Afroal05

I wanted this update to be the completion of the wagon weathering but I still have a few little tweaks and finishing touches to add to them. I'd like to try and get some photos of the rake outside in the afternoon sun but maybe that is asking too much! In the meantime I bring you another little project that is gracing the workbench... 73141 'Charlotte'. This was a really impromptu purchase and project entirely triggered by browsing the classifieds in a magazine. I usually scroll on by and with good reason! One of the adverts was a picture or the newly arrived Hornby Railroad Plus class 73 in GBRf livery as 73965. I found this most perplexing as there are some quite obvious appearance differences between the 73/1s & 2s and the 73/9s and as GBRf have quite a few of the former quite why they chose to number it as a /9 baffles me! This did however sow a seed... I like the Railroad models as they are a [relatively] cheap way of detailing and practicing model skills and creating something a little different whilst also offering a new motor. One bad day at work later and I had ordered a model and after an evening perusing photos of the prototypes 73141 'Charlotte' was chosen as the new identity. Transfers were sourced from Railtec, I chose the '141 pack, some headcode box numbers and some replacement GBRf branding as I was going to try and rebrand her to a state as most recent as I could. Foolishly I didn't get any before photos and just cracked on with removing the old numbers using a cotton bud dipped in thinners and some gentle work with a cocktail stick. I tried to go sparingly as I was trying to reduce the area I got a shiny sheen on. Initially I stopped after removing 965 to see if I could cheat and line up the old and the new. Short answer, no. Here Hornby's colour choices came to the fore again. It has been covered quite a lot about the shade of GBRf blue on Hornby models (I also have 59003 so was aware of this) and the yellow/orange is no different. I was not going to be able to cheat here so removed the whole number. Next the new numbers and names were added. One of the names didn't take particularly well (something happened in the application process but I cannot not remember what so I was sceptical from the start that it would stick) and has since pinged off. Fortunately with three in the pack I will apply it at the end once I have finished faffing around with lights (which is the order I should have done things in anyway). Apart from renumbering and naming '141 I also wanted to update the GBRf markings to present day. Looking at various examples of 73 there are currently several different types! This branding is on the cabside and beneath the windscreen and replaces the old Europorte style branding. An extra OHLE warning flash was added on both sides as the base model only had the ones by the cab doors and the lower bodyside. The Hornby model of '965 has the plates by the cab door that highlight the /9s have been rengined, sadly these too had to go. The next idea was to add lighting. I had researched this when deciding whether to do the model in the first place but hadn't given it any thought before doing the transfers and losing one of the nameplates! A 1.6mm hole was drilled through the headlight, I may yet open this up a little more but I suspect 2mm is probably too much and I don't have a drill bit in between these sizes. The inside of the cab has been painted black to reduce light bleed. Initially I did a small patch and the light bleed was quite bad. The bottom of the front windscreen was clipped short as for some reason it protruded down towards where the headlight hole is. I found that lighting for 73s has the potential to be fairly easy or fairly complicated! Daylight running is a single headlight beneath the windscreen and is a warm white. For night running the headcode box is also illuminated. For tail lights as far as I can tell there aren't any. The headcode box is wound round to show two red squares which are then illuminated. Due to the construction of the headcode box with the windscreen plastic on the inside I didn't fancy trying to create a working version of this. I also didn't fancy trying to manufacture a red version for one end to be the rear. Daylight running it is! The next challenge is how you actually light the beast. I have .75mm fibre optic or 2mm fibre optic. Coupled to that the LEDs are 2mm and I do not have anything that neatly fits into my 1.6mm hole! Furthermore the cab construction gets in the way when trying to assemble/disassemble or trial fit lights. The cab moulding is fixed into the chassis (and does release really easily) but this does stop the idea of attaching the light to the body. The other idea was to stick the light to the underside of the cab moulding, a rough test fit does seem to suggest that this is the right height but lining up a .75mm piece of fibre optic is quite a challenge as you can't really wiggle it around. My current thinking is to file down a 2mm piece of of optic to fit into the hole and create a sealed area around the LED to try and reduce the light bleed. One little touch that I did add whilst doing the transfers was a headcode box. The body moulding had a recess for one and I thought it was absolutely crying out to be displaying something. Quite often the box seems to show two white squares but there were some photos of other number combinations showing... It's not perfect but it looks better at a normal viewing distance! Not sure what to have at the other end I asked Nicola for suggestions. We now have different numbers at both ends (90 at the other end). OHLE warning flashes and new GBRf branding was added here too. So another part completed project. To finish this I need to sort the lighting challenge, apply the nameplate that is missing and get Nicola involved with some painting. The cabling on each cab front needs red and yellow picking out on the relevant cables (showing my technical knowledge there), the lamp irons picking out and the buffer arms doing too. I'd like to have a go at weathering this too. It needs a toning down from its vibrant and off colour blue. The roofs on some of these seem to have a very particular shade of orange-y brown to them and the body side grills need a smokier colour. Finally adding a driver and I had considered a tail lamp in one cab window or on a lamp iron. On the subject or orange-y brown... a teaser about the wagon weathering. I asked Nicola if she could try and replicate any graffiti. Sadly we decided it didn't look enough like the real thing but she did add some chalk writing to another wagon... Yes, someone wrote 'Fat Egg' on an MTA. The mind boggles. Al

