Southwich

Over the weekend we’ve dispatched the majority of direct TEA orders to customers, with tracking numbers due to be uploaded this evening/tomorrow morning. If you haven’t already confirmed your delivery address please get in touch as soon as possible in order for us to dispatch your order. We’ve also taken photos of the weathered TEAs in the natural light to showcase how there are 6 different sides on the triple pack - where we’ve tried to create an authentic weathered finish traced from the prototype wagons. Kind regards, Will

Saturday afternoon TEA time! We’re pleased to announce that dispatch of our TEA wagons has begun following arrival of the wagons from China last week. If you haven’t already confirmed your delivery address to us, please get in touch as soon as possible so then we can dispatch your order. We can’t wait to see the wagons on customers’ layouts! Kind regards, Will

Nice choice on ‘175 - I always enjoy seeing it on the monthly test train cycles around East Anglia. Are you planning on putting the roof mounted horns and the clips above the headcode box on? Flickr photo inserted above - the main difference between the split box/centre headcode 37s being the roof mounted horns as opposed to the nose mounted ones on the split boxes. A shame the photos aren’t showing above as it looks like you’ve got some nice projects on the go. Kind regards, Will

Excellent work James - particularly like the details observed on ‘042. The repainted red looks really good - well worth the effort. Looking forward to more beasts on your workbench! Will

… and safely home back in Essex. We’re very excited to get the boards together and get cracking! Thanks to Damian for his help and guidance a few Saturdays ago - we’re very lucky to be taking such a fantastic layout forward! Can’t wait to rewheel 72 HAAs… Will

Was a pleasure to see the layout at Glasgow Dave - glad you liked the BBAs! Looking forward to seeing it again at showcase. Kind regards, Will

The weathering on that building is absolutely stunning Will - excellent work sir! Looking forward to more progress. Kind regards, Will

Was nice to see Guy’s superb 58 earning it’s keep on some production HAAs through Oldshaw today! Really nice to see some excellent new stock on the layout - particularly like the 45! Kind regards, Will

HAAs through Oldshaw! Thanks to @lyneuxfor allowing us to pose the production HAA samples on the layout today at Model Rail Scotland. Come and inspect them for yourself on stand A13 tomorrow and Sunday! Kind regards, Will

As we’re about to begin our journey up to Model Rail Scotland - we’re pleased to reveal our latest production sample models that have been flown in especially for the show. Come and handle the models yourself on stand A13!

As we’re about to begin our journey up to Model Rail Scotland - we’re pleased to reveal our latest production sample models that have been flown in especially for the show. Come and handle the models yourself on stand A13!

Thanks again for the bogies Will! Thanks also for the compliments on ‘698 - definitely my favourite loco. A set of ultrascales means it ran flawlessly through the pointwork. I think there are a few aspects that aren’t quite right, but when combined with LaserGlaze I agree it captures the overall look of the 37 nicely! Thanks RichieRich - much appreciated. Just looked and it’s some very nice work - tail lights make a huge difference as they’re not at all visible on the base model. Kind regards, Will

Thanks Rich - you know you want to! The EWS door really sets it off IMO. Thanks Bill. That’s reminded me the speaker in the 20 really needs an upgrade! Thanks Guy! It’s taken me long enough to get the stock converted so was nice to give it a run out on a proper layout! Kind regards, Will

Not a great deal to update on the last few months (cocker spaniel puppy arriving hasn’t really helped modelling time!) - 47635 has had the sprung bogies complete ready for some Shawplan goodies and 37059 has been converted to P4 using the Penbits kit and Hornby class 50 bogies courtesy of @dj_crisp - thanks Will! I had a great time yesterday visiting Tim Horn, running my 37698 on a few steel wagons on North Elmham. The converted 20/3 and Penbits’ed 37059 also got a run out on my P4 RHTT set, which may be one of the first converted to P4? North Elmham sure is a stunning layout - nice to see it with some up to date stock on it! Links to the three videos can be found below: A few small tweaks required but on the whole the stock ran really nicely. 37059 did short out a few times much to my distress, however on further inspection a stray piece of brass was shorting the wheelsets. Dinghams need some slight tweaking to ensure push pull operation works smoothly but apart from that the set ran nicely. Hopefully some more to come over the next few weeks. Kind regards, Will

