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Steve-e

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  1. Steve-e
    So after my effort with the Electra Railway Graphic overlays on my Track Cleaner (see external blog http://railblue.blogspot.co.uk/ ) I thought I'd try something more substantial.
     
    So to start off I purchased a set of Vinyl overlays from Electra and a couple of 374-180 Graham Farish Regional Railway Mk 1 BSK coaches. I chose these as they were the cheapest I could find I suppose any MK 1 coaches would do as long as they are scale length for the graphics as you strip the paint away. To Strip the paint away from China built Farish MK1s Id read that Brasso is recommend so I got some of that and were all set.

     
    All the bits together.
     
    So first off I removed the roof easy enough as it just pops off.
     
    Then it was a case of dabbing my cotton buds in the Brasso and a bit of elbow grease and a bit more elbow grease.

    What I found was rubbing it in a circular motion as a posed to back and forth seemed to work faster.
     

     
    After a while and a lot of cotton buds you get to a clear shell see above. It doesn't really need to be perfectly clear as its only really the window section that you need clear but I thought I'd do the best I could.
    On refection using the regional railway livery coach was bad as there are several layers of paint to strip off rather than just one if I'd got an all blue coach for instance.
     

    So next up as Hermes has end vinyls to apply this needs to be stripped off as well so to ensure the vinyl had a smooth surface it was a case of cutting off the steps and other bits and bobs from the end and again rubbing the paint off which seemed harder than the sides.
     

    Now we get to see some progress by applying the end vinyls. To aid when doing the cleaning / stripping I turned the bogies in so the couplings weren't flapping about as I lost one early on in the proceedings which was repaired.
     

     
    And next was applying the sides you do get a couple of goes to get it right as long as you don't press down to hard. The hardest bit on this was getting all of the little bits of leftovers from the windows to stay on the sheet. I found it easier to pick them off and get them to stay on the sheet from the sticky side as I was removing the vinyl from the backing. It's a bit hard to explain basically the vinyl has cut out windows but you dont need the bits that are where the windows should be these need to stay on the sheet. The other way I found was trying to get the little squares to stick to the coach while I lifted the vinyl gently and the picked them off the coach.
     

    So your left with something like this I chose to hand paint the top of the cab front in yellow to blend it in and this added greatly.
     

    Then same again with the next coach to make Test Coach Mercury
     
     

     
    And Voila..... I'm really happy with these for my 1st attempt they look alot better in the flesh than the photo. The white on the ends is dried Brasso which I need to paint over.
    I have painted the corridor connector yellow which adds to the appearance.
     
     
    And here's the whole train on my layout. Hauled by Class 46 46053 looks the dogs do-dahs
     
     

     
    A question :- Should the coach ends on RTC stock be painted yellow??
     
     
     
    Cheers
    Steve
    http://railblue.blogspot.co.uk/
  2. Steve-e
    Here are some images of the layout as requested.
     
     
    OK the first one shows an overview of the layout from the right hand side. Showing hotels and station area.

     
     
     
     
    This is the view from the lower right hand corner showing the single road shed with the station and town to the rear.

     
     
     
     
    From the front of the layout we see the mini golf course to the left, Church and monument of the "Santa Julia" with cinema and town to the rear and station to the front.

     
     
     
     
    Class 03 03066 shunts a TPO in the main platform with hotels to the rear.

     
     
     
     
    Class 37 37254 rounds the curve into the station with the "Spanish Bull" overlooking the beach.

     
     
    Cheers
    Steve
    http://railblue.blogspot.co.uk/
  3. Steve-e

    Westfall - N Gauge

    By Steve-e,

    So the background to this is last year I built an N Gauge Layout 'Santa Julia' that was themed mainly in Spain with the odd visiting loco. But I've had a change of thought and am in process of changing it to an early 1980's British Rail Railblue era theme. I'e sold all of the Spanish stock and have started on the UK side of things.
     
    I have a blog at http://railblue.blogspot.co.uk/ where I am posting regular updated to along with my photos from the 1980's - Present day and this Blog also contains some TOPS reports from the early 1980's so you can reminisce about the abundance of locos in the North West in particular.
     
    This is the track plan I've used up all the 50 pieces I'm allowed in the trial version of Any Rail 4 but you can get the gist A connects to A B to B. All track is Kato N gauge Unitrack and is powered by one Kato controller. I can only control one train at a time but find this enough as there's only 1 of me. There are plenty of isolated sections in the form of sidings and point switched that can store one train while you move another.
     

     
    There is a single road shed to the bottom right and a long platform on the inner line with an Island platform on the outer line bottom. There are hills to the left and right and a beach scene to the bottom left.
     
    The town occupies the central area.
     
    So for more pics check out http://railblue.blogspot.co.uk/
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