Part 1 – Background
Once upon a time I was contacted by a Norwegian model maker, ”Proinor” (Profiler i Norge), that asked if I could share some of the 2D drawings I had drawn for Swedish 600 mm rolling stock. His plan was to make a model of a JGJ passenger coach as a laser cut wood kit. I supplied the drawings and did not think much more about that, we had some contact and he sent some pictures. A few years later he had his way past my hobby shop (that I no longer actively run) and showed the result, I was blown away, so fantastic…
I immediately ordered a few, however, this was back in 2015 and we have jointly been delaying the delivery, for various reasons, for me mainly because I have no loco… or track… Not until perhaps… now-ish…
What I wanted to build was one of the locomotives that ran on Jönköping-Gripenbergs Järnväg, JGJ, a local 600 mm gauge line in my hometown Jönköping. I have been fascinated by this railroad since I was young. I could have grown up in one of the railroads more prominent buildings, a ”Tourist-Hotel” some distance out from town, a popular weekend trip for people in Jönköping around 1900… My parents looked to buy that house when they decided to move to Jönköping, however, the house was in a very bad condition… To sum up, it would have been great but I think my parents made a wise decision letting that one go…
The loco I’d like to build is the most popular (by number) built of a Swedish 600 mm design, the Motala Works 2-6-2. The first model had no superheating, after superheating was added, it became the most successful 600 mm loco ever, in Sweden. However, it also got a, to me, not favorable long smoke box overhang in the front, nah, not for me… I’ll go for the older ones, without superheating.
And while ”most popular” sounds great, only five of the first version were built, and two of the second. None of the first five survive, but interestingly, both of the superheated locos survive, and they are in operation at ÖSlJ!
However, before I started to look into building my own, I stumbled upon a ”bargain I could not resist”, an Accucraft 2-6-2 (W&L #14). I thought it could be ”close enough, just add some new paintwork” and would also give me the reason to order the coaches. But once I got it I sort of liked the green color, it is a nice locomotive so I decided to keep it as is, no repainting to try and achieve the JGJ locomotive.
Back to where I started, almost, and then a number of very tough years passed…
Skipping to the year of the Corona, 2020, I bought a house with a small spot begging for a garden layout. After selling off a great deal of my bought and inherited, outdated model trains, I figured ”Why not use the money to buy the parts for that Live Steam project in 16 mm?!”. The inheritance was from my father, he led me into trains and it would feel good to transfer his collection and heritage to something train-related, so I did.
There’s the plot, the background to why we are here at the beginning of this locomotive project. In the next part I plan to start the project, not by cutting metal, but by drawing up parts of the planned design into Fusion360 and find out whether it all will go together and still reasonably resemble the Motala Works 2-6-2 that I want to build. There will be a load of compromises and I’ll need to use my modeller’s licence a lot. The goal is ”visual resemblance” and a working live steam model in 16 mm scale, and hoping that I eventually will get my hands on some of those coaches… But we’ll start out with the loco!