First of all, new modelling bench! We've been rearranging things about the house after our flatmate left and left a Black & Decker-style workbench behind. I promptly commandeered it and made a work surface which is held in the vice using a piece of MDF and various left over bits of wood, mainly from Ikea shelving. The lamp was salvaged from the cupboard of disgrace in my violin making workshop. Overall I'm pretty happy, it certainly beats the small table I was using before. (If you are wondering what Darth Vader's head is doing there, its a phone holder).

Second of all, an update on the PO wagons: Cannop and Pates & Co are basically done, although I might still do some minor adjustments to the weathering. Pates & Co turned out grimier that I was hoping, I was aiming for a lightly weathered wagon, with some coal dust around the side door and a bit of grime on the underframe, but I overdid it a bit. Still, I don't think it looks unprototypical. The other thing I'm not totally satisfied with is the colour of the grimy wash I mixed up, which ended up a bit too red for my liking, a sort of rusty colour. It looks alright on Pates & Co, but the white letters on Cannop have gone a bit of a weird colour, although I notice it is not too apparent in the picture. I might try to rectify it, but I'm not sure how at this point.

Another thing which isn't obvious in the photo is the absolute pig's ear I made of one of the couplings on Pates & Co, where I assembled the S&W coupling with mounting plate as per instructions, only to discover that the plate wouldn't fit between the headstock and wheels and that the paddle was resting on the axle so it would occasionally prevent it from turning. A bit of filing and bending and touching up and adding blobs of solder sorted it, but I'll check next time before assembling everything.

On a side note, as I was looking for photos of wagons as a reference in the Severn & Wye books, I came across the views of the then new footbridge at Lydney Jcn in 1908 in the first few pages of Vol. 5. They features rows of PO wagons under the bridge, I was surprised at how clean most of them were: the majority appeared to be pretty much spotless, at least on the actual body sides. The underframes seemed to be a bit dusty, but still in a very good state compared to pictures I've seen of similar vehicles in the '40s or '50s. I wonder if this was typical in the pre-WWI period.

The shunting truck is almost done, I've been trying to work out how to fit couplings to it: one side is going to have and S&W coupling, the other a loop of wire for tension locks to hook on to, but I've also fitted hooks for instanter couplings, as you can see below. A bit overkill maybe, but I'll see how it works in practice.

I was also thinking that some lamps and other assorted bits would give it a bit more character, so I might at some point order some.

I recently discovered two of the first wagon kits I ever build, about 10 years ago: a GWR OPEN (possibly diagram O4), and a MINK, both from Cooper Craft. The quality of the kits is pretty good, lots of nice crisp detail. Unfortunately, that can't be said about my workmanship. As you can see, the open is literally falling apart. I'm in the process of disassembling them as much as is reasonable, removing the yellowed decals and stripping the paint (Humbrol enamels dissolve in alcohol! You learn something new every day). The open also has weird door stops hanging off the solebars which don't appear in any of the photos of similar wagons in the Big Book of GWR Wagons, so they are coming off and I'll fabricate some new ones. Both will then be repainted in GWR livery (not the weird greenish tinge I had decided looked like BR freight grey). I will also need to turn some new buffers for them from brass rod using my Ultra-pro lathe (pillar drill and an assortment of needle files).

Finally, look what arrived in the post (after the customary month of waiting for Italian customs to actually do their job):

A Nucast Partners 2021 kit and a AA1/AA3 Toad kit from Roxey Mouldings!

As excited as I am for these, the more I look at them the more I think that I will need to do a lot of research (both on soldering technique, chassis building etc and on prototype) before I even think of getting started. Anyone know where to find Lydney shed allocations from around 1920?

I hope I'll be able to do them justice.

Exciting stuff!