WCML100

thanks. It is just the one KFA (and previously the FEA-E) but I am very happy with how they have turned out. Especially the KFA with its unique patches and sun-faded blue buffer shanks!

Thanks! & Same here - it is one of my fav bits of layout building so itching to get to that stage! Trying to be careful not to jump the gun!

Recently finished a KFA wagon project, and of course finished off with some Railtec custom TOPS codes and OHLE flashes. Thanks for the great service as ever @railtec-models 👍🏻

So the hard work continues, this time on the layout itself! Over the weekend we took on the task (with the help of our old man) of getting the 3 scenic board’s properly finished rather than the ‘almost’ state they were in previously. The first of these tasks was to add height adjustable feet to all 12 legs - This was relatively straightforward. We then set about adding alignment pins to ensure that the board meet exactly every time when taken apart and put back together. These were purchased based off a recommendation by @Bearwood West Yard. And to round off the big jobs was to add securing clips to both of the outer sides over each join to secure the boards together nice and tightly! All of this means all 3 boards are fully built and stable - with proper joins between each. Most importantly this mean we are ready for track laying on the next 2 boards. As you can see below the station board middle level is now fully laid and we can now progress on to the next board. We have managed to get this nice and tight. And again between the next 2 boards… Some of the wood base on the middle track level is starting to warp a little in places to we will look to remedy that next and prevent any further twisting. We are now excited to start the track laying around the rest of the layout so we can get some movement going further than the 6ft back and forward currently. Here is a shot of the roughly laid curve between the NNML and on to the Greenford branch. Here are a few pics showing the all 3 scenic boards fully together for the first time: So we will get to track laying on the middle board next as well as some adjustments to do on the upper station level of the main larger board in the coming weeks - but for now we had enjoy some ‘testing’ across boards! Here is a quick video of the 70 running along the former Up Loop. That is all for this weekend, hopefully more progress on the way soon 🙂

Heard the sound in person at the scale four society show a week or so ago. Sounded great then, and i was told there was still a few more tweaks / upgrades to add. Very impressive 👌🏻

As ever mate. Great modelling 👍🏻

Cheers mate. No immediate plans for salmons yet. I am going to wait to see what the flangeway ones end up like and make a decision then. Hornby have also hinted they have tooled them as part of their suite for the older types too. So worth keeping an eye on that as well. I would like to try the cambrian kit option but haven’t built any wagon kits as of yet so not sure if I have the skills. I have got a sea urchin kit to try first! I will see how that goes before I try a salmon! But if i am honest, a RTR sounds more appealing and will give me more time to weather it rather than build it!

Following on from yesterday’s post. Here is the new KFA along side its OBA companions. A couple of shots of it behind the Colas 70 and the Ex EWS DB 66. Enjoy!

thanks mate, yes I am quite happy with the outcome of the weathering. It was a bit of a fluke how good it came out from the first try. But what I envisaged worked out well in practise. I toyed with the idea of new sleepers, used sleepers and no sleepers! But went with no sleepers to show off the effect on the flat deck. The rake that I took inspiration from is unloaded too. We shall see… that could all change! I look forward to seeing how you get on with the 3D printing 👍🏻

