A Dublo Neverwazza

My Father and I love our Dublo 3 rail, we've got stacks of it hidden away and lately I've begun buying more of it.  The idea is to build a layout later this year but that can wait for another blog post.

The thing with Dublo is, the range does rather constrain you as to what you can run.  Once you've bought all the common stuff you're stuck with either duplicates or a limited fleet of engines if you can't pay £400 for Ludlow Castle.  Lately it seems to have become the thing to re-number or repaint locos ala Wrenn fashion and once I'd acquired a couple of these I rather liked the idea (as long as it stuck to what I call the "Dublo way").

Neverwazza's as they are known (because they never was made by Dublo guv'ner) have been slowly creeping into our collection and have really added some interest to it.  Take Dad's beautiful professionally painted Caledonian liveried N2 (my 50th birthday present to him) for instance, it looks amazing compared to drab BR liveried stuff!  I myself have a London Transport liveried one and that looks jolly good too.

I saw this on eBay and was immediately on its case.  It looked like too good a opportunity to miss and I'm glad I've got it.  In short its a real Neverwazza, but in total Dublo fashion.  Its a Castle boiler and cab, shortened where necessary and affixed to a 8F footplate, with brass bits attached to make the distinctive splashers.  This all sits on a scratchbuilt chassis (Romford drivers, X04 motor) with the cylinders provided by a Graham Farish OO gauge (yup I really am that sad I can tell this) prairie tank.  The Dublo Castle bogie remains unaltered.  All this sounds like a horrendous mongrel but it really does look like a County.

After a oil and a clean the chassis ran very well (good start) and the wheels would run on Dublo 3 rail track (even better start).  The plan is (and I've already painted it so watch out for that in the next post) to get an 8F tender chassis and stick a Bachmann or Hornby Hawksworth tender body on it to create the tender and also convert it to 3 rail.  Livery will be BR black, I've ordered the name and number plates, it will become County of Somerset (where Dad is from) and presented to him at Christmas.  Hopefully it won't take long!  The outcome will be a Great Western County, more or less as Dublo would have done it, and best of all, nobody else will have one!