'And now for something completely different!' Whilst perusing YouTube one of the recommended videos to watch was Humbrol's own video on how to use their weathering powders. If you have read this thread from the start you may remember early on that I attacked 97302 with some weathering powders with some... dubious results. I hadn't touched the powders since and had resigned myself to the belief that I was crap at weathering too and would have to have another go some other time. Well, after watching the basic tutorials which made it look really very easy I thought I would have another go. Instead of risking a more expensive loco I decided that this experiment would be conducted on my fleet of ballast/spoil wagons comprising of B'man and Hornby examples of PNA, MTA and ZBA 'Rudd's. I chose a green Railtrack PNA, EWS MTA and a factory weathered Dutch liveried Rudd to start with. Initially the wagons are sprayed with a quick blast of matt acrylic varnish from a rattle can. This dries very quickly so by the time I had set up my workstation for dirty powders etc then it was all good to work on. A mix of 50/50 enamel thinners and Matt Cote were swilled together on an appropriate pallet (I used a strip of clear plastic packing that was about to be thrown out). I then liberally wiped this all down one side of the model. According to the video this forms an excellent base to allow rust colours to form and spread on the model. Having accidentally painted on to one side without this transparent coating I found that it painted on okay but if I wanted things to flow into the cracks the base coating made it easier. Additionally the video talks about adding streaking later on and this base layer I think helps with that. Using Flickr to identify specific wagons I wanted to model (or take inspiration from) I knew I wasn't going to worry too much about streaking as these particular wagons lead unglamorous and battered lifestyles! Next some powders were taken on a brush and mixed into a small pool of thinners and matt cote and swirled around, this created a paste. I used iron oxide, rust and dark earth colours varying the shades a bit and adding little amounts each time to change the colour as even a small amount changed the colour quite quickly! I tried to work one colour at a time down one side of the wagon focusing on just the body at first, I'd tackle the underframe later. I found that by the time I had worked my way to one end of the wagon the paste was already touch dry at the other end. I could then try adding different colours in and replicating the effects I could see in the pictures. As per advice from James Makin's excellent thread I worked from light to dark. I sometimes found the paste I was mixing would start to dry out, this would soon come back to life with a small drop of thinners or matt cote and could be mixed up again. I used a combination of a large brush and a small brush. (4 and 000). I painted over things like data panels and OLE warning flashes before cleaning them up with a cotton bud dipped in thinners. After working on the body I left it to dry overnight and returned the following day to tackle the underframe. After a bit of mixing and experimenting I felt I found an acceptable shade and started painting it on. I subsequently did the wheels and it was a different shade... you be the judge on that! As this was drying I then had a go using the powders dry. Again, this is covered in several videos on Humbrol's YouTube, I watched an interesting series of videos with a chap weathering an Airfix kit which gave me some ideas too. Dark earth was brushed on the outside panels of the body and the inside was given a brush with a mix of white and smoke powders (heavier on the white). There was an interesting example on Flickr with a whole panel in a very washed out and white looking panel over the original livery, I have tried to re-create this. Finally on the underframe I brushed a very light amount of smoke powder in a couple of places just to give it a little shadowing. I mixed a little smoke with thinners/matt cote and touched in a couple of parts of the underframe around the brake gear that looked like there is grease there to lubricate moving parts. All I need now is Nic to paint the buffer arms (they have a name, I'm certain of it but I can't remember) silver as these always appear clean and then this PNA is done! I really like that as I've blobbed several layers of paste on the side panels it has given it a slight texture and looks (to me) like bubbling rust. Feeling pretty positive after what I thought looked a reasonable effort I moved on to the EWS MTA. Again working from Flickr to find interesting examples and how they've weathered and what patches and scars they gain: The inside of the MTA was given a light brush with iron oxide powder as well as dark earth. The only work required to finish this is silver on the buffers and the grab rails above the ladders at either end will be painted into white rather than the silver they are at the moment. I liked that the yellow band was still visible in the photos I was working from beneath a layer of thick grime. Finally the first Rudd. This was a little more challenging as the Rudds seem to have mostly been retired with quite a few photos of them on heritage raiways. There are some interesting examples taken from a rake at Eastleigh in the mid 2000s (I think) which have different levels of patch painting, rust and scratches. With so many ribs and hinged parts these look quite interesting and fun wagons to do - just as well as I have 4 in total! The Rudds were covered with factory weathering which was a wash of orange-y/browny stuff that was all over everything. I didn't make any efforts to remove this from most of the wagon and used it as a base layer to add shades of brown and rust to. I did use a cotton bud in thinners to clean up the white steps at either corner, the moulded handrails on the ends, the lamp irons and the white of the handbrake handle. I did snap off one of the steps and Nic has said that she would be able to just paint fresh over the steps on the remaining wagons. The OLE warning flashes need replacing with modern variants, unfortunately on the wagon ends these won't be in the correct place. The flashes are underneath the handrails on the real thing however due to the fact these aren't wire handrails my options are to either put them where Hornby have originally put them - underneath and lower down the bodyside - or file the handrail off and replace with wire. I will stick them lower down on this occasion! Finally the underframe was given a dry brushing with smoke powder and a small wet mix of smoke touched onto the hinged parts of the brake gear and the hinges for the side panels of the body. A lineup of the first three weathered wagons: After my previous struggles with the powders I couldn't feel any more different. I'm really pleased with how this has turned out, I'm no James Makin but I've had a huge amount of fun dirtying these up and studying Flickr for different examples. 3 down and 6 to go. I have one more green PNA, two factory weathered PNAs that look like they've been given a coat of black, two more weathered dutch Rudds and a Loadhaul Rudd that I haven't yet managed to find a real photo of! So far I've sprayed the remaining wagons with varnish and put in some patch painted panels: Who knows what my next update will contain, perhaps more weathering? Or the spontaneous Class 73/1 project I've started? Or maybe some fettling on the mk3s for the 442 project? It shouldn't be long before my next update, I am full throttle in modelling mojo at the moment and after receiving a letter telling me that I now need to shield it appears I have a bit more time on my hands... Al

That's brilliant, thank you. Al

I think she also has her original 6966 number at the opposite end too! Not my photo, but one from Flickr: https://tinyurl.com/l77rmbss Al

Just found this thread Jerry and had an enjoyable few days reading through it, absolutely stunning work, I love it! Really tempted to have a go at modelling a tired 90048 in grey based inspired by your rendition of '047. Having had '048 on a number of sleeper journeys prior to the 92s coming in it would make a more personal touch at the head of my sleeper set. Just one question (I have many), when you've repainted nameplates do you do that with an incredibly steady hand or do you paint on and then remove the paint from the edges and raised lettering? How do you do that please? Thanks, Al

