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PGN's Paintshop (N gauge Pre-Grouping)


PGN

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I am pleased to announce that four new locomotives have emerged from my paintshop today to join my locomotive fleet. I cannot claim the credit for building any of them; but the liveries are a different matter. Three of them will see service on my Shalford Junction layout in due course.

 

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The first locomotive is a ROD Robinson 2-8-0 built from a Foxhunter kit. I bought it off Ebay in plain black livery, and I have to say that whoever built this one did a spectacular job. All I have done is add number plates and give it a coat of varnish. The number plates are perhaps a little oversize, but they were about as small as I can manage and, in any event, the size of the numberplate was a function of the size of the available transfers! Number 1733 is one of the ones which were lent to the LSWR. There is a photograph of it at Strawberry Hill in 1920 in London & South Western Locomotives by H C Casserley, at page 176 - and this suggests that I need to change that safety valve as the photograph shows Ross pop valves. I'll deal with this in due course; but for the time being there is no great rush!

 

 

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The second locomotive is A1X "Terrier" number 677 in Marsh livery. This is, of course, a Dapol RTR which I have repainted. Number 677 was formerly "Wonersh" - a village to which I have a considerable attachment as it is where my grandmother lived for the last ten years of her life (and for all the time that I can actually remember, as she died a little short of my 13th birthday). It was also regularly used on the Horsham - Guildford branch, and is therefore one of the correct locomotives to be working on my planned layout. I think it has come out really well - although getting the number transfers into place was a bit of a challenge, as they are actually slightly larger than the space available!! The A1X rebuilds had a single ring boiler, and a field trip to the Bluebell railway to see their Marsh livery terriers confirmed that there were no boiler bands to be worrying about - which was a relief, as everything on this job was pretty fiddly. The wheels were a particular nightmare. I suppose I could have made that job a little easier by stripping the locomotive down first; but I was none too confident of my ability to put it back together again afterwards!!

 

 

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The third locomotive is K class mogul number 338. I bought this on Ebay in poorly-executed Southern livery. The livery was, however, no worse than the build quality, which is pretty rough to say the least. However, it is a Graham Hughes kit, and they are rare enough that you have to buy them where you can find them and make the most with what you get. I learned in my wargaming days that you can tell the most spectacular lies with the paintbrush if you have to. Paint a detail out, and people won't see it even though it's there. Paint it in, and they will see it even though it's not. So I don't hold with those who say it's not worth doing a first rate paint job on a third rate model. A good paint job will lift even the most poorly assembled model. Besides which, I didn't dare take it apart and start again for fear of damaging or breaking an irreplaceable part. In the final outcome, I reckon it's come out looking pretty good.

 

 

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The fourth locomotive to come out of the paintshop today is Midland "Flatiron" number 2013. This one is assembled from an ABS / Beaver kit which I bought on Ebay in LMS black livery. Like the ROD 2-8-0, the builder has done an amazing job of putting this kit together. To be fair he'd done a pretty amazing livery job, too; but I didn't want it in LMS black!

 

So there you have it - four new locomotives added to my fleet. Two more in Great Northern livery are coming along nicely in the paintshop (one of them is just a touch-up job on somebody else's livery, tbh; but the other is a complete repaint) and I will post some photos to this thread when they are finished. After that, the paintshop is scheduled to fall silent for a little while, as I build a few kits of LSWR freight locomotives (B4, G6 and S15) which will be written up on my workbench thread in kit and scratchbuilding section of this forum.

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  • 7 years later...

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