I don't like throwing money at my hobbies. There, I said it. To my mind there is always more satisfaction in building something that looks good and doesn't cost too much than there is in going to a store and opening my wallet.

So, for once I've surprised myself and spent some 'proper' money on myself and bought a few little beauties from Ebay. None of them perfect (that is probably why I got them at such a bargain price), but they'll do me.

First up we have a GCR 9F (LNER N5) 0-6-2 in GCR black.

(Bleurgh. What is it with camera focus these days?) Not a bad little model, but the transfers let it down somewhat. Now you may be thinking 'James, you built an N5 a few years ago- why buy one?', but the thing is that whilst I was pleased with my hackbashed example when I built it, since then it has fallen down the ranks and now languishes somewhere on the 'really needs replacing' list- alongside the D6 that I was so proud of a few years ago.

Next up is a GCR 9K (LNER C13) 4-4-2 in BR black.

(That's better!) This was sold as being a scratchbuild effort (I wish my scratchbuilds were quite as good!) with a dodgy motor- it runs perfectly well backwards but not quite so well forwards. There are also one of two bits that look to be missing- eg the whistle. Now my plans with this one are to repaint it in LNER black and replace the motor and chassis. I'll be looking through my old Railway Modellers this afternoon for the Ian Beattie drawings of the C13 and C14, to compare the driving wheel sizes and spacings with the GWR 14xx, which strikes me as being perhaps the most likely candidate for a donor chassis.

And so on to...

... GCR Class 1 (LNER B2) "City of London". I've wanted a B2 for years (see my previous blogpost) and I'm really pleased I won this loco. My original aim was to repaint it into LNER livery as "City of Lincoln" but I think the GCR dark green and claret livery suits the loco much better than apple green. I'll be reading John Quick's GCR liveries book today to see if "City of Lincoln" ever saw GCR green or whether it remained in black through to LNER ownership. It does need a bit of attention both structurally and in terms of paint finish (there is, for instance, no attempt at cab lining on the model).

And finally, I've started work on my Gorton mogul neverwazza.

Quite a handsome looking machine in W A Tuplin's "Great Central Steam". The first step to take was to measure up the 43xx boiler against the D11 spare I bought a few weeks ago. There was about 7mm discrepancy- the D11 being too long- however re-reading the book it says that the boiler was merely based upon that fitted to the Director's, rather than being a proper Director boiler. I felt therefore that the easiest solution to the problem would be the most appropriate, and carefully cut away the rear 6mm of the ex-Director's firebox. Now the next step will be cut away the 43xx boiler and running plate between the cab and the bufferbeam.