It is the first blog of the new year and I am continuing work on the SNCF X2200 railcar.
I remember blogging some time ago that I really wanted to have one of these and although they are now available RTR the price tag is a little high and they have not done a modern TER livery.
So after receiving a resin shell from Kintbury Jon I have got to work with motorising it and now I have just painted the main colours. I am hoping it will look a little like this:
This is X2208 seen at Chate
X2200 Autorail
I have started work on a new N Gauge project in the past few months. KintburyJon very kindly obtained a resin body for me which represents an X2200. It needs a fair bit of work to make it look good but I have made some good progress.
When I got the body it looked like this:
(To the right of the image in the blue livery)
For some reason the previous owner had painted it without primer and used some sort of emulsion which was pretty bad. So I had to strip it all down
It was twenty years ago today I was probably going stir crazy for Christmas. This was a usual thing for me being 8 years old and Christmas being the main part of the kid calendar but twenty years ago was special because on Christmas day I got my first proper train set.
I had a few bits and pieces of Hornby OO before but they were my dads and brothers. This was going to be mine and more importantly it was going to be N..
Unknown to me, my dad had been sawing away making baseboards out of
The last UFO report I did was in January so I guess it is worth updating what has happened and what projects are on the work bench at the moment (incidentally I need a new work bench as well...).
A few completions have been made to the Autorail fleet. Starting with the X3900:
This Autorail now has a DCC chip installed on the Tomix Chassis, I used a 6 pin decoder socket so that if a sound unit becomes available then it can be installed later.
I have also completed the X5800 and the X56
This morning I attended one of my favourite model railway shows. The German Railway Society annual Expo at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall. The hall is a good size with 3 large rooms all nicely decorated. There is a variety of trade and society stands as well as some outstanding continental layouts. Here are some pictures from the day.
Some replies to my last blog were interested in the MiniNatur products I had purchased. Since I was making a batch of trees up this weekend I thought I would post a blog about how I found the material to work with.
I must start by saying that I am not the best modeller in the world and as such I think someone could do a better job at these than me. However, if you have not seen this product in use before I thought that you might be interested to read my findings.
I had a few spare tree
In case you missed it here is a video I posted of my X73500 fitted with a DCC Sound Chip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9CAVUWFU1o
The sound chip works very well and gives the layout a lovely ambience. I really want to crack on and get the rest of the modules up to standard.
I have also finally completed the X3900 I have been making for the past two years. I painted the whiskers on the two ends as well as touch up the paint. I then used a coat of matt varnish to tone it down. This ma
I was overjoyed a few weeks ago when I managed to get my first kitbuilt chassis to work on my layout. It was a tad noisy and was secured together by tape before I properly put it into position but it was a big step forward. Here is a picture of the chassis.
That was until it tried to negotiate the tight corner on my layout that is like that to allow a turnout to be positioned on the module. At this point it promptly derailed and refused to go any further. I looked at the structure of the cha
Just a quick update on the progress I have made on the ADX. It is now wearing a coat of ghostly white primer before I buy a new airbrush for the final paint job. I have had to fill a few narrow holes on the roof where the resin casting was not right (unfortunately it appears to have slightly warped - not my doing!).
This shot here is of the ADX behind a mock up of the Haute Vienne Tramway Station building which I am currently working on. I wanted to get an idea of the size. It really gives
Just a quick update on the progress I have made on the ADX. It is now wearing a coat of ghostly white primer before I buy a new airbrush for the final paint job. I have had to fill a few narrow holes on the roof where the resin casting was not right (unfortunately it appears to have slightly warped - not my doing!).
This shot here is of the ADX behind a mock up of the Haute Vienne Tramway Station building which I am currently working on. I wanted to get an idea of the size. It really giv
Actually I have now completed two of the UFO's so it is not as bad as it was at the beginning of the year. I have also made inroads into several other projects with varying degrees of success so here is the news:
ADX
I have started work on the ADX and it is starting to look more like a unit. I need to fill the sides and then sand that back to make it nice a smooth.
The chassis is now built but unmotorised. I will wait to motorise it because DCC is on its way!
X2800
I have added
My throat feels like it is full of broken glass at the moment but I am determined to make the best out of a bad situation so I have been testing some techniques out on the trusty (and well used) test plank.
The first is DAS clay being used for the roads. I was originally going to use printed sheets for the roads but I am not overly convinced that they will be the most durable and the amount of work needed to get each section of road customised was considerable. Therefore, I spread some PVA g
Whilst I was cooling down from doing the gardening I had a chance to make a little progress with the UFO collection that is slowly being worked down.
