WD "Austerity" 2-8-0: In Game, Part 1 (War Time)

After a summer break (and a bit of work too!) we are back.

Over the next few weeks we will be showing the WD 2-8-0 in Train Simulator with all of it's liveries and features.

So without further ado let's press on.

Here we see the WD 2-8-0 as built and in it's khaki livery. Fitted with a Westinghouse air brake for pulling fitted continental rolling stock and ready to ship off to Europe and Africa. (Note: although the visuals and operation are an air brake we've kept the underlying game simulation using the vacuum brake which is common to most steam era TS rolling stock).

A view from the other side showing the reverser reach rod.

As we mentioned on a previous blog post, 169 of the WD's were fitted with injector pipes built into the boiler casing and angled rear sander filler caps to allow the locomotives to carry armour. This actually never went into active service and we weren't even sure if the armour had made it beyond the drawing board until we were sent a picture showing a single armoured prototype WD.
So of course we had to build it!
Seen below is the armoured version of the khaki livery, with the additional protection around the boiler and on the cab sides and roof. The armour also adds nearly 8 tons (roughly an extra 10%) to the weight of the engine thereby providing a bit more grip to the driving wheels but making it a little slower to accelerate. I expect it was abandoned due to the additional cost and weight when realistically the relatively thin plate would have done little to stop rounds from a strafing plane even if it provided some protection from small arms fire.

From March 1944 onwards the WD's moved to an "army green" livery more suited to northern Europe, the North Africa campaign being well and truly over by then. A renumbering exercise had taken place as well changing from the previous 3 and 4 digit numbers to 5 digit numbers beginning 7xxxx and here we see 77485 sporting the emblem of the "Lines of Communications troops of 21st Army Group" on it's tender and cab side.

We have also come across pictures of WD's carrying the main 21st Army Group emblem (the same blue and red shield but with crossed swords) and have included it as an option.

And although completely fictional, the armoured version has been given a repaint into green as well.

Next week we will take a look at the footplate and start to find out what happened to some of the WD's that returned to Britain when the war ended.