Gaiety N2 - what have I bought now!

Browsing around a local charity shop I came across this;

I had no idea what it was, the diecast body suggested Hornby Dublo but somehow I had my doubts.

The loco is in a bit of a state, one driving wheel was hanging off, I suspect a broken insulating bush, and the pony truck only has one wheel;

Still, for £8 I couldn't resist it. Under the body is stamped JVM and B'ham, which lead to a bit of searching and I found out that I have a Gaiety N2, produced in the 50s. There's more information here.

Here's the underside;

Note the label - "I need a little TLC!"

To remove the chassis you unscrew the buffers;

The front buffers still have the 'pips' left from being parted off.

Here's the chassis, both sides;

Note the pick-ups. The driving wheels are pretty good, much better than anything Tri-ang came up with, but the pony wheel is a bit coarse.

Gears;

An interesting arrangement!

Unscrewing the two large brass screws allows the wheelset to be dropped out;

Whilst the wheels were out of the chassis I decided to see if the motor would turn over, I don't want to try it with the wheels in place as I know that at least one insulating bush needs replacing;

I used my 'dual fuel' controller, first just on the 9v battery which didn't have enough 'oomph' so I plugged it in to a 12v wall-wart, this did work and proved that the motor will run.

Finally, here's the underside of the body;

My plans for this are to clean the body with soapy water leaving the paint as it is, sort out the driving wheels which will mean turning at least one insulating bush, cleaning up and oiling the motor and geartrain, and turning up a new pair of pony wheels, using the original one for a pattern and making the new from brass, which would I feel suit the age of the model.

Paul.