I have posted a couple of pictures of the F Stock in running condition (although still not fully finished) on my layout thread. All four cars are now in the same colour (LT train red).

For Melbourne Cup Day, we have a public holiday here in Melbourne, so I have put in a little modelling time this morning, decorating a couple of items of stock.

First up is the Hornby class 08 shunter that I repainted into BR blue a little while back. I have not heard any more from PH Designs regarding the etched steps (I transferred the money but nothing seems to have happened at the other end), but in the meantime, I found the plastic steps I had removed from the Bachmann 08 chassis I used under my SR 15203 shunter. With a small amount of trimming and drilling of holes, these are now attached to the Hornby chassis. I am still missing one shunter's handrail at the front but that will be easily replaced with a handrail knob and some wire. I then numbered it as D3272, which (so far) is the only 08 I have found pictures of on the Southern Region that seems to match the configuration of the model, although even now I'm not 100% sure it's right.

I also replaced the single 'sugar cube' speaker (the last one I had in stock at the time) in this locomotive with a matched pair in parallel with a double mounting, from DC Kits. The sound from the Zimo decoder (Paul Chetter/Digitrains sounds) is much better now.

For quite a while, I have owned a Dapol track cleaning car, which came from Hattons with their own branding on it in grey and white livery. I repainted into blue and grey, and arbitrarily assigned a DCC number to it (1074), which I kept forgetting. I have now given it a fictional Derby test livery with white edging to the grey (wider stripes than standard) and a red band below the waistline. It is now called Laboratory 26 and numbered RDB905090 (5090 for DCC purposes, lthough I could have used the '26' instead). I'm not sure what the real Lab 26 was, or what it was for, and it almost certainly wasn't RDB905090, which probably also exists, but since the whole shebang is fictional anyway, it gives an illusion of legitimacy to it!

As this vehicle is sometimes propelled in front of a locomotive, I may add some wasp stripes to the ends at some time in the future.

Transfers used were: Replica Railways rub-on type for the 08 cab side numbers, Fox Transfers for the red stripe, and RTC markings and identifications on the track cleaner, and Modelmaster for the white striping.

Edit: I trimmed the excess red stripe off at the ends after the photos.