LNER A3 #2577 "Night Hawk"

[High_Admiral]

Greetings Members of the Train Tech Forum! After the debut of my first creation on this site, I hit a bit of a slump in inspiration. However, when Redimus posted his rendition of the A3 class "Humorist", inspiration struck likea bolt of lighting striking a steak held up on a fifty foot tall steel pole in the middle of a thunderstorm. So before I start showing off the "Night Hawk", a quick thank you to Redimus for his excellent A3 and inspiring me to attempt my first British Locomotive ever. 

Night Hawk was first brought into service on October 24, 1924 as a LNER Class A1. She operated in this configuration until January of 1944 when she was rebuilt into a Class A3. In her A3 build, Night Hawk served LNER and British Railways until she was scrapped at Doncaster on May 9,1963. I've depicted Night Hawk as she appeared in her later years, complete with the vacuum exhaust ejector pipe on the left side of the boiler(signifying that she was converted to left hand drive compared to the original right hand), the German style Smoke Deflectors, and the Double Chimney. I decided to paint her in BR Blue, mainly because I like the color. 

Night Hawk was designed with multiple Lamp Irons to allow multiple lighting configurations( Including one where all three on her buffer beam and the one where the headboard attaches are filled) on both the engine and back of the tender. Speaking of that, I did go for the later more streamlined tender, but I chose the non-corridor version. The Headboard is also removable, allowing the engine to be able to sport many different train names. Say you don't want your A3 to be pulling the Flying Scotsman, with a quick change, it could be pulling The Coronation or The Aberdonian ! One thing I did leave off of my A3 was the nameplate over the middle splasher. As much as I wanted to put that in, the curved plate that the Hogwarts Express and Redimus uses for their plates isn't in LDD(Although I wish they still updated the thing so that people still using it would have an updated parts list.....). Now onto the guts of this model.

As you can see, Night Hawk is powered by a single L motor geared to her first and third axle. Unfortunately, I didn't put in a cab interior which made it easier to route wires to the IR Receiver.

As you can see, the IR Receiver pokes out of the tender and somewhat neatly camouflages with the coal. To access the power button for the Battery Box, Just pulling up on the water cap will pop the cap and the rest of the deck there off and the button will be right there. Well, that's about it. Night Hawk was designed and built from the ground up in about three days(let's hope that I didn't screw up anything), and the BR Mk1 in a day. Nothing really special about the MK1, and it was really built as a set piece to put behind this loco. Parts wise, Night Hawk has enough parts in her to equal the Emerald Night set total(Night Hawk is about 20 parts more), PF included. This means that one could reasonably estimate her "set price" to be about the same. And speaking of Emerald Night, I'll leave you all with this.

Until Next time!

 

[Roadmonkeytj]

Very nice would love to see her in real brick. 

I will tell you that the current motor gear set up will cause you some issues.  I reworked my Emerald to a similar setup and it has issues with uneven track.   Quite simply the leading and trailing trucks will "lift" the center carriage allowing wheel spin. I've taken great measures to redesign to take care of this but I still run into it at shows every once and awhile. Basically I've allowed both the front and rear truck on the engine to also pivot front to back to allow the center of the engine some suspension to try and keep the drivers in contact in the low spots. 

[High_Admiral]

Actually, I did build in a small bit of play into the pony truck so that that particular issue from the EN was negated a bit. The trailing truck, however, will be a small problem and one that I hope I can fix when I finally build this IRL.

[Pdaitabird]

Lovely engine! The locomotive, tender, and coach all put the EN to shame by comparison.

20 hours ago, High_Admiral said:

One thing I did leave off of my A3 was the nameplate over the middle splasher. As much as I wanted to put that in, the curved plate that the Hogwarts Express and Redimus uses for their plates isn't in LDD(Although I wish they still updated the thing so that people still using it would have an updated parts list.....).

Have you tried Studio? It's fairly easy to import LDD files, and even third-party parts like BBB wheels. Plus the parts list is kept up-to-date.

[High_Admiral]

No I haven't, Where can I find Studio?

[Pdaitabird]

You can download Studio here. I didn't find it too hard to adapt from LDD.

[High_Admiral]

Thanks!

 

[Modeltrainman]

Why are the wheels on backwards?

[High_Admiral]

The drivers are on backwards to simulate the Big ben Bricks XL drivers I'll be putting on her when she's actually built. The flange on the Lego drivers are about the same diameter as the XL Blind drivers so they make a pretty good facsimile. Hopefully, I can get the actual XL Driver part files to work on Studio here soon so I can actually post a proper picture of her. (They're in the program, just nothing's connecting to them, don't know why....)

.

[XGBC]

it looks like your central weels are facing the wring way.

 

XGBC

[supertruper1988]

7 hours ago, High_Admiral said:

The drivers are on backwards to simulate the Big ben Bricks XL drivers I'll be putting on her when she's actually built. The flange on the Lego drivers are about the same diameter as the XL Blind drivers so they make a pretty good facsimile. Hopefully, I can get the actual XL Driver part files to work on Studio here soon so I can actually post a proper picture of her. (They're in the program, just nothing's connecting to them, don't know why....)

.

The custom parts in Studio have to be positioned manually with the translation arrows (the little bubble that pops up when you click on the part). 

You can also go into preferences and assign shortcut keys to "brick control". I use WASD which lets me move bricks around quickly. 

[XGBC]

oh im sorry i havent read that now its clear why

XGBC

[High_Admiral]

3 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

The custom parts in Studio have to be positioned manually with the translation arrows (the little bubble that pops up when you click on the part). 

You can also go into preferences and assign shortcut keys to "brick control". I use WASD which lets me move bricks around quickly. 

Thanks! It’s always awesome to have someone who knows what they’re doing answering some questions when you’re learning a new program!

[supertruper1988]

1 hour ago, High_Admiral said:

Thanks! It’s always awesome to have someone who knows what they’re doing answering some questions when you’re learning a new program!

Glad I can help!

[High_Admiral]

And after a few minutes of tinkering today, I got this beauty.

I'm starting to like Studio, might try importing the big one in tomorrow and seeing how that comes out........
 

[ColletArrow]

She looks like a mighty fine kettle, especially in that last image! There's some nice parts usage throughout, and she's undeniably better than the EN. My only quarrel is that the buffer beam should probably be red, but given the dark colour scheme of the rest of the loco it might stand out too much.

I'd love to see her in real bricks, and that nice BR MK1 model too, although the latter is going to be through the roof with those windows!

[High_Admiral]

Thanks! I did try the red buffer beam, but it just stood out too much against the BR Blue I chose. If I do a BR green or LNER Green, I might paint the beam red. One of the things I just laughed over when I finished the thing is the part count and how little it was over the part count of 10194. Granted, 10194 has much better playability where mine is built to run well and look good (plus I did rush the add on Mk1 and it wasn’t as good as I liked, design wise)

[zephyr1934]

This loco is looking really nice, good job!