Thanks Jo, I'll give it a go! Al

20132, Part 1 - Similar but different could be the title of this one. After the lighting addition to 20901 I moved on to the second 20 in the pair, '132. The body and cab was removed in the same way as described with '901 and the taillights at both the cab and nose end were drilled out with a steady hand having filed away the painted red lens to give a flat surface to drill through. The instructions say to drill a .5mm hole through but I've done them with a .6mm bit as it makes it slight easier to fit the fibre optic and you really can't tell the difference. Any scraping around the holes was touched in with some warning panel yellow but pleasingly these 4 holes were much smarter than on 20901. Next came the domino box headlights at the nose end. The domino box cover was removed by pressing black tack down over the domino and pulling away, the domino came out very easily and is one plastic moulding with the black and white detail printed(?) onto it. I used a little bit of black tack to hold the domino in position against the body just beneath the domino box and marked where the centre of the white dots would be with a pencil. I drilled through these starting with a 1mm bit and then a 1.6mm bit before wiring up the 9V battery to the lighting kit and test fitting. There was a little fettling to do so I filed the holes as required but they weren't far off. I pushed the domino back into place and retested with the lights. Next was the high intensity headlight which is present on '132 but not on the donor model - '156 as modelled in '80s condition. I wasn't sure how I was going to model this, I wasn't convinced I'd be able to scratch build something good enough but I did find that Hornby produce a spare part (X6865) which says it is a Class 31 headlight surround. This looks the part so a pack was ordered. Again I lined up the lighting kit with the nose and eye balled where the light hole needed to be, marked it and drilled it with a 1mm bit. This was spot on so I opened it out to 1.6mm. Attention then moved to the cab end, the black tack technique didn't appear to be moving the headcode box at all and I was reluctant to stick a scalpel blade at the edge of it for fear of scratching the paint. After a lot of battling I resorted to drilling it from the inside as it just wouldn't budge. With two holes drilled approximately where the lights needed to be I then tentatively put pressure on the back of the headcode box. It eventually pinged off and revealed that it is a solid unit that was very unlikely to every come apart like the nose end did! The holes I had drilled were then tested with the light kit and a little bit of opening them out required. I decided to place the headcode box over the top of the light holes to see what it looked like, this was arguably a mistake as I didn't like it! The lights in the kit are bright white which doesn't look like '132 at all which has a much softer 'warm white' completion. I re-tested the nose end lights and (unsurprisingly) they were as bad; bright, bright white. So in many respects here is where I've stalled a bit. I'm ready to fix the lights in place, the new transfers have arrived and nameplates are in the post but I cannot put it back together with lights that I know aren't right! I've tried a little warning yellow on a clear piece of plastic and it just looks like a white light shining through yellow and the closest I've found to the colour was a pink and orange quality street film on top of each other but that isn't right either. So until I can work out how to tone down the lights I'm not sure what I can do. Nicola swooped in briefly to do a small bit of painting after I found the front handrails and the steps at either end of the chassis on '132 are white. The recess for the foothole has been painted with a thin wash of Black Metal Cote. Next time Nic has the paint brush out I will get her to paint the buffer arms silver and I will need to decide on a set photo to model '132 from as some have silver buffers with a splodge of grease and others have the whole buffer head covered in black mess. Frustrated at my modelling mojo not achieving anything I dug out a project that has sat at the back of the workbench for some time waiting to get started. A mad idea, I know, and all inspired by a day out on the trains in January last year. After finding a kit of parts on eBay and buying some Hornby mk3s last March little else happened. I had stared at the parts and wondered how I was going to make it all up and I filed some of the flash from the parts. I tried to take the windows out of a Virgin mk3 only to find that the glue that was holding them in was the toughest I have ever come across! I have since managed to break out the rest of the windows but I have split and damaged one of the window frames and snapped a scalpel blade. Interestingly I bought 2x Virgin mk3s and 2x Intercity Blue/Grey mk3s and the windows on the blue/grey popped out dead easily. I need one more coach - although I might get two so that I can use one for spare window cut outs or other bits. So what requires 5 coaches, a kit and typically isn't appropriate to any area I model? It's a 442! (Or 5-WES as those of a Southern persuasion know them). A big task and probably biting off more than I can chew but a very interesting one. My research hasn't uncovered a huge number of them modelled and even fewer on RMweb when I was looking for tips and tricks. After some enquiries I have found that pdanny of this forum has made one - originally with Hurst parts - and has recently upgraded it and they have been incredibly supportive. I can't promise I will progress very quickly and there will be plenty of mistakes but hopefully something very interesting will come of it. I haven't decided on a livery yet but as I am not really a fan of NSE (plus my modelling is sort of post 2010) it looks like I will be doing it in present day SWR white and blue. Progress so far... 3 coaches have had several soak and scrubs in IPA. More soon, maybe, hopefully... Al

