As mentioned in my last blog I picked up a bargain Mainline Siphon H as spares and repair from eBay. Looking at the photos it looked to include a set of replacement American bogies and metal wheels, but was unclear as to the condition of the rest.

After arrival it was clearly in a pretty good condition, wheels wouldn't fit in the bogies, a missing buffer, and a glue mark on the roof. The sides had been repainted into plain brown.

First the bogies, they were clearly the Mallard product with one of the bolsters rattling around in the box. It was a quick job to attach the part, followed by filing a 1mm recess in the ends to clear the OO flanges (which were fouling the ends causing a short).

The damaged buffer was replaced with a scratch built plasticard head glued into position.

The roof still needs a touch of paint to finish off, while the side facing into the layout was fully lettered with HMRS transfers. (given how HMRS don't include enough transfers on the sheet, I am only lettering the one side of brown stock in order to maximise the usage of transfers. There is only one Syphon on each sheet! I think it would have made a lot more sense to use the space on the wagons sheet and then do a sheet purely for the brown stock... I haven't found a prototype photo to work from, so instead have used outside framed Syphon Gs as a guide (with a Syphon H number of course). I also added Return to Plymouth branding, just because it was on the sheet.....

It now enters the pile of stock awaiting coupling fitting, I just need to decide what I am doing for it.