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For a while all four green 43's were running with blue coaches, but 43188 and 43187 remained as a pair whilst 43005 and 43041 were split up. 43188 and 187 are now back with the green coaching set LA16 with the refurbished interior (last time I saw them), but I believe the other two are still running separately from green set LA15 with the un-refurbished interior.

I'm afraid not!

I know! Very annoying as I bought the 150/1 one not long before I found this out! I might have to use a bit of modellers licence and make it a 'what if' model!

43003 isn't green at the moment, perhaps you are thinking of 43005? I've seen it running with the blue coaches quite a lot, it was originally paired with the coaching set LA16 which is also in green but as yet has not had an interior refurbishment, but this has been running with blue powercars! LA16 and 43187/8 are still running as a set though!

Thanks for the tip, certainly something worth trying! Although I'd be very paranoid about the paint bleeding into the edges of the windows!

I'm not sure why, but to me the Lima Mk.3s just dont look right. I'll find away around the stuck in windows, the power cars' windows were stuck in with a lot of glue but I managed to prise them out.

Yes that would probably be the logical way of doing things! I always planned to do the MK.3s straight after the 43s, but I haven't been able to get any yet! The 150 wasn't planned, it was very much an impulse purchase. I'm hopefully going to get the 150 and some Mk.3s painted at the same tame, which makes sense seeing as though they use the same colours! I've also recently heard that the 150/1s aren't even staying in the franchise once the DMU cascade starts so they most likely won't go green at all! I'm not sure how true that is though, as some of them have been turned into 150/9s with the insertion of a 150/2 driving vehicle in the middle, and I would imagine these will be staying with GWR, so I might number it as a 150/9 and insert a middle car at a latter date. I could also possibly make it a 150/0, however these have different cab doors and a middle car which would be difficult to model. There's not going to be a lot of progress I'm afraid until the weather turns a bit nicer and I can get outside for airbrushing, but I certainly haven't forgotten this project!

Thanks! Ah that is lucky, I still haven't been able to even see it yet! I agree its a great livery, and the new interior looks just as smart too. In regards to the 150, I'm not sure yet if I should wait until a 150/1 appears in green or if I should paint it to the spec of the 150/2. I would have thought everything would be the same except for the colour of the cab doors, so I might just go for it. Whatever happens, it will go green eventually!

The Finished Power Cars They are finally done! The transfers went on very easily and the carrier film is almost invisible! I put 4 coats of varnish under the transfers and one on top of them to seal them in. Adding the details such as the handrails proved to be very fiddly, and the driver's console was a nightmare to fit back in place! However it is done and I am very pleased with the results! Now I just need to do 8 Mk.3s... I don't have any yet that I'm willing to paint, so progress on the HST will have to be halted until I can source some! In the meantime however, I will be turning my attention as I mentioned before to a Bachmann class 150/1. This will be going green next: I hope you have enjoyed following the first phase of green-ing, and I will be back shortly with more progress!

Update The painting is done! It's taken forever but I am finally at a stage where I'm happy with it and can move on. Most of the time spent painting was going over fiddly areas with a brush, and once I'd started that I was constantly finding small areas that could be improved. I've now applied the first coat of varnish, for this I'm using Johnson's Klear. I haven't used it before, but it was recommended for use with the decals that I'm using, so I thought I should give it a go. Here's what the power cars looked like immediately after the first coat was applied: As you can see, when wet the varnish appears to be rough with many bubbles, however apparently this will disappear as it dries leaving a smooth finish. I think I'll go for at least a couple of coats of this before I put the transfers on, if all goes to plan I'll have the varnishing done by tomorrow evening, and then I can move on to my favourite part!