My 100th post on RMweb so let's try and make it my best one yet! Following on from the sound mod in 66109 and the sound and light upgrade in 97302 I decided to try and tackle a more fiddly loco. After purchasing a Bachmann 20 in a pre-Christmas sale in Railfreight grey with red solebar and DCC sound I realised that I could finally run 20s in a pair on a train. As it happens I already owned a 20 - 20901 - bought years ago at a model show because of the price rather than because it fitted with my layout! Neither 20 had lighting and with my new found confidence (and easy to use kits) I set about adding lighting to '901. The body of the Bachmann 20 is probably the easiest of any Bachmann models to remove, there is a screw beneath the cab and one at the nose end, no faffing around between the bogies! The body neatly slides off and reveals not a lot of space underneath, this was going to be a tight upgrade. I was again using the very simple, pre wired lighting boards purchased from eBay. Whilst removing the body provides access to the bonnet end it does not provide access to the cab! Some studying of the model didn't reveal a clear answer as to how it comes apart but the internet delivered and a video was found. Now the video said it was easy but I can assure you it was not! To release the cab there are two tabs at the base of the front of the cab and two recessed into the side of the body where the little window on the nose end of the cab meets the body. You can see here where I had prodded at one with a scalpel. Much levering and prodding was made at these but they wouldn't budge, in fact one of the cab ones snapped off. There was a suggestion to gently lever the cab sides away from the body. Even with a lot of levering the body seemed to bend and not budge. I wedged cotton bud sticks (with the buds cut off) into the side to keep the leverage whilst I worked at the other side. Eventually the base of the cab came free at the front and with some more leverage applied to the sides they came loose with a concerning crack. As you can see here in an effort to apply more brute force I inadvertently pressed on the windscreens and they detached very easily! You can also see where the scalpel blade has scratched at the step beneath the cab door as I was initially trying to get some leverage on the cab. One the sides of the cab have made their initial crack they can be eased outwards and the can moved upwards, one side at a time, bit by bit until it comes off. I then repeated the process on the other 20 I had purchased - 20156 (to be renumbered as 20132). Unfortunately this went slightly worse that with '901 as I have bent the plastic by one of the cab doors and the cab may bow slightly when it is refitted. Following this drama attention turned to the nose end of the body and fitting the lights. First step was to drill through the light mouldings and paint the inside black to prevent any light bleed. The recommendation was to use a .5mm drill bit drilling with the utmost precision as mistakes would mean the lighting board wouldn't line up. It was recommended to use an awl to help the drill bit stay centred. Well, I don't own (and had never heard of) an awl so attempts were made with a steady hand. I can't say this was particularly successful and resulted in a very messy finish. The finish was tidied up with a bit of Railmatch warning yellow brush painted on but it didn't cover the rough drilled holes! (Pre painting photo) There is a lens in the headlight position on the model and the end of it is painted silver, running over this with a scalpel blade skimmed off the paint. Once the black paint on the inside of the model had dried (or was at least tacky) I cut short lengths of fibre optic and fed them through the light holes securing them on the inside of the noise with a blob of UHU. I think one of the coats of yellow I put on the nose might have been a bit wet when I fed the fibre optic through: Once the glue had dried the fibre optic was clipped back to about the same depth as the lens for the headlight. The lighting board was attached to my trusty 9V battery and with the sides covered in a strip of black tack the board was gently nudged and shuffled in to place with a pair of tweezers on hand in case a fibre wasn't quite lined up. The results were really pleasing even if all of the holes aren't perfectly centred. The light can be seen shining through the holes that exist for the headcode discs that came with the model. As far as I can tell from a perusal of the internet 20901 hasn't worn headcode discs in service with GBRf although I'll happily be proven wrong. I suppose I could/should have filled the holes in but I like the idea that I could put the discs on if I wanted - the light bleed didn't appear so bad on the layout in the dark. I must say, the photography is cruel as just seeing some of this stuff with the naked eye is eye popping-ly hard! Having said that I was very keen not to have a repeat of the wonky scabby holes on the cab end. If the 20s were going to run around prototypically in a pair the nose ends were going to be less important anyway but I wanted the cab ends to look the business. Whilst racking my brains for a way to get a better drilled hole a friend suggested filing off the plastic light to leave a flat surface that would be replaced by the end of the fibre optic. THIS improved the situation massively, having a flat surface to drill in to made things a lot easier and as a result almost all of the lights look considerably better. As you can see from the work in progress shot I just filed enough off the 'light' to remove the original paint finish and leave it flat like the one you can see bottom left. Unfortunately there was a slight slip with the centre light at the bottom of the cab front as can be seen from the drilled holes pre-optic. Much like the nose end the inside of the cab was painted black and fibre optic was glued into the holes. The instructions said that the driving desk needed to be removed but I didn't want to lose the cab detail so I instead filed it with a dremmel to remove most of its depth and moved it closer to the driving seat. The seat itself looked far too high and too big for a driving figure so was cut from the floor and had the pole shortened and a little bit of the seat was filed away. One of Nicola's driver figures was stuck to the seat and attempts made to reattach the seat to the floor. Unfortunately neither UHU or black tack seemed to work and after the model was put back together the driver and chair have fallen over. After the hassle I had getting the cab back on I am not looking forward taking it apart again! The front lights were fitted much he same as the rear ones and tested with the battery: This photo shows how far the lighting board sits from the front wall of the cab based on how far the lens for the headlight protrudes into the cab. Only after completing all of the lighting work did I see in the instructions the recommendation is to cut off the lens to reduce the impact into the cab, doh! I don't have any plans to fix this at the moment. Next step was tackling the electrics. The amendments to an 8 pin model were dead easy, just solder the wires onto the tags next to the corresponding pin. My first glances had cofirmed my fears, this was not the same process with a 21 pin decoder! After consultation with my DCC savvy friend he confirmed I needed to solder to the base of the decoder adaptor... yikes. I found a wiring diagram for the ESU621 decoder that I was using and could then assign different F keys for headlights and independently controlled taillights, something I was keen for if this was to run in a pair! With an enormous amount of trepidation I tried to solder the smallest amounts of wire to the board with the smallest amounts of solder. With the naked eye I couldn't 100% confirm that there weren't any stray strands of wire touching, I tried using my modelling assistant with magnifying glass and whilst it was pretty good I found zooming in the camera on my phone to be the best. At this point if I could pick a GIF to describe how it felt it would be one of Ted Stryker in Airplane, you know the one, with him sweating! End result after several re-solders after knocking the model and the wires pulling loose: This end result was quite a bit neater than the previous attempts so perhaps me accidentally (and repeatedly) breaking the connections was for the best. All that was left to do was connect up the wires to those coming from the lights - forgetting heatshrink again and inadvertently pulling the wires off the chip again. All that was left to do was try an tidy up the wires, refit the body and test. I was somewhat nervous putting the 20 on the track expecting a puff of blue smoke, much frustration and plenty of head scratching. Well... IT WORKS! Probably the single biggest boost I've had from my modelling so far in that drilling those holes was a nightmare and wiring up the chip was a huge challenge. Pleasingly it all came together and ran backwards and forwards on my test plank in the dark and looked pretty darn good (if I do say so myself). I have since messaged the maker of the kits and asked if they can make a version for a domino headcode box with a high intensity headlight, they have said they can and turned it around almost immediately, all being well I will be able to complete the lighting on the other 20 this weekend. The other 20 is Bachmann's 20156 with DCC sound. My plans is to modernise her and transform her into 20132 as seen today. This will require a cantrail stripe, new OLE flashes, nameplates and transfers. These can then be a GBRf pairing and do stock moves, railtours etc on my layout. I have upgraded the sound on the Railfreight example with Legomanbiffo sound as I found the Bachmann standard one sounded like a really short loop of sound when the loco was under power. That's me all caught up for now so it might be a little while until the next update, not too long I hope! Al

Very much so Jack, I look at models without lighting now and I am itching to 'fix' them. I have a DC kit for 59003 in the drawer but it doesn't include a toplight (neither does the Hornby model) so some thought is going to have to go into making one of those. I could try and fabricate something out of plasticard but the toplight on '003 is round which is slightly more challenging! Plus the kit is currently all wired up for DC... one for another day perhaps. Thanks for the tip on the photos, I'll have a go.

