Scammell Scarab

[Heather Kavanagh]

I suppose these little models fit in this sub forum. They have wheels and internal combustion engines after all.

 

The Scammell Scarab was a three-wheeled tractor unit, a development of the Mechanical Horse that was created in the 1930s. A small and nimble tractor with an automatic coupling mechanism, and a range of suitable trailers, found favour with railway companies as well as manufacturing and local authorities. The Scarab appeared in 1948, and continued in production until the late 1960s. They began to disappear from Britain's roads as construction and use legislation came into force that required better braking systems on articulated vehicles.

 

As part of their railway and lineside series, Airfix released a 1/76th scale (00/H0) kit of the Scammell Scarab in 1962. It then promptly vanished again, receiving no packaging upgrades or revisions that I can see. The kit reappeared under the Dapol label in the 1980s, after that company had acquired most of the old Airfix lineside kits. The kit contained one tractor unit, a British Railways trailer, and a Watneys Brewery trailer, plus choice of transfers. 

 

Being a railway modeller among many hobbies, I had a few of these little kits stashed away. For my club's exhibition layout, I did some upgrades to correct a couple of minor issues with the models. This was mainly around the tractor unit, such as creating a more accurate representation of the coupling mechanism. 

 

These were put together for the "Airfix Golden Years" group build on the Britmodeller forum. I had never bothered with the Watneys tanker setup before, but with two kits to build it seemed churlish not to. I already had a BR tractor unit built as coupled to a trailer (a modification that involved assembling the trailer's jockey wheels on the tractor itself - don't ask!), so the BR one here was built as uncoupled to showcase my effort at representing the coupling mechanism. A coupled trailer in this model form requires a peg to drop into a hole. It's not meant to be uncoupled when on display. Oh, it's all a bit complicated, and unless you're particularly fond on these rather odd vehicles from Britain's past, it's not worth getting into great detail. There's plenty of information available online, and a couple of interesting period films can be found that show how versatile the Scarab was.

 

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With that out of my system, I wonder what aircraft models I might decide to build next...  😆

[Sailorman]

Lovely little model Heather.  Thanks for reminding us about it.  I've got a photo of the one in the museum at Hendon.  I took the photo a few years ago.  It was used on the airfields and was painted in the typical malta "stone Camouflage"  I'll dig it up and post it here.

[Sailorman]

Hmmmm ......I've found the pic of the Scarab in Hendon but it's not in stone camouflage......  Must be another one I'm thinking of.

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[Kenneth ONeill]

I think this may be the first time I've seen anyone build the Scammell with the Watney's trailer or, indeed, uncoupled! Without boring people, the basic idea of the Scammell automatic coupler was to making raising or lowering the trailer landing gear part of the (un)coupling operation rather than requiring the driver to raise or lower the gear as a separate operation.

[Ratch]

 You have to look in the right places P4T

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/airfixtributeforum/airfix-dapol-ho-00-scammell-scarab-20-c033-t40789.html

[NWR-Gordon-4]

Those are excellent models you have there, Heather Kay.  😀

 

Thank you for the image of the real life tractor unit, Patrick Camilleri.  😀

 

GNR-Gordon-4