Well I got bored with messing about with the green stuff on Foster Street so being the hardened modeller that I am I thought sod that, lets do something different, so out came the trusty mini-drill and the super glue, I mean what could possibly go wrong?

All of the locomotives in my fleet had cab windows fitted, using my trusted method of cutting clear plastic to the correct size and then fitting them with super glue. Easy you would think, just measure cut and stick, well let me tell you its not. It should be measure, cut sneeze lose, get annoyed. So measure again, cut try not to sneeze, test fit, and watch is it "pings" away to be lost somewhere in the abyss that is the carpet

So with frustration building to the point of a rage that seriously risks the destruction of the world, I finally get some windows that fit, out comes the superglue, and one is easily fitted, full of confidence the second one is fitted, or more accurately glued to your finger.....AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH back to stage 1 again

Eventually I managed to get the windows fitted to two Black 5's and an 8F, a little work with a cocktail stick and the numbers from the class fives are removed, ready for new ones to be applied. Then its on to working on one of my pet hates, fully filled tenders, so out comes the mini drill and a few minutes later the moulded full coal load is gone.

A little work later and the tenders are ready to have plasti-card formers added so that real coal loads can be fitted, I even got round to adding cab doors to the Black 5's from the ever useful plasti-card.

I know its not "real" scale modelling but these simple modifications to my minds eye at least improve the basic locomotives, and these modifications cost practically nothing and make the locomotives more individual. The only cost really is a bit of your spare time, and in my case a huge portion of the little sanity I have left.

All I have to now is fit a crew, vac pipes, head lamps and numbers and maybe a little weathering, now what numbers do I apply for some examples running in the North West????

Until the next time as ever Happy Modelling