w124bob

I would love to see 56036, it's personal for me as this loco and I started our railway career together. Indeed I remember sitting in the mess room at Coalville waiting to be interviewed as the newly out shopped engine rolled past the window!

I know 47313 should have a screw reverse as an ex S&D jinty, but I only found this out after I'd finished the loco!

I've been busy, just not able to take photographs. Anyway first up is a Dapol jinty, renumbered as 47313 as it appeared around the mid 60's whilst based at Burton on Trent. The loco was delivered as S&D #22. A few minor details have been added including the bracket on the bunker above the vac pipe, the coal rail extension board, a twist of wire to represent the chain for the steam pipes and the usual set of fire irons. One detail I am wavering over is the bracket fitted to S&D locos for the Whitacker tablet catcher. 47313 definitely retained the firemans side until the end but I've yet to find a decent picture (on any S&D loco) to copy the bracket.

My old boss(now deceased) went to work for them after retiring as a train crew manager(ex driver) he certainly was someone who went from rule book stickler to "lets play trains", the Wootton Bassett incident was in his era as WCRC driver manager(or what ever he called himself) . In fact I know several colleagues who did or still do work for them and I always get the impression it's just one big trainset. One ex boss was a regular at driving for WCRC whilst at the sametime being the on call manager for the TOC I worked for.

Another second hand Ebay purchase. It came part weathered and with a different number. I've redone the roof and added the staining to the sides, as well as change the number to D7659 as it appeared in 1968 around the time it was transfered to Longsight after the closure of Trafford Park. I found a several good images of it, so the head codes were changed . 6H42 was a tunstead working and at the other end •T43 was the Manchester Victoria station pilot/bank engine code. Loco was an early dual brake conversion whilst retaining this livery almost to TOPS.

I usually keep a couple of Parkside underframe kits on hand to rob for missing wagon bits, I've bought supposedly new Dapol wagons that had one hand brake missing!

Found on Ebay as a built up white metal kit(ABS?). It came nicely painted but unweathered so a few hours work was all that was needed.

I don't regard weathering as a skill, in fact I've come to regard the creation of the scene in a similar way to an artist. The minute the weathered locomotive is placed in the scene you have to strife to replicate that weathering across the whole picture. Our layouts are dioramas no matter what the size, even a simple figure can be enhanced by just a few simple brush strokes. My attitude comes from watching this guy Don't be put off by the fact it's US ho, it's as much about the thought process he has, there's a couple of years of postings to watch!

Buffer stop finished, it's final location is the end of a loco shed exit/headshunt hence the addition of a tail lamp(Modelu3d).

All done with mainly Vallejo acrylics and powders to add the texture, Tamilya acrylics were used on some of the stock. The only two enamels I now use are Humbrol silver (for the shanks on Oleo buffers) and gunmetal for tiny amounts of wear on footsteps etc. I don't own an airbrush, my three main rules are, thin, often and lots of water. I add a small amount of "wetting agent" to breakdown the surface tension in the water, expensive but you only use one drop. https://www.artsupplies.co.uk/p/golden-wetting-agent The two main Vallejo colours for the rail sections are black and burnt umber, with white and a tiny amount of black for the sleepers. A gray car primer from a rattle can was the base coat.

Sometimes even the smallest of projects can lead to an absorbing afternoon. A Ragstone models LNER/BR buffer stop. It will finish up on the MMRS O gauge layout and was built by our club president and O gauge group leader, then handed to me for weathering. White metal kit on plastic sleepers, a rattle can gray primer was applied first. Then the rail sections were given several washes of brown and black whilst the sleepers got shades of gray, followed by various powders to bring out the rust texture. I'm currently distressing the sleepers including the ends, see the first two.

Any chance of reposting these pictures, I'm about to start the interior on mine.

Plenty of new stock to show off, so I'll start with a Dapol milk tank. The random fade was done by liberal washes of ispropyl alcohol over a dirty wash of black/brown. Then touched up with brushes of white powder.

Anyone got a copy they are prepared to part with? Just ordered one from a UK Ebay seller.

Modified and renumbered to D3335 as it appeared around 1967 . I could only find one grainy distant image of the loco sitting at Oldham Clegg st when it was based at Newton Heath.

A second hand Ebay find. Changes include numbers from Railtec, crew from Modelu3d and headcode digits from Precision Labels. The cab access was done via the YuoChoos method, holes in the cab floor were made large enough to get a kebab stick in , popping the windows from the inside. Remove the wipers first! The windows were resecured with a tiny amount of PVA in the bottom corners. One issue is getting the cab retaining screws back in once a crew is in place, plenty of blutac on the end of the screw driver helps here. I changed the large spring on the couplers and mounted the plough as three individual sections. All of the footplate steps had the step sections missing and one of the vertical was also missing. I used reformed staples for the completely missing step then added extra plastic square section to give the remaining vertical sections extra glueing area, the horizontal step is angled plastic strip. Finally the jumper cable section was replaced with wire. I also disconnected all of the lighting, in the real world in day light the headcode/tail lights are very feeble. I trimmed the wire back to the screws and filed the chassis a tad to help clear the screws.

Started as a yellow stripe version with some missing lamp brackets. Lamps from Modelu3d just on L wire brackets whilst the other end has L brackets from 20thou plasticard.

Ex Dapol hybar.

My usual My usual method is thin washes of dirty Valejo black and burnt umber, this particular van is my first O gauge planked bauxite wagon. Some of the paint is then removed from the planked areas whilst still wet. The fading is actually done mainly with powders, one in particular is a red oxide charcoal stick. This is a good match for faded bauxite and new rust, the steel and darker wood areas got dirty black/brown powder work I rarely use black weathering powder straight from the pot on body. I have a large shallow plastic box full of all the brush off and it's this mix that gets used. I rarely varnish stock and don't own an airbrush.

Pretty much mid to late 60's, the MMRS club layout is a very mixed bag of members stock from just post pre grouping through to 80's WR. I'm the only serious weatherer! Projects on the go include class 08 (D3335 ex LO and NH) class 20 D8169 and a class 40 D380. So plenty to keep me busy. I'm also trying to bring some of the club O gauge wagon fleet back to life .

Another boxvan.

I had real difficulties in getting the body off following the Heljan instructions, they suggest only one coupling needs to be removed where as I found both needed to come off. Also the grub screws holding the backing plate in place still slightly fouled the chassis. You also need three hands to hold the spring and washer in place whilst pushing the cotter pin back when reassembling. Well here's my alternative, beauty of this method is it allows the original to be reinstated if required. I drilled a small hole halfway along the coupler shank to allow a length of wire to thread through. Loosen of the grub screws and tuck the wire behind the washers then retighten the screws. Trim the wire back ,and file a small amount off the area on the chassis which allows it clear those screws. I don't know whether this works on other locos.

To give some background here is Cornbrook station. Originally built as a terminus this is probably the oldest part of the layout .

It's time to bring two separate threads under one roof, so from now on further images of the 14xx, which is just waiting plates from Narrow Planet. Plus the MMRS weathering projects and my own new stock will all be here. So I'll kick off with the first three Dapol items, nearly finished is D8169 ,another brake van and two more minerals so there is already a queue for the work bench. The odd diagonals on the brakevan are an issue which occurs during uploading!

Are there any images of the blue versions showing the opposite side, does it have exposed boiler filler tank and steps or plated over. It's the only one where there are no images of both sides.