Vanguard 5374

I'll be honest I have seen a few depots modelled but some of the finer details are missing, guess it's hard to nail everything. Yes the 58 is an oddball but it's not completely out of the question to being a few back from France. Or maybe I just have a soft spot for them

I've noticed Airfix have a quick build (Lego style) system for younger builders and Scalextric have a similar Lego styled system for cars too. Given Marklin already offer a brick compatible system in their younger range I feel Hornby have missed a trick in not doing something similar using the 0-4-0 chassis and the typical train set wagon chassis parts. Probably already been discussed on here but I'd imagine that would be more enticing to younger modellers, especially being compatible with another toy brand.

At the moment it's nothing more than rough outlines, with placeholder items suxh as the buffers and bogies (simple flat items to give an idea on scale) until I measure up the prototype again. As it stands the window surrounds need to be thinned significantly as they are too thick for the prototype.

Model is in very tough form right now, probably going to be printed firstly as N scale due to cost and then I'll be doing a few OO versions, with more detail, for my planned OTP Depot layout. Not had any drawings to hand sadly but have been measuring the real thing and working from several photographs. Closest basis for the design work will be 73911, 73912 and 73913.

Not much to report on recently, still progressing slowly with the body shell and plan to do some CAD work later this week as I have a few days off. Plan on ordering the baseboards soon and have been buying a few bits like Bachmann's Lifting Jacks (which need detailing!) to get the ball rolling.

Little more progress before work, hope to get some more measurements today in order to make this 100% to scale. Could just buy some HO scale tampers and call it a day but they never look right to me.

Work begins on a 08 Tamper cab, idea is to print a few tampers to represent several members of the fleet. Buffers are temporary to get a feel of how the model will look.

Both locos together, with more planned. I am currently toying with a Lima Mk2 carriage with plans for a Colas Rail livery for it. After these are done I think it’s only fair to model a Tamper, I think I’ll be going down the compact route and modelling 73913, which is currently at the depot making it far easier to model it from photographs and measurements.

I’ve grown fond of the Class 70 locomotives in our fleet, however current budget won’t stretch for one right now so I want to run something similar. I purchased a Class 58 and spare body shells so a plausible Colas Rail liveried 58007, repatriated from France, will be used from time to time. After doing this, I’ve drawn up plans to model a few more Colas neverwazzas. As long as they are plausible to me, I am more than happy with how they look.

Slowly getting back into the swing of things, and whilst I’ve yet to build a tamper (collecting drawings, measurements and photographs for almost all of the variant when able to do so) I am modelling a few locomotives to use and display. The first loco will be finished as 37421, and is a respray of a Lima model. Few details will be added to bring it to modern specifications, however I’ve seen Class 37s in our depot occasionally so it makes sense to model one.

I will be ordering transfers soon and giving it some finer detail, but it’s starting to look the part now.

Would be nice to see Class 58s back out and about again, but I’m not sure if it’ll ever happen. This isn’t the last Colas neverwazza I’ve got planned, as it’ll be joined by a 31, 90 and 92 at some point. Given GBRF livery has been seen on a 50, it would be interesting to see it in orange, yellow and black

The start of a completely fictional but quite plausible* 58007 in Colas Rail livery. Seen a few 70s in our Depot recently and wanted to see how it would look on the class 58. * Seco Rail operates 58007, hence why I’ve gone for that particular example

Had my own stab at doing one of these, few more vehicles on the way so will have a fleet. Wish Matchbox would do a reissue of these vans.

Probably long overdue but I’ve picked up on this project again due to one of the other fitters getting back into railway modelling. He’s even purchased a Colas 66 from eBay so it’s made me want to do some more work. I plan on ordering the baseboards for this in a few months time but for now, I am doing a few scenic parts to make the layout complete. This is a conversion of the Matchbox News Van into a reasonable 1/76 Ford Transit. Will be painted and given decals to represent one of the depot vans. I’m currently working on some of our compact Tampers, and have already start