So, lets kick off the blog! As a bit of a trial of the blog format, and because I've got this week off, in between getting the car to the garage, some fotting, and generally wasting time I'm attempting to detail, weather and document the process with the recently released Graham Farish Dutch liveried class 37. Hopefully it'll end up as a blow by blow account (yawn ) of the work done. The aim is, by the time I go back to work at 14.30 on Mon 23rd, to have the loco finished. Today I made a start on the work, breaking the loco down to the component parts. The first photo shows the loco as it is, out of the box, albeit with the thick yellow paint stripped off the bogie axleboxes. The other two shots show the current straight of play.

Detailing so far has comprised of adding the speedo drive to the bogie from brass wire and scraps of plastic. Removing the footsteps does make working on the bogies that bit easier. They area piece of cake to pop off, just slide a scalpel blade up between the bogie and the steps. Some pipework between the tanks too - this was formed from some nickel silver wire, soldered into a T-shape for the cross pipe, and some shorter bits glued on for the drains/overflows.

The bogies have had the couplers modified. One has had the pocket removed, the other has had the mount for the NEM socket severely trimmed to reduce it's visual impact. The end with no coupling will be fully detailed, and is prepped for plough fitting. The ploughs are TPM, with some wire soldered to the back to give a semi-prototypical mounting method. They are only placed on the loco at the moment, to prove the concept, but will be glued once they're painted. I don't think this mounting method will work at the other end due to the coupler, I think they'll need attaching to the bogies unfortunately. I'll try to get some better shots tomorrow of the mod work in daylight.

Ok, so to a bit of an admission, I don't really have a use for this loco I just bought it because it looked nice. I've since found out that the loco didn't make it to 2001, so isn't suitable for the early era I model. It may see use on Hedges Hill, or more likely, I may sell it on. Because of this, and difficulty in matching RTR paint shades, the shell will be staying as it is, although really the bodyside steps and water filler should be plated over, and the only Dutch splitter to retain this wasn't a Canton machine (to make use of the etched plaques) so a re-number isn't going to happen.

Anyway, enough of the waffling, I'll update it tomorrow, hopefully with progress!

iechyd da

jo