Fitting loco crews.

I've just spent half my life carefully painting some 4mm scale Model U loco crews - whilst not up to professional standards, I'm not too disappointed with the results, particularly for an old codger with failing eyesight and less than steady hands.

My frustration is that I've found it almost impossible to get them into several tank engines - it seems I may have to remove the loco body to access the footplate.

Additionally, once in place, unless I want to do close-up photography, one can hardly see them !!  At over £5 per figure, before any shipping costs, I'm not at all sure I'll be buying too many more.  I could settle for the considerably less detailed but much cheaper offerings on the market…………..

Am I missing something - how do you guys get them into your locos ?

Modelu have a 15% discount on at the moment, I fit mine with tweezers, sometimes they need to be cut to fit.

Yes, I saw they had a 10th anniversary discount Phil but I'd still have the French duties to pay on top.

Also, given your erstwhile job, you no doubt found it relatively simple to squeeze them into a tank engine footplate - you're the type who could de-coke an engine through the exhaust pipe !!  I, on the other hand, need lots of room to manoeuvre………………..

Actually, I have de-coked a few engines but from memory, not through the exhaust pipes  

Aaah, de coking engines. Lovely job grinding valves in and trying not to get stuff down the side of the pistons.

I have used a variety of figures as footplate crew including ModelU 

Most need inserting with tweezers and holding in place while the glue goes off. Superglue is ok but I find UHU often works better bonding plastic to metal. If it’s plastic to plastic then Contacta Pro is the preferred adhesive. 

Some locos and some crew play nice. Some require patience beyond that of a saint and multiple attempts to get stuck into position. One or two locos kindly allowed me to remove the cab roof which made fitting easier. And some have required “life-changing surgery” to fit of which the Beattie well-tank crews had to be cut at the waist and on a curve (ground out with a round needle-file) to be stuck onto the curved splashers where they intrude into the cab. 

Hi Peter,

I remember fitting some crew into a Bachmann 57xx and a Hornby 14xx,  Not having the lower half of the body made it a bit easier, and hid the motor. Easier if the body is removed. My notes say I removed the doors of the 57xx using a fine scalpel blade and then added the dismembered crew. They also say NEVER DO THIS AGAIN! After that my tanks were crew-less. The exception is the GWR 0-6-2 (56xx) I'm slowly working on - scratch-built brass body and a of space inside the cab, A detachable roof (to be held in place with small magnets) will help. Several years ago I spent an hour in the cab of a 56xx - it's quite cramped.

N scale is not worth bothering with, except for steam locomotives when they go on the footplate.

Nigel

I've not bothered with crew on my N scale diesels, but I know some people do.

Must have much better eyesight then me 
 

It seems I'm not alone in struggling to populate my footplates ………….

How I wish I'd done it when fitting decoders etc. when the body and chassis were separated.  However, spilt milk etc. so I may persevere with the odd one but most will remain crew-less until such time as I have loads of patience and steady hands or I need to take the bodies off again …………….

No red the night before might help 

Hi Peter,

You could always put crew in when you do the 6 month service.

I remember buying an OO Mainline Warship that had a driver at one end. That seemed a bit silly for a locomotive with a cab at either end. So I put a driver in the other end.  Even sillier. So I binned both. The same issues with the LIMA GWR railcar.

HO scale US diesels I don't have to worry about. Except for a cab in the middle, where the driver is looking through the back of his/her head when going backwards. That said, long and short hood diesels can have drivers and engineers facing in different directions depending on the railroad. Long hood for the Great Northern and Southern, everybody else short hood. My HO Proto 2000 SD9 had seats and crew, it took 2 hours to move them 180° so the long hood was forward. Wonder what they do in reverse? And what about the direction the crew face with a steam locomotive going backwards?

I was taking that Great Northern E7A apart this afternoon. BLI/Precision provide a detailed cab with seats. I just might put some crew in sans legs. Taking the body shell off takes 2 fingernails and 5 seconds. I've yet to receive one comment at a show about the lack of crew. Never mind the quality, feel the width!

Nigel

It's the 6 month service that made me smile Nigel ………………………………………….what's one of those please ?  

Petermac said

It's the 6 month service that made me smile Nigel ………………………………………….what's one of those please ?  

From “Post #292,027”, 12th April 2025, 1:12 pm

I'm curious too as I have one set up for eight years   

Oh dear, no wonder locomotives just don't run well. The 6-month service is that note in the calendar that is ignored for another 6 months or 6 years. As my father-in-law used to say, oil is cheaper than engines. Model locomotives do not have red warning lights.

As an aficionado of secondhand locomotives I think I've seen it all - seized motor bearings, seized worms, broken drive shafts (from seized worms), burnt-out motors (from seized worms), seized gears, split axles….. oils and grease oxidize and turn waxy. It's Probably worthwhile servicing before installing a stay-alive. Or converting to DCC. Just saying.

That $100/£140 locomotive is relatively much more valuable than the car you use. By at least a factor of 100.

Nigel

Petermac said

It's the 6 month service that made me smile Nigel ………………………………………….what's one of those please ?  

From “Post #292,027”, 12th April 2025, 1:12 pm

Peter ! I know this one !! You service ONE loco, every six months  


 

Some real locos in Australia are driverless - no one in them controlled by Radio from someones bedroom, etc - the bloody huge ore trains in North Western Australia for example

No, No, No. 6 every month. Seriously, it takes 10 seconds to oil the gears. One hour to do a full service (with a clean and relube of the worm). I've had several diesels in HO and OO where the worm was locked because the grease had oxidized and set like cement. The motor then snaps the shafts to the worms if it's got enough torque. Otherwise it just overheats. I had one recently where the gear tower was ripped out of its support. Thankfully it's now working fine. Reminds me of a friend of mine who had a mini and thought you only needed to change the oil when the red light came on. Worst are the "Old stock. Never run. As new". That can be 20+ years old. I always service them before running.

Set up a schedule.

Sol: We're all running driver-less engines run by computers. Luckily ours do not weigh 200 tons and are pulling 10,000 tons behind them.

Nigel

On a small point of order WR diesel-hydraulics always required a crew of two not just a driver. As did any BR passenger locomotive when providing steam-heat to the train.

The underlying reason was that the second-man was required to operate the train-heating boiler and, on the WR, to assist in sighting signals some of which were on the right as a relic of steam days.

The reality was also that the union really ran the job and would not have suffered mass redundancies when steam firemen were no longer required. So they made sure there were “jobs for the boys” insisting on a crew of two with diesels. 

Two crew were also required in the earlier days of high-speed operation. The then Department of Transport was wary of a solo driver being in charge of a very fast train despite the presence of safety devices. So all trains scheduled to run at a faster speed than 100mph required two drivers until vigilance devices were introduced. 

That had an effect upon timetabling because the cost of double-manning at weekend rates was considered prohibitive. So the WR, initially the  only user of HSTs, was a 125mph railway through the week but limited to 100mph on Sundays when single-manning was the norm and getting people somewhere faster was not so important. 

How many crew are in your cabs?  My hydraulics all have two - the rest all have one except for those I can’t break into. 

Interesting, Rick.

All this talk of servicing diesels puts me right off them.  My kettles don't even need to drop their fires at the end of their shift ………………….