Ducking Ugly

AmFet writes: Let me take you back into the mists of time, back to a place where dinosaurs ruled the earth and Michael Jackson still had his original nose.....

Tasman Pulp And Paper, on the lookout for a heavy shunter for their Kinleith mill, bought DA512 off the railways and, with typical BOP cunning, quickly pimped it into a low nose, twin control stand behemoth. Aghast, TranzRail (slightly niffed that someone had stolen the title of "Ugliest thing on Rails" from underneath them) promptly bought it back, effectively stifling the competition. In a supreme stroke of brilliance, shunters refuges were added and the whole thing painted in green to really cement its place in the pantheon of ugliness. It seemed there were no longer any mountains to climb, so it was sent to Taranaki for Drew to start lineside fires with, raising the ire of a whole new set of fans....


So why am I DAR'ing? Couple of reasons to be truthful....first, any model of Whareroa will need a shunting locomotive, and until the peanut gallery actually stop talking and start modelling, I'm picking we wont be seeing a DSC soon. And an SD7 powered loco for shunting doesnt sound half bad. Secondly....I think I'm starting to like the beast .....

The Head Druff started the ball rolling by dispatching via Her Majesty's Post the remnants of his two ABW Da's, as well as a stillborn Db conversion conjured up by yours truly while living over the hill in the Wairarapa. A quick dry run showed what could be possible....


This morning, I managed to push the girls of the house out to Ballet, so the house was free to fill with solder fumes....

First job was to take apart the Db footplate and trim back the side sills. I'm still not sure what to do here, but I'll think of something. The cab window was enlarged to the front on the drivers (R) side and to the back on the other (L) side, after which small inserts were soldered into the remaining small window and files over. The long hood and cab were then assembled, and the first problem with the instructions provided with the kit were found. I think I would have appreciated it if the designer had included a list of words that could be used during certain phases of construction, cos I exhausted all mine! I had a real problem rolling the cab roof over without the etched line folding in sympathy. In fact, in the end the whole thing on one side snapped, despite me trying to tack solder, bend, tack solder, bend, move on....In the end, I just gave up and used up most of my solder on it, then clogged my needle files cleaning it up. Luckily, Cabbage Stokes (From up the Valley) has told me that is an accepted way of doing things, so who am I to argue?


So after a mornings Fettling, this is where I am. The low nose will get done next, and I think I will try and reuse the nose from the kit. Negotiations are also underway with the Able Sqn Ldr to snare an SD7 chassis in a prisoner exchange. I'm fair pooing myself thinking about building those refuges though...