With the chassis completed I've been able to at least start the bodywork. The body comes as a single cast resin block, with a myriad of whitemetal castings tgo complete the model.

With the L1 you get a choice of no fewer than three different chimneys, two domes, two safety valves and a top feed. This is where drawings and photographs really come into their own....

I already knew that the L1's originally carried tall domes which were swapped in the 1930s for shorter, squatter examples to bring them into the LNER composite loading gauge. Similarly I knew that they originally carried GC Robinson chimneys, which were swapped for an austere flowerpot design and then swapped again for a shorter version of the Robinson design. Much the same happened with the other boiler fittings- originally equipped with top feeds which were removed at some point and with Robinson-pattern safety valves which were swapped for Ross pops at some point.

The problem is that the article in the April 1973 Railway Modeller is rather vague on dates when these parts were swapped over. Whilst I'm not fastidious about these things as a general rule, it is also a general rule of mine that models I build are accurate to the best of my knowledge. So the very fact of knowing that they were swapped over dictated that I should make every effort to make sure I got the right set of parts fitted to suit my chosen period- which would be 1925-30.

Luckily the article had a nice clear photo of #5276 at Neasden in 1924, which provided me with a prototype to model. The loco is more or less in GCR condition in LNER livery, though interestingly even at this early date it had lost its top feed (a bullet dodged there, I feel- I'd have just fitted it regardless without the photo).

So the work of an hour or so today saw the holes drilled out for the handrails and boiler fittings, and the latter fitted.

The next step is going to be to sort out the coal rails, which in my opinion let the rest of the model down badly. Quite how I'll manage this I'm not quite sure, though I'm leaning toward lengths of copper or brass wire, soldered up and then UHU'd into the insides of the bunker.