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Before the announcement in 2015 of the Bachmann 94xx (which still hasn't appeared, nor appears to be anywhere imminent) I'd already gathered a spare pannier chassis and a cheap Lima body to add another of these locomotives to my fleet. Earlier this week it glared at me from the projects drawer and I thought it was time to crack on and finish it. It's the sort of job that really requires only basic modelling implements and skills - a rotary cutting tool, some knives and files, some filler, a few bits of plastic card, some drills and wire and a few patient hours. I've taken the black one to this state after just three evening sessions totalling about an hour each, so it's really not that arduous. Other than using a newer chassis, the work was very similar to the job done on the GWR 94xx seen in this picture. That one used a split-frame chassis, which is still offering good service ten years after the conversion, as is my other split-frame pannier, now pushing twenty years old. The Lima body breaks down into a footplate and a body moulding, and being able to separate them makes it quite easy to saw away the excess plastic needed to get the newer chassis to drop into the available space. It's not difficult, just requiring a bit of trial and error until the necessary space is made. The relation of wheel centres to splasher mouldings is not exact, but if you have to live with one of them being out of alignment, I prefer it to be the one under the cab, which is very unobtrusive to begin with. If it bothers you, it would be relatively easy to correct the cab-end splasher. Then begins the fun work of correcting the body errors on the Lima moulding, and replacing as many of the handrails as you desire. The main fault with the Lima model is the presence of steps on the driver's side of the cab, as well as some spurious handrails which should be absent on that side. Correcting these faults would be easy were it not for the presence of the rivet detail, which it's hard to preserve during cutting and sanding. On approach might be to lose the rivets completely as they are a little on the heavy side anyway. With the green one, I sanded them off then reinstated them with blobs of PVA, the success of which I think is debatable, but something I can live with. With the black 94xx, I'm trying a slightly different tack which is flood the inset steps with Mr Surfacer (as used by military modellers etc) and see how I get on. If it all goes to plan (which I'm sure it won't!) the Mr Surfacer should form a smooth layer which blends in seamlessly with the surrounding cab. In any case, it'll be a learning curve. Although it'll remain in black, I expect the model to need a repaint in any case. Also on the workbench this week has been the venerable 2721 class. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, it's now running with a Comet 57xx chassis in place of the Hornby original. There are lots of things not right with the 2721, and using the 57xx chassis is a bodge in that (among other things) the brake pull rods aren't the right type. The main outstanding issue, though, was that the front splasher was now badly out of alignment with the wheel. Finally summoning up the nerve, I reworked that whole area by sawing away the splasher, relocating it, and then building back the detail under the smokebox. Once I'd done that, I had a huge void under the tanks which needed addressing. The motor angle was adjusted slightly and a false boiler bottom fashioned from plastic tube of roughly the right diameter. I then added a suggestion of inside valve gear using plastic rod, only just visible but I know it's there. After all this, there's just enough daylight under the boiler to look convincing, I hope, albeit tricky to photograph: That's it for now. Happy bodging, one and all.

This is my scratch built model of Beaconsfield Signal Box constructed over 20 years ago and 'boxed'. I will be changing the nameplate in due course. This a picture of the identical box at Gerrards Cross in the 80's that survived much longer than Beaconsfield. Measurements were taken and notes for future model on site.

