luke the train spotter

Thanks Chris.

Thanks Shildon Shunter. Just a few little bits to finish off before I conclude the project.

Time for part 4 of the pug bash. So the paint has no properly dried and I can now turn my attention to the cab of the pug. Previously I had painted the moulded black plastic but I wanted to improve it. I took a bronze sharpie and simply ran the pen along the piping to get a good result. This was the result: Looking at some prototype pictures I noticed that there should be some black piping coming out of the boiler and into the frames. This was replicated with some thin wire. I excercised some modellers license and decided to fit a reverser. I got some 10 thou plasticard, cut it into a thin strip and painted it red. A spot of super glue and a bit of trimming and it was on the loco. I made sure that it lined up with the reverser rod inside the cab that I made. Now every loco needs fire irons and a place to keep them so I consulted prototype photos once again and came to the conclusion that they would be kept on hooks on the outside of the rear of the cab. The hooks were made out of the thin brass wore out of electrical cable and attached with a drop of super glue. To go on the fire iron I dug out a bucket which was painted silver and I made a fire iron out of wire and plasticard. It was painted with a dark grey enamel at a later point. And here they are both painted on the pug. That's all for this part of the pug bash but there is still more to come with that. Until my next post, happy modelling.

Were there any other locos in this livery?

Yesterday I went to the York Against Cancer Model Railway Exhibition. It is a very nice little model railway exhibition held in a little hall in the out skirts of York. Well worth a visit for next year. Well every year so far I snatched myself a bargain (2 years ago it was a turntable for a £1 and last year it was a Bachmann 08 for £5!) and this year I picked myself a job lot of eckon pre made signals and a weird continental one all for £6. I tested them all when I got home and the all work as well! Here is a picture of the eckon signals: Here are some pictures of the continental signal (I would really appreciate any info on it like origin, make, nationality, purpose) : 3 of the eckon signals are 2 aspect home and 2 of them have shunt signals on them. The other eckon signals are a 2 aspect ground signal and a 2 aspect distant signal. I've not got any big plans for them but they will be good to save if I ever get onto a br diesels layout. Thanks for looking.

Thanks. It's always nice to enjoy different aspects of the hobby I find.

Looks amazing! Very realistic and precisely built.

Very true, I could never bring myself to buying one of those very expensive pre made resin buildings - its just not modeling. Just buying off the shelf pre made buildings makes every layout look the same without any skills needed apart from a bit of cabs and a spot of glue.

Oooooh. It does look good but i think that it would be better to keep it modular so you can easily split the layout.

You could wire it all live for dcc electro frog then have a very basic single isolating switch for the station platform.

Normally you would hope that an 0-6-0 would be able to get over the point in both directions because of its 6 pickups. I think that your best bet would be to use an electrofrog point to stop stalling but that requires additional wiring and getting a new point. I dont think you can do much to fix this problem with the insulfrog point but I could be wrong. Are you planning to operate the layout dcc?

Wow! Didn't realize you meant one that big!!! You would have to wheel it home.

Hadn't thought about that. That would be a very tight radius for o gauge!

Yes they will get it. It's actually got it on already but I took a picture of it before the black paint was applied.

Time for part 3 of the pug bash. So carrying on where we left off I rubbed the body down with some of pound land's finest white spirit which I find softens the paint. The printed lining can then easing be scraped of gently with a knife blade. After doing the entire body it looked like this. I think that it is now time for a coat of primer in prep for the green paint. For this I use another one of pound land's products - they're grey auto primer. It's lasted me ages so well worth £1. I masked off the cab to protect the painted details that I had done previously. Again masked off with budget masking tape. The body now primed up. I gave it half an hours drying time to ensure that the paint was properly dried before any green paint went on it. Note that I have removed the safety valves and whistle so I don't have to faff around masking them off. Then were just pushed out from the inside with a screw driver. A quick test fit back onto the cast metal chassis was done to check everything and that no details fouled the connection. Finally some paint. I used humbrol enamel number 80 which looks like a matt kind of military green. I couldn't be bothered with spraying the model with the airbrush so I just brush painted it with 2 unthinned layers with an hour time in between. It's still a bit sticky so I will leave it over night for the paint to properly dry. The cast metal chassis frames received 2 coats of cheap black artist acrylic. The smoke box, smoke stack and cab roof was also painted with this paint. Next up is to add some final details, re assemble the model and begin to think about weathering it. *a quick update on the Hornby sentinel - I sent it back to rails of Sheffield and their technician could not identity the fault so the are sending it back to Hornby under warranty to have them fix it*. Thanks for looking everyone.

There are more mods to come! Watch this space.

Sounds like a good project. Look forward to following your progress.

Thanks Jerry. The pug project is great because not only do you get a nice loco out at the end you also get a loco personalized to what you want an industrial shunter to be.

So after a couple more days work on the pug project I am beginning to see the end of it. Sad really as I have really enjoyed it but getting it off the work bench will just make more room for my next project. Yesterday I thought it would be a fun idea to go to York for train spotting, a bit of model railway shopping and a visit to the nrm. So I paid an extortionate amount for a train ticket and boarded my train to York getting there in good time to spot my first IEP - 801101 I thought it looked quite smart in its plain white livery though it won't stay clean for long! Next up was a visit to Monk Bar Model Shop where I was tempted by the large glass cabinet full of the latest wagons and stock that just cry's out to be bought. Being boring I picked up some plasti card to restock my supplies so I will have enough to build the buildings for drum lane. Whilst I was in York I also picked up some paint for the pug. I wanted an enamel paint the colour of military green so after about 10 minutes at the humbrol stand I picked humbrol enamