What you are doing really looks good. If that is your layout the ballasting etc looks good.

But I am sorry I cannot see why you would go to all this trouble and still have the horrible skirts to the boiler. For me no matter how much detail you add it will all be wasted.

I've said it before and I'll say it again....

Removing that bit of skirt (quite apart from being devilishly difficult because there would be no room to get a needle file in there to clean up properly afterwards due to the proximity of the leading splasher) would reveal both the sides of the new gearbox AND the bottom of the new motor. 

To me that would be FAR more obvious than leaving that little bit of skirt in place. Trust me - when it's painted & weathered (with a crafty trick or two with the paintbrush) no-one will even notice it's still there.

...But if you care to post a photo of the one you've done then I will be quite prepared to admit that I'm wrong and will certainly consider having a go at it.

Thanks for the nice comments about the layout - more photos in previous sections of this blog (sections 1 & 2).

I have not done anything in 4mm best part of 20 years. There are enough motor, gearbox combinations to get it all hidden. I agree that it takes a little work to do it and make it look right.

As for my stuff look at my blog and threads, There is on my thread a loco that I scratchbuilt in my early twenties. Not much of my 4mm stuff was photo'd.

EXCELLENT work Pete.  VERY impressive.

I don't even pretend to be able to match those standards - never could and never will be able to scratch build in the smaller scales, although I have scratch built in 7mm and upwards, including a gas-fired live steamer in 'G' (Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington 'Prairie' N0 6). 

But when it comes to 4mm I can't match the current RTR stuff. No way. 

So far as the B12 goes, I had an old motorless chassis lying in a drawer, I had a never used Portescap and I had a spare B17 tender ..... so it really is a case of getting a believable loco together for cheap essentially from what happened to be in the bits box.  It will do for me as a temporary measure, skirt or not, until such time as Hornby or Bachmann bring out a decent one to modern standards (which I hope they do).  In fairness it was never going to be either a scale model or entirely accurate with the old Hornby body as a starting point........just an exercise is getting something running cheap and quick - but hopefully a bit better than the old Hornby offering, as it comes.

But I remain unrepentant about the skirt - wait until it's painted and then see what you think.

- Don

Off on holiday Easter week (to Orford of course - where else?).  So more updates on this in a couple of weeks time.