Thanks very much Neil much appreciated! Kind regards, Will

Great work as always James. Particular like the attention to detail on ‘712 - those tail lights are a bit odd aren’t they! Nicely captured as well as the plated door and markers. Keep up the excellent work - it is certainly inspirational! Kind regards, Will

Hi Shunny, Latest update can be found on our blog below: https://www.cavalexmodels.com/blog/jb2mfjeqsst59v4utxru8rnhty1071 Production is well underway and we will advise when we have any further updates. Let us know if you have any further questions. Kind regards, Will

@Grimleygrid pre threads the clips on the rails and I glue the clips down to the sleepers using roller gauges to hold the track in place until the MEK goes off. I reckon it takes about 30-45 minutes per metre of track to lay, and we’ve done one metre per road so far. Kind regards, Will

No worries - happy to help. Thanks for your support! Kind regards, Will

Hi Krieghoff, Thanks very much for your purchase. On the second batch of BBAs we took the decision to have the stanchions supplied in the detail pack rather than fitted to the outside of the wagon in the first batch. This was to allow the customer to place the stanchions in any configuration they wanted, depending on which load the wagon is carrying. It was quite difficult to remove the stanchions from the outside pockets without potentially damaging the deck, which is why we took this approach rather than having them pre-fitted. Hope that helps - if you need anything further please let us know. Kind regards, Will

Looking forward to it Pete! Kind regards, Will

Hi all, Realised I haven’t updated this thread for quite a few months, mainly due to progressing my Workshop which will house Temple Mills - a link to the layout thread can be found below: I have also been progressing stock projects for the layout, a few of which can be found below: JJA Autoballasters: Given Temple Mills has a rather large engineers yard behind the depot, I’m going to need some stock to run past on the mainlines behind the depot. First of all I’m building up a couple of rakes of Autoballasters. They arrived in, erm, interesting condition (having been bought cheap for this very reason): The below photo show the work with the cotton buds (and a £50 bargain VItrains 47 which I will cover later on): Top wagon before, middle wagon during, bottom wagon after a careful scrubbing with cotton buds and white spirit to remove the paint, permanent marker and preserve the Railtrack text: …and after all of the repair work was undertaken - good as new! Good as new! Ready for conversion/weathering when the weather improves! 47635: Very much inspired by James Wells’ hybrid 47(https://westhalton.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/the-hybrid-class-47/), I have been working on my model of 47635 in mid 2000s condition. I’ve used a Lima body on a narrowed Heljan chassis with Penbits sprung bogies on Ultrascale wheels. The assembly of the bogies is largely complete and I’m ready to move on to the brake gear and cosmetic bogie details this week, as well as using Gareth Bayer’s UPdate article to scratchbuild the battery box only style underframe. A very enjoyable project so far - looking forward to getting the underframe done and then moving onto Shawplan’ing the body and painting. This is what I aiming for (embedded link from Flickr)… …and this is what the model looks like so far: The above update brings the thread up to date - I’m hoping to progress ‘635 further over the Christmas period, however with an Elegoo Saturn arriving for Christmas I may well be distracted trying to work out how to print some useful parts! Thanks for reading as always - any feedback would be much appreciated. Kind regards, Wi

Had a great time yesterday morning with Martin from @Rammstein2609 visiting to drop off the first cut of the depot building. A big thanks to Martin for his help with the project so far and for bringing over some very inspiring modelling. A few tweaks needed but finally some progress after nearly a year of working on it! After this tweaks are done I’ll get the templot finalised, etched into MDF/ply and then I can start track laying in the new year Kind regards, Will

Hi David - that’s great thanks for the additional photos. The solution is very neat and very nicely done. Unfortunately where I’ve opened out the moulded corners of the tanks I don’t think I’ll get an EM1 speaker in the fuel tanks - alternate solution required me thinks. Have you used the original circuit board or are you hardwiring the loco to the decoder? Looking forward to seeing future updates - very inspirational as always! Kind regards, Will

The 37 looks absolutely cracking David - very nice work. Regarding the two speakers - would you be able to post a photo of the setup please? I’ve got a number of P4 37s awaiting Penbits bogies and speakers so would be interested to see your approach to sound fitting. I’ve written off the tanks so if I can get two EM1s inside the body that would be a great! Thanks in advance, Will