New Bogie design nearly complete

As we do not have an existing bogie to work with, we are having to create one from scratch and have been developing a design based on the original GWR drawings. There were some issues with the original bogies when they were built for the Counties, County tanks and Saints (and subsequently used in the Stars and early Castles). They were modified over the years and resulted in a slightly more robust design by the time the later Halls came along. We are looking at trying to incorporate some of these changes in our bogie, subject to approval by our inspecting authority, so we may end up with a hybrid County / Hall bogie. We are also looking at whether the castings can be fabricated instead of being cast and if this would save any cost as the castings are quite complicated. More news on this later on in the year.

Initial design for a bogie for the 3840. Picture courtesy of Scan Model Make