A little DCC upgrade project on a model that has graced these pages before. When I previously purchased the Network Rail TTS Class 37 I simply unplugged the chip, putting a blanking plug in and left the speaker and wiring in place. When I was tinkering with the new DCC software with a bit of straight track on the dining room table the model seemed like an obvious one to return to DCC and start playing. Re-DCC-ing 97302 was very easy and pretty quickly I had deafening and slightly tinny sound! Previously I had drilled out the light holes and ordered LEDs and fibre optic but had never got any further with it. Since then I came across some handy pre-made kits on eBay that were all fitted up with resistors etc and just needed wiring in to place. I thought, since I am pretty inexperienced electrically, that this might provide a simpler solution to trying to wire my own in. The kits come as a pair of black plastic type material with light holes cut in one side and tape across the back with the three wires taped together. There is also a little fibre optic and heat shrink and instructions were sent through by email. Whilst I had the top off the model I also decided to upgrade the speaker with the addition of an 8 ohm megabass speaker (the same as the one in the 66 in my previous post). The speaker in the TTS 37 is a round speaker screwed into the metal weight that makes up part of the chassis. I think the seal with the metal chassis forms a sound tight casing behind the speaker and the sound escapes via the exhaust holes in the roof. I chose to keep the speaker mounted on top of the chassis and pointing upwards for simplicity, it might have fitted in the fuel tank but this would have required more bodging. Snip two wires, solder two wires and heat shrink, job done. The speaker was fixed to the chassis with black tack (a new favourite medium for me I think!) The image above also shows the wires attached to the metal tags around the DCC chip, I used an 8 pin wiring diagram to make sure I got the right ones for the colour coded wire (I actually got the yellow and white the opposite way round but I am not sure if this was misreading the diagram or a wiring issue between me and the kit). Short lengths of fibre optic were cut for the taillights and passed over a flame to round the ends off a little. The instructions say that this requires some practice... they were not wrong. I can laugh now but I was not so amused when the first bit I tried to round out caught fire and melted away! As I did not have a lighter I had to use a tea light and quickly moved the optic over the flame and away again. The inside of the noses were painted black (about 3 coats) to prevent light bleed. Blobs of UHU were placed on the inside of the taillight holes and the optics fed in. These were then left to dry. Interestingly the kit provided a lighthouse LED to fit into the headlight hole, these were a tight fit and I filed the stubs of the metal legs off the LED before pushing it in, they had already been cut but there were still small stubs. Once the paint and glue had dried I wired one lighting board up to a 9V battery to check they worked and then loosely held them in place in the nose to check the optics were okay and that the LED actually worked like a fibre optic (as I was cynical!) Following this the excess fibre optic sticking out inside the model was cut back to the same length that the base of the LED protruded and a strip of black tack was stuck to each side of the lighting board so that it would stick to the bodyside of the 37. I then placed the lighting board back into the nose using tweezers to help align any stray fibre optic with the holes on the lighting board and move the board as close to the nose as possible. Once this was done the 9V battery was plugged in again to check everything looked alright: I must apologise, I don't know why but I cannot get portrait images to display properly, they are all turned. If anyone knows please comment! The only complaints I had about the lighting was that the drilled holes for the taillights were appalling. However this is down to my ham fisted drilling when I originally did it, I have upped my game in this respect as I hope you will see when I next post about putting lights in a Bachmann 20. Happy that the lighting looked okay and that the fibre optic was in a good place I repeated this work on the other end of the model. I used a hacksaw to take a little bit off the ends of the chassis where the lighting board would foul the side, this can be seen on the picture below and was maybe 1cm at either end. With both ends wired up and tested the wires were fixed to the bodyside just below the window line so that they were not visible from the outside but did not foul the chassis. After the buffoonery with the varnish when I originally (badly) weathered the model you cannot really see through the windscreen anyway so the wires are not visible. It was at this point in the instructions that there was a disclaimer to say that it had recently been discovered that there have been problems with these DCC kits not working with Hornby TTS decoders. I proceeded regardless! A pretty simple job of matching up the coloured wires and soldering them together - not forgetting the heat shrink! (Which I did, of course). During this wiring up I actually moved the speaker to where the original one had sat as I had placed the new one just off to one side. Finally, the top was put back on and the model was taken to the railway for a test... I am delighted to report that it was a roaring success, the lights worked, the sound is improved and there wasn't a puff of blue smoke due to calamitous wiring! As eluded to earlier I did initially find that the lights worked the wrong way round and have since swapped the yellow and white wires over and now have the correct directional lighting. A nice 'simple' bit of modelling that taught me a few new skills and upgraded a model nicely. I imagine 97302 might reappear here at some point in the future. I am not satisfied with the weathering and being a cheaper model I think it will be one to have a go on again in the future. In a perfect world the headlight is bright white and the real thing has a much subtler warm yellow hue to it. If I can think of a way of tinting it or toning it down them I might do so, I think I have seen a suggestion for a splash of yellow watercolour paint. '302 has been renamed in real life since I renumbered this model, I suppose I might get some plates ordered one day. Since then I have been using the same auction sellers kits to add lighting to a Bachmann Class 20 which has been an incredibly challenging mod but enormously rewarding. I will post about that sometime next week I hope as I am working towards a modern day pair of 20s (one with sound) for stock hauling on my layout.

