Another project down. L-7 built from a Thomas and Friends Gordon. Only the core guts of the Gordon model were used and most of the valvegear parts are Bowser. The rest is scratch styrene.





And in action

Neat L7! Hard to believe this started as Gordon - you have some real vision.

WOW!!! Spectacular! Casey, you're work is amazing.

You've built another great model, Casey! It was ingenious using "Gordon" as the basis for your model. Do you figure the mechanism is straight from Bachmann's Branchline British 00 line?

Thanks!

Robin, I kind of doubt it is right from the British OO line. It is possible they used some of the pieces but besides the core of the engine Thomas and friends engines are kind of cheaply made. I believe they are considered children's toys even though they are commonly $80 or more. I was able to get the Gordon I used at a show for $65 brand new. The Thomas and Friends line is the easiest access to British engines, if scale models were more common in the US I would probably figure out ways to use more.

Here is a picture of the guts of the engine taken apart at the beginning of the project. The gears for making the eyes move were taken out and weight was added in place. The whole thing together is a solid brick all the way down to the bottom of the frame, being a camelback I wasn't worried about seeing through the frame.



As a side note Henry is the same engine with a different shell and green wheels. I got Gordon in hopes to get an extra spoked wheel for other uses but they are a bit too big for lead trucks being OO scale.

Here is a 4th of July weekend special using the D-8 4-4-0 "American" over the T-1 seemed more fitting. Plus the T-1 was busy on freight duties. I also do a quick segment on how I did the temporary decorations.