A BIT OF A BASHING. By Philip Worsfold
Way back in 2008, whilst enjoying the company of my international friends at an event organised by the French section of the Association Européenne des Cheminots, we were treated to a visit, wine tasting and lunch at a big winery at Romanèche-Thorins in the Beaujolais wine region. The tale of the whole visit is best glossed over, although I did end up as a member of a confrèrie (brotherhood) of wine buffs called les Grappilleurs des Pierres Dorées. But what would be perhaps more interesting to you, might be what lies outside the winery, for there you will find the railway.
Romanèche-Thorins lies on the right bank of the river Saône, north of France’s second city, Lyon, on a line which was then dedicated to freight traffic. The station building houses a small but excellent railway museum and in the goods yard, you will find a rake of ancient wine-wagons, topped by a preserved ex PLM (Paris-Lyon-Méditéranée) 4000 class 0-8-0 tender engine PLM 4A 51. It is not in working order – it is evident that there are bits missing – and the tender is not the ‘correct’ one. But externally, at least, it is well looked after. So I took my pictures, tasted the wine, had my lunch and the rest was history…
Or so I thought! Then in the July 2013 issue of the French model railway magazine ‘Le Train’, I found an article about the PLM 4000 class, of which the survivors became 040A under SNCF. There were the usual ancient photos, and diagrams in HO scale – and a photo of the preserved loco at Romanèche-Thorins.
What now struck me was the similarity in outline these locos had when they were compared with another ancient loco; the Bourbonnais 0-6-0’s – a model of which was made by Rivarossi; and that got me wondering if a conversion might be possible, since I had already a spare model. I checked the wheelbase, spacing and wheel size against those of another model – one by Jouef of a 0-8-0 tank, the État 040TA and found them to be all but identical. I had a spare one of those, too. There was no need to modify the tender, which contained the motor.
Now came the tricky bit. In order to preserve the boiler mountings and rear two pairs of splashers – for they were correctly spaced for the 0-8-0 – it was necessary to cut the body in half at an angle to insert a piece of plastic tube between the two extremities. I used a piece of electric conduit which John Crocker happened to have available and was fractionally oversize. That allowed me to carve and scrape to replicate the pipe-work and handrails of the original model, between the two halves. Below the footplate it was necessary to remove all the chassis, except the very back. It was necessary to remove the footplate as well at the front end, since the Jouef footplate was retained on the chassis. But it all turned out to be easier than I had thought. At the front end it was necessary to saw off the footplate forward of the boiler, complete with buffer beam and lanterns. These were stuck to the foreshortened Jouef chassis, which was also trimmed at the rear end to marry with the remaining part of the Rivarossi chassis but the Jouef keep plate for the wheels remained unaltered. On top, some Plasticard packing was necessary at the rear to keep the footplate at the right level. The front end needed some delicate surgery so that the chassis could accept the boiler. Again a piece of Plasticard, glued between the opening under the boiler, resulting from the removal of the footplate, lodged nicely between the exposed sides of the Jouef chassis and footplate to align it. I drilled a hole in this infill piece to locate over the now upstanding screw which held the cylinder block to the chassis. It wasn’t quite long enough to be of use to fix body to chassis. So the centre hole in the insert/weight unit was tapped out to 8BA, and the Jouef wheel-set keep plate drilled to align with the hole in the Rivarossi body and a long 8BA screw achieved the desired body fixing.
The keep plate from the Rivarossi model was cut back and front to supply the couplings. At the back end, this retained the electrical connection to the original weight in the boiler. I made a ‘slip-on’ extension to this, from thin brass sheet, so that I could keep the headlight operational. Also I made an electrical connection using brass strip to connect the ‘earth’ side pickup to the rear coupling – this took up less room than wire in a very confined space. I did much the same on the ‘live‘ side to make the connection to the lamp, it’s earth being via the extended weight unit, replicating, more or less, the Rivarossi original. I had hoped to re-use the Jouef pickups but two of these broke and had to be replaced with ones I made from brass strip – but that was my fault. I reused the pieces of plastic, cut from the Jouef footplate, to form the rear of the raised section of footplate over the cylinders.