A very long overdue update. Where on earth the last 8 months have gone I will never know. After doing a load of modelling during the spring last year it all suddenly ground to a halt towards the end of May, a couple of setbacks, a fear that I had annoyed a trader and getting brought back in to work all sapped my enthusiasm and energy for modelling. However it is the bug that never goes away completely and I have pottered away in the background on and off since September and now have a few things to report. Having always said that I would never go DCC as I don't understand the electrics enough, don't like the perception of the extra cost (and cannot see a benefit to it) and have always been really turned off by what I felt was obnoxiously loud and tinny sound at shows I must admit there has been a bit of a changing in the tides! Swindon's Hornby outlet store succumbed to the financial pressures of covid and closed towards the end of last year. Generally speaking I rarely bought thing from there as they were sold at RRP, however during the closing down sale prices got lower and lower and I found myself in there quite a lot! One of the more needless purchases I made was the Western Master DCC starter set with Hornby eLink and Railmaster. The set was £80 and I felt that at this price I couldn't go far wrong, it appeared to offer me a taster of DCC and computer control... perhaps there was something in this DCC malarkey after all? I cannot say I am a master of it yet and I am still making very tentative steps but I am enjoying my explorations so far. In November for the 5th anniversary since my Mum's passing I sent off the 37 I have named after her to Roads & Rails for a Legomanbiffo sound chip and an EM2 speaker. Having watched a lot of videos demonstrating different sound projects and speaker combos on 37s I felt like this might just have the rumble of the real thing! (Earlier in this thread you may have seen I have a Hornby TTS 97 and I reinserted the sound chip into this and was instantly reminded of what I didn't like - loud and tinny sounds!) I must say, I was blown away by the sound of the EM2 and I suspect it will not be the last I have sent away for this treatment. Having said that I have some things to learn about inertia, more than once I have been scrambling for the big red button as the 37 just keeps trundling towards the edge of the board! The first DCC project I tackled was inspired by a birthday present. Nicola also nipped into the Hornby outlet and picked up 'a blue one' (her words) - 66109 'Teesport Express' in striking blue PD Ports colours. A basic model, perhaps, but rife for tinkering and modifying. A 66 TTS chip and speaker were acquired and simply plugged in. Inevitably I didn't like the sound at all and ordered an 8 ohm Megabass speaker (after learning that speakers have ohms and that I couldn't just plug in any speaker). With the addition of a new and much smaller soldering iron bit for delicate and fiddly soldering work I snipped out the old speaker and in with the new. (Old speaker simply dropped into the spacious chassis) The new speaker sounded much better and overall the sounds, I felt, were pretty good for the very affordable TTS price. However, the sound sounded trapped, it clearly sounded like a 66 trapped in a plastic shell. After a little research it seemed a popular place to locate speakers was either underneath a roof grille/fan or in the fuel tank with a hole cut to allow the sound to escape. As the model's grilles and fans are all part of the body molding I opted for the fuel tank option. It was a little daunting drilling a hole in the bottom of the tank and it went with an awful crack when the bit finally went through! What I was very impressed by for a 'basic' model was the weight, underneath the blanking plate/chip interface there was a lot of metal weights. Clearly to utilise the tanks for the speaker I had to remove these weights. Keen to get some weight back in there I set about cutting the weights so that they sat next to the speaker. Learning point: don't use an ordinary multi purpose dremel bit on metal. After two thin weights had been cut I had worn through a whole disk! I resorted to being less lazy and cutting the rest using a junior hacksaw. Test fitting the speaker, the glue marks were where the weights had been held in place in the belly of the beast: After cutting all of the weight strips I re-wrapped a number in tape and moved the speaker to one end of the fuel tank (typically I found I could get more weight in if the speaker was at the opposite end of the fuel tank to where the hole I had drilled was... measure twice, cut once and all that). With the plastic ledge refitted above the speaker and weights I retested the model and the sound is greatly improved! I'm really delighted with how well it turned out and it has made a real difference to the model. On revisiting it last night I can't help but feel that the loco was still rather light and that with a train of any decent length it would begin to struggle. The original model almost certainly wouldn't have struggled but the speaker is just that bit lighter than the weight it replaced. So, in my finest bodging fashion I set to trying to add more weight! Some time ago I bought a pick 'n' mix type bag of washers and bolts from B&Q with the intention of using them as ballast in future modelling projects. So the 66 was stripped down again and areas investigated for adding ballast. The result is a slightly untidy hodge podge, but it is all well secured down! Another couple of half weights were taped and black tacked to the top of the speaker and checked to make sure that the bare metal wouldn't contact anything electrical - thanks to the plastic ledge the chip and wires are on this shouldn't be a problem. On the right hand side as we look at it some bolts were glued to the base of the chassis where there was half a space. These have had a little bit of black tack stuck between them so they can't rattle against each other but with the glue I think they'll set solid. On the left hand side is a series of washers glued to the chassis and a large bolt on top of them. The bolt has been filled with liquid lead and a blob of glue on the top and bottom and then capped with tape to prevent any stray balls from escaping. There is still space to the left of this unsightly blob should I need it but the weight feels like it has come back on nicely. In due course I will add a driver but based on the location of the headlights (they are on the main bodyshell but tuck over the front of the chassis) I suspect I won't be adding lighting to this one. It could do with a good weather but I'm not confident at that yet! I shall probably leave it there for this update, lest I write two long essays a year and then go quiet! I have a couple of other things that I have completed which I can write about over the next week or so and plenty more loitering on the bench - a lot waiting for some kind of painting or stripping of bad paint jobs! Nicola has said she approves (or maybe that's insists) on the purchase of an airbrush but I will wait until the weather gets warmer. Oh, one last thing that happened that exacerbated my hiatus from the forum; after years of thinking I could never be a pilot because of diabetes I learned during Lockdown 1 that the law was changed back in 2012 and diabetics can get a pilots licence (with a fair few hoops to jump through). It was my dream growing up to be a pilot and whilst I don't have any plans to change my career path right now I am going like a bull in a china shop at my private licence. The downside is this is incredibly time and financially consuming - just what you want when you're trying to upgrade your large fleet to DCC! 34 hours in the log book since July and 6 of the 9 theory exams completed. I will leave you with a photo taken from a scenic pre Christmas flight I completed with my instructor from Kemble to Lee-on-Solent complete with a 700ft flyover of Bournemouth beach and Needles lighthouse...

A shot of the inside of Par box taken on a site visit in 2016. I also got the chance to visit Exeter Panel and Plymouth Panel but appear to have neglected to take a photo of either!

There are not any triangular routes although there is one sequence of services one day into the next that can turn a unit. There is a South Cotswolds service in the evening via Swindon and Cheltenham (reversing at Gloucester) that is diagrammed to work a North Cotswolds service (via Oxford) the following morning. This will result in a set reversed and is the reason for the 5W99 shunt around Worcester around midnight. During October there were diversions via the Southern region to Exeter, these also turn a although and if the unit worked back the other way at some point it did rectify it. In the case of planned diversions (through engineering) train planning do usually try and create solutions to the problem but if it is because of service disruption then you can quite quickly end up with several units the wrong way round. However, the information on the board is only as good as the information it is provided with! There are several ways the information can be gathered but how effectively it is done is another matter. Whilst the Information Controller and the Fleet Controller's lists should be the same for units in reverse they often are not! That leads to trains being advertised the wrong way on the boards. For example Didcot Parkway have reported they had 6 services incorrectly shown on their boards yesterday.

Without knowing the whole legal text (of which there is rather a lot) between Hitachi and GWR my understanding is that it is not a Hitachi responsibility to provide a set in any particular orientation, they simply have to provide 80 units a day for service as per the diagrams. It is a GWR decision/desire to have them with first class at a particular end. Depending on how they come on/off a particular depot they can be spun intentionally or otherwise: 5C85 2035 Westbury - Stoke Gifford is planned to run via Bristol East Jn and the Rhubarb curve in order to spin the units after they've worked the 1807 Pad - Frome and back which turns the sets when they come back from Westbury to Stoke Gifford during the week. I think there is a similar move in the morning too. But generally no, they end up on depot in the same orientation they were running round the network. A quick summary by depot/outstabling location with a view to turning units: London North Pole - no scope to spin sets on/off depot (there are plans to get the Greenford loop signed off like it used to be for HSTs and the sleeper but at the moment this is stuck somewhere between signing the traction off and crew training.) Stoke Gifford - By using Bristol East Jn/Rhubarb Curve sets can be spun, this can require two drivers due to the walking route at Bristol East. If a set is coming from Cheltenham then you can send it into Gloucester to turn (or conversely not if it's planned to). Swansea Maliphant - sets can run via the Landore Loop before coming on to depot. An easy move here is diverting the ECS back from Carmarthen in the evening round the back of Landore to get it turned. Laira - sets can be sent on via Laira East and the speedway curve to turn. Long Rock - no scope to turn. Worcester - sets can be turned with some shunting around Worcester, 5W99 0019 Worcester SH - Worcester Hereford Sdgs is one such planned move. Oxford - if you can find an extra driver you can try and run a unit down to Didcot and round Foxhall curve - I think I only know of that being done once as an additional move. It has been done in service (it was on Saturday just gone) but puts a chunk of delay into a train. Hereford - no scope, or at least nothing easy. Clearly there are other locations where it is possible to turn sets, one was turned in service via Reading triangle at some point in the last month due to a wiper failure but the above are the most common and 'conventional' options.

