The text included two very relevant dimensions; one being the length of the locomotive at 20ft 4in and the other was the coupled wheel base of 6ft.
From these dimensions I scaled the photograph and calculated that 12.5mm represented 1ft. I was therefore able to work out any other dimension of the locomotive. Although I would normally refer to a drawing of a prototype when building a loco, I am not a perfectionist, and all 30 or more locos I have constructed are made mainly from plasticard. I know many fellow enthusiasts tend to discount this as being a second rate material. I don’t rate it as such since it allows me to construct locos and rolling stock quickly, relatively cheaply, requires little or no equipment, and most importantly, is within my limited ability.
While I would like to work in brass and
nickel silver, I console myself in
remembering that the car I drive is
probably about 80% plastic.
This was to be a fun project and I decided to build three of these engines at the same time. Like the prototypes, each is slightly different, but all are based on the Premier Components Y7 chassis and run on Slaters wheels. Two have MSC 40:1 Helical gearboxes and motors, and the third being motor-less will be for double heading and decorative use only. There seems little point in my detailing the construction which was very straightforward, but I did support the plasticard superstructure by soldering a 0.5mm thick brass footplate to the chassis to give additional strength to the finished locomotive. One thing I wanted to achieve was a couple of powerful locomotives, hence the 40:1 gearbox, but of course without adhesion this is not achievable.
The side tanks were filled with lead creating locos that are heavy for their size. Building three locomotives at the same time does obviously present its own hazards, namely that mistakes could be duplicated and therefore the old adage, ‘measure twice, cut once’, was strictly adhered to. In no time at all the three were completed. They have been brush painted in different colours and heavily weathered to represent the hard life that most of these charming locos suffered.
Are these models powerful? Considering the size of the model, I suppose it’s all relative really. They were loaded with a mix of all my wagons and carriages, extending to some 12ft long, and they pulled away with no slipping. It was very impressive.
Referring back to my original question, ‘Will the real Y7 please step forward?’ I don’t know the answer to this conundrum since the Y7s and H Class locomotives all appear the same to me, even though they have had major alterations made to them during their working lives. As can be seen from the accompanying photographs they make up a delightful set of locomotives.
Building these engines has given me more pleasure than many other classes of loco I have constructed. If you haven’t tried using plasticard to construct locomotives maybe the H Class could be the one to start with.