Now then, another wagon weathering project I have been working on - this time for one of my engineering rakes, so follows on nicely from the newly acquired Colas 70. I had a couple of spare KFA’s originally purchased for an intermodal rake, however as that didn’t really fit I decided to sell most of it on. I was left with the FEA-E (posted previously) and x2 KFA’s. I was going to use all 3 for my binliner rake until doing further research and realising it is a completely different type of KFA which was used for these workings. So I turned my attention towards other uses it had within engineering train formations as this interested me. They are usually mixed in with Salmon wagons and like, but with track carrying panels on top, for… well… carrying track! So with this, and a quick search on flickr - I stumbled upon a photo of KFA TIPH93378 and that was enough for a prototype inspiration to model. So I got to work on the wagon along side the FEA-E, following a similar method. There was a lot more to the KFA however. First things first was a quick coat of matt varnish to tone the bright blue down and give something for the following coats to cling on to. Next up was a coat of RailMatch Frame dirt. A good all over cover to get all in the different parts of the wagon. One thing to note with the KFA is you need a few coats to get all the blue covered within the different gubbins and array of sides. The photos show after one coat, you can still clearly see blue in areas. After a few coats of Frame dirt, I finished off with a coat of RailMatch Weathered Black. Where as on the FEA-E, I only did the underside and bogies in this colour and left the top and most of the sides in the more brown frame dirt colour - on the KFA I gave it a more all over weathered black finish after looking at several pictures of the KFA’s on flickr, as well as the actual prototype in question. Which after adding several light coats, building it up gradually - I did start to get the effect I was looking for colour wise. This is where it starts to get a bit more unique, 93378 started life a Tiphook Rail branded example in a navy blue (in the late 80’s i think). Hornby’s iteration of this blue is way too bright and not navy enough, maybe the weathering in the pictures ive seen (even when a lot cleaner) has tainted my view however. These then got taken on by Touax and the Tiphook branding removed. Some were patch painted over with others having logos properly removed but most if not all then received the ‘Touax’ yellow logo. In reality the prototype I am modelling it is hard to tell if the Touax logo is even there… One thing that was common on these was that the blue faded terribly and became more ‘sky blue’ than Navy or anywhere in between. There are some which still retain a good navy colour with the Touax branding still clear on better maintained examples however. Anyways, back to the model in hand - this example had several patch painted areas along the side in a lightish blue, with the buffer shanks and the end areas showing its age with a very faded sky blue. To re-create this I masked off the areas and hand painted these with a mix of blue and white enamel paints to get the right shade. This was then repeated for the buffer shanks and end areas but slightly lighter in colour so to help show the ageing. This was not just painted on but dry brushed on to give the ‘worn’ look against the already weathered colour. This may seem backward but it seemed to get the effect I was after. At this point I also started to use some cotton buds and IPA to gently take back some of the weathering in places to reveal the details and info panels etc on the sides of the wagon. I also removed some weathering to reveal the yellow on the axle boxes, again all as per the prototype. Now that the wagon was progressing nicely, my attention turned to the track carrying panels. Again this was tricky - there was no ‘ready to run’ option so to speak. The only RTR item that had been produced was the Hattons FEA-S with said track carrying panels included. These are like hens teeth and when they do appear they are expensive (and never separately). So I tried a 3D printed option from ebay. They turned up and I was NOT happy with them. They were weak, brittle, bent (giving a hump effect when laying on the wagon flat) and most importantly inaccurate. My OCD kicked in and bit the bullet and got a Hattons FEA-S with the panels included. As quickly as I received the wagon in the post, it was back up for sale to recoup some of the cost. But the main thing is I had some authentic panels! These are a universal type and are used on several intermodel type wagons for track carrying / engineering use. Ironically these are the colour that I reckon the Hornby KFA SHOULD be without any weathering in my opinion… Now that I had these sourced, it was time to weather these in line with the wagon. Referencing flickr again to check what sort of state these got in on various wagons as well as the prototype 93378 - i decided on a slight dusting on the blue sides and edges with the main top surface more grubby and marked. So I gave them a quick matt varnish, followed by a couple of (very) light coats of RailMatch Frame dirt. This was then good for the edges and sides - so i masked these up and got to work on the tops. Again referencing what was online to work from - it seemed these were a real mix of browns and blacks with similar horizontal streaks and markings in a faded sense - presumably from where different sleepers where in contact on the surface causing this effect. So again using the same colours sprayed in a horizontal motion. Once dry i then took out the cotton buds and IPA and gently went side to side, in the same motion in different areas for variation to create the desired effect of the streaked markings. After that all that was left to do was add some transfers on for the new data panel for 93378, and some new OHLE flashes as these had been re-applied over the weathered finish in real life (a common occurrence). All transfers were supplied from Steve at RailTec and the tops codes were customised to match the real thing. Great service as always! The track panels where then fixed in place and the wagon now ready to go! For my first real ‘in depth’ weathering project I am really happy with the outcome. Looking forward to running it with some nice battered up 4 wheelers and in the future some salmon wagons too. Here are some pictures of the final product! Here is the real thing for reference: & here is a video I am basing my mixed engineering rake from including this KFA (maybe not all 3 66’s though! Haha): Hopefully that post isn’t too long, and your all still reading! If you haven’t guessed already I do really enjoy researching the prototype and trying to model it in 00 as accurately as possible! I also like experimenting and documenting the process - so I hope it is useful or at least interesting to you all. I have a few more photos with my latest 70 and 66 and my weathered OBA’s but they wont fit on this post so will show those separately! That’s all for now! Cheers 👍🏻

