I must have had a Lima 94xx tank for over 30 years and its languished in the loft for a large part of that time. I was never a huge fan as with its protruding smoke box it never really looked like a proper Pannier tank to me. Its horrible chassis didn’t help it but as time marches on things change and today its kind of gawky look appeals to my sense of wanting to portray the less pretty railways of the UK.  Its extreme cousin was the 15xx tank, which is a particularly ugly monster of an 0-6-0 tank engine, appeals even more.

These pair are a little bit chalk and cheese in a way. The 94xx (at the back) is hoped to be a quickie while the 15xx (at the front) will be a very slow burner indeed.
The 94xx

The Lima body isn’t bad at all, the tanks and boiler are a mm too long but over all its pretty accurate. To my eye  the chimney and safety valve were too tall so I have reduced them a bit and the cab doors seemed a bit to flush to the cab side so they were cut out and remounted further back. Lima moulded bunker steps on both sides (which is wrong) so they were filled in on the side you can see. The handrails and smokebox dart have been replaced with wire. I plan to mount the body on a Collett chassis from High Level Kits.

The 15xx

I said slow burner earlier because I don’t even know what i’m going to do about a chassis yet, but I’ll worry about that later.  The body is a combination of a Hornby cab lengthened by splicing in a 1mm section in front of the bunker and grafting another 1mm section to the front to which the windows were cut out using the originals a guide.  The tanks (from another Lima 94xx) have been shortened and made deeper by adding another 1mm section of plasticard to the bottom before filling and shaping. The smokebox and first section of the boiler come from an old Airfix Prairie tank kit with the front of the lima smokebox grafted back on.