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Das Bus (sorry Bart)

The grand plan for my boxfile layout includes a road overbridge to hide the join between the two boxes. And of course railway modeling 101 dictates that if we have a road bridge there should be a bus driving over it.... I have a few 1:76 buses from EFE, but very little in HO, apart from an old Wiking mercedes 0305. This has now been cut down from a "bendi" into a regular two-axle bus.  A Saviem or Renault PR100 would have been a lot more typical french, but it's that money thing again,

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Boxfile part 2

So another bit of progress with the boxfile layout. Scalescenes low relief warehouse chopped to suit 1:87 (ish). Still needs some signs and a coat of matt varnish to finish, but quite happy with the result.  The car poking out of the roller door is a 1950's Opel as modeled by Wiking in the 1980's. A bit short on details but ok for background.  The Scania T142 is an 80's matchbox toy, which is marked as 1:90 scale, and looks pretty good for HO. Some nice crisp detail on the cab. It

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Boxfile part 1

So after a lot of procrastination (oh yes...), here's a first look at my upcoming boxfile layout.   The setting is deliberately vague (or just inaccurate), somewhere in NE France between the late 1970's and mid 1990's. When finished there will be two boxfiles joined end-to-end, with a road overbridge to cover the join. There will be a sector plate or fiddle yard at one end (accessed through a tunnel portal), representing the rest of the SNCF system. In the photos 70001 is arriving ligh

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Wagons...

So having more or less finished CC70001, I realised it's in need of some wagons to shunt in it's upcoming boxfile layout home. A locotracteur would be a much better choice for a boxfile, but hey....   Being short of cash for modelling projects, I borrowed an idea from another RM webber (sorry I have forgotten your username) and bought one of those cheap plastic trainsets from Ebay. £9 got me three roughly ho-scale wagons and a battery-powered loco (not sure what I'll do with it yet).

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SNCF 70001

Hello,   It's been a wee while, but time for a quick update on what I've been doing.  Having finished (for now) 70001, I figured I needed some ho (ish) stock for it to pull/shunt. Not having anything specific in mind, and given the increasing prices of decent secondhand stock on Ebay, I borrowed an idea from another RM-webber, and bought a (very) cheap plastic train set, which includes 3 x approx ho scale bogie wagons. One of these, bizarrely stickered-up as a fuel tanker is now a

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Extra time...

A bit of weathering on 70001. Diesel stains from the fuel fillers. Dirt and grime on the bogies. Some dirt on the steps and door handles and some more on the (many) grilles. Tried some soot around the exhaust vents also, but not an easy effect to achieve (black on black???). Tried not to overdo it, and quite happy with the results. In most photos 70001 isn't clean, but isn't filthy either.  Ken  

Done! Well almost...

So 70001 is back on it's wheels. It's not quite up there with current RTR models, but it probably only cost around £40 all in.    The original mehano shell is pretty accurate as far as I can see, once the cab ends are sorted. It certainly captures the bulk of the real loco.    To be honest, it does sit too high on the bogies, but I'm not sure how easy this will be to fix (limited space inside the bodyshell).    All that remains to be done is a bit of weathering to t

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Across the channel part 4...

So 70001 is slowly coming together. Not perfect, but quite happy with it for what it is.  Tried adding grab-rails, but this didn't work well. Anything close to scale was extremely fragile, and my sausage fingers snapped them off again in minutes. Anything strong enough to stand a bit of handling was obviously over-scale...  There is some weathering to be done once the loco is back together, which should help to disguise the odd paint issue. I'm modelling the loco towards the end of it'

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SNCF 70001

So 70001 is progressing. Cutting and shutting the cab ends wasn't too bad. Started on the paint, which is proving a bit challenging, but should hopefully tidy up ok (for my fairly low standards..). Picking a shade of blue has been difficult. There aren't all that many colour photos of 70001 and 70002, and they vary wildly in terms of colour.  There isn't all that much on these locos on the web, and a lot needs to be translated from french. They seem to have been a fairly advanced design, wh

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70001

So a bit of tinkering with the mehano Sncf 70000 this week. The model is a bit of an oddball, just like the real thing. The side profiles are pretty accurate, but the ends are wrong. And it's red instead of blue.  So far, I've made a start on fixing the cab ends, cutting them off and refitting them, so the lights are at the right level (the bottom of the lights should line up with the bottom of the cab doors). New buffer beams are required, plus grab-rails and brake hoses.  A couple of

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CC65000 continued

Hello again.  The CC65000 is coming along slowly, the body is perhaps 60% complete, and I've started on the bogies. These are recycled from a Kitmaster/Airfix/Dapol kit. I'm going to try and assemble my own drive mechanism... I may regret this. I had wondered about using bogies from the original Lima deltic, as these are HO (or not far off), but given the prices these go for on ebay, a lot of other people must have the same idea.  2020 has left me with an interest in french trains, and

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Cut and shut...

So how to covert a DB V200 shell to something a bit more like the CC65000?  So far I've altered the cab-side windows at both ends, including the plated-over windows above the cab doors to represent a loco towards the end of their life with SNCF.  I've also cut the V200 nose off at one end, and made a start on re-shaping the windscreens. The CC65000 has windscreens that are straight at the bottom, while the V200 screens have a curved bottom edge. Fingers crossed it all goes togethe

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CC65000

So time to reveal my mystery project. It's going to the SNCF CC65000.    The inspiration for this came from an excellent video on YouTube showing 65005 in its second career with Agrivap in the Auvergne. There are also some excellent photos on Flickr.   Hornby made a model of the CC65000 in their ACHO range, and there have been some more modern replicas, but the cost of these is a long way beyond my budget (although I can't deny the quality).   I was going to try scr

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