Look forward to seeing the progress 😁

Top work on this fella! I am too tempted by these wagon but have enough on the to do list! Haha. love the alternative of using the cloth and it looks really good! The weathering finish is spot on too! You have really captured that faded red so common on the type of wagon along the sole bars! Well done mate!

From one loco to another… My latest purchase was this beast… 70811 in Colas colours. I picked it up from my local model shop AGR at a great price and is sound fitted too. I decided to get one for the fleet to along side my 2 Colas 66’s for engineering workings. During our time frame, crossrail engineering upgrades along the nearby GWML was in full swing and engineering trains were mostly provided by Colas 66’s or 70’s. I had no intention of getting a 70 but after seeing several of these crossrail engineering workings actual went from Oxford / Hinksey Yard to the GWML via the Chilterns and Greenford - with a good portion powered by the 70’s, it was a no brainer and now a ‘must have’. There were also some examples of engineering work in the Greenford area which these went to and from as well. 70801 and the other lower numbers were regulars so will probably renumber to one of those (likely 801) and back date to the original colas logos at the same time. It will work either solo, or ‘top n tailed’ with 66487 (my non powered example shown not long back). It will run all types of engineering trains, including Coalfish, falcon, autoballasters and general use wagon types as well as track carrying wagons (more on them in a future post). So enjoy some pics of the latest addition, and a video to match. I have also included a couple of the workings that 70’s were powering when routed through Greenford. To watch the video including the sound see below: for the prototype inspiration of Colas 70’s on working through Greenford see the flickr and YouTube videos below: That’s all for now. Plenty of other work progressing so won’t be long until the next update! Cheers

they said they followed up with you guys a week or so ago when they received their non sound ones but haven't had a response

Top work there mate - really captured the essence of the station hall!

Pre ordered a sound 37606 from my local retailer, they have received the non sound variants but not the sound versions yet. Should I be worried if they have not got them by now?

JSA wagons i think. They could be older, I am certainly not an expert! Look the same as far as I can tell 😂

Glad its of use mate - there is a video on YouTube linked below which shows the conversion / upgrade which is very helpful showing the s-kits option. Watermills yard does some great stuff too 👍🏻 something else worth noting is that Accurascale have hinted to producing some of their bogies and accessories as spares in the future. They produced the axle motion 3’s for several of their wagons already so I wouldn’t rule that out either! Hoping they will so i can get on with a rake of HQA’s!

Looking good mate. One thing to point out is that the Dapol axle motion bogies are slightly underscore length wise but are easily obtainable. S-kits do make a kit version which are the correct length I believe. Hope that is of some help mate - keep up the good work :)

Sorry! 😆

These look really good in the flesh 😁 some comparison photos of the bardon white / blue and weathered de branded versions.

looking forward to getting some of these beauties!

Look forward to seeing how you progress with this mate! Since you mentioned these to me, I have been toying with idea of doing a pair!

Looking good mate - the real life prototype pic comparison is great too! Ive got 606 on order so excited for mine to arrive too!

Looking good! Have to say Accurascale have done a great job on applying that livery to a 37. tough job and executed brilliantly.