Acorn Jim Harris Standard Class 6 Clan

Heres a few images of an Old Acorn Clan kit which arrived today curtesy of Ebay:

Nice Sturdy Box big enough for the finished loco. Notice the temporary Label which has probably ben there for a quarter of a century.

Nice Spiral bound instructions. No more pinning rolled ones to a board


Pre Rolled but slightly squashed boiler and seperate smokebox


Full set of Brittania castings including Chimney, Dome and smokebox front/door


Slightly disappointing misshapen Clan smokebox door. I think the door is seperate from the surround so could probably be fixed


clan Chimney and Dome
Nice touch. a set of crew figures


All the extra bits

 

Brittania Body Etches


Clan body etches. Note that you have to cut the front footplate from the main footplate and replace with one of the two mirror imaged ones to suit a Clan

 

Yes that definitely explains why you get an extra front foot plate. It did baffle me for a while. Some interesting observations compared to the acme bulleid pacific I'm building. With both being designed by jim harris. The clan is much more developed and you can tell that it is a later kit design despite the construction being similar. After all a rebuilt bulleid is very similar in outline tona standard. Most of the complaints I have with the bulleid dont seem to be there with this kit. He must have learnt a lot. If I can build that bulleid i can see little problem with this one. I need to source some wheels for it before I commence building it. It may then jump ahead of the que with the bulleid. Currently I'm planning on completing it as 72009 clan stewart which had a short stint on loan to Stratford in 1958

 

This is going to be a bit of a ramble but bare with me. I have been having serious thoughts about what identity the Clan will have. Apart from 1 or 2 anomalies I tend to model locos that would have run in Lincolnshire being a Grimsby Lad. Obviously the Clans never reached these parts (as far as I know). The closest was probably Leeds, maybe sheffield and 72009's brief loan to Stratford. Ive always been aware that there where to be more Clans & Britannias built than actually where. The lot 242 batch where started but never finished 5 where to go to the southern with names such as Hengist, Horsa and Canute and the remaining 10 where to be Scottish with further Clan names. Reading on the Hengist new build group web site it mentions that there where originally to be 118 Clans built and not just the 10 which where actually finished. This has got me thinking about doing a what If. What if these locos where actually built and some of these Clans ended up on the Eastern region possibly displacing B1's and B17's on the lesser Expresses. A Clan could be ideal on the East Lincs line to haul the Cleethorpes to London Expresses and some of the fast fish trains from Grimsby. Immingham did get a small allocation of Britannias in the late 50's for these train which had been displaced from The Liverpool Street Expresses by diesels so its not completely ridicolous. Up to this point traction was Thompson B1's on the London trains which I always thought where a little underpowered for such trains. The larger LNER pacifics where barred on axle loading issues.

This leads me to what name would it have? Being born in Grimsby im aware of the legend of Havelok the Dane and Grim. Havelock or Havelok depending on how you spell it would be in keeping with some of the names of the unbuilt CLans and also a couple of eastern region Brittanias. Anyone have any thoughts or other suggestions for names with a lincolnshire connection?