I acquired some Modelmaster etched plates a while ago with a view to renumbering and renaming some of my GWR and WR locomotives, but as always I didn't really do my homework beforehand. My intention had been to rename my Hornby model of 7029 Clun Castle as Barry Castle, but as soon as I got the plates and took down my copy of Holden & Leech's book on the Castles, it seemed that this wasn't a good decision. My model of Clun Castle was double-chimneyed, and (as far as I can tell - it's a minefield!) Barry Castle never got a double chimney.

On the other hand, I did have Hornby's model of 5068 Beverston Castle and this was a single chimney model with the right type of cylinder casing and the mechanical lubricator in the right position. It did have the shorter type of superheater cover on the smokebox, though, whereas the photo of 7012 in Holden & Leech shows it with the longer superheater cover. Since I wasn't sure about replacing the superheater cover, I let the plates rest for the time being.

At last week's Manchester show, though, I found a nice set of white metal castings for GWR superheater castings, including the long type. Job on! It turns out that the Hornby superheater moulding pops off very easily, leaving just a pair of locating mouldings which can be filed down and addressed fairly easily - I didn't have to hack the whole thing off with a knife, as I'd feared. As far as I can tell, by the way, if there's a long superheater on the driver's side, there shouldn't be any visible part on the fireman's side - can anyone confirm?

Changing the name proved to be a bit more of a pain than I'd realised. I began to hack away at the name above the splasher on the Hornby model, thinking it would be plastic, before sussing that the whole name, mounting and front splasher is all one sturdy etched metal part. Eventually I removed the entire part (not easy in itself), then trimmed off the name and its mounting plate and then filed the splasher back to a clean curve, before fixing the new name and mounting in place. All in all a bit more work than I'd anticipated, and the splasher mounting still needed to be painted and lined. I'd call this as one of Hornby's occasionally odd design decisions, since it does make the work of renaming quite a bit trickier than one might like. To compound matters, my HMRS lining wasn't a good fit to the Fox etching. You can't just fix the Modelmaster plates over the old, either, since there's a bit of a dimensional disagreement between the two. Since I want to renumber all my Castles, for variety, I'll have to see if there's an easier way to do it.

I wanted Barry Castle to look like a working locomotive, so Oonce I'd sorted out the nameplates, I weathered 7012 using various brush-applied weathering products, before removing anything I didn't want with wet and dry cotton buds. Personally I quite enjoy not using an airbrush as it means I can get a loco up and running in an hour of easy work, whereas the airbrush needs a lot of preparation and fiddling. And then I always end up adding extra weathering layers anyway, since I find a pure airbrushed finish, at least under my hands, doesn't quite get close to the grimy/oily look I like. I wouldn't dream of weathering a diesel this way, though. It might seem an odd thing to do, by the way, but for steam locomotive boilers I like to add a layer of "kerosene" to the final finish which to my eye imparts the merest blueish tint, suggesting a combination of oil and the reflection of the sky.

I don't know what you'd called this level of dirt - it's obviously not ex-works, but it isn't truly filthy either. The lining is still visible and the base coat is still obviously green rather than some obscure shade of mucky brown. Maybe a loco that's being pressed into hard service during the summer months, half way between overhauls?

cheers, and thanks for reading.