Fowler Driver Figure and Brake Column

With the Christmas holidays just started after the last tasks were done on the job, I jumped directly to the worktable, cleared away the worst mess and began working on the driver figure for the Fowler and continuing work on the brake column. Christmas will be the time for cab interior on the Fowler!

Brake column needing only final sanding and cleaning before it can be primed and painted. The wooden blocks are test pieces to check what sizes and numbers of jack blocks can be fitted under the cab floor.

The brake column is a simple thing glued together from plastic tubes of different diameters set onto an (almost) eliptical mounting plate and fitted with bolt head imitations of sliced hexagonal plastic profiles. Not entirely prototypically, but good enough for its future hard to see location in the cab. 

Quite fast I decided that the driver on the Fowler locomotive had to be the standing figure in Modelu loco driver pack 11219.  The figure arrived in May among a batch of stuff from Modelu. The figure is almost a perfect fit leaning against the low rear wall in the cab. Initially I have adjusted the figure's height by trimming shoes and cap with knife and sanding sticks. Not much work but the pose improved and taking a milimeter or two of the figure's height also makes it easier to get it in or out the cab once its filled with levers etc.

First stage of 'building up a butt' on the driver figure. The in-progress brake column is just visible in the cab.

The most time consuming work on the figure was adding material to the back side of the figure. As the figure is designed to sit on a flat surface and I'm having my example sit on an edge I was in for some plastic surgery of adding 'tissue'. I used 'Green Putty' from Green Stuff World building it up in layers. I'm working on a good fit between figure and loco, to make the figure removable and yet being able to keep its position while traversing bad track (as all track is at Nystrup Gravel). Currently I'm adding the last layers of 'Green Putty' and smoothing out the surface before sanding begins.

When the figure arrived in May he was photographed leaning against the Fowler loco. After being 'tailored' to fit in the cab he will probably seldom be seen outside. Too bad actually, as it is a lovely scale figure.

With a good start on the holidays modelling wise, I look forward to some time at modelling table. It needs a more thorough cleaning. After working with vegetation and ground cover it is covered in fibres and gravel. Having started on the figure and cab interior I've an urge to finish as much as possible during all the other Christmas activities. 

A few printouts from the article kept safe in plastic chartecues in my 1/19 modelling binder. Easy to see I'm a modeller from the previous millennium!

Besides prototype photos the article by Bill Strickland in the November 1980 issue of 'Merioneth Mercury' is a good guideline for my work on the locomotive. I think it shows how good quality magazine articles are a lasting ressource in modelling. Don't throw away that kind of treasures!