Those are looking good! Are you going to add some sandboxes to the std. gauge loco as I see you've added sand pipes, and how about a bonnet door rest strip along the top of the bonnet?

Thanks.

Sandboxes have been made for both locos and will be added next. I also need to make up some axleboxes and add some brakes.

Not sure what you mean by bonnet door rest strips - more info please!

Paul.

On the real thing the side panels are hinged and the very bottom of the lower section of each side is rolled. When the bonnet side panels are opened to allow access to the engine they are folded back and the rolled part rests in a shallow channel on the top of the bonnet so that they stay open and don't fall on thehead of anyone working on the engine. I'm not sure that I have a picture and I can't post one in here (see, I told you forums have the advantage over blogs ;-) anyway. In this scale you'd get away with a length of thin strip brass or microstrip. It needs to fit fore and aft between the etched lines where the bonnet mid section goes between the radiator cowl and the fuel tank, if you get my drift?

I've just been looking through my photos and I can't see anything like that on the Chasewater loco (the only one that I clambered onto the footplate of) nor do I remember seeing anything on there at the time. Removed perhaps or a new bonnet top? Otherwise I would have modelled it!

Would it be possible to post an image of the strip into a thread? Or in a PM? I thought that you could post an image in here but I can't figure it out!

Paul.

If you mean 305306 at Chasewater, it's been removed at some point in it's life in preservation. If you've got Adrian Booth's 'A pictorial survey of standard gauge industrial diesels around Britain' (D. Bradford Barton 1977(?) then page 53 shows W/n 305306 at Tarmac's Buxton quarry and the strip is visible. I've looked through my collection of official RH photos and out of two dozen only one is taken from a high enough vantage point to show it. I don't have a scanner so I can't copy it for you.

Thanks Ruston.

I have that book and often refer to it, still managed to miss that strip though!

I'm off this afternoon to try and track down another 48DS to photograph.

I suppose I should have climbed on the footplate of the Irchester loco but I thought that the bonnet top would be plain. I'm sure theres a lesson in this...

Paul.

Theres a couple of good photos in 'Industrial Railways of the South East' by Michael Messenger showing the bonnet top strip.

Found and photographed another 48DS today - another one missing this strip. Will appear in the gallery soon.