My Standard Goods Fleet Part 2. The D55 Class

I hadn’t really planned to convert a Eureka 50 to a 55. ”It just wasn’t possible... was it?” I had purchased another of Eureka’s ‘reject’ 50 class locos, with tender, and planned to use it ‘as it came’, a 50 class with a small 3650 gallon tender. It had a slight bind in the coupling rods, but a couple of minutes with a file solved that problem.

Then the wife asked me Can you use these?” She handed me a box of Newey nickel silver plated pins. I looked at them and instantly thought of the pins that could be used in intricate locomotive outside valve gear. I also noticed that the heads were quite large, but they could be filed down to any size. After thanking her, I noticed my copy of Ron Preston’s book Standards in Steam 53 & 55 Class was still on the bench. I hadn’t put it back on the bookshelf after finishing with the 53 class [P.50, AMRM Issue 335,]. It has a great photo on the cover of 5597 simmering quietly in Cowra loco depot. I looked at all of that valve gear and I thought to myself (or any other 55 class for that matter!) I decided to have a good hard think about this issue, just to put it beyond doubt.