Hunslet 14” OC “THE BURSAR”

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This thread will outline the history and build of a recently commissioned kit by myself from Mike Edge (Judith Edge Kits). The kit will be to P4 and 4mm. I have a similar thread on RMWeb - however I’ll tailor this more to P4 standards.


Prototype History

Along with the “classic” Hunslet inside cylinder 0-6-0 saddle tank classes (12, 14, 16, 15, 16 and 18”) that could be found across all aspects of industry, Hunslet also produced the 14, 15 and 16” classes with outside cylinders and Walschaerts valve gear.

Outwardly they appearance is similar to that of the inside cylinder locomotives – 14” x 20” cylinders, 9’ coupled wheelbase, 3’ 3.5” diameter wheels - but with longer frames, footplate and smokebox, and of course outside cylinders and valve gear.

Although not numerous (12), they had a long-ish (40 year), international and varied lifestyle, often returning to Hunslet Works for rebuild, re-selling or hire on short term contracts. They could be found working at port / dock construction, collieries, cement works, ordnance factories, sugar factories, shunting for the War Department or ironstone quarries.

In addition to the twelve standard gauge 14” OC locomotives a single example of the standard gauge 15” OC (HE 1446/29 - “THE TREASURER” – Oxfordshire Ironstone Company and two standard gauge 16” OC (HE 1637/29 - “BIRCH COPPICE” – Birch Coppice Colliery and HE 1791/35 – Tir John No.1 Tir John Power Station) locomotives were also produced. I have a test etch of the latter from Mike Edge in the to do pile and the 15” has been drawn up, but not committed to brass yet.

Getting back to the 14” locomotives - although these were “standard” designs, they, like all industrials were made to suit customers requirements. The 14” OC locos are no exception, and this can be traced back to the original order by Crown Agents, Palestine. The OC Walschearts valve gear locomotives were apparently favoured by overseas customers for ease of maintenance.

A total of twelve 14” OC locomotives fitted with open cabs and tropical (“double roof”) were ordered by Crown Agents in 1929, for port construction at Haifa, Palestine.



HE 1646/29 "HHWD No.6 "at work in Palestine, note open backed cab and tropical roof.

However, it appears that only 4 (HE 1643-6) of the 12 were able to be supplied in time, the remaining numbers being made up by 14” IC locos (which were also fitted with tropical, open cabs).

The remaining 8 locomotives; HE 1647/48 (2) and HE 1685-90 (6) were completed and subsequently sold to John Mowlem for the construction of the Southern Railways graving dock at Southampton. These locomotive were however fitted with enclosed cabs and dumb buffers.

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Unidentified 14”OC Locomotive at work at work for J Mowlem during the construction of the Graving Dock, Southampton. May 1932. Credit - Mirrorpix/Alamy https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-at-wo ... 03039.html

After initial contracts had expired Crown Agents sold 1643-45 back to Hunslet, whom rebuilt and on-sold or hired the locomotive to industry and the War Department via J Ward. John Mowlem disposed of the locomotives to Nuttall & Sons between 1933-35 used the locomotives on a variety of construction projects from disposal points to munition factories. Nuttall & Sons disposed of all but two in 1948 to the NCC

A detailed summary can be found here

1645/29 “THE BURSAR”
My chosen prototype was part of the initial Crown Agents Batch. HE 1645/29 was delivered in 1929 for the Haifia Port Construction, where it worked until it was repatriated to the UK in 1938, subsequently rebuilt by Hunslet and sold to Oxford Ironstone Company (OIC) c.1940 during a ramp up of activities during WW2.

During the rebuild the locomotive retained its tropical roof, however it gained a non-standard cab back. The locomotive was fitted with knuckle coupling in addition to conventional draw gear for working with side tipping dumpcars (dump cars available from RT Models), similar to the other OIC locos of that era. The dumpcars were used to transport ore from the quarry to the crusher at Wroxton. As noted above there are not many images of the locomotive in steam and it is difficult to say whether the locomotive spent more time on the quarry system or mainline.

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HE 1645/29 The BURSAR 9 April 1958. Photo from Don Townsley - Hunslet Locomotive Works p.88. Annotated to show the variations and modifications (book incorrectly credits 1930 as date of manufacture)

Tropical Cab
The BURSAR was fitted with a tropical open cab from new, retaining this even after rebuild in 1938. The tropical cab had an out and inner roof with a gap and vents in between to reduce the amount of heat radiated from direct sunlight - someone thought it might be warm down in Oxfordshire.

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Livery
The following links of The BURSAR in 1964 show the remnants of the original dark grey/black colour scheme (grey all over, with black tank top and roof), off white underside of boiler and hints of vermillion wheels, rods and buffer beam and straw lining

https://plumbloco.smugmug.com/Trains/British-Industrial-Systems/i-FmnHtRK
Hunslet No. 1645 "The Bursar", Wroxton, Oxfordshire Ironstone, 22nd May 1964
Photo Credit Geoff Plumb

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The Kit

The kit makes the most of the common parts between the IC and OC locomotives, such as enclosed cab, saddle tank, coupling rods, compensation system, resin castings and, with additional parts - open cab, buffer beams, smokebox, longer frames and footplate, outside cylinders, valve gear etch all fitting-ish on a A4 sheet.

Being based on the 14” IC kit, construction follows a similar process.

