Hi all,

So as many people have posted on RM web or other blogging sites, about there upgrading of the Hornby J15. Now I'm not upgrading the handrails or cab in any way, following in the footsteps of 'The British Railway Series' Blog. I have put on my man trousers and begun and finished changing the J15's as modeled LNER (NER) Teapot chimney to the GER Stovepipe Chimney, this will then be painted, weathered & renumbered.

Anyway, down to business.

To start of with I pulled the chimney off the model, I was quite surprised how well it came off, I then dry fitted the chimney to the model, found that there was quite a deep hole left in the wake of the Hornby molded chimney. So I put some Humbrol model filler in the gap. While it dried I fitted the chimney exactly where I wanted it.

After the filler had dried I took the Chimney for undercoating and painted it with Revell Matt Black No. 8, which came out very nicely. Leaving the bottom of the Chimney unpainted so I could glue it to the filler. After which I then painted the smokebox leaving the result you see before you.

The model then went to Grimy Times to be weathered, unlike other modelers I am not confident enough in my weathering, as I am still practicing on an older model of mine, till I am confident in doing it myself.

As you can see the model has changed from 5444 to 7554 - This not the same loco at all as I spent a long long time trying to find images of a J15 in 1936 Condition with a Westinghouse Air Pump, Stovepipe Chimney and fitted with the LNER type safety valves (Ross poppet valves I think) Correct me if I am wrong I always appreciate learning from others.

About 7554, the loco was spent its entire life at Stratford (London) on the GER as 554, LNER 7554 then renumbered to 5452 and finally BR as 65452. It had a life lasting 53 years. All information can be found on the 'complete BR locomotive database 1948 - 1997' I find this a useful site to find locomotive numbers, which I then cross reference with photos of the period. (Again the photo's are not mine it took me about three hours on the computer looking for images)

Finally, you can see the locomotive on my layout of Mile End Park, with all my current LNER Great Eastern Region Locomotives, all I need is an N7 which I want to do as 7993. The great thing about this layout is it's transdisciplinary so you can have pretty much anything from the 1900s till the 1960's on there and it will look good.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed modeling and writing about it.

Thanks very much

Tom