In my post of yesterday, I promised some pictures of the Gresley full parcels brake (Pigeon brake) that I've been building, so here they are!

In the background of this picture can be seen some of the other projects I'm working on.

The partially built white metal bodied loco is a Nu-cast (ex Stephen Poole for people who can remember that far back!) BR ex GER E4 2-4-0.As I model in EM, I had to carve away some fairly large chunks of white metal to allow the wheels and coupling rods to fit - they do now! Unfortunately, I carved a little too much metal in places and wasn't sure how to fill the holes. In an attempt to give me a backing for filling the hole, I superglued some 5 thou plasticard strips in, and it seems that the superglue reacted with the plasticard and moulded it fill the holes for me. I think this is very lucky, and I'm hoping that when I get tot he painting stage, the filled holes will not show.

As the chassis for the kit was one of the typical 1980's affairs of armour plate thickness brass side members with screw in spacers, I bought some milled mainframes from Alan Gibson and soldered these together with Comet spacers to produce the chassis. The wheels are Romfords as provided with the kit and the motor is a Mashima 1020 with flywheel driving through a High Level Roadrunner gearbox at 54:1. The chassis is compensated on the three point principle with the rear axle fixed and a beam between the front pony truck axle and the front driving axle. I have deliberately set the pivot point of this beam at two thirds towards the pony truck so the weight distribution will be two thirds on front driving axle and one third on pony truck axle. All wheels have pick ups from .35mm phosphor bronze wire and the chassis runs rather well, even though I say it myself! Next step, the tender, which I started on last night and have had to work out a few problems, but I'll be doing some more work on it tonight.

As well as the E4, you can also see a Heljan Class 15 - this needs detailing and dirtying. I bought a glossy finish loco as it's the only one I could find that had no yellow warning panels on the ends, so the finish needs toning down a little! That will wait until I've got my spray booth up and running, which will be a few months yet, but there's no hurry as the loco's not needed until next March.

You can also see the Thompson 6W PBV that I've mentioned elsewhere - I have finished the glazing and just need to number the opposite side, then weathering's the next step, which will also happen later in the year.

The last two photos were taken when the club (Mid Essex Model Railway Club) took our layout, Blackwells Brewery Company (available for exhibition, should anyone be interested!), to the recent Northampton show. I must admit to a touch of nepotism here, as the locos are all mine!

In the foreground is the Y7 that appears elsewhere in my blog entries and is finished apart from coupling links, weathering, painting of cab details, coal, driver and fireman etc. The green loco is a High Level RSH kit that depicts Birkenhead - the real loco was built for Birkenhead power station although I believe it never worked there but was sold instead to Kew power station where it worked until being sold in to preservation. If I've got these details wrong, please feel free to correct me!

The red loco is also a High Level kit for a Hudswell Clark Coronation class loco while the loco poking it's front out of the engine shed is the J17 that had disgraced itself so was put on static display for the day!

Phil