Reading Chris Nevard's recent blog entries on his Hornby Austerity reminded me that I've got an unfinished Dapol one hidden away. So I thought that I'd dig it out and have another look at it. This one is based on 'Warrington' and has the fibreglass chimney, denoting a loco fitted with an underfeed stoker, but will be repainted at some stage. It still needs regauging to EM.

One of the mods that I've done to it is to drill and file away the square strengthening bracket behind the pipework. A simple job to do that lifts this area without messing about replacing pipework. A pic;

Still a bit rough but you get the idea.

Doing away with the tension lock couplings means that the chassis ends can be reprofiled, Austerities have quite distinctive frame profiles. A big file is usefull, I remember doing this job during a demo at an exhibition;

This will probably go back into its box for a while although I really ought to finish it.

Paul.