After a couple of weeks off from work on holiday I had hoped to complete both my Comet Bulleid BCK and Thompson SK coaches but the glorious weather has actually hindered me as my wife has found a number of things that needed doing around the home instead. However the Bulleid BCK is now completed and has been finished as S6723S in BR Southern Region green. The Thompson is still in pieces in its box.

This Bulleid coach unusually caused me some frustration at the final stages because when I came to give it its final coat of matt varnish, all was well until after about 15 mins after the coach had been sprayed. All of a sudden a few patches of white 'clouding' suddenly appeared along the top edges of the bodies on both sides where they join the roof. Not sure what caused this but it did have to be rectified as it looked a mess. I did this 24 hours later by carefully respraying the affected areas green again and then giving the whole coach another matt varnish spray a couple of days later.

The coach is shown in the pictures on some temporary old Bachmann bogies as everybody currently appears to be sold out of Hornby's very nice Maunsell bogies at present which I intend to fit to this coach. When I am able to get the bogies, they will be fitted and the coach chassis and ends will be subject to some light weathering.

The purists will see that that the coach (and the coaches in my previous entry) are incorrectly fitted with 3 link couplings at each end at present. My 'loose' coaches used to be fitted with Smiths 'screw link' couplings but this caused the odd problem at exhibitions when the odd coupling occasionally broke - trying to replace a small Smiths screwlink in a dimly lit exhibition hall on a coach in a large, crowded and busy fiddle yard tested my patience more than once - to the point where I decided that all my brass coaches in my longer rakes would have 3 link couplings instead - they don't break and are able to take the strain of the weight of a trailing 9 coach train a lot better than their predecessors.

I have not yet decided where this Bulleid BCK will run in my coaching set formations on our Old Elms Road layout but if it does end up at the rear of a set then I will remove the 3 link from the brake end and fit a dropped buckeye coupling casting from the MJT range (and of course a tail lamp).

I have now started to build the Thompson SK coach kit. On Old Elms Road I do run an inter Regional train from the North East that currently comprises 4 kit built Thompsons, 3 Bachmann Mark 1s and a Hornby Gresley Restaurant car - this new Thompson will enable the set to be increased to the 9 coach maximum that we are able to run on the layout. The intention is to finish this coach in crimson and cream livery.