Here is a Lima siphon G on a pair of Blacksmith bogies. The bogies go together very nicely, and mine are running on the Bachmann coach wheels, via Gibson bearings.

I had a lot of hassle getting a satisfactory ride height. The Blacksmith bogies come with mounting plates but these only increase the gap between chassis and bogie. In the end the penny dropped and I realised I needed to cut rectangular slots in the floor of the Lima chassis, one per wheel, to allow for flange clearance. This was achieved very easily, the bogies screwed directly in place via new holes, offset only slightly from the originals, and the model is now extremely free running and will easily negotiate 30" curves - probably quite a bit tighter as well. I have another of these to do and will have a think about extra detail and any necessary alterations to the underframe.

Meanwhile, the BP project creeps along. Here is the motorised power car with the Chris Leigh bogie side frames in place. The black beetles have been wired together and run very well. I have set the leading bogie back a tad compared to the original mounting. The rear bogie is also set back a bit, but in this case to permit bogie swing without fouling the underframe detail. The dummy driving car will be treated similarly. Just watching this power car trundle up and down the layout is giving me an enormous kick, and a deep desire to move the project along.

The nose handrails need to be removed and re-installed a smidge closer to the windscreen. I got it right on the other car.

Nosing around Wilko's, I spotted some Plastikote enamel spray paint in what is called "Harbour Blue". It looks damn close to Tri-ang's version of Nanking blue so I will be keen to see how it comes out. The published material shows a wide range of reproduced hues for BP blue so I'm not going to lose too much sleep on it.

As elsewhere, I apologise for the ropey photographs. It's a lot of hassle to set up a tripod for the layout so these were all handheld.