Tuesday 29 December 2009

GW Pannier Tank 4666 (1)

Well there it is, my first P4 loco and it works!!!!

The Ultrascale Bachmann Class 8750 'Pannier Tank' P4 wheel conversion pack has been sitting around for far too long. But today was the day I got to grips with it and 45 minutes after starting I had my first P4 loco. Placed on a short piece of P4 track and it ran just as well as it did as a OO loco.

Following Ultrascale's own conversion instructions for the Bachmann Pannier, I found the most difficult bit was removing the pickup plug. I was then extremely ham-fisted when plugging it back in and broke the plug socket off the circuit board (I didn't swear, honest). A quick repair with the soldering iron and all was well.

I decided to trim off the brake pull rods rather than file them down. I will refit them shortly. I also have some Bill Bedford coupling rods to solder up and fit. This will be done when some Carr's 188 solder arrives. All I then need to do is apply some balance weights to the wheels followed by general detailing and weathering of the Bachmann model.

4666 along with 4694 were allocated to Wadebridge shed (72F) in early 1960 to take over the duties performed by the SR Class O2's.

3 comments:

Ian Holmes said...

Easy! Nicely done. Perhaps I should sling my P4 wheelsets into my 08 to get things going again. Thanks for signing up at protocrastinator b-t-w.

Flymo said...

Doesn't that look great?

It's so good when you just get a piece of really nice looking stock, plonk it down on a piece of track like that, and admire the results. Very nice indeed.

And as you've found, a very easy conversion and now you have a known working locomotive that you can use to test anything else that you may build - either track or rolling stock...

I hope that you're feeling suitably pleased with yourself :-)

Ian said...

I am feel well chuffed with the conversion but also realise that there is some detailing to be done before I sit back and fully appreciate my efforts......

But so far so good and it runs......... :-))