A few years back I met Phil Badger of Badger Bits and Ixion fame - prior to the initial Manor release actually - at the AMRA Exhibition in Brisbane. Phil had emailed me prior to the show to say he was coming to Brisbane for it and would love the opportunity to catch up. His intended 30 mins ended up being 3 days and at least one evening into the small hours as he learnt a lot about British steam locos from myself and Ben of Oz (check out Ben's stuff on RM Web by searching for nebnoswal - he is doing a great job of building Sturminister Newton on the SDJR in his shed in Victoria).
Phil brought with him this:
Now for those who don't know a lot about Australian Steam the NSW Government Railway C38 hold pride of place - mostly because the class leader, 3801, travelled across the continent in 1970 and again in 1988 prior to Flying Scotsman doing the same in 1989. (Had the Victorian Railways not scrapped their S Class 4-6-2 Streamliners, then the C38 may not have had top spot.) Suffice to say, 3801 is the Australian equivalent of 4472. The model photographed on my "St Alban's Priory" layout is of 3802, the next in the class. 5 were finished like this, and 25 without the bullet nose and cowling on the top of the boiler. Similar to the LMS Duchesses the streamlining didn't make much difference to the capabilities of the class.
I have been eyeing off getting one of my own pretty much ever since and in today's post I got both the Badger Bits kit for the C38 - with 3801 transfers - and a kit for a Victorian Railways K class 2-8-0.
So far work has progressed on cleaning up some of the flash on the body - resin cast and it goes on a Micro Ace chassis. Can't really tell you much about it as Phil forgot to put the instructions in and I haven't yet emailed to ask for them!
Photo to date:
All things considered it is a pretty clean casting. Further progress photos and postings in due course.
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