Modifying a Alan Gibson Johnson 2F 0-6-0

Having been alerted by other members of the SSMRS I discovered several items on Ebay which looked attractive enough for me to bid for, and win!

This partly built model is clearly an Alan Gibson kit Midland 2F loco, with the standard Johnson 3250 gallon tender. By the time I started modelling in S Scale Alan had discontinued this kit and I'd expected to have had to scratch build the locomotive body myself. Needless to say I'm rather pleased to have picked this model up.

I'm going to have to modify the model since it's not powered. The wheels have shorting out strips on opposite sides of the loco and tender chassis, which is something I don't like. I prefer to have pickup off all wheels with the body electrically dead. As it stands the wheels in locomotive chassis are very stiff and would have to be removed anyway. I don't think there's enough side play to cope with my sharp curves. Strangely the coupling rods are not jointed

I'll convert the tender to my usual tender drive system and replace the loco wheels with EM Gauge profile ones, which I've already got in stock. Not immediately apparent, is that the splashers and sandboxes on the other side of the loco are missing so these will need fabricating.

I'm not too convinced by the cast metal safety valve cover. I think I prefer the brass ones I've fitted to all my other Johnson locomotives.

Here's the largely completed model. The modifications made to the model were:

Locomotive

Tender

The original tender has been put into store and a completely new tender assembled from a modified Johnson 3250 gallon kit to produce the correct smaller 2300 gallon version.

The locomotive and tender are not permanently coupled and pick up is only off the four tender wheels - these seems sufficent for good pick up.

By way of a change a black and white photo of the finished model, just as it would have been photographed back in 1922.