Ds shunter from a Dapol Drewry kit

 

Again, more trawling the internet for OO scale items bashable for NZR and I found these at Hattons UK.

 

 

 

And the real thing - a Class 04 shunter from Gordon Edgar
"Kingmoor Klickr" photostream on Flickr

 

 

 

Looking very much like our Ds shunter, it was out with the dawings and photos.

The NZR Ds class shunter was the locomotive that started dieselisation in New Zealand.

After scanning and re-scaling my Model Railway Journal Ds plan page, the various parts were matched up to the drawings.

 

What needs doing then?
The Dapol Drewery shunter kit brought back memories of my Airfix aeroplane kitset days. The gray plastic, the plastic bag, the cardboard header. Even the smell is the same!

Well, just about everything lines up. The side panels with vents, the footplate, the cab height, everything. Even if you wanted a static model, the chassis wheel spacing along with jackshaft spacing is spot on - EXCEPT of course the Ds had outside frames. More on that later.

About the only other differences are the windows and cab roof profile.

  • The roof profile needs angled sides towards the edges rather than the Dapol's fully curved profile.
  • The cab front windows need changing shape and a middle window added.
  • The cab side widows need a single partition.
  • The cab rear needs its window frames squared up.

 

 

Chassis

As already mentioned, the chassis really needs to be "outside frame" and unfortunately the British version wasn't. Guess it has something to do with our narrower gauge.

An obvious donor of outside frame chassis was the British Rail class 08 shunter, but wheels and wheelbase are far too large. Still keeping an eye out. . . More to follow.

 

 

References

 

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