Since the start of September there is now a GW controller assigned to trying to bring order to the fleet(!!!) Reversing sets where possible (or getting empty stock moves planned to spin a set) and trying to prevent any short formed services (5 vice 9/10). Clearly this works some days better than others, I think there were 21 units in reverse about 10 days ago and there are only 2 today - allegedly. It seems somewhat of an endless task as units always seem to find a way to end up in reverse through defects or unplanned diversions! I'm not sure Hitachi give two hoots as to which way round a unit is, so long as they provide their daily obligation I think that's it.

As far as I am aware that it is the limit - 5. I know when I was working in planning we used to 'count cabs'. Clearly the reality might be brake controls but we used to do it by cabs. (Is that one and the same?) Al

The GWR ones the interior is a bright green. As the seats are actually grey I would have preferred a grey plastic moulding that I have to paint green onto rather than a green one I have to paint almost entirely grey! The blue of the Scotrail ones looks easier to make into a rough replica of the real thing. The only one of my photos I can find for reference at the moment... (The Hornby interior being a vague resemblance of the green headrests.)

YES! But also NOOOOOOOOOOO! After years of waiting and hoping I gave up and bought the kit, started a few weeks ago and now... a far better quality one is going to be produced Great announcement and I will definitely be in for a GNER example. Ah well, 18 months to finish the kit now! Al

Just a 'little' progress update. Some time ago I set to work on adding vinyls/renumbering my GWR green powercars - some of you may remember this was a bit of a disaster due to misty can of varnish and as a result both powercars have sat on the side for a while. The misty varnish was only on one powercar and the other one has sat in debranded green and whilst rifling through my transfers I decided to pick up where I had left off! 43187 looked like this: The original GWR in silver/grey having been removed with a cotton bud and thinners. This had left a shiny sheen which would be covered by her new identity. However there was still remnants of the branding as on the 4 sides of powercars I had debranded this side appeared to have a groove of a mm or two where the logo was. I wasn't overly concerned as if I laid the new transfer carefully enough it shouldn't be obvious. I did however remove the original number from the cargo door like a cretin with a scalpel blade and have scratched the door slightly. On the other side (which looked considerably better by comparison!) the number was removed with a light dab of T-Cut on a cotton bud, a technique that took the printing off fairly easily and with little residual marking. I will be using this technique again! Now for my favourite bit - transfers. The new identity was to be 43093 Old Oak Common HSTD 1976-2018 as unveiled at the Old Oak Common open day back in 2017. The transfers were from Railtec and include everything I needed to replicate the condition of the loco between the open day (02/09/2017) and sometime in 2018. Since then she has gained an additional logo behind the cargo door to mark the last train off depot, unfortunately this isn't available as a transfer... yet... The pack includes '3D transfers' for the nameplate which look fairly convincing to me. Additionally there is the sticker representing the open day and the 'Legends of the Western', new numbers which are located beneath the cab window, fuel gauges to replace the black moulding on the Hornby model, white markings (technical description) just above the solebar that are not present on the Hornby original and cantrail stripes which I didn't need to use and an absolutely tiny number which goes on the crew door at the rear of the powercar. The bad side: The good side: I must say I was really pleased with how this went, the large transfer caused me a few panics but I managed to get it straightened up on both sides with no wrinkles or bubbles - phew. The number of the gangway door: Finally as the sun was out and I was required to be outside taking photos of a teddy bear's picnic (as you do) then I snapped a photo of 43093 in the sun: You can see here that after my earlier success I decided to bite off more than I can chew and cut out one of the engine grilles. I believe this was a sign that the loco had had a particular modification done and is present on a number of HST powercars in the Western fleet on both sides. Mine is on one side as I scraped the above and below slats a little too much for my liking whilst trying to gentle cut it out with a scalpel. If I can get Nicola to mix a similar shade of green then I might just touch in the whitened bits of plastic! Here's my photo taken at the open day in 2017 for comparison: Other than that I have now received the custom transfers for 89001 so need to crack on with the cab interiors, the lighting and that pantograph. In my order of transfers I also had some for renumbering nuclear flasks. My sister was devastated when she bought me a #21 flask only to learn that that was the one she had previously purchased for me. I told it would be no bother... Originally: An hour later: I also updated the electric warning flashes which on the model were the old style and changed the data panel on the side to match the correct number. I now need to take a pipe cleaner to the model to remove all of the dust which the photography has cruelly showed up! More soon I hope. Al