This being a test etch, it was decided to build as designed - with compensation on the rear coupled two axles, and swinging arms on the front. The motor will drive the rear coupled axle with the motor mounted horizontally in the boiler.

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First up was to mark up the drawing with the part numbers. Credit here goes to @k22009 I found this a great way to help conceptualise how the parts go together.

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The Extras
Mike provided me with a set of resin castings (smokebox door, chimney, dome, sand boxes and backhead) from the 14” IC kit which have been supplemented with
RT models coupling pockets,
Sergent Engineering Short shank Knuckle Couplers (HO - but scale OK in 4mm/ft).
Markets handrail knobs, wire and rod
Alan Gibson 3” 3.5” wheels (4839G) + crankpins
High Level 80:1 LoadHauler Compact and 1219C motor.
CSB Parts (future build)

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The current state of play

Footplate, cylinder assembly, chassis, motion bracket, connecting / coupling rods and slide bars.

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First up the chassis, which was built mostly as per the instructions - using the swing beam/knife edge for the front axle and compensation beam for the middle and rear axle (being a test etch after all). I have drawn up the CSB for this, however it needs some tweaking. I have a second chassis for this purpose. Half etch lines ensure the spacers slot locate positively and squarely. Distances is 16.4mm over frames - pretty much scale width - clearance at the front end will be tight. I say mostly, as I have differed slightly by using 1mm rod as the pivots and small 1.5m tube to secure rather than pins. We’ll see why shortly.

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I’ve also decided to making the cylinder assembly removable - using spare EM frame spacer (yes i soldered it off center - doh) soldered between the front and back cylinder etchings. The original spacer was split, with half soldered below so that the whole cylinder assembly is sandwiched between the footplate and modified spacer. It’s not pretty - but it works.

I will build a chassis with CSB and have designed the plot up - it is just quite tight in there with clashing between the brake pivots and motion bracket to be resolved.

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High Level LHC + 1219c


I should probably point out that this is my first Walchearts valve gear locomotive. Any tips or tricks are most welcome. I have a copy of the late Iain Rice’s book / bible that has proved very handy.

[Hardwicke]

When I built my Branchlines chassis for the Airfix 76000 I took each step of the valve gear slowly, following the instructions. It worked perfectly, though without a test track or controller handy, the axle bearings were too tight and needed reaming out. If I could build that in a student digs, you'll have no problems.

[davebradwell]

I have made plenty of sets of Walschaert's gear and never had any problems. I've always scaled the parts and hence alignment directly from the prototype as someone had already spent time getting the bits to miss each other so mine did, too. All joints have been correctly forked primarily to stop them waggling about and tying each other in knots but also because it's the only way to preserve the correct alignment of each part. If you're making overlapping joints, the links are offsetI've only once soldered any of the pins (the first time) and use cut down lace pins in broached holes. The lace pins are slightly tapered so it's possible to achieve a push fit and if this fails, because the joints are forked, it's only necessary to prevent the pin falling out so cutting them off with side cutters and flattening the burr with a light tap will suffice.

Now, you're starting from a different place but I suggest checking that the piston and valve centres are correct. If someone's moved the cylinders out and not the valves then that's stuffed up the combination lever alignment for starters. After that you're stuck with the bits provided in the kit so let's hope someone made a good job of it. Our over wide wheel tyres have already reduced the space you have available.

I suggest you solder the motion brkt to the slidebars, perhaps even adding a link to the cylinders between the frames to form a rigid removable unit. The bits of the motion can be assembled on the bench and fitted to the loco as a set but you might check it will all go through the hole in the motion brkt first. I can usually tap out the expansion link pivot, take the union link off the drop link and unscrew the return crank to remove all.

Please don't model it in mid-gear - this doesn't give the proper mesmerising action.

DaveB

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Motion
Steady progress with the successful assembly of the etched cross heads. In the footsteps of the late Rice, a simple jig was made, with a 1mm OD n/s rod soldered between the two halves. A slither of 1.5mm OD tube was cut to represent the joint between crosshead and piston tube.

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Offered up, they fit like a glove between the slide bars, also acting as a 6th pair of hands to hold things in place. I’ve yet to trip the piston rod or solder the slide bars in place.

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Time to take a breather from the motion, while I figure out some body basics to accommodate the motor within the boiler, while also building in a modular way to enable easy access.

Cab

First up the distinctive cab with non-standard carb back of the prototype. The open back version was assembled first, followed by the cab back and sides. Fairly straightforward stuff.

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Boiler
The kit comes with a complete etched boiler, with half etched boiler bands. However, I’ve decided to roll a new boiler bottom so that the body cab be split allowing access to the motor / gearbox.

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The new boiler is 10 thou (31mm x 30mm) and I’m using 1mm wide strips of 2 thou brass to make the boiler bands. Should result in a much more refined look. The boiler will be rolled to ~15mm diameter according to the drawings supplied.


Current state of play while I ponder the next steps

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Thanks for looking and keep up the comments!

James

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Hello All,

Short update - modelling time has been severely limited by work travel, but progress has occurred. Major body components have been rolled and soldered. Some scratch building occurred and some heavy reference to the late Rices’ manuals. Bit of head scratching to figure out how to separate the saddle -m smokebox from the lower boiler - success it seems was achieved a’ la High Level - the saddle clamping the boiler bottom in place.

The cylinder assembly (need to add front cylinder detail)

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The body and how its split

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That’s all for now..wheels and motion next me thinks

James