The 2-Bil is nearly complete - I'm currently adding the vast number of rain strips to the roof. No photos as bits of white plastic on a white roof doesn't really photograph.

I've also made a start on my Hornby 73/0. This is it straight out of the box.

The first step was to replace the overscale wheels with the Alan Gibson rewheeling pack. This is sold for EM, but can be used for finescale OO. The wheel profile is the same, and although the axles are too long this doesn't show. And the wheels came in a week not 4 months

Next step was to remove the 2D underframe moulding and fill the hole with 40 thou plastic, ready to rebuild the underframe.

I've also tracked down MRJ 11 from 1986, which has a Monty Wells article on the original Lima 73/1, including converting it to the 73/0. Beautifully written and illustrated as was always the case with his articles.

It includes drawings of both types of class 73 and a list of differences. Based on this, and some photos of the 73/0 on the GC, I reckon that the Lima/Hornby 73/0 isn't quite what it claims to be.

The body has the right grills/windows, but:

• It has 73/1 battery trays (although some 73/0 got this type in later life)
  
• It has 73/1 end jumper cables, missing the extra front end cable on the 73/0
  
• It has 73/1 bogie sandboxes
  
• It has a 73/1 fuel tank (the filler is in a different place on the 73/0)
  
• It has strange small round buffers. The 73/0 were built with oval buffers, and got large round ones in the early 1970s
  

Some of these I can understand, as they reused parts to keep the cost down. But why the mistakes with the body moulding? It's ended up as a hybrid of the two sub-classes in best RTR fashion. On top of these, the airhorns are rubbish, there's no steps or cabling on the bogies and the side windows are larger than the glazing.

Anyway, all of these should be fixable given a bit of work. There's all sorts of nice moulding work on the body - some very nice grills for example (I never understand why people replace the grills on this model) and it looks like a class 73.

It will be E6001 in 1970 rail blue condition, complete with original oval buffers.