Effie, my first scratchbuilt steam loco
As I progressed with my Whinny Lane layout (to be described later) I decided that having a go at building a steam loco model would be a good idea. I had recently discovered the works of Sir Arthur Heywood and had become captivated by his designs. I purchased a copy of Mark Smithers excellent book on him and his 15″ gauge railways. The book is filled with drawings and photographs and no self respecting 15″ gauge railway modeller should be without the book to my mind. Sir Arthus first 15″ gauge locomotive was called Effie and I decided that my first model steamer in Gn15 would be Effie too. The body was built on the chassis of a Hornby “Percy” from their Thomas the tank engine range. The body is all styrene sheet. The boiler is styrene wrapped around a section of 25mm diameter plastic pipe. Using soime “contacts” in the Gn15 world I managed to obtain some pre-production parts of an Effie kit. Namely the chimney, dome and levers and backhead details. The nameplates were some slaters lettering that I hapenned to have to hand. The body is a simple push fit onto the donor chassis and fits rather tightly.
All in all I am still rather pleased with this model. Sure if I was to make it today it would be to a higher standard of finish. But for a first effort at scratch building a steam loco, you can’t beat it.
