As I've mentioned before, in my teens a CJ Freezer article turned me into a modern image modeller , and I attempted a layout set in contemporary Lincolnshire: Ghosts opf Flaxboro'

Eventually the project foundered under many problems, but I hung onto the stock and over the years I've slowly been recycling the stuff as reasonable scale models.

In the photo contained therein, you can see an Airfix 31 heading two blue/grey vehicles entirely washed out by the flash awaiting departure for the E Lincs line at "Grimsby Town"  . They are in fact a Hornby Mk2a "BSK" and a Lima Mk1 SK , and a second Hornby Mk2 brake brought up the rear of the stopping train set.

The Lima Mk1 was resurrected and rebuilt here :  Lima SK to TSO . But at the end of the day the contrast between the SE Finecast flushgalze on the TSO and the flushglazing on the Bachmann Mk1 BSK I commissioned from unused stock to run with it was just a bit much. Added to which the set had no first class accommodation.

So I decided to aim for consistancy of modelling standard and return to another long-abandoned project, an attempt to make something of one of the two Hornby Mk2 brakes from Flaxborough.

The state of play 8 years ago is summarised there:

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There's a Lima Mk1 SK tucked away somewhere - which raises the question of whether the secondhand Kitmaster SK kit someone gave me should be built as a TSO instead........Whether the Mk2s are really worth the huge effort of upgrading is moot. I started , got seriously discouraged - I'm not sure I'll finish

I started trying to flushglaze one, and it became clear the flushglaze wasn't fitting well. I tried filing out the window apertures from behind , it all started to look very messy, slow, and difficult , the coach would need repainting, there were moulded lining ridges... 

So I boxed it up again and forgot about it. The second Hornby Brake was quietly sold on at the club show a few years later, as I certainly wasn't doing this twice. But the one I had started was now unsaleable, so I kept it.

I've been very evasive how I describe these models because what Hornby produced and sold as a Mk2 brake second is in fact a 4 compartment BFK , and not a BSO. Having decided that finishing this project would give me a coach which would sit better against the upgraded Lima TSO , it was always going to be reworked as an actual Mk2 BFK, thus providing the missing first class accommodation in the set.

The starting point is here:

The moulded lines seperating blue and grey were peeled off with a chisel blade and rubbed down. I'm not clear if that had already been done when this photo was taken

The shade of grey was visibly wrong when set against the Lima TSO, the Bachmann BSK - or anything else. I haqd some difficultiers finding suitable aerosol paint - it being the pandemic - and I made do with Tamiya TS-81 to respray it

Having hacked away at it to remove the lining moulding, I had to repaint the self coloured plastic in rail blue , and I just about got away with the result. The interior was painted and peopled, and as it is a First , I even went as far as to add white patches for antimacassers

Replacement transfers were applied and sealed with satin varnish. I managed to apply white lining neatly, although I did not attempt it on the part of the top edge where the yellow stripe is. Transfers didn't really fit for the stripe , so I resorted to hand painting (I had left the raised strip in place at the top of the grey area)

The bogies wouldn't do - they had visible lumps above the B4 bogie frame which looked quite wrong. And as this is to run with the Lima Mk1 TSO with MJT B4s, they had to go. A pair of replacement bogies using MJT cast sides on MJT rigid 8'6" etched frames were built up . These are fitted with the MJT NEM etch. This provides useful extra weight in a good place, low down - they were suitably painted with blue coil springs and yellow roller bearings. Nothing much could be done about the underframe boxes , although a plasticard step was fitted below the guards doors. Replacement whitemetal buffers were fitted

The whole vehicle was reglazed with SE Finecast vac-formed glazing .I had this in stock - supplies are getting difficult although I believe SE Finecast intend re-running them. This is the biggest and most critical job, as the lack of flushglazing is the killer with these old coach models. I cut off the flange at the back to get the main pane to seat forward and flush, and I used the glazing for the ventilators as backing and filled up with Glue and Glaze, which was also used to disguise the edge around the glazing. 

One end gangway was plated over to recieve the black paper gangway from the companion Mk1 - the other had its gangway door painted the correct lime green. Underframe and roof recieved mild weathering

And a photo revealed that the orange curtains in First were very noticeable. A rummage in the parts boxes found some MJT whitemetal curtains which were chopped up (Mk2 windows are wider) painted a suitably lurid orange , and stuck in place on the compartment side with UHU

Here's the result in its set :

It won't stand close up comparison with a new Bachmann Mk2a, but it's a perfectly serviceable layout coach , sits ok with the Mk1 , and is a vast improvement on the starting point.

Anyone with a China-made Hornby Mk2a , with its much better standard of finish , has a head start