Thanks! Yes I've seen lots of good ones on ebay, and a few 57s have started turning up too! Have only seen one 166 so far. The HSTs on ebay so far have been the Lima power cars, it seems that I'm the only person brave (or stupid!) enough to risk damaging the new Hornby models! Update Apologies for the lack of updates, there hasn't been a lot going on at the moment, however I'm hoping to get a lot done this holiday. Only a little bit more to do on the painting side, and then on to varnishing/transfers. The only news is that I've bought a Bachmann class 150/1 which is going to go green along side the HST, I got it second hand for only £57 which is an absolute bargain! I can start on the base green body and silver doors when it arrives, but I'll have to wait until 150232 comes back from Wolverton Works before I can do the details and order the transfers. I won't be able to model 150232 as it's a 150/2 with end gangways and sliding cab doors, whereas my 150/1 has no end gangways and slam cab doors. I don't know what number I'll give it yet, it doesn't really matter though as all the GWR 150s are set to go green at some point. It won't be 150128 however, as that is the one that Bachmann produced in FGW blue, and I don't want to end up with cloned trains if I ever buy it!

Fair play to you, I could never work in N gauge, much too fiddly for me to get right! I've done some more research and I think the matte stripe is in fact very slightly darker than the main body. I was going to model it slightly darker anyway though because you can't put most waterslide transfers on a matte surface, so my plan was to do a slightly darker gloss colour, and then maybe put matte varnish over it once the transfer is down, however I'm not sure if that will work so I need to do a practice piece! For the moment though I'm just focussing on the power cars so I've got a little while before I need to decide exactly how I'm going to do the livery on the coaches. As you can see it looks as if the colour is slightly darker in the livery spec. (This was taken from the brochure about the new franchise, below) nfgwf.pdf For the doors I am going to try and mix my own paint to some pictures that I have of the model.

Yes, it does seem to be a livery that divides opinions, personally I think it looks great but I can understand why you might not be so keen. You're right about the doors, I'm definitely going to have to mix my own paint for them! This set is the only HST going green, so the one you caught would have been the one I'm modelling!

Thanks! I also haven't managed to see LA15 in the wild yet, every time I've had the chance it's either been in the far South West somewhere or not in service! To be honest I didn't stir it well at all! I stirred it once I'd mixed it with thinners in a seperate pot, so all I would have got was the top layer of paint. I guess thats why it seemed so thin even before I'd mixed in the thinners! I'll give your method a try, thanks for the advice!

Update I haven't done a great deal recently, but I managed to get some painting done today. I have finished with the airbrush for now, and have been using a conventional brush to do the finishing touches. For the roofs I used Humbrol 'Matte Black', however this does not look matte to me: Anyway, I will apply a coat of matte varnish when I get to that stage and see how it turns out. I definitely want it matte on the roof above the cab, as per the prototype, but I'm debating whether or not to leave it as it is on the section of roof above the luggage van/Guard's area. I have also painted the Guard's door rail silver: Some touching up still needs to be done as the paint has bled in some places, but it looks like one more session should do it now. Very close to moving on to the next stage now!

Thanks! I was a bit worried actually that the brush strokes would show up, so I was half considering trying to do it with the airbrush. A hand held brush will make it a lot easier and neater for tiny bits of paint.

Update So it's been a little while now, I've got things done but in a different order to they way i described it in my last post. Instead of cracking on with the last coat of green, I've sprayed on two coats of 'Warning Yellow' (Howes Railmatch) at the front of both locos. I decided to do this because I hadn't prepared the cab doors for spraying into green yet, so I though i'd wait and do them and the rest of the green at the same time. More on the doors later. Here's one of the power cars masked up and ready for coat number 2: I have taken James Makin's advice (see earlier in the thread), and invested in some Tamiya masking tape, but it hasn't arrived yet. Hopefully I'll have it for the final spray of green, if not I'll put it to good use when I do the coaches! This is what the power cars look like now (I added in the headlights for the photo, they'll come back out when I do another spray): Overall I'm pretty happy with the way they've turned out, a little bit of touching up here and there which I will probably do with a brush. If all goes to plan I only have one spray left to do on these, it will be nice to be able to move on to another stage of the project. For the cab doors, I was going to do the usual method of using Modelstrip, however as you can't remove the doors from the rest of the cab light unit I've decided to use some P240 and P1000 wet and dry sand paper on them, as Modelstrip requires running it under cold water, and I don't particularly want to run electrical components under the tap, even if there is no current being supplied to them at the time. Using the sand paper turned out to be a good call, this took about 7 seconds (not an exaggeration): Next job will be to add the last coat of green, then I can touch it up by hand. Then, a bit of silver on the guard's door rail, and the painting is done! (Famous last words...)

