Lady Anne refurbishment and detailing.  

I purchased a second hand Lady Anne a while ago to join the fleet on The Firs Garden Railway in Shropshire.

The future Trish as purchased.

    It’s an early kit built model that seemed to have seem a fair amount of use. The paintwork was in a mid blue which was chipping away in several places and I would guess that it was not correctly primed and finished.

    The loco was placed into service to get a feel for the engine with the thought that restoration was on the cards in the future.It eventually reached the workshops for the paint job and modifications. The work included:

  • Full strip of the paint and a respray using etch primer.
  • Adding a running plate over the front cylinders.
  • Changing the water fillers.
  • Move the lubricator to discharge under the cab and not all over the cab floor.
  • Adding details such as mechanical lubricator and oil pots.
  • Remedial work to the roof as the hinging system wasn’t to my liking.
  • Modifications to the RC installation.
  • Other detailing as I thought about it.
  • General check over for any wear issues.
There goes the blue paint!

    The loco was taken apart and bathed in paint stripper. This showed some of the soldering to be in need of attention. All of this was repaired and smoothed out and the pieces placed ready for repainting.A piece of brass was cut to form the front running plate. The picture shows it with a hole for the exhaust pipes under the smokebox. This was eventually formed as a slot to enable the plate to be slid out for access to the valves if required. Under the plate I used some square brass section as a stiffener to represent the angle used on prototype locos. A mechanical lubricator, lamp irons and oil pots were fashioned out of bits from the scrap bin.

    Water fillers were made from scrap brass sheet and N scale rail for the hinges.

  The first time I used this loco I vowed to do something about the position of the lubricator. It was fitted in the cab and drained directly onto the cab floor. The floor was always a sticky mess! Once I had dismantled the loco I could see that it would be possible to drop the lubricator so that the bottom of it protrudes below the cab floor. This just required an existing hole on the floor to be enlarged and the pipework repositioned to suit. This job went a lot easier than I thought it was going to. No pipework needed to be changed – just adjusted. As the lubricator was now a lot lower it was difficult to get to the top to fill so I made an extension to the handle from a brass screw. It now discharges below the cab floor and is easily refilled.

    The cab roof hinging system was not to my liking on a couple of points – it didn’t fit very well and the hinge screws showed on the outside of the loco. The fit was down to the original cab assembly which is slightly twisted. I did not want to completely unsolder the cab so decided to change the fixing method instead. I soldered some brass rod under the cab roof with 4 legs protruding down at each corner. In the cab I soldered a piece of square tube (round would have been fine but I had square in the drawer!) in all 4 corners. To fit the roof you just align the rods with the tubes and push down. I then soldered up all of the spare holes in the cab sides. A bonus on this modification is that the roof no longer rattles when the loco is in use!

One of the RC servos needed to be replaced and I repositioned the batteries from under the cab roof to one of the side tanks complete with a charge socket in the bottom of the tank.

The buffer beams had recessed screws soldered in to get rid of the cheesehead screws. The rivets on the beam are stick on gems from my wife’s card making supplies drawer. They are a bit over scale but so are many of the bits and pieces we use!

I also fixed some brackets behind the cab steps as they were a bit flimsy for my liking.

Paintwork was a couple of thin coats of Halfords etching brass primer followed by grey primer and the finish coat is a Vauxhall maroon as chosen by my wife – got to get them involved haven’t we? I then replaced all the brass handrails with steel and applied Fox gold lining transfers. Finally a brush applied coat of matt Ronseal varnish to seal the paint and the steel rails – I don’t like shiny locos!

After initial testing and adjustment the loco now looks completely different. I am very pleased with the time spent on it.

Finished and named.