Monday 7 November 2022

For England, Fourdees...

Some years ago now I looked at a drawing of a Ffestiniog Railway 'England' saddle tank and wondered if a 15" gauge version was feasible, along the lines of the Fairbourne Railway's Darjeeling style 'Sherpa' and Ruslip Lido's 'Mad Bess', itself based on the Ffestiniog ex-Penrhyn Hunslets (let's not get any ideas about that new Bachmann model!).

Thanks to a new entrant in the O9 market I can wonder no more...

Photo: Fourdees

Fourdees have become an established name in the 009 market offering a range of finished 3D printed locomotives and more recently kit versions based on their older models and also taking opportunity of new chassis such as the Bachmann USA 'Peter Sam' and Kato/Peco FR England. This new O9 model uses the latter chassis, which has a saddle-tank filling weight that sadly reduces the opportunity to build much else on it (although Fourdees do have some interesting 009 variations for it).

The coaches in the background are also new kits from Fourdees and despite being freelance have a real feel of 15" gauge stock, and come complete with Peco coach bogies/wheels and couplings. I can see these being very popular and those brake pipes look superb! 

This is all very encouraging for those wanting to model 15" gauge railways in 7mm scale. Sadly my current stance is that I have enough stock to be going on with (especially with 'Shifting Sands' in storage) and like many 15" gauge railways limited investment funds... I have however ordered an another nifty Fourdees product - a static 0-4-0 chassis designed for their England models, but equally useful as a basis for a scratchbuilt loco for display or diorama use.

Fourdees products can be purchased via their eBay store.

Colin

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