Having recently got my hands on a Tramalan Snow sweeper model and having one of the snow ploughs available, thoughts have turned to possibly exhibiting Grime Street in a winter mode, we'll see..........

So if that plan does happen, I fully intend to build one of the weirdest looking trams ever to grace the streets of Leeds (and probably any other UK city)

Snow Blade 7

Picture courtesy of Andy Bailey and used with permission

Snow Blade 7 was Chamberlain Car 83 with one platform and staircase completely removed and a large snow plough attached to the bulkhead, a controller and handbrake were fitted near the doorway and the car was driven from inside the lower saloon, it lasted till the last year of the trams in Leeds seeing only occasional use.....but it's that wierd that I want one!

Now having a few Chamberain bodies it becomes a pretty easy car to model, pass the razor saw!

Meanwhile Leeds 301 (ex LCC1) nears completion. This was a very early WSF print, it's come out ok, the body is pretty much finished, including full upstairs interior and plenty of individually fitted flush glazing, which like I've said in the past is strangely therapeutic to fit! It's pretty much done apart from finishing the headlight and numbering, I'm also trying to get some appropriate Leeds adverts done for this (and other cars) soon.

The chassis is nearly done, and this is a departure from my normal Halling derived drives, because the bogies are fairly close together fitting the Halling bogies which are over scalle length and a motor is a bit difficult, so this one is hopefully going to use a Hollywood Foundry LoBoy drive trucks matched up to a gurzeler unit, most of the parts are with me now and I'll order the rest shortly, and now for a slight confession of stupidity, I've looked at the Hollywood foundry stuff loads of times and to a degree shied away from ordering as I've always quickly read the sizes available and thought most were too big, not actually looking at the mm measurement but the scale ft measurement, and of course they're all based on 3.5mm/foot, so if you're reading this Geoff, how about a note for us very dozy 4mm modellers......well me anyway!

Next time, Middlesex Manufacturing and Grime St Mechanics Institute or another pub.......?