Ekhem Railway - VGJ 22 locomotive
This article was published Jan 07, 2023.
VGJ 22, or as it is called today JTJ 9, "Tallås" is a very nice little 891mm gauge (3 swedish feet) locomotive. It has been on several other railways. At VGJ it was called number 22, at BLJ it was number 9 and a few more railways. To our luck it has survived to this day and is to been seen at JTJ (Jädraås Tallås Railway in north of Sweden), see first photo below.
I got the idea to make the CAD for this today, with the purpose to make it fit to a MagicTrain steam chassis (I have several of those from previous projects). Even if this loco is rather short, it is still a bit to long for the MT chassis, we´ll see how it looks when time to match them together. With access to swedish WinterZone firm, it will be a rather ok price to print.
Last photo shows how far I got today with the drawing. The body is 9.5 mm to long for the chassis, I did cut off 7.5mm from the boiler so that it matches the MT chassis right off. The green area inunder is how big the MT chassis is.
The nice thing with the MagicTrain wagons, at least the goods ones, is that they are almost spot on for swedish dito. If it wasn´t for that, swedish 1:45 scale on HO tracks would not be as attractive. There is several in Sweden who models correct 19.8mm gauge but that involves all rolling stock and track must be scratchbuilt. There is a few wagon kits but not many and no locos. However, the MagicTrain steam loco is far from swedish looking. This project intends to change that.
/Henrik