Actually the only mysterious thing about this case is why I am so mad to have started this in the first place! My search for new wagon loads has led me to loose another four days modelling time in the pursuit of realism misguided or not. This particular one is one that will actually go the other way to usual being spent artillery shell cases which were collected whenever possible and sent back for reuse. Before anyone gets too picky I must point out that they are not of any particular caliber, the dimensions being dictated by the raw materials. I have been pondering this load for some time and have turned up some particularly nice shell cases on the lathe but the time taken and indeed cost of the brass completely ruled out this approach. I did consider casting from these but the wall thickness was just too thin for my casting skills. Quite some time ago I experimented with some 3mm (actually 2.8) drinking straws but experiments with closing off the ends with tiny discs of paper or plasticard was just too fiddly. And then last Sunday afternoon my obviously under taxed brain suddenly realised the relationship between a BBQ skewer and the drinking straws and the game was afoot. Obviously not happy with just one brain wave that day I then employed what has turned out to be a very useful device that I bought last year intended for cutting brass tube. From a picture I worked out the diameter to length proportion of a shell and applied it to the straw so although it may be no caliber known to man it is in proportion to a real one. With the application of a sharp craft knife I soon had about 200 identical length small and fiddly tubes. Having established that the skewer was a good fit in the straw I found that, in no fancy terms, shoving one up the bit of straw a couple of mm and then sawing it off again in the useful gadget was the best way forward. By working with five skewers at at a time and a straw on each end what could have been and unimaginably tedious task was turned into just a tedious task. Having done this two hundred times the next stage was painting. It was obvious each case would have to be primed and the good old Halfords grey spray was the obvious choice but how to hold them was not quite as obvious. Enter the third brainwave - Stickle Bricks! A quick ransack of now not so little Iz's toy box found me a couple of victims and the craft knife was taken to every other stickle and the result mounted on another block. Result a custom made spraying jig. Having undercoated 16 at a go I then had to repeat the process for the final colour which was done with water colours and then a final wash with dirty grime. All very time consuming but done in small batches in between 'proper' work. Next up was mounting them on a false floor with a coat of varnish to start followed by a dose of Astonish floor polish followed by dilute PVA followed by super glue for any that were still loose - can you tell why it took four days yet? During this a few cases were filled with bits of sawn off nail to provide something for the magnet stick to pick up on for easy removal . All the previous glueing steps took place in a spare wagon body with cling film acting as a prophylactic to aid removal. So here you have four days spent on one wagon load! But I do think it looks pretty good.....

Time to finally finish off my 14xx from DJM 58xx conversion, fitting the replacement plates. I started by removing the DJM plates (I used a new scalpel blade to flick them out), I then checked the replacement Modelmasters plates in the hole (if anyone s interested they are a direct fit). I ended up fitting the plate on top of the original, tidied up the gap between the two and then reglued into position. So with my 14xx converted from a 58xx now complete (with the exception of a decoder), I decided to also get the plates fitted to my 58xx which was converted from a 14xx. It just needs the black and red areas painted now. Eventually I will also get round to replacing its current set of Gibson wheels with some ultrascales that I have waiting for the job (though as a small P4 steam layout is some way down the pipeline that may take some time)

A little more work on the TDA, I have added another coat of filler to the ends which are now nearly finished, the buffer beam detail has been added from the scrapbox (along with depening the headstock with a strip of plasticard). While the underframe detail has been started, (it just needs the discharge pipe adding but I cant remember where i have put it!) The remaining tasks now is to add the walkway to the roof (I have no idea how I will do this.) Along with adding bogies (I have one frame and havent a clue where the rest are) It should be ready for painting soon, although i am less sure as to when I will get the airbrush set up for the ECC blue.