Shes's a beauty! I do prefer that livery to the plain blue. Al

Ah 423, my favourite. Looks really smart! Al

As promised I thought I would share some of the work I have managed to get my girlfriend involved with. She has always been arts-y but I had kind of shielded her away from my modelling fearing how she would perceive it. However I have never been particularly good at brush painting and having unwittingly admitting she like to paint I had begun to try and sow the seeds that perhaps I could get her to paint some of my figures. I persuaded her to go to a model show in Stevenage sometime around Christmas or just after and whilst there made a flippant comment about figures and painting again. Shortly afterwards I was paying for a number of Monty's Models figures! At said show there was also a demonstration by someone on painting and Nicola sat down with her and got some tips (I think I was too busy looking at another trade stand...) Fast forward to lockdown and Nicola asked to finally have a go at the figures. I had been given a shopping list - CIF, an old toothbrush and some matt varnish - and the after providing some photos from the internet of what I was looking for the good lady set to work. I was worried I might not have the right shade of paint - 'Derrr, you just mix it up yourself!' - well that was me told. Her first figure in 4mm, a BTP officer: I have since added a transfer to this chap's back after a recent order from Steve at Railtec... Now it doesn't look straight there but under a magnifying glass I thought it was straight when compared to his lapels! Next up was a driver, the photo for this being an image from DRS' careers page on the website: The figure for this was of a BR secondman, the moulded detail for that of a jacket and trousers. 'Fear not' I was told since I was worrying how a different attire might be painted on. The hat was painted up as a flat cap which I thought was a nice touch! Nicola refused to paint his feet when I said most drivers had to be amputated at the waist to fit in loco cabs! A couple of days later and another driver, this working from an image from Google of a driver walking down his train in full orange gear - 'Do you want him to be dirty like the photo?' - well I wasn't going to refuse! Again based on the BR secondman. The head was filed a little to try and create more of a hard hat (like the photo she was working from) and this guy was even given a beard! I have said that it feels an absolute crime to put this one in a cab and he may end up being a member of a track gang sat on the side of the line waiting for a train to pass. Since then - and still a work in progress (I'm told) - we have another driver (from the ModelU stable): And finally, the model Nicola was most pleased (I nearly said excited...) to buy at the Stevenage show. That of a young lady dragging a suitcase which conjured happy/humorous memories of our first holiday last October where upon exiting Prague station Nic's suitcase lost a wheel. I can still vividly picture the scene as she remarked in a most peculiar voice 'Oh no, my wheel!' before running back across the cobbled paving to where the wheel was lying some way behind us. We then had to drag the ailing suitcase around Amsterdam and back via Eurostar, by the time we got to Euston the scraping noise from the bag was less amusing...! Anyway, here is Nic depicting herself in her sports team jersey which is how we met - it still needs a logo on the front and then the suitcase needs painting. She has said she might even file off a wheel: Following these I have a couple more ModelU drivers and then I suppose I better get ordering some more things to paint! This was a most unexpected surprise and I have since been shuffling books about weathering closer to her arm of the settee... we'll see how that goes! Since these last two posts the modelling mojo is back and I have been doing some of my favourite task - adding transfers - so hopefully some more on here soon. Al

A few weeks on and it's been a relatively quiet few weeks considering the lack of distractions from modelling time! I've had a kind of writers block so haven't really had any ideas about how to progress projects or a clear vision about how I'm going to achieve something but here's what has happened... Firstly a quick fix. Having spent time working on the layout recently and running most of my stock to give it a spin around the layout I dug out my Dapol Class 73 which has never run properly and was very jerky. For a new model I was quite disappointed. Fortunately RMWeb is such a huge bank of knowledge I found the answer - the pickups on the 73s are rather naff and the copper strip quite easily slips out of position from the pickups. The solution was to strip down the bogies and create new/additional pickups using brass wire. I have never attempted anything like this so was somewhat apprehensive. The brass wire I had on hand was .3mm and a gentle brush with the hacksaw was used to slice into the bogie sides as seen below. The wire was then soldered to the copper pickup strip and bent to zig zag out onto the inside of the wheels. I did two pickups (one each side) for each bogie). I cannot take credit for this solution, it is a fellow RMWebber whose name I cannot remember but who has detailed this more thoroughly on here somewhere! I must say that dismantling the bogies and removing the cosmetic elements was very difficult and not easy when you have a pair of hands as dexterous as clubs! A few fine details went whizzing off across the desk and had to be glued back on afterwards. A rather naked below the waist 73 went for a test run and runs properly for the first time ever. Some fettling was required as initially the brass pickups were pushing out onto the wheel too much causing a lot of resistance. Cosmetic bogie sides reinstalled and job done. 89001 has had the new bogie sides painted and fitted. The simplest solution to removing the old sides was to take the hacksaw to them and just slice all the way through until they pinged off. With the new bogie sides having previously been sprayed black they were fitted with poly cement and nudged around until they looked like they were in the right place. The rookie mistake I made was to cut all 4 sides from both bogies before sticking any of the new sides on, had I kept some of the original sides on first I could have used them as a rough guide for where the new ones should sit. The poor light probably doesn't help you form an opinion there! I did push the bogies around the desk and they look alright. I then pushed the bogies back into the chassis, plonked the body on top and slid the underframe boxes into position but sat on the desk for a rough work in progress shot. The underframe boxes were sprayed black about a week ago and today I worked on gluing the pieces to what was left of the original 47 underframe. I took several more mm of height out of the original underframe as I think it was too tall and was certainly taller than the new side pieces (as shown in my last post on the subject), I used the dremmel with a sanding bit in order to speed this up - mmmmm the smell of melting plastic! For the cylinder that I had identified at one end I found I had a length of plastic tubing which I think I was going to make scenic pipe loads for my layout. By good fortune it is almost the exact diameter as the cylinder head on the underframe moulding so I cut a short length off, painted it and stuck in on to create a cylinder. The cylinder is still just attached to the rest of the underframe by a small remaining bit of the moulding to give it a bit of support as I wasn't 100% certain I would be able to stick it to the main chassis frame. With it all being dark, black and underneath the loco I am not sure it is that visible. This will require a part on the outside end of the cylinder picking out in white and on the other side of the underframe gubbins there is a panel that will be picked out in orange, then remount it underneath the main chassis. The bogies also need a few details picking out in white too although I'm not convinced I have a steady enough hand or a small enough brush! However all is not lost, I have found a painting assistant. On the main body I am still working on creating cabs, I bought a job lot of old Hornby/Lima cab mouldings of various shapes and incarnations but haven't found one that fits yet, I have been filing and cutting some up so may just end up sticking a desk and some seats in rather than a full moulding. Windows will be cut from a thin sheet of clear PVC I have as I have misplaced the bit that came with the kit. Buffers need painting and sticking in, yellow warning panels need painting, bufferbeams painting, handrails need fitting and whilst writing this I must not forget to install the lighting!!! The final hurdle is the pantograph. Having scoured the internet and this forum (with little found other than the whole community wants a new Brecknell Willis pantograph made) I have come to two choices; 1) Acquire a Hornby Class 90/92 pantograph - the last one I saw on that auction site sold for £23 just for the pan! 2) Construct one out of brass. A member of this parish wrote an article about 10 years ago about blinging up a Hornby 90 including manufacturing a new pantograph (that was sprung) and it does look fantastic. Only snag is I have never worked on anything like this at all ever. In fact the only time I have ever used brass was the pickups on the 73 I wrote at the start of this. The author described the process as 'fairly straightforward' (I may be paraphrasing) but it looked a little complicated to me! Transfers are in the post and then that will complete 89001. The pantograph however is causing me all sorts of headaches - answers on a postcard please dear readers! I will elaborate on my painting assistant (I hope she never reads that) and showcase some of their work on here soon. Al

A variation on the DRS decals worn by 90034. Just looking for a different loco number. Should be all sorted now! Al

Not a problem! Thank you for the response, I can well imagine demand has spiked exponentially and I really do appreciate what you bring to the hobby! Al