ScotRail Inter7City HST set

[Luciton St James]

My little boy requested a ScotRail Inter7City HST set for Christmas. Bit of a short notice job off his Xmas list , so set to work to source a Lima HST power car / dummy. Just not in the position to buy the Hornby ones so got a half decent pair off eBay for £40 to paint up / use the Electra Rail vinyls. Rainbow Railways make the steel blue shade. One aspect of this project was keeping it a secret from him, so time was at a premium. I would have chopped up some Lima mk3’s but again not enough time & lack of sensible priced coaches to convert. So bought some brand new Hornby mk3 sd coaches from Rails who where knocking a few quid off / free p&p. All told it cost £84 to do the Lima power cars. All our other HST sets are Lima power cars & Hornby coaches. Nice little project to do. The vinyls are meant as one piece , but I decided to cut them into the 2 main slabs & let paint the rest. Altered the exhaust baffle to suit , driver / paint the cab up. The coaches are the first brand new Hornby coaches I’ve bought since the then new scale length GNER mk3 coaches  they issued in 1999. Dear Lord , what are those couplings & cast wheels all about? Bachmanns multifret bar couplers are in order & im still deliberating over new wheel sets. Shame as they are the usual nicely finished Hornby paint job etc. 

[Andrew D]

Looking good!