No worries! I think I know which ebay seller you mean, I remember watching them a while back! They do look great.

Update Just a quick update to say I haven't forgotten this project! It's been a week since I did anything to it, distractions in the 1:1 scale life have prevented me from continuing! Heres a picture of the power cars as they are now, with I think 3 coats of the green: Overall, I'm very pleased with the finish. To my eye it looks pretty much spot on, and the picture really doesn't do it any justice. Tomorrow I'm going to strip the paint from the doors (which I'd completely forgotten about!), and then on Saturday I will paint the doors and apply the last (hopefully!) coat of green. The next jobs will then be painting on the yellow front and the metallic silver details such as the rail for the sliding door on the guards compartment. After all that I'll be done with the paints! Until I get my hands on some MK.3s... I'm really starting to look forward to getting these done, so far I think they look pretty good!

Update The first 2 coats of green have gone on! So far I think it's looking quite good, I was very worried after the first spray went on as the shade of green was far too light, however, it is now starting to look the part. One more coat I reckon, and then it'll be time for the yellow warning panels and the metal details.

Thanks James! Good advice, it's very frustrating having to constantly re-stick the tape when it comes apart from the plastic. So far so good, although I can only hope it turns out to be anywhere near the standard of your FGW 'Fag Packet' one!

Hi! Thanks, I'm quite happy with it so far! As for the paint ref, I'm very happy that it's come in handy! One of the reasons I decided to put this up on here is so that anyone who wants to do a project like it can cut down the research time. Green goes on tomorrow!

Update I have stripped all the decals/transfers from the HST, using a product called Modelstrip. Despite many people saying that it is useless and won't touch factory finishes, I found that it removed the locos number, EMT logo and the orange parts of the livery reasonably well. It didn't take away the red and yellow, however these parts were paint rather than decal, so they can stay. The Modelstrip goes on like a paste, and you leave it over night. I then scrubbed the loco with an old toothbrush, and everything just came off. As you can see, the number is still faintly visible. This isn't really a problem, as you can't see them now that the primer is on. That neatly brings me on to the next part of the update; the power cars have had a coat of primer. I used Howe's Universal Primer for this, and mixed it with enamel thinners, at around 40% thinner, 60% primer. I had huge problems however, but this was down to my airbrush. The paint was coming out in dry speckles, and nothing I did (adjust pressure etc) changed this. I took the airbrush apart, and found some unrecognisable gunk inside! Putting it back together again (MUCH easier said than done) has seemed to fix the problem and it now works well. I've now applied 2 coats of the primer, hopefully I should be able to start on the yellow front this evening!

I'm not sure yet to be honest, I may try using a slightly darker colour, even though I think in real life it's the same colour, and I think I'll then try putting a layer of matt varnish where the stripe is after the transfers have gone on, as they need gloss varnish underneath them. Although I'm not going to start on the coaches until the power cars are done, so I've got a few weeks to think about it.

Update So far, not a lot to report I'm afraid. It's been fairly slow going so far as I didn't have everything I needed to get started until now. I've taken off all the detailing on the 43s, which was much more difficult than I expected! The glazing was the hardest to remove, as it had been fixed in with generous amounts of glue. I slid a pen knife gently between the glued part of the window and the body and scraped away some of the glue before levering the window out. The two power cars are all masked up now and ready to go. Next job: Paint stripping.