Prototype & Model
|
Prototype & Model |
|
The Class 325 project was the next after building the Class 342s. Up to that time I always had several parallel projects on the workdesk. The V40 Kandó model was built between 1989 and 2000, the Class 326 models between 1993 and 2002 and the Class 342 models between 1998 and 2004. This means between 1998 and 2000 there were five - together with the Preussian T3 model six unfinished models lying in different drawers of my workdesk. A perfect condition for newer getting finished any!
The second Class 342 model required much more efforts and time than estimated before. As I wanted to get it ready for the September 2004 Competition I was concentrating on it exclusively. And really, I only started the Class 325 only in May 2004, after finishing the second Class 342 model.
This does not mean I did not do anything for the this project before. I made considerations about the prototype, collected pictures and documents and started to design the model. The design phase actually started already in January 2002. But I did not touch brass until May 2004.
When
choosing this prototype its exotic flavour was tempting. The Class 325 was
a very common steam locomotive in Hungary at the beginning of the 20th century.
247 examples were built between 1892 and 1907.
But after the WW1 102 engines
were given to Romania, 68 pieces to Yugoslavia and 9 to Czechoslovakia. Even
Poland received 3 pieces as they remained on Polish territory after the war.
In Hungary only 65 pieces left, thus they were not any more spotted frequently.
For shunting jobs they were a bit oversized, their predecessor, the Class
326 was better suited for this task. For mainline job and heavier branchline
job as non superheated engines they were already obsolete. Due to the motive
power shortage before WW2 and in the '50s they were still operating, but
they were all scrapped during the first big cleanup, between 1958 and 1960.
None of them were preserved in Hungary. The only existing example,
the former 325,079 still works
as industrial shunter somewhere in Yugoslavia.
The Class 325 was the 36th type of the Hungarian Locomotive Manufacturer
MÁVAG. During the long production period several design modifications
were added. Most of them were minor changes, do not even show up in the
appearence of the engines, but there was a major change between the subtypes
36.08 and 36.09. That time the full valvegear system was redesigned. The drawing
on the top right side in this page shows the old type while the old photo
on top left the new one. As I build always two similar models parallel, this
gives an opportunity to design one with the old type valvegear and another
with the new type. As the new type seems to be a little bit simpler to construct,
I decided to make the new type first.
The first Class 325 model was ready in Summer 2006. It won the first prize on the 53th Annual Exhibition and Contest of the Hungarian Railroad Modelers' Association in September 2006. The second one, with the old type valvegear followed one year later. It won the first prize on the 54th Annual Exhibition and Contest of the Hungarian Railroad Modelers' Association in September 2007.
Later on the models participated several times on layout exhibitions
of fellow modelers. This picture shows the second model on the Pellérd
station module of the Pécs Model RR. Club, July 2008.
Forward to the Class 325 Model Building Page
Back to the Scratchbuilding Main
Page
This page was updated last time on October 13th 2008
© János Erö
