P.R. Wickham

Peter R. Wickham, known as P.R. Wickham (26th March 1918 - 29th April 1970) was a model maker who was commissioned by publisher Edmund Ward to make models based on the first six engine characters created by Rev. W. Awdry.

Biography
Peter R. Wickham was born in Nairobi, Kenya on the 26 of March 1918. He was educated in England at Marlborough College and later the Farnham Military College. He entered the RAF College at Cranwell in January 1937. He was commissioned on 17 December 1938 and graduated in 1939 and being posted to 3 Squadron.

On 16 May 1939, he was posted to 112 Squadron when this unit was formed aboard HMS Argus in Portsmouth, Hampshire and in September he was sent out to the Middle East and Egypt. At the outbreak of World War 2, he was given the position of pilot of Spitfire EP166. He served honorably in the war and won the Distinguished Flying Cross, along with several battles in Greece.

After the war, he started working in model railways, publishing “A Book of Model Railways” in 1949. In the 1950’s, he collaborated with the BBC, Wilbert Awdry, and Edmund Ward on several projects involving The Railway Series. Not much is known of Wickham after this. He died on the 29 of April, 1970 at the age of 52.

Production
The models were made in 7mm scale and unpowered because of the lack of motors, but they did prove to be a guide for illustrators to work with. They were also designed to resemble C. Reginald Dalby's original illustrations.

The main frames of each loco were cut from 1/16 in. nickel-silver, two "blanks" being soldered together for drilling all holes and shaping to outline. The frames were then bolted together with countersunk 6 B.A. bolts screwed into frame spacers specially turned from brass and threaded internally. Cross-stretchers were then soldered in where needed to carry bogey-pivot, footplate fixings and other attachments. Driving-axle bearings were slotted out downwards and the axles retained in place by keeper strips bolted on below, so that the complete set of driving wheels can be "dropped" as a unit when required. Bogies and pony trucks were bolted and soldered up from strip brass and nickel-silver and are pivoted on the "radial-arm" principle with a weight-bearing spring rubbing on a stretcher approximately above the bogie centre. All superstructures from footplate up were removable. In the earlier models they were fixed down by two bolts in the cab floor and two through the front buffer-beam, but in the last two models the front bolts are dispensed with. The boilers were made by rolling layers of Bristol board on a wood former of suitable diameter. The layers are glued together and each boiler shell consists of three or four layers. When wood "bulkhead" discs have been fitted and the boiler treated with shellac varnish it has great strength and rigidity. Finally, the "faces", which occupy the position where more conventional locomotives habitually keep their smokebox doors, are modelled in "Plastone", a form of Plasticine which hardens when exposed to the air.

Trivia

 * By 1952, a relief map of the Island of Sodor was made by P.R. Wickham, commissioned by Edmund Ward for the Rev. W. Awdry. It displayed in the study at Awdry's house in Stroud until 1997, but is now on display at the "Awdry Study" at the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum.
 * In 1953, he rebuilt and repainted the 00 scale models for the BBC's The Sad Story of Henry (1953).