Ripon yarn

Brian Came

There has been discussion in the model press recently about the demise of scratchbuilding owing to improvements in RTR models, but as a long-standing ‘bodger’, I am enclosing pictures of the latest creation to emerge from my broom cupboard (literally). No. 2404 City of Ripon, was a rebuild by Gresley of one of the small class of Raven NER ‘Pacifics’, with an extended ‘A1’ boiler and cab and modified footplate. Photos are hard to come by, but I did manage to find a couple, along with an Isinglass drawing to work from. The footplate and saddle are 3D-printed (which was horrendously expensive), the Southern Region ‘WC’/‘BB’ frames were modified to the correct 7ft 6in wheelbase, and the front end is from a Comet LMS Compound, which made the cylinders, bogie and connecting rods the right length. The body is from a Finecast ‘A1’/‘A3’, lengthened by 6mm using part of another boiler. The tender is also Finecast. The rear frames under the cab are made out of styrene sheet, and because of the sheer length of the locomotive (it was also a problem with the real ones), I have used flangeless wheels fixed just above track level. Currently I’m waiting for the nameplates to come from Modelmaster.