Tuesday 14 December 2021

Big Jim, and Little Big Jim, on the KWVR


Given how many garden-sized model railway projects I, Ben, have been building over the last few years it's perhaps surprising that we've only recently started building a proper garden railway for them to run on.  We managed to get the track down over the spring once the lockdowns eased, and after a bit of testing (alright, play) we found ourselves needing an extra locomotive.  Not the end of the world, as it would mean another project to try and get into Garden Rail magazine, but the budget was tight and I wasn't quite sure what to model.  As members of the Worth Valley Railway, it seemed fitting to have something based on one of their machines, and a chance spot of a suitable donor loco online led to making a model of fleet stalwart "Big Jim".


"Big Jim", more correctly no.5820 of the United States Army Transportation Corps, is an American-built s160-class.  These wartime locomotives were built for use throughout Europe and further afield, and "Big Jim" was bought back from Poland to the KWVR in the 1970's, becoming a regular member of the fleet.  My childood books on the KWVR were full of shots of this brutal-looking engine, but it was out of use when I first started visiting the line from the mid-2000's.


Happily, it was restored to use in the early 2010's, and it's a favourite for both myself and Younger Child.  There's something wonderfully Wild West about the loco, with it's chime-whistle barking away.  Building a model of this loco in some form has been on the cards for a while, and the garden railway was the perfect excuse for cracking-on with it.


I spent quite some time therefore in the Spring getting prototype pictures of the loco, from every possible angle, to get the details right.


...which included from the bridges at Haworth to see the roofline.

I'll go more into details of the build on the model making blog, but here's a couple of pics;


The donor model- a Lionel Ready-To-Play gauge 2 (ish) toy, from the same range as the Hogwarts Express set I rebuilt for a project during lockdown.


After re-gauging the model, I cracked on with modifying what is a well-made toy, mainly with custom-designed parts done on the laser cutter (the yellow and white plastic).  Other bits were well and truly robbing the spares box for odds-and-ends; for example the dark blue extension to the front of the boiler is the top off a mayonnaise bottle.


Shooting pics of the finished model was trickier; the garden railway at the in-laws isn't finished enough to use as a suitable backdrop, so I ended up doing the pics in my own back garden with some track resting on some hanging basket liner.


Then just as I was getting the model finished, the KWVR rostered "Big Jim" on service trains... which gave me an idea.  I reckoned I could get in a location shoot, incorporating the real loco with the model.  I toyed with taking the pic actually at one of the stations, but I guessed the red-tape and health+safety forms would be pretty prohibitive. We've shot pictures on a station before, which needed an escort, health and safety briefings, and all sorts besides, and that was an out-of-use station on a line with no trains running that day.  Trying to set up a model on the platform of an active station, with passengers waiting, didn't entice as a prospect.


I'd need a spot where a low wall would allow me to set up some track, and shoot a forced perspective photo.  The above spot, near Damems, was the first choice, but there were two problems; first the undergrowth had grown considerably since this shot was taken back in the early Spring, and secondly, there was problem of having to carry a load of stuff quite a long way from the nearest parking space.


The reserve location was up at Oxenhope, where a low wall would give me somewhere to set up a board with the track on.  Still a fair slog from the car, but I mugged my Father-in-Law to assist.


I'd only have four trains on one day to work with (the varnish was still drying on the model on the Thursday, and the shoot would have to be the Friday which was the last day the loco was scheduled for that week). Two boards were set up, pre-covered in hanging basket liner and some LGB gauge one track. I added in the coaches from the Hogwarts set too.  The lighting wasn't terrific in the morning, but the weather was due to deteriorate by the time the sun would be on the right side of the line in the afternoon.


It did the trick though, and the article on the conversion has been featured in the January 2022 issue of Garden Rail, out now.  A fun project, and an unusual photoshoot; I haven't done location pics with miniatures for quite a while, and certainly not one incorporating a real locomotive in a forced perspective shot. I didn't get the scaling quite right this time (though I am happy with the shot), and it might be one to return to at a later date.



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