Heritage Railway Centre developments.

First things first, having obtained a couple of Bargain Mk1s over the last few months, I thought it was time I did something with them, namely putting them in a 'stored awaiting restoration' state .

The 'Last' Regional Railways Mk1 BSK 35452 was sheeted over (rather wasting my reasonable efforts to replicate the patch painting and OHL flashes the real thing had at the time of retirement, but saving the need to weather it!)

an Intercity BG, with titles white-spirited off, has had its roof sheeted over, and presents a much more interesting and effective scene.

Tip: Cambridge University Press bookshop carrier bags are a perfect tarpaulin colour, but sadly a little too thick and therefore don't quite droop and hug the detail as intended, but for a first attempt I'm quite pleased with the outcome. The cotton thread is tied to the plastic, then prototypically tied to the u/f trussing and/or brake hangers etc. knots and bows in cotton thread is NOT FUN!. A washing of thinned rail grime will help improve the bogies and u/f. and a few rust streeks off the door hinges. Excuse the sleeper propped up on the bogie, there is a slight gradient and Bachmann did not include a functioning hand brake on their BGs!!! Railtour coach letter on Mk1 Pullman behind is off a TDK VHS tape label set from c.1990!

Also, the shed yard was 'concreted' with suitably painted plasticard. I adopted this method as, at the time of planning the yard (several years ago), I wanted to reuse the track on the next layout. Having nearly completed the job (i.e. stuck everything down with double-sided), I have now decided that the next layout will use Code-75 track, so I could have smothered the yard with polyfilla after all! Few gaps left to fill, and need to concrete out the 'disposal pit' (under the pullmans), but ran out of plasticard! Still to do: pits need to be painted, a nice pile of coal added for the Volvo backhoe to play with, and the whole area grimed up a bit.

80079 and 92240 (when I get round to renumbering it), sit on shed, with 63601 lurking inside.