Afternoon one and all and complements of the season to you. Hope Santa brought you lots of lovely modelling stuff.

Now the mince pies have been eaten and the turkey mostly digested, I've turned my attention to the next modelling project. Let's face it, there's not much on the telly to be distracted by. Not that I watch much of it anyway...

So, having acquired a second hand pannier body off eBay for a fiver, I've had the perfect opportunity to build one of the rather splendid High Level Chassis kits. This is the third one I've built and I'm hoping it will be as good as the 03 and the 14xx, both of which were an absolute pleasure to do. The body itself needed a few bits and pieces so a chimney was purchased from 247 and buffers from Alan Gibson. I see I will need some water filler vents too.

This kit has been covered before on RMWeb so I'm not going to do a blow by blow build, but the progress below shows how much can be achieved in a good couple of sessions (as well as track laying on Cheddar, but more of that later). Listening to Test Match Special makes the time fly by!

The chassis is being built for compensation as per the instructions and the engine will eventually be finished as 5757 in BR black.