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readytorun:rtrminerva:minerva-gwr-gwr8750

Minerva GWR 8750 Pannier Tank conversion to Stud Contact


RG Thomas - Gazette Vol 20 No. 8 August 2018
Minerva Model Railways

Now, I normally scratch build my model locomotives, but when I saw the Minerva GWR pannier tank at Doncaster last year I could not resist the urge to place my order. The loco arrived safely in October and I was duly impressed. I put it on my short length of two rail test track and as I expected it ran smoothly and silently. It then spent the next week on show on our bookcase but I wanted to see it running on my stud contact layout.
To do this, I needed to remove the mechanism, something we are all a bit apprehensive about tackling first time round for fear of damaging the model, but the instructions for doing this are clear. I undid the four fixing screws, and using a blade, I carefully unclipped the balance pipe on both sides and it fell out in two pieces. When this happened, I felt a warning shot that reassembly of this part might be tricky, but I pressed on.
With the mechanism free from the loco I was able to design a suitable parallelogram type skate that would be hidden behind the wheels and then glued this to the keeper plate. I disconnected the connections to the DCC socket and wired the wheel wiper contacts together. Then I connected the skate to the top motor brush, put the mechanism on the layout and away it went with no trouble.


Next came the reassembly. Not bothering about the balance pipe at this stage, I reassembled the mechanism into the loco body and put it to real work. It ran well over all my pointwork and negotiated the tightest radius curves with ease. It slipped badly moving a five coach train round the mainline reverse curves indicating more weight was required.

The hunt for some suitable ballast ended when I visited a car tyre depot to see if they had some spare wheel balance weights. I was shown the latest type which are supplied in strips of different weights that are ready to be stuck in place. I was given four strips to try out. These fitted very neatly inside the pannier tanks and being coated with adhesive are an effective and neat solution to the problem of adding weight to the loco.

With the loco now able to handle all the traffic I needed, I was faced with putting together the balance pipe assembly. I wasted a day in frustration trying to reassemble the two parts. I could not get my fingers in to position the pipe even on one side, let alone two. I tried tweezers but they were hopeless because all the parts are round and they swivelled out of position at the wrong moment. Pliers were little better and I feared that they might damage the sanding levers as well as scratch the paintwork. In the end, realising that I may well have to remove the mechanism for future maintenance, I decided some drastic alteration would be needed.

I decided to carefully cut the outer ends of the pipe of so that the mechanism could pass in and out freely with just the end pieces glued into the pannier tanks. The remaining two parts of the pipe were joined together and glue to the underside of the boiler, taking care to ensure perfect alignment with the already installed tank connections. While I was there, I painted the underside of the boiler GWR green, it was black on my model, and the cab roof black which was green on my model. The alterations I have made have not detracted from the model’s appearance and I hope that other Guild members who have bought this excellent model might find my experiences useful. Minerva GWR 8750 Pannier Tank Photo Robin McHugh

readytorun/rtrminerva/minerva-gwr-gwr8750.txt · Last modified: 2021/09/22 14:16 by 127.0.0.1