The problem is with making locomotives is that sooner or later you have to paint them, now even though I have a thing for great lumbering freight engines life should be easy, but when do I ever make things easy for myself?

So over the last couple of weeks, there has been a little progress down and the Price paint shops, initially I thought thanks to almost constant hand spasms that I would just concentrate on simple black engines, but when do I ever make things easy for myself?

Originally I thought I would add another big passenger loco to the fleet, and had thoughts about an ex LNWR Prince of Wales tank, so one slowly made its way along the production lines on the workbench of DOOM. Once I got to the stage where I could apply undercoat, I thought I would give her final coat a little thought, I had thought a nice simple smart unlined black....definitely no lining as I had seen too much of that in the past.

So it would be simple a few passes of black, a little more detailing to add to the locomotive, bang a few numbers of and LMS branding and the locomotive could be added to the fleet. So I had a thought, even though my hand spasms were a bit of a pain (literally and figuratively) I thought if I tried, if it looked a little wonky I could always repaint it into black again? So armed with some severely adapted paintbrushes, I set to work, a centimetre or so at a time.

So far I have managed to get one side and the back of the bunker lined, and the results of my shaky hands is more than obvious, but in real life and from a bit of a distance away its not so obvious and a good coat of muck will hide a lot of it. To try and restore a little sanity I set to work numbering the 7F (water heater) that had been hanging around getting in the way, all I need to do is add a few more details under the running plate and then I can get my weathering equipment from the train prison (that is if the Domestic Overlord will let me have the key )

This will definitely be the last Fowler 7F to join the fleet, as there are lots more LMS type I can make a mess off, plus I have to finish off a couple of G2's to add some balance to the fleet. Getting back to messing up other locomotive types, time for a little update on my attempt to produce a Princess, I had got her to the stage of receiving a decent coat of crimson, just like all proper loco's should have.

Again working very very slowly and with a nearly bald paintbrush, I have managed to get the majority of the lining done on her, she still needs one cab finishing off, and one side of her tender but she is nearly there, though paining yellow-black-yellow lines on the tender has nearly seen the end of me, and from normal viewing distances I am not sure its worth it but she is slowly getting there (wherever that is?) and I think I am beginning to like the Princess class, but she will be the sole example in the fleet.

Well all that leaves is the progress on the poor Jubilee I has to rescue, from Evil Bay, thankfully she is out of her terrible BR livery and I have started to paint her new black bits, but as for lining I'm afraid the poor girl will just have to wait.....

So that's pretty much it, I have re-numbered what was supposed to have been my last Jubilee into Agamemnon, I just have to decide if she needs so serious weathering?

Hopefully if I get a little more modelling time over the next few days and I use it wisely I may see projects actually leaving the workbench of DOOM, but for the moment it looks a little tidier, and definitely NO MORE JUBILEES

As ever Happy Modelling