Travesty Class Duplex Steam Locomotive
Built by Robin Schoolar in June 2026
This was a second-hand purchase, already assembled by its original owner (although not that carefully). He had taken two of the 4–6–4 loco outfits (set 0507) using one front, two middles and one rear to fabricate a 4–6–6–4 locomotive, which looks unlike any known prototype in much the same way that the original outfit looks almost but not quite entirely unlike a New York Central J Class. To his credit, he also used some of the leftover parts to make the cab more attractive. However, he made no attempt at any sort of articulation. So it’s an engineering travesty with all twelve driving wheels rigid to its long chassis, dictating a dead straight track all the way from departure to arrival! (Maybe track aligned with an old Roman road?)
With so much wrong with this build, improving it would be too daunting for me, but I’m reluctant to dismantle it, as it makes an eye-catching table filler for shows. However, it was a real nuisance to store and was getting dusty.
So in hope of making storage easier, I decided to make it easy to split in two and reassemble again, mostly using rods and translucent rod grips.
Incorporating the split meant largely dismantling, so during reassembly I paid more attention to alignment and properly tightened bolts, as well as adding paint saving washers, many of them black so they blend in. You may be able to spot the small areas I didn’t rebuild by the lack of washers under bolt heads.
I then discovered there is plastic box from Really Useful Box (what a brand name!), intended for rolls of wrapping paper, one of which would neatly accommodate both this and the Space Centre, so making the locomotive splittable became superfluous. But I kept the feature because having access from the middle, made construction altogether easier.