"The Time has come,"

...The walrus said," to talk of may things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and just how the hell do all these bits go together underneath?"
(I'd apologize to Lewis Carroll, but hes dead at the moment so it would be a bit pointless.)

I think I've cracked how to mount the 2 unpowered bogies, but you'll have to wait to see that when I get the bits to actually do it. The first bit to do was file the bolster pads off the bottom of the frame, and remove the connection casting between the 2 cars.


With that problem solved (until reality turns up and kicks its butt), I moved on to something I really feared, the undergubbins. Scouring the Railfan articles and several other books yielded exactly zero good pictures of the collection of shapes under the skirt. A plan 'B' was then conceived. It basically started by the assembly of all the bits i could identify onto the underframe. Thus, on went the engine, the fuel tanks, the radiators, the exhaust pipes and some wee cylinder bits that I have no idea about but which fit in the holes, and a part that looks like a tank of some sort mysteriously labeled 'AR'.




This then left a collection of other bits that Pats back to front plan and assembly figures make no sense of. I finally managed to sort out just exactly where the hell everything went (or a reasonable approximation). The photos will mean more than me trying to describe it.

Subassembly 'D'. The tab from the wee generator type thingy fits into the slot at the bottom.

Subassembly 'O'. Same here, only up the other way.

It then became quite obvious where they fitted. 'O' fits on the non-detailed side of the engine, and 'D' sits next to it. In retrospect its not actually that hard, but the bad exploded view and instructions don't help, and it takes a fool to leap in where angles fear to tread..


(as an aside guys, there were 2 of the wee generator bits from figure D and O missing, but there's also some spare bits I don't need.).

I've now just got to sort out what the 2 pewter strips are for as they are not mentioned anywhere that I can see. Theres also some muttering about brass strips round the generators, but I've no idea how it should look.
The researching of underframes has also revealed that there was some pipework running across the non radiator side of indeterminent purpose. Will have to see if I can sort out where it runs from/to, and then find some brass wire to make it.