The next part on my hit list was the coal rails. Unusually for one of Jim’s kits I had a bit of a fiddle to get it to sit correct and ended up filing the curve to get it to sit better against the rear of the cab.

After looking at the drawing to see how the rails were mounted on the full sized loco, I made up some mounting strips cut from some 10 thou nickel sheet.

Then it was the turn of the cab handrails. These are, like on many locos of the period, tapered from the bottom up. I made them by putting some short lengths of 1mm nickel rod into my Dremel laying it flat on the cutting mat and running a diamond file upon it to create a subtle taper. It doesn’t look very tapered in the photos but it does taper from 1mm to 0.7mm over the 30mm or so. I also turned up some washers for the top to take up the difference in the etched holes and some collars for the bottom which gives a bit more area to create the soldered joint while looking prototypical

I have also fitted one of the cab doors. Most photos show one of the cab doors open but the design of the kit doesn’t make that easy, so some more thought is needed before I fit the other one