Personalise a model
Has a manufacturer made your favourite class but ignored your favourite individual locomotive? Chris Leigh shows you how to recreate the one you really want.
Chris Leigh demonstrates how to create an otherwise unavailable ‘J70’.
There are choices to be made when you are developing a ready-to-run locomotive model (and Model Rail is now on its sixth!). One of the most challenging is which liveries and running numbers to offer. In the case of the ‘J70’ there were to be ten different models, split between skirted and unskirted versions, and four LNER and two BR liveries.
That’s quite a wide choice for a class of only 12 locomotives but differences in detail and one or two key variations not covered by the tooling suite can limit one’s choice.
The ‘J70s’ are personal favourites and I own three MR models, but I found that I needed one, No. 68217, which is not covered by the available choices.
No. 68217 was a Wisbech & Upwell locomotive through and through. It was one of the first pair of ‘J70s’ (or, more correctly, ‘C53’) built by the Great Eastern Railway in 1903. It went new to Wisbech shed and remained there until withdrawal in 1953, apart from the winter of 1928/1929, when it was based at Colchester.
I wanted to model a particular scene, in which No. 68217 was photographed passing H. Brown’s grocer’s shop at New Common Bridge, on the southern outskirts of Wisbech. The reason why we didn’t choose to offer No. 68217 (and its sister, No. 68216) was because the 1903 pair had a unique bump stop/lamp iron arrangement between the nose windows that was a tooling change too far. I was prepared to overlook this difference.
As a starting point I needed a skirted ‘J70’ with ‘BRITISH RAILWAYS’ on the side skirts. MR-205 (No. 68223) fitted the bill and the job was a straightforward little modelling exercise with a pleasing end result.
Detailing a ‘J70’ to be No. 68217 means renumbering and changing one or two details but it’s an easy and enjoyable project for a day’s modelling.
Top right: No. 68217 (LNER No. 7136, GER No. 136) rests at Stratford, circa 1950. It was built by the GER in 1903 and was condemned on March 9 1953. The unique bump stop/lamp iron arrangement is clearly visible. It’s not represented by any of the Model Rail options, but if you are willing to accept a fudge regarding the etched maker’s plate, renumbering the ‘J70’ and representing 68217 as it appears in photographs circa 1950 is not difficult. RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON