A small amount of further progress today,

I have started to reassemble 37612, unfortunately the doors/side grills are elsewhere so I cant finish the job yet. it will also still require minor touchups to the blue paint and a coat of varnish to get a constant finish over the repairs (most annoyingly the can I have here has a blocked nozzle despite having only used it on 2 locos earlier in the year...)

The other work which is still outstanding is all minor, with the lights needing black paint, buffer beam detailing, glazing and transfers still outstanding.

The Great Western Trains Class 47 has also hit a hold up, given that the Vi Trains base model did not have the required end detail I cant respray the ends until I get etches from Shawplan (which I suspect will not be until Scaleforum). What I will probably end up doing is adding the transfers when I am next home, and then spraying the yellow ends over the Christmas break. The model has now been refitted with side glazing (needed to fit the roof fan units which support body on chassis), I believe that all 4 of my Vi 47s still need to be lowered on their chassis as well... Given that Vi Trains have not modelled the kick plate under the doors, I am debating if I will paint it silver (which is how Vi have dealt with it RTR) or have a crack at an etch. I suspect it will have to be the latter!

Last night I ended up fitting the etched plates (SS Great Britain) and refitted body to chassis (the buffer beam in the below photo is missing some details which will be refitted once I fit the screw coupling. The below photo shows the current state, with 47813 alongside my earlier resprayed Heljan 47830 (still got to decide what I will do with that, 2 GWT 47s seems rather overkill, and having seen a photo showing Thor in GWT working on Virgin Trains services for 2 days in 1998 I am really tempted to do another Vi Trains respray to model that one. At this rate I can see myself having the whole fleet.......

Speaking of screw couplings, I have also finally got on and fitted couplings to the Fraggonset 47. My method for dealing with these on Vi Trains 47s is pretty simple, the hole is expanded to fit the shank size and the shank is then superglued into position. Once it has dried I make a cut with the Xurons about 1mm back from the back of the buffer beam and then fold over to the side (securing with more glue.) This prevents it from fouling the chassis when you put the body back onto the chassis.

The final step (having glued on all the necessary pipe work) was to glue on the buffers, and then glue the buffer beam to the loco body (applying glue to the clips on the back of the buffers and to the top edge of the beam) Finally more glue is applied from the back to further reinforce the joint (need to make sure that once you have 7mk2s hanging off the back of it the joint wont fail!)

Having pretty much ran out of modelling to do now, (particularly as its all now been packed prior to tomorrows move to Bristol) I have cracked on with a bit of research as to the formation of the rake the GWT locos will be used on.

The most useful will be the Pad - PZ sleeper, however I have not had much luck finding photos (all I have found is one rake with a BG and a sleeper visible, and another with a BG and 2 sleepers.) I have managed to find a full formation in FGW days, which has 4 sleepers, mk2e FO, mk2d TSO and mk2d BSO so I am planning to use that as my basic plan with a BG to substitute with the BSO.

I also plan on modelling the early 1999 loco hauled daytime services, which will be based around a formation comprising 2 mk2e FO, 4 mk2d TSO and a mk2d BSO (with an additional mk1 RMB that can be added to the rake along with a mk1 bg that can be substituted for the BSO.

The problem here are the mk2s, I have most of a rake (I am short by 2 TSOs) all of which require painting, given its not a paint job I will particularity enjoy (I hate masking long straight lines, and will not use transfers for stripes) I am living in hope that either Bachmann or Hornby will announce a new mk2 aircon next year.....

That will just leave painting the 2 mk1s which is a lot more manageable!

If anyone has any recollections/photos of Great Western Trains loco hauled services from 98/99 please get in touch, would definitely like to find more accurate info on the sleeper formations in particular