Entry posted by Steadfast
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After an early start and a long day yesterday, today has been a lot quieter - giving a chance to think through the theory of my 150/153 combo, and have a gander at how the 153 goes together. When I get round to actually working on this it looks like a fair amount of work, and that's without considering the FGW respray...
Anyway, a couple of photos to illustrate the models.
The Farish 150 is, IMO, one of the best N gauge items available at the moment, and to my eye, sadly, the 153 isn't quite on a par. I wanted to model something a little different, so a 150/153 combo seemed the way to go. A dummy 153 and a cheap 150 were bought at Leamington yesterday to modify and respray.
As the pictures show, the coupling and plough areas of the two models are considerably different. I'm not a fan of the Scharfenberg coupler that Dapol fit, being considerably larger than the BSI prototypically fitted, and normally seeming to jut out at 45 degrees to the front of the model. So, I'm going to fit the Farish BSI and plough off the 150 to one end, and move the Scharfenberg from that end onto the 150, allowing the two to be coupled. They'll be a semi-permanently coupled pair, making the most of the better shape, size and detail of the Farish detailing parts. The Dapol ploughs will be fitted to the ends with Scharfenbergs, though as the photos show, will need a fair amount of work with a file to reduce their size. I reckon they are almost 3mm:ft scale. By making the small cab the end that couples to the 150, it'll also hide the erroneously recessed cab front. I'd like to add detail and relief to the underframe and fit Farish 150 bogies, but I think this is more than will realisiticaly be achievable.
Moving on, as paper mache-ing of the boards for Baby Laira progresses, work has begun on stock for it (which the 150/153 is also part of). Those of you who were at Leamington yesterday and visited the DEMU stand may well have seen this pottering about the circle of track:
The nose has had a hole cut in, and the coupling bar added allowing the power car to be shunted around be an 08.
Here they are coupled together
A close-up to show the bar coupled up to the 08
Demonstrating the turning capabilities, far extreme of what it'll ever need to do on track! The etched mesh on the roof is to represent the style of cooler group fitted to the FGW MTU power cars. Two doors have been cut out, and a bufferbeam has been added to the inner end. I think I'll use the drophead buckeye (though modified to be un-dropped) from the forthcoming Farish mk1s to fit the buckeye, as no others are small enough. This is still very much a work in progress, and there's a lot more detail still to add, and that'll be blogged when it happens.
Here's a couple of shots of the 08 coupled to it, part way through becoming 08947. This will be heavily faded, and was a Westbury favourite for a few years. It still wears BR blue now, albeit in private ownership with Mendip Rail. This will probably be used to shunt the HST stock until I get around to doing an FGW example
It's had 2 lights removed from each end and associated holes filled, and is actually sat on the chassis from an EWS loco, with faded red drybrushed onto the bufferbeams and rods.
TPM Oleo buffers have been fitted to the cab end too. Although the rods are rather wide, once the loco is moving on a layout it looks fine, and for now at least, isn't worth the hassle of fiddling.
Anywho, thats enough wittering for now, if I've left any gaps, please do pop up a comment and point it out
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