X3900
Today I painted the buffer beams and used the waterslide transfers for the stripes on the sides. This caused a bit of bad language because I have never used them before. However, I got there in the end! There are a few places where I will paint such as the whiskers, which are going to be difficult, and the the small gaps by some of the
It's a weekday and I have been at work on the model trains. This is very unlike me.
However after posting yesterdays blog I realised that I did not need to buy a new chassis for the X5800, I could just improve the one I have.
To recap, the one I have is a modified Kato tram chassis with two bogies. The chassis has been extended and one of the bogies has been moved onto this extension. What I tried to do on my last attempt was use superglue and brass wire to extend the pickups. This faile
With the weather being so pleasant I decided to stay inside and work on a few projects this weekend. I have to say the progress has been good. As well as the station building that has been making steady progress I have decided that I need to get some of the rolling stock moved on.
X5600 FNC
The first project I got stuck into was the X5600 or FNC as it is sometimes know. This petite railcar probably did not operate on the line I am modelling but there was one based about 100 miles north. So
Today I spent the morning masking and spraying up the DU65 Draisine that has been sitting in my UFO pile for months. The spraying went well and this afternoon I touched up the parts that needed that extra fine detail. As with all things like this the camera makes it look awful but from normal viewing distance I am extremely pleased.
Here are a few snaps:
I need to tidy up some of the painting and add the glazing. After that there are a few details I want to add like the battery b
There is nothing like a nice blog after a weekend of modelling! I have to say that I have not been able to get as much done as I had hoped but I have pushed on and got a few UFO's nearer to completion. Here are the results:
X3900 Inspection Car
I had not realised until about 2 weeks ago that the roof was painted a different colour to the rest of the body. This was due to the fact that there are not many images of this unit on the internet and those that are on the internet are usually of th
Today I have created a test plank where I can try and perfect new techniques and elements of the colour etc before ruining the modules that I have built. The following techniques and elements needed testing to get right:
Colouring Kato Track with a spray can,
Ballast over Kato Track (I wanted to see how easy or hard this is with Jonsons Klear),
Foamboard platforms (both height and colouring needed to be checked),
DAS Clay and a wire brush to try and give areas of compacted ballast,
It is snowing outside and very cold so I have stayed in the house and got to work on one of my UFO's.
This particular UFO is the X3900 which is the Executive railcar for the SNCF management.
These were taken by me in 2010. It is now looking a little sorry for itself and is not available for service!
Due to some overenthusiastic filing last year I had to fill some of the front windows and work on them a little this morning. Following this I sprayed another coat of primer onto the shell
This morning I had a go at taking out the windows of my DU65 Draisine. I was using a drill and unfortunately the plastic was too brittle on this batch and this happened:
It was a reminder that 3D printing is a very fragile art. Luckily the frosted option was chosen so that the windows could be left in situ should this type of thing occur. So I put together one of the other DU65's I had to hand.
It only required the bonnet and the sides at the back to be added. I need to add the exhaust m
So my old layout has gone to the train room in the sky (actually it went to the tip!). My new layout will be modular and I will dedicate a thread in the main forum to the development of the layout itself. However this blog will remain as my workbench blog.
So with this in mind I thought I would do a post about the various projects I aim to progress this year. These are all UFO's from the past few years and regular blog readers will no doubt recognise some of the models.
1 - X3900. This m
Well due to a heck of a lot of reasons I have not updated the blog in a while. However I have made progress on the 3D printing venture. I have 4 examples of the Draisine to build now and the original example has been shot with a coat a primer. This highlighted the exquisite detail. I also put some glazing behind the empty window frames.
At this point I would have uploaded a few images of the progress but you will just have to take my word for it until the server comes back online properly.
The first test print of the DU65 Draisine came today from Shapeways. The box was huge for what was a small item but I guess "better safe than sorry" is pertinant due to the level of fragility involved with their items! So I tore into the box and out came the test print.
What can I say except WOW! I am very impressed by the level of detail that can be achieved using 3D printing! I was also very pleased because it fit quite easily onto the modified Arnold Chassis. Here are a few snaps I took t
When I was taking up the track this afternoon, I kept asking myself "are you sure you want to do this?"
The answer was firmly yes! Besides the continued blight of operational reliability, I found myself staring at many many shortcuts that I had taken and thinking that I would probably never be satisfied if I put lots of time and funds into this layout.
Before I ripped up the track and removed the recycleable bits of scenery I took a few pictures of the layout for one last time:
Then the b
In my last few blog entries I have been hinting at an exciting announcement. Well today is, finally, the day of that announcement.
Indeed it has been a very exciting 2 months for me, although I have had other things on my mind and not been able to do much actual modelling I actually commissioned CCE to do some CAD design work for me on a piece of rolling stock I wanted to make.
My main interest is French N gauge (as regular readers will probably know). French N gauge is less developed than
