Test Build 2 - Seeing Double

At the Pontefract Exhibition a couple of weeks ago, just before becoming acquainted with 'Derwent Road', I was handed a 3D print of an O9 loco cab by John Flower of A1 Models. Having examined it I was told it fitted to an existing 009 kit of a double-bonnet loco. An etch was passed over and a polite request made to build it up and paint it to see if it was practical, or whether the 009 bonnets were a touch too low for O9. This is the result, perched on the Kato chassis borrowed from the MG Models build...

The bonnets were both soldered together and then soldered to the main frame etch. I’ve only added buffer beams and some rudimentary coupler details to the contents of the kit, and a bench seat in the cab, which doesn’t show up in the pictures!

The cab print looked to be in a material akin to Shapeways "white strong and flexible" and cleaned up well, having been sanded/primed several times including some yellow filler primer.

I struggle to think of anything truly centre-cab on 15" gauge, other than perhaps the ex-Dudley Zoo machine that was at Blenheim Palace (but that was a much bigger, 6w-Bo beast rather than a 4-wheeler). Despite this I actually think it works fairly well, and whilst a few extra mm in the bonnet height is desirable, it isn’t as essential as I first thought it would be.

Whilst outwardly not really the sort of loco I'm in need of right now, I had a slightly futuristic thought that it could be a 15" hybrid locomotive, a small petrol engine at one end and batteries at the other...

Colin