HORNBY ‘2MT’ TWEAKS
Excited by the eventual arrival of Hornby’s BR Class 2MT, George Dent couldn’t wait to add a weathered finish to his model of a ‘Mickey Mouse’ plying its trade in the Scottish Borders.
It’s funny how one’s interests develop over the years. Until fairly recently, I would have seen little reason to have a BR Standard ‘2MT’ in my ‘OO’ collection, other than for the fact that it hadn’t been offered in RTR form before.
However, since relocating to Northumberland I’ve become mildly obsessed with the former Border Counties route from Hexham to Riccarton Junction. What I wouldn’t give to be able to take a slow train through the glorious landscape towards Kielder…
Moreover, this sleepy branch line, set amidst spectacular scenery, with well-kept station gardens and attractive architecture, makes an ideal subject for a model railway.
With the ‘2MT’ 2 ‐ 6‐0s being regular performers on the Border Counties route during the line’s latter years, Hornby’s model became essential, and I was chuffed when the first versions finally arrived a few months ago (see review in MR320).
As with many new high-specification RTR locomotives, there isn’t too much in the way of essential extra details to add to Hornby’s model, save for a few customising touches, such as a footplate crew, coal load and a headlamp or two. That said, I did trim away the unsightly excess plastic on the external steam pipes, which had been bugging me somewhat.
Hornby’s ‘2MT’ comes with a handy bag of optional details, such as front footsteps and cylinder drainpipes, as well as a snowplough. While I have plenty of diesel locomotives equipped with miniature snowploughs, none of my steam-outline stock is similarly prepared for inclement weather. The plastic plough is designed to slot into the NEM coupler pocket in the pony truck, but this doesn’t allow the model to cope with curves very well, so I opted to cut away the NEM plug and fix it directly to the bufferbeam, as it would be done in real life.
This arrangement looks much more convincing and, although there’s still limited clearance for the front pony wheels, especially as I’ve added the footsteps too, the model will cope with the gentle curve radii that I’ve employed on my embryonic end-to-end layout. There’s scope to fettle the plough slightly if more clearance is needed, so I’d recommend a few trial fittings and some test ‐running on your own layout before you go fixing things in place permanently.
Luckily, there was no need to change the locomotive’s identity, with No. 78047 being allocated to Hawick shed (64G) from new until late 1965, working regularly on the Border Counties route during the line’s final few years of operation.
I may not have foreseen a need for a ‘2MT’ in my collection until recently, but I’m really
