matto21

The steel loads look great! The way they've sagged is most realistic

How about these taken in sunny Wales...

I'm really enjoying this thread and am looking forward to seeing more progress soon

Yeah Talerddig is still knocking about, currently stored at my parents house but no, it was never completely finished. I was looking at it the other day, and despite being stored for over a year, it still looks ok and everything is intact [i think!].

No probs Neil, it's a great little layout. I'm usually skulking around in the 'Kitbuilding' section of the forum these days as, since giving up on Talerddig, I've been concentrating on building wagons and painting/weathering them with a few other bits and bobs [like the Critter you may remember from my Talerddig thread - finally finished!]. If the shed is the first major structure you've built then you should be proud - it's great

This is a great layout, love some of the little cameos and the shed building especially! All these depots are making me want to build one myself! Keep up the good work

Absolutely brilliant! It really looks like it's raining too! Fantastic.

Hi Martin, what a nice coincidence! Not something I'd realised but it's quite apt as you've pointed out! Thanks James, the cabs of the 33 look a little patchy now they've been painted, not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I might try to incorporate that into the final finish and 'pretend' it was supposed to be like that!

As a follow on from my last post, my Critter is now complete [well apart from one piece of glazing that I need to cut to simulate an open window]. Final weathering has been carried out using a mixture of washes and powders. Coupling hooks have been fitted as it's too small to have the links added! I like it as a little novelty loco, it's performance isn't too good though - it runs ok but won't pull anything heavier than a few feathers! As a finishing touch, I've ordered some nameplates so as soon as they arrive, it'll be officially complete [i actually started this on 27th Jan 2010!] BTW the lamp fell off between photos...!

The weekens saw some renewed effort with my Lima Class 33. All the fiddly bits that I'd been putting off doing [bogie steps, bufferbeam detailing etc] got done and I even undercoated the underframe/bogies/bufferbeams and painted the ends yellow. I was also sorting out some 'stuff' and came across the 'Critter' that I built over a year ago. This had been lying around unfinished so, suitably inspired, I set about doing a bit of work to it. I added a turned [Class 37] airhorn to the cab roof just because I thought it looked quite cool! I also painted the bufferbeams 'weathered red' and the sideskirts 'dirt' simply because I couldn't think of anything else! Just some minor painting and glazing and it'll be complete!

Love the ballast load with the old bits of rail - excellent!

I'd read another thread where some differences had been mentioned therefore I assumed the SPV's were a bit different. I'm chuffed that the kit is correct! Thanks for the tip about the roof ribbing too

Managed to complete my SPV parcels van today.

Just a few quick 'in progress' shots of my latest project - another Parkside Fish Van, this time painted to represent an SPV Parcels Van. Now I know that the underframe is not correct and there should be ribbing on the sides but I've built mine without any modifications and I'm happy enough with it. When I made the Fish Van a few weeks ago, I represented the roof ribbing with strips of thin plastic card. To save time [and found this method a bit fiddly to be honest] this time I cut thin strips of insulation tape and stuck this to the roof - much less fiddly and quite a lot faster! I've always been a bit undecided about 'Rail Blue' as bought, so have mixed my own this time and while it may not be 100% accurate, it's a shade I'm definately happier with. As you can see weathering is currently underway

Haha, oops - guess I should have thought about that!

Thanks James - yes I had seen your post about fading colours - very useful! I wasn't sure whether I could achieve the distinctive [to my eye] pink shade that RF Red seems to go when faded using an overspray of white alone - luckily it seems to have worked out pretty well I think! Thanks Mudmagnet! Below are some photos of the van [minus markings and coupling] with painting and weathering complete. I'm pretty chuffed with it to be honest I've also started work on another Parkside Fish Van, hopfully this time to be finished as a parcels van. Finding good reference photos hard to come by though!

Nice! Which blue did you use? I find rail blue the hardest colour to replicate - Railmatch's shade never looks right in my opinion

Very nice and really looks great! The work you've done to the underframe makes a huge difference. Looking forward to seeing it fully painted now...!

Love this thread and really makes me want to build some more 16 tonners! Here's an old photo of a couple of mine.

Made some progress with my Railfreight Vanwide yesterday. One of the challenges of basing this model on a photo was trying to replicate the faded red/grey. The red seems to an almost pink colour. Initially I tried mixing this colour but just couldn't get it anywhere near right so resorted to overspraying the whole van with white. Not sure how accurate this actually is but it looks ok to me! The roof and underframe have not been painted as yet

Hi Mudmagnet, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it! I'm not aiming to make a reproduction of the van in the photo, just use it as inspiration - that's my disclaimer for when things go wrong and it ends up nothing like the photo!

I was in a model shop the other week [quite a treat for me!] and picked up a Parkside Vanwide kit. When I bought it I didn't notice it was the rebuilt style with FAT 19 suspension. I was looking at Paul Bartlett's site for inspiration of what to do with it when I came across this photo. I usually prefer my wagons in battered brown and the Railfreight grey/red livery is out of my preferred modelling era but I thought it would make an interesting challenge and add a bit of colour to an otherwise bauxite wagon fleet! I've made a start at constructing the kit and will hopefully make some progress with it over the next few days/weeks. I'll have a go at representing this van but if all else fails, I'll paint it brown!

Very nice work, I especially like the coal wagons with the replacement planks

Nope don't think it did! Have day off tomorrow so hopefully will make some more progress with the 33 - once the steps are completed the next job is bufferbeam detailing.