From baseboards to rolling stock there has been some progress which I am actually quite pleased about.

Starting with the baseboards, My father in law has helped out with some of the construction of some frames that are going to be supporting the link to my new module. The only picture I have of any relevence to this is the Cobalt Point Motor in the new module which I installed on the same day we constructed the frames:

I will get to work in drawing up a track plan for the new set up in its entirety. Safe to say that my layout has expanded from a single line terminus with dimensions of about 5 foot by 1.5 foot (plus a 2 and a half foot by 1 foot wide leg for the fiddle yard) to a round the room 6 foot by 6 foot loop with an average scenic width of 1 foot around the entire thing. To cope with the extra traffic I intend to relay the main station and change it from a single line terminus to a layout that is more conducive to running longer through trains (and also allow my corrail stock to fit into one of the loops). Therefore all of the stock was put away and the track gang in the DU65 Draisine was hard at work examining where to make a start with this project:

In other news I have been working on 3 railcars at the same time. The first one is my X5800 which I have had on my work bench for some time. It has made some progress and the cab has now been installed on the roof. It was also sprayed using a can of Halfords Spray Paint. In the store it looked a good match for the Cream colour used on the X3800's but when on the model it did not seem quite right so I am repainting it, still it looks a lot more complete now than it did:

As well as this railcar I have also recently purchased some more chassis for other projects that have been lingering in the background. One of which was a chassis to go inside the X5600 body. This was a Kato tram chassis (the 4 wheel kind as opposed to the 8 wheel two bogie kind that I used in the X5800). This required trimming and the doors from the body needed to be removed. These will be replaced with slimmer Plasticard doors to allow the motor to fit easily. I have also been rebuilding the cab for this model and have constructed a roof and a frame which will support some more elaborate sides:

I have also purchased two TM-08 from Tomix to allow me to motorise my other two Del Prado railcars. I was very pleased with the performance of the previous TM-08 and this is no exception. I would definitely advise anyone who needs to motorise something to use Tomix. The first of these railcars is going to be a simple repaint, it is going to have a red roof (which is a rare livery for an X3800 but there were one or two that did have it) and the bottom red skirt of the railcar will also receive a repaint as the Del Prado job sometimes leaves a bit to be desired:

Finally the last piece of rolling stock that will be on my workbench is another X3800, except this one is going to have a bit more surgery, this one is going to become X3900 (see my previous blog entryfor some actual pictures of where this lovelly railcar is now). Which means this railcar needs doors relocating, new doors drilled and filed down, windows removed and added as well as a new paint job (a rather drab green with whiskers similar to the DMU's from the UK). At the moment I need to gut the insides so it will fit onto the chassis:

So there has been a lot going on and with any luck there will continue to be a lot going on.

As always, thanks for reading.

Stephen