Big Jim

Big Jim is an experimental War Department locomotive that works for Tri-ang Railways (TR) on Nerland. He spent most of his operational life in the United States.

Bio
Big Jim was built by Vulcan Foundry in 1943 with the demand for a larger version of the War Department (WD) Austerity 2-8-0 introduced earlier that same year. The design was modified to feature a four wheel bogie instead of a two wheel pony truck to improve the ride of the locomotive over points and crossings. Unfortunately, his design was unsuccessful and a 2-10-0 version was opted utilising his length as its basis. Big Jim was used in France following D-Day and was used by the US Army as their transport. Following the war, Big Jim was sold to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) along with three WD Austerity 2-10-0 to demonstrate the true power of UK-built locomotives are two failures of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). Big Jim and the 2-10-0s would be modified to operate in the US and paired with tenders used behind already withdrawn USRA "Light Mikados". In the 1950s, the three WD 2-10-0s and Big Jim were withdrawn from service and placed in storage for possible preservation.

Sometime in 1967, with two of the WDs scrapped and one preserved officially by the B&O for excursion traffic, Big Jim was bought by Tri-ang Railways (TR) for repatriation to the UK and restoration to original condition. Upon arrival at Portsmouth, Big Jim was surprised to see that TR had no plans of modernisation and continue to operate steam traction for commercial and excursion traffic. During his restoration, a new tender was built for him using the tender chassis of a scrapped WD 2-8-0 which the railway originally tried to save previously.

Livery
Big Jim is painted in TR unlined Navy Blue with the standard "shield" emblem.

Prior to restoration, Big Jim was painted in Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) unlined black.

Basis
Big Jim is based off a WD Austerity 2-8-0 with the length of the WD Austerity 2-10-0 and a four wheel bogie. Both types were built from 1943 to 1945 for the War Department (WD) of the United Kingdom as the standard heavy freight locomotive of the British Army in WWII. The design was based off the LMS Stanier 8F 2-8-0 with major modifications to both reduce construction costs and use less material for a wartime environment. 935 2-8-0s were built by Vulcan Foundry and North British Locomotive Company (NBL) of Glasgow with the latter building 150 of the 2-10-0 version. Both types were made redundant following the war and sold off to other UK railways, Longmoor Military Railway (LMR), the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Syria and one to the United States Army Transportation Corps (USATC). Both types were withdrawn the 1960s and 1985 with one 2-8-0 and eight 2-10-0s being preserved.

Filming model
Big Jim's main model is a kitbash built from a DJH Models WD Austerity 2-10-0 kit with the modified chassis from a Bachmann (UK) WD Austerity 2-8-0 to provide motive power The bogie uses the wheels from both kit and r-t-r models with itself sourced from an old Bachmann (UK) BR Standard 4 class 4-6-0. A copy of this model was fitted with cowcatchers, headlamp and tender from a Bachmann (USA) USRA "Light Mikado" 2-8-2 and AAR couplings from Kadee.

A close up model of his cab was built from cardboard.

Trivia
Historically, only two types of 4-8-0 were built in the UK, the NER X class and LSWR G16 class. Both types were tank locomotives intended for shunting.


 * This means no 4-8-0 tender locomotive was built in the UK but the LMS and Southern Railway did have plans drawn for such locomotives which never materialised.

Big Jim is the same length as the WD Austerity 2-10-0.

Big Jim is normally referred to as a "prototype" or "experiment" instead of an actual locomotive due to his design not being placed into production.


 * It's still unclear why his class was not placed into production but this could be related to the wartime shortage of materials to construct locomotives.

Big Jim is the only American locomotive operating on Nerland with British origins.

The idea of Big Jim came from a concept Shane Sowter drew up in 2016 of a "what if" WD Austerity 4-8-0 as the next step instead of the 2-10-0.


 * This explains Big Jim's backstory of him being a prototype for a class that never existed.

Big Jim's numbers have references to himself:


 * His B&O number, '1943', refers to the year he was built and the introduction of both WD Austerity 2-8-0 and 2-10-0.
 * His TR number, '29', refers to the number of wagons he can pull in the United States due to his British origins.

Historically, the B&O never bought any locomotives from the UK after WWII.

Big Jim is still fitted with his B&O 3 chime whistle.