I’ve been very impressed with the two loco bodies I’ve brought from 2A-Rail. So I brought another one. This time a freelance design based on a Kerr Stuart.

Again, it’s designed to fit the Minitrains Stainz chassis. It was pretty easy to fit the body to the chassis. I had to removed a small amount of plastic from either side of the footplate to help the body slide over the wires and I drilled a small hole so the body could be bolted to the chassis. This was very similar to the modifications I made to the Bagnall tank loco from 2A-Rail.

My plan was to fill the side tanks with lead to get lots of weight over the wheels. However, the side tanks are solid plastic and I didn’t fancy drilling them out. Instead I filled the smoke box and boiler with lead. This seems to have done the trick and the loco runs well.

The print quality isn’t as good as the previous locos. There are lots of printing lines over the body, which are especially noticible on the side tanks (see first photo). There are some artifacts between the spectacles on both sides of the cab, which you can see in both photos. The body will require a lot of work to clean it up. Normally, I burnish the surface with a sharp knife. Usually the marks are very superficial and this works well. In this case the marks are so pronounced I’m considering using a file to clean up the body. Sounds drastic, but I think it may be the best approach.