My latest project... well.... you won't find it on my 'to-build' list.

A few weeks ago I was going through one of my boxes and I found a set of Ratio 48' Midland suburban carriages I'd built two or three years ago. And I thought, 'they look appalling. I can do so much better'. So naturally I took one, pulled it apart and then got stuck, so left it alone and got on with 'Jutland'.

Deciding that if I did nothing I'd no doubt lose half of the carriage, I decided to make it my next project. An attempt a few weeks ago to improve running qualities by fitting brass bearings was close to, but not quite, a disaster. Upshot is I've wrecked one of it's bogies and though ti still works (just!) I've had to order a spare pair off of Ebay this morning.

The others in the set... will have their chassis' left well alone.

So, what am I doing to improve the model?

First off, I've repainted it in teak, or at least, closer to 'teak' than I had managed before. I've also added strips of plastic sheet to the footboards to improve the joint between chassis and body.

My models being set pre-1928 I've decided that this carriage (and the rake it belongs to, eventually) will be finished as a set outshopped in 1924/25. Hence the ends will be teak, rather than matt black, and the carriages will carry primrose lining, rather than none whatever.

I've also made an attempt to make it more GC-esque. To be fair the kit is already pretty close, if you overlook the differences in the roof shape (the GC suburban stock, both 1905 and 1911 sets, had a sort of 3-arc appearance, whilst the Midland stock had a simple arc roof). The only real change I've made to the model has been to remove the middle line of ventilators down the roof.

I'm also having a go at creating an interior. None was supplied with the kit and this being a compartment coach with (fairly) large areas of glazing it's pretty obvious once you notice it. Hence I've come up with a plain, if robust, interior. Seats are strips of balsa wood and the partitions are pieces of plastic sheet. it all still needs painting of course but dropping the body shell over it you can already tell the difference.

Once final alteration I have made, and it does work, has been to add a length of plastic strip to each side of the chassis just above the footboard. This way any differences between the level of the chassis and the level of the bottom edge of the body are disguised, illustrated here: