School holiday jobs: I have re-chassised my green Hornby Brush type 2 (class 30), D5513, as the original was one of those with the dreaded metal "cancer". That was all right, except I got the bogies at the wrong ends, initially; the difference is in the wire lengths! I had carefully noted the wiring before disconnecting all the wires from the pcb but, on reassembly, I found that the lights weren't working properly on DC or DCC (I started with the decoder removed and the original Hornby blanking plug inserted, to ensure I didn't blow up the expensive sound decoder!).

After several attempts, where I had tail lights at the no 1 end and either all, or no lights at the other, I pulled it apart and started again. This time only the tail lights at the number 1 end didn't work, which is probably due to the cab contacts not sitting quite right. I'm not too worried about that, to the point that I might even disconnect the over bright tail lights from the other end as well, next time I take the body off!

It ran perfectly every time, it was just the lights that defeated me! Anyway, once it was OK on DC, I inserted a cheap Hattons decoder and tested with that on board, then refitted the LokSound decoder and speaker.

Then I repaired the small cracks in the body from the original chassis expansion.

Then I moved on to the Lima class 31 004 that I had previously detailed up and shown here. I was not happy with its Lima motor's running characteristics on DCC and managed to score a cheap Hornby RailRoad class 31 (R3067). The chassis swap is straight forward as both bodies fit either chassis. However, the Hornby model is a little bit of a hybrid of characteristics from earlier and later days of the type, and the chassis lacks the fairings around the buffer beams and below the cab ends. I filed the detail on the Hornby chassis smooth and cut and shaped some fairings from plasticard, using the D5513 and the Lima chassis as guides. While these are not quite exact, once painted blue they will give the right character to the model.

At the stage shown in the photo, I am leaving the solvent to set properly before filing the lower parts of the buffer beams to match the sides. I also forgot to file those little pointy extensions back a bit so the outer surfaces are inboard of the main fairing, which should continue the straight line angled up towards the cab doors. That will be corrected when I remove the body later.

I have also removed the BR arrows and cab numbers so I can repaint (patch painting) those areas and renumber and decal to represent an early blue example from the later batch, which means BR arrows on each cabside and pre-TOPS numbers on the bodysides behind the cab doors. It will most likely become 5539 or 5555, both of which are from the later blue star series, both with the green livery style number typeface, and both without the 'D' prefix, in or around 1969 and 1970.