Work on the revised track arrangement on the summer module continues at the usual stop-start pace. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wasn't satisfied with the initial tracklaying as done in July, so I later bit the bullet and lifted and reworked some of it. Unfortunately, after coming back from my holidays, I still wasn't happy with a couple of areas, where there were still unintended dips - not enough to cause running problems, or even all that obvious to the eye, but definitely enough to annoy me in the long-run. So, after a deep breath, a week ago I began lifting, relaying and re-ballasting about two metres of track on both the up and down running lines. Here's where we are now: The Castle is a good test locomotive as its long 4-6-0 chassis really seems to accentuate dips, so if the Castle looks good running over a particular bit, I take it as a good sign that the problem has been rectified. It was a real pain to relay some of the track twice, but I'm glad I did. The trackwork is mostly bullhead Peco, incidentally, with a small bit of C+L in the yard. There's been much discussion of Peco's new bullhead points elsewhere on the forum, and I certainly think they look very good and are a welcome development. In the end I decided to stick with Code 75 flat-bottom points for the crossing, though, as I felt that the bullhead points - even if they'd been available in the summer - would have shown up the slip and 3-way for what they are. I'm happy enough with the overall look, anyway, as I suspect it will be a long wait before more complex items like single slips join the Peco range. For this bit, I've experimented with a very light shade for the sleepers, rather than usual sleeper grime, and I quite like the understated contrast between the ballast and the trackwork. I've also made a start on disguising or reducing the impact of the Peco tie-bar mechanisms where practical. I had a couple of Dapol GWR starter signals on the layout, but I'm afraid I had real problems with reliability. So, rather reluctantly, I've gone back to making my own signals, starting with this combination starter and shunt signal, which was loosely inspired by a photo in one of Stephen Williams' books on GWR branch line modelling. The signal was bodged from a Ratio home and distant kit. Someone will tell me it shouldn't be where it is, or they'd never have used a shunting signal on a main line, but it works for me as it allows goods train to be stopped, and then to advance past the signal to the point where they can set back into the yard, which all adds to the play value. I haven't finished painting or detailing the signal just yet, though, as I'd like to add working lamps, and haven't quite worked out the best way to do it. The signal is constructed as a removable module using a base assembly made from thick plastic sheet, which drops into a slot on the layout: It's driven by two servos, which are in turn connected to a Megapoints servo control board, which will run up to 12 signals and has a fantastic bounce algorithm, which never quite repeats itself. Well, it does, but not so that you'll ever notice, as I understand there are over a thousand different bounces in the board. Dead easy to program, too. Since I will have at least four signals controlling the station area, I thought it would be fun to move to a more hands-on control arrangement, so I'm in the process of wiring up a set of DCC Concepts signal and point levers, which are very satisfying to operate. Ultimately the levers will be painted and numbered according to function. Finally, back to an engine: This 53xx mogul is an old favorite and was converted to DCC quite a few years ago. I was never happy with the decoder, though, as it was a Hornby one that offered little scope for adjusting the motor parameters. Last week I swapped it out (it'll be quite happy in another model) and added an ESU sound decoder for one of the smaller GWR 2 cylinder locos. There isn't much room in the tender, and it's still a tight fit getting a small speaker and decoder in, compared to a King or a Castle where there's bags of room. The running was a bit rubbish initially, worse than before, but I added some tender pickups and now it's fantastic. I can only guess that sound decoders are a bit more demanding in terms of pickup than bog-standard ones. These old Bachmann split chassis models get a bad rap, but the good ones I've got are all still nice runners, and I've put sound in a couple of them now and been very happy with the results. That's all for now - thanks for reading.

One wagon I have wanted to model for some time is a Siphon F, after finding a bargain part built K's kit on Ebay at the weekend (including a set of Mallard Models 9ft American bogies) this evening I have made a start on finishing it off. The bogies were an interesting build, with a brass core and lots of white metal castings to attach. There was some poor design along the way (the cut outs for the wheels are far too small even for OO, while the castings quality was somewhat of its period.) But eventually I got something passable (and a lot better looking than the Ks originals.) It now just needs the underframe detailing, and the roof gluing on to finish the model. I am undecided as to how I will finish it, my original intention was to finish as one of the Harris's Company vans, but as far as I can tell the two Siphon Fs in use on the Calne Branch were both branded to work to Newcastle ​(see Russell appendix 2 for a photo circa 1948). ​I did think about having a "to work between Calne and Plymouth" along with the roof boards, however it would be more accurate to do it on a Siphon C instead....

After a rather disheartening afternoons work on Brent, I’ve switched to a spot of loco modelling to reinvigorate motivation. So 4547 and 2921 are both now fitted with etched plates from Modelmasters, the Saint is really coming together now. It just needs a chimney and cabside step fitting to finish the body (both of which are missing). With the tender finished, the need to get on and build the chassis is becoming more pressing. I will be looking again at the crankpin situation soon to try and get the wheels sorted. That just leaves 1470 without plates fitted while I work out how I will sort out the DJM recess....