Further to my earlier research on Virgin Class 47s I have come to a decision. Having researched photos of the first five locos to gain Virgin livery, I have eliminated any possibility of 4 of the 5 locos retaining Virgin XC logos into 1998 (further discussions with friends who were paying attention to the prototype at the time backs this up).

I did debate just going ahead and doing it anyway, but that would be a dangerous precedent and would no doubt open the floodgates....
As such, I think for my XC branded stock fix I will stick with the HST powercars and mk3s carrying the livery that I have already confirmed (and modelled) in 98 condition will have to do.

This in turn has left me needing to make a decision as to which loco to model with the currently de-numbered shell that I have on my workbench. Given the size of the nameplate scar, a loco with a big name is an advantage, which brings me back to 47817 'IMechE'. Details all match up (a good start), however it is a bit problematic in that it didnt get named until late 1999 (one account says October, another August), so it either just fits in or just misses my upper limit. In my later operating period it also just fits in at the tail end of Virgin Cross Country's loco hualed operations.
What finally convinced me to go with this loco is that if running pure 1998 I do have the fraggonset 47/7 which can be used as a stand in.....

So having made the call, the next job is to get the paint touched up and ready for the new name plates & numbers. Given that I have a Heljan shell currently with IMechE plates on it, I figured cheaper to strip it down and sell as a chassis and a scrap body and keep the plates than pay for new plates and sell as is (given the amount of work needed on the rest of the Heljan shell...)

The plates were carefully removed (thankfully my original 817 was modelled back when I still used double sided tape to attach nameplates!) The new plates were then fitted up to the Vi model, unfortunatly the small round crest from the original name proved quite tricky to shift and has some areas next to it where the wet & dry has thinned the paint too much. My plan here is to brush paint Virgin red over the area, then sand back to remove any brush marks before giving the whole side a coat of varnish to hide the matt areas that were sanded. (of course this does actually require me getting on and buying said varnish...)

Another area which needed removal was the 2nd OHLE flash on the centre of the sides, (the base model having one either side of the door, while 817 only has a single flash.) the same approach was used here sanding off with the wet and dry, a little more tricky here given the proximity of the door (and again a little touch up will be needed, really hate having to use this method for renumbering!)

The other work so far has been the removal of the roof grill detail in preparation for some of Shawplan's etches, unfortunately this cracked a window when trying to remove the fan insert (seems Vi Trains are as bad as Bachmann and Hornby with the variable amounts of glue as this one was very firmly glued!)

Next job:
Will be getting on with the bufferbeams tonight, then its a wait until I get hold of some Virgin paint to do the touch ups. Once thats done the last job will be the fitting of the new roof grills. Just need to try and find a decent roof shot of 47817 to see which design of mesh it carried along with which boiler port type(and typically Fotopic is broken...)
With the boiler, I think it needs the round type (while the model is fitted with the square), fortunatly I still have a set of etches for that type from when I did 47709