Bratchell Models had a sale recently, offering £30 off the cost of their class 456 model in Network SouthEast livery. I quickly ordered one of these units, together with the wheels and coupling pack.

While Bratchell's kits are not exactly cheap, they are well thought out, well moulded and well finished (for their pre-painted ones). They build into robust and usable items for normal model railways. As such, I have already built (and documented here) the class 455/8 and class 319/1 kits from them, which are in service on Newton Broadway, although both awaiting a few finishing detail touches.

My class 456, 456 007, is intended as a dummy unit only, to run in "multiple" with the 455 835, which has a Replica Railways motorised chassis, which has more than enough power and traction to deal with hauling itself plus five coaches.

456 007 arrived in kit form on Thursday. By Thursday evening, I had fitted all of the windows, using my usual Micro Krystal Klear as the glue. For those who haven't read my previous entries, Krystal Klear is intended as a glazing medium itself, for smaller windows or apertures (head and tail light 'holes' are ideal for this) but it also makes a good glue for any clear glazing material, since it is sticky like a glue but can be thinned or washed off with water and dries clear. Two of the window apertures at the leading end of one of the coach sides needed opening out slightly to allow the glazing to pop in properly, but all others were perfect fits right from the start, making this a relatively quick and simple job to complete. The windows were left to set overnight.

Today (Friday), I have assembled the now glazed body shells and the bogies, and put them together with the baseplates push-fitted in.

They will require some added weight, and the underframe details are yet to be added, but I couldn't resist a quick photo on the mobile phone.

The front ends will need quite a bit of extra detail added (not in the kits) for the jumper cable boxes and other bits and pieces. I will also be drilling out the lights and adding LEDs later, plus end coupling to allow for use with the 455 unit.