War child: the NS 162, part 2
The NS 162 was very likely painted in the same livery as the other Dutch diesels of its time: dark green with black striping and white handles. The colours are an educated guess as no colour images are known to exist. The locomotives had oil lamps like the steam locomotives. The lamps where put on either side, depending on the direction of travel. The Dutch railways also added fittings for marker lights, but it is unlikely they were ever used.
I added the last remaining parts before spray painting the model. The brass lamps were made by Philotrain, most other brass were custom made by Hans Nijntjes. Orginally, the kit contained many whitemetal parts, but they were all replaced by brass. Only the chimney and the buffers were not replaced. I am not a big fan of whitemetal. The parts are often deformed, they damage and break easily.
Drilling and soldering whitemetal parts is also problematic. I used super glue to fasten the whitemetal and the small brass parts. The big disadvantage of using super glue is that you cannot use thinner to remove a bad coat of paint anymore. Super glue dissolves in thinner and the model will fall apart. Next time, I plan to only use brass parts and solder every joint.
Here are the parts of the model after painting. The red, grey, black and green colours were spray painted. All others were applied with a brush afterwards. I use the Phildie/Philotrain paints for spray painting. This paint dries within minutes, so you can quickly apply coat after coat. The paint has a strong gloss, which helps the decals to set, but also means you have to add a coat of matte varnish. The varnish protects the decals and gives the model a nice finish.
Putting together the undercarriage is the biggest assembly job. The buffers and couplings are sprung. The front axle is also sprung and features a centre suspension. In other words, the locomotive has full ‘compensation’. Compensation ensures that all four wheels are always on the tracks. It prevents derailments and it improves power pickup. Most O gauge locomotives are compensated for this reason.
Assembling the NS 162 took almost a day. Lightning the lamps also proved to be pretty time consuming. I added very small SMD LEDs to the lamps to imitate a small taper burning inside. The locomotive has been outfitted with a Lenz Gold decoder. I will add a Power3 power buffer to make the model run better on not so clean tracks.
The diesel has a crank and driving rods. It is the only series of locomotives which such a configuration to ever run in The Netherlands. The model is also pretty unique. It has never been produced by one of the big brands. In O scale only a few models exist.
The NS 162 became a real British, Dutch model. Hopefully we will see the preserved real NS 162 in action again some day.
| Parts and suppliers | |
| Barclay diesel kit | Mercian Models |
| Hornblocks | Slater's |
| Oil lamps | Philotrain |
| Plungers, couplers | Schnellenkamp |
| Brass parts | Custom made by Hans Nijntjes |
| Paint | Phildie/Philotrain, Revell |
| Decals | Custom made by Dutzrail (Richard van den Brand) |
| Decoder | Lenz |
| SMD LEDs | Conrad |
2010