Atomic Systems

During WW1 the MOD sought designs from a number of British and foreign railway manufacturers for many different items of equipment. Included in these designs was a submission for a petrol-electric narrow gauge locomotive by the British Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company Limited of Trafford Park, Manchester. British Westinghouse contracted to build one hundred of these locomotives but sub-contracted the non-electric work.
The War Department regarded these locomotives as “units”, each comprising two 71/2 ton locomotives, one lettered “A” and the other ”B”, coupled cab-to-cab and controlled by one driver.


One of the British Westinghouse locomotives at the works in Manchester.


An order for another one hundred of these locomotives was placed with Dick, Kerr & Company Limited of Preston. They built the entire locomotive with the exception of the generators and petrol engines.


A Dick, Kerr locomotive on the Ashover Light Railway.



What is not so well known is that Bodgit & Scarper Engineering also submitted a design!!!
Although a serious submission to the War Dept. Bodgit and Scarper were never really in the frame a contract because they could never have committed themselves to building any more that six of these locomotives in the time frame specified.
However, some years latter, an enquiry from an engineering company (JCA Industries) for a powerful petrol locomotives gave the then General Manager at Bodgit & Scarper Engineering an opportunity to re-use the WD supplied plans and build the locomotive.
A total of four engines were built and supplied as two complete locomotives working cab-to-cab.
An early works photo of “A_UNIT” No 7521 is posted here for your perusal. More to follow.



Andrew, CME.
Bodgit & Scarper Engineering

Hi Andrew,

That model's looking superb now! I see the previously discussed texture methods have worked wonders.

Looking forward to this one.

I don't think they would have survived a salvo from Big Bertha.

Cheers Bazza

Thanks Chaps,

I'm not quite sure I'd want to take my little baby to war???
A very quick update, (camping with the Scouts for the rest of the week, so not much 3D modelling opportunities I'm afraid!!!) I've changed the colour of the bodywork slightly and started on the smaller details. E.G. The radiator grill brackets and need to work on the air intake, exhaust and lamps, all to be placed on top of the engine hood.



Andrew, CME.
Bodgit & Scarper Engineering

Looking good

And with headlamp.



Andrew, CME.
Bodgit & Scarper Engineering

Looking cute now! You need a toolbox, grease can and spanner and some rust and she's fit for the road.

/Jonatan

I have been working on this project on and off for weeks now, a few minutes snatched here and there.
I think that I am now at a point where I will call the model making a day and try and get to an upload of sorts.
The important point for me is that this model relies heavily on textures (poly count is 1500) and that I made all the textures myself! Something of which I am very proud.

What can’t be seen from this shot is a little cab detail.



Andrew, CME.
Bodgit & Scarper Engineering

Just looking at that screenie above, I am going to redo the woodwork texture, it looks more like wooden bricks!!!






Andrew, CME.
Bodgit & Scarper Engineering

Looking good regardless!

Texture changes to the toolboxes.



Andrew, CME.
Bodgit & Scarper Engineering

Looking alot better.

Are you going to be using an opacity map for the holes in the grill?

I tried alpha holes in the rad-grill and it looked ., maybe I'll have another go?
Below is a shot of a pair of jca-501's (set up as designed, working back to back) on the Piddington.
Note; this loco is only one consist, not two. Both units in the consist are treated as seperate bogies.



Andrew, CME.
Bodgit & Scarper Engineering

One of the pics shows something like a primative form of 'camo'?

I really enjoy these sorts of modeling projects.

Cheers Bazza

andrewgadd wrote:I tried alpha holes in the rad-grill and it looked ., maybe I'll have another go?

Well if it's because you've got two polygonal faces with holes in and nothing in between, you could make a few low poly (6 or so) faced cylinders, delete the front and back faces and position them between the holes, so it looks like you've got a booleaned surface without the horrific mesh issues and the poly count.