At the front end, the part of the Rivarossi keep plate with the coupling, was stuck to a block built up from Plasticard, which fitted nice and snug between the sides of the Jouef chassis, between the cylinders, helping to stabilise the front buffer beam.
There remained the boiler mountings. The original parts from the Rivarossi model were modified slightly to accommodate the re-positioning of the sand box on top of the boiler. An additional bit of wire was necessary between the sand box and the dome. Sand pipes and other pipe-work were made from wire of various thicknesses. The reversing rod was reshaped using pliers. The air reservoirs were made from plastic tube, the ends being provided by the metal ends of small size old fashioned fuses. The Westinghouse air brake pump came from a box of bits and pieces.
There was still one big problem. These locomotives had outside Gooch valve gear – a bit like Stephenson’s and one of the most difficult to model. The 0-8-0 tank had Walschaerts valve gear. The best I could come up with was the idea of sticking a small disc of plastic on the end of the rivet on the Walschaert’s crank so that it would oscillate as the wheels went round. But then I discovered that the last 5 locos of the class were actually built with Walschaert’s valve gear. That was a relief! But unfortunately four of these ended up as 040F’s, visually different from the 040A’s. But I identified the one that remained as a 040A – no 152, assuming it lasted long enough. So my model has been numbered as SNCF 5-040A 152. The slide bars are still incorrect. I intended to investigate the possibility of re-using the Rivarossi cylinder block, slide-bars and crosshead, married to the Jouef valve gear, but never got around to it. Meanwhile, the model continues to look rather pretty on shed or chugging round at the head of a train of twin-barrelled wine wagons.
[This is an edited version of an article that appeared originally in the Journal of the SNCF Society (now the French Railways Society) in September 2013]
Way back in 2008, whilst enjoying the company of my international friends at an event organised by the French section of the Association Européenne des Cheminots, we were treated to a visit, wine tasting and lunch at a big winery at Romanèche-Thorins in the Beaujolais wine region. The tale of the whole visit is best glossed over, although I did end up as a member of a confrèrie (brotherhood) of wine buffs called les Grappilleurs des Pierres Dorées. But what would be perhaps more interesting to you, might be what lies outside the winery, for there you will find the railway.
Romanèche-Thorins lies on the right bank of the river Saône, north of France’s second city, Lyon, on a line which was then dedicated to freight traffic. The station building houses a small but excellent railway museum and in the goods yard, you will find a rake of ancient wine-wagons, topped by a preserved ex PLM (Paris-Lyon-Méditéranée) 4000 class 0-8-0 tender engine PLM 4A 51. It is not in working order – it is evident that there are bits missing – and the tender is not the ‘correct’ one. But externally, at least, it is well looked after. So I took my pictures, tasted the wine, had my lunch and the rest was history…
Or so I thought! Then in the July 2013 issue of the French model railway magazine ‘Le Train’, I found an article about the PLM 4000 class, of which the survivors became 040A under SNCF. There were the usual ancient photos, and diagrams in HO scale – and a photo of the preserved loco at Romanèche-Thorins.
What now struck me was the similarity in outline these locos had when they were compared with another ancient loco; the Bourbonnais 0-6-0’s – a model of which was made by Rivarossi; and that got me wondering if a conversion might be possible, since I had already a spare model. I checked the wheelbase, spacing and wheel size against those of another model – one by Jouef of a 0-8-0 tank, the État 040TA and found them to be all but identical. I had a spare one of those, too. There was no need to modify the tender, which contained the motor.
