Its taken long enough but I finally got the motor in the post to convert my Del Prado static model of an X3800 Picasso Autorail into a motorised and working one. I had been toying with the idea for some time and I had seen pictures on the net of it done well:

and not so well:

Even the poorer attempts to motorise these Del Prado body shells go for almost a ??100 on French Ebay. No wonder that the body's go for silly money on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380166594139&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Looking at the first picture I made a rough guess that they used a Tomytec TM-08 as the chassis so I ordered one:

The original body was quite low to the track so I was lucky that the bogies on the chassis were not very long:

The insides of the body were pretty basic and it was not long before I discovered that I would have to do some "trimming" to get the chassis to fit as it was riding very high:

I had to remove all of the lower level windows from the body as they prohibited the chassis from dropping any further:

I then discovered that the chassis was fractionally too long so I trimmed the front end where the NEM coupler would go to allow it to fit snugly:

Then it slid in and rested very neatly on the motor at about the right height. The Tomytec Motor runs a dream and for less than ??20 its certainly value for money. When I originally paid ??20 for the Del Prado body I thought it was expensive but I have seen them recentley go for as much as ??50 so I think that it was not so bad. I would like to reglaze the windows in the future to enhance the appearance. If I could obtain another body then I would consider building a trailer for this unit.

There will be some video of this uploaded soon.

Good to see RMweb back online!