Well! At long last the two new chassis are running acceptably.

At least they are running far better then ever in their long history. On 'Birch Vale' they operate as well as my expectations. They are not so good on 'Bowton's Yard', but that is more due to my track making skills than my chassis making skills.

When I was building 'Bowton's Yard' I deliberately used several track making methods in an effort to decide on what I thought to be the best method to suit my needs. Remember that this is a layout designed to use S4 track and wheel standards. I used ply-&-rivet with cosmetic white-metal chairs: working w-m chairs and cyano to ply; working plastic chairs and MEK on ply and PC board sleepers/timbers off-scene. I also tried steel rail as well as N-S rail. In fact it's a right hotch-potch. However the experience set me up nicely when I renewed all the track on 'Birch Vale' using steel rail on ply sleepers with plastic chairs, and MEK. The end result is that 'Birch Vale track is all that could be desired, but that hotch-potch that is 'Bowton's Yard should really have all the track-work renewed.

'Bowton's is a freight only branch and the Gorton C13s were lovingly looked after and used almost exclusively on weekday, suburban passenger trains in the Manchester London Rd area, being rested or maintained over the weekend, when J10s, J11s, J39s or anything that was available, looked after the local traffic duty. Accordingly, my models work acceptably on the layout they were intended for. and had the Bowton's Yard branch really existed, C13s would have been very rare visitors (it's freight only!)

Here's eight pictures that are various views of the new units with their cloths on and then some of the naked chassis (naughty or what?)

No captions; If something is not obvious, then please ask on here.

The C13's will now have a few weeks rest before detailing starts, because Honley Tank has agreed to start converting a Bachmann Lightweight DMU to

S4 wheels ready to do occasional passenger service on 'Birch Vale'.

Having already done a survey of this split-axle RTR unit, I can see why none of our wheel traders are offering a conversion kit! Looks to be an interesting challenge.

More next time perhaps. Enjoy your modelling,

Dave