Now came the tricky bit. In order to preserve the boiler mountings and rear two pairs of splashers – for they were correctly spaced for the 0-8-0 – it was necessary to cut the body in half at an angle to insert a piece of plastic tube between the two extremities. I used a piece of electric conduit which John Crocker happened to have available and was fractionally oversize. That allowed me to carve and scrape to replicate the pipe-work and handrails of the original model, between the two halves. Below the footplate it was necessary to remove all the chassis, except the very back. It was necessary to remove the footplate as well at the front end, since the Jouef footplate was retained on the chassis. But it all turned out to be easier than I had thought. At the front end it was necessary to saw off the footplate forward of the boiler, complete with buffer beam and lanterns. These were stuck to the foreshortened Jouef chassis, which was also trimmed at the rear end to marry with the remaining part of the Rivarossi chassis but the Jouef keep plate for the wheels remained unaltered. On top, some Plasticard packing was necessary at the rear to keep the footplate at the right level. The front end needed some delicate surgery so that the chassis could accept the boiler. Again a piece of Plasticard, glued between the opening under the boiler, resulting from the removal of the footplate, lodged nicely between the exposed sides of the Jouef chassis and footplate to align it. I drilled a hole in this infill piece to locate over the now upstanding screw which held the cylinder block to the chassis. It wasn’t quite long enough to be of use to fix body to chassis. So the centre hole in the insert/weight unit was tapped out to 8BA, and the Jouef wheel-set keep plate drilled to align with the hole in the Rivarossi body and a long 8BA screw achieved the desired body fixing.
The keep plate from the Rivarossi model was cut back and front to supply the couplings. At the back end, this retained the electrical connection to the original weight in the boiler. I made a ‘slip-on’ extension to this, from thin brass sheet, so that I could keep the headlight operational. Also I made an electrical connection using brass strip to connect the ‘earth’ side pickup to the rear coupling – this took up less room than wire in a very confined space. I did much the same on the ‘live‘ side to make the connection to the lamp, it’s earth being via the extended weight unit, replicating, more or less, the Rivarossi original. I had hoped to re-use the Jouef pickups but two of these broke and had to be replaced with ones I made from brass strip – but that was my fault. I reused the pieces of plastic, cut from the Jouef footplate, to form the rear of the raised section of footplate over the cylinders.
At the front end, the part of the Rivarossi keep plate with the coupling, was stuck to a block built up from Plasticard, which fitted nice and snug between the sides of the Jouef chassis, between the cylinders, helping to stabilise the front buffer beam.
There remained the boiler mountings. The original parts from the Rivarossi model were modified slightly to accommodate the re-positioning of the sand box on top of the boiler. An additional bit of wire was necessary between the sand box and the dome. Sand pipes and other pipe-work were made from wire of various thicknesses. The reversing rod was reshaped using pliers. The air reservoirs were made from plastic tube, the ends being provided by the metal ends of small size old fashioned fuses. The Westinghouse air brake pump came from a box of bits and pieces.
There was still one big problem. These locomotives had outside Gooch valve gear – a bit like Stephenson’s and one of the most difficult to model. The 0-8-0 tank had Walschaerts valve gear. The best I could come up with was the idea of sticking a small disc of plastic on the end of the rivet on the Walschaert’s crank so that it would oscillate as the wheels went round. But then I discovered that the last 5 locos of the class were actually built with Walschaert’s valve gear. That was a relief! But unfortunately four of these ended up as 040F’s, visually different from the 040A’s. But I identified the one that remained as a 040A – no 152, assuming it lasted long enough. So my model has been numbered as SNCF 5-040A 152. The slide bars are still incorrect. I intended to investigate the possibility of re-using the Rivarossi cylinder block, slide-bars and crosshead, married to the Jouef valve gear, but never got around to it. Meanwhile, the model continues to look rather pretty on shed or chugging round at the head of a train of twin-barrelled wine wagons.
[This is an edited version of an article that appeared originally in the Journal of the SNCF Society (now the French Railways Society) in September 2013]
Boiler modifications and the new air tanks and Westinhouse pump.
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Boiler modifications and the new air tanks and Westinhouse pump.
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Chugging round the layout with a train of twin-barrelled wine wagons
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