A distinct lack of modelling time at the moment as 'real' work seems to have taken over all my spare time!

One thing that has moved forward though is the 3d Middleton bogie, the first revised models have arrived from Belgium and they are far superior in detail to the original.

This is the model as received

And this is it after a little work

Work undertaken so far includes smoothing the steps in the roof, I Materialise have pretty much sorted out how these models are printed for me now and I can ask them to do them one way or the other. The majority (like the Middleton) are produced with any layering in the horizontal plane, this results in any steps being on the roof, which is fairly easily solved, any that have roof detail tend to be done the other way round, all in all it does make it much easier to get the models right, so a big thumbs up for their customer service.

Other aditions and mods include the bow tubes, .45mm brass tube and a plate soldered on. Roof handrail added and destination blinds opened out. Originally the destinations were going to have blanking parts but that didn't work out and now the blinds are visible in the ends to be opened out where required (the Middletons destinations changed from 3 blind to 1 in the early 50s) Roof ventilators added. these were left off the CAD as I thought they would be easier to add after the roof was smoothed out.

Chassis is my usual plasticard, fitted with Halling trucks and motor, drive is by silicon tubing. I understand that there is a shorter Halling truck in the offing (approx 19mm) if so this will prove exceptionally useful for the Middleton and other UK bogie trams.

I have a number of parts for this one ready to cast in resin, seats stairs etc, the moulds for these are already done, so we may see a bit of quick progress with this one. I'm hoping to do a batch of 3, this and two others, this one being finished in the darker princess blue with cream/white window surrounds, the other two in the later red one with the broad upper cream/white band the other with the narrow one.

But don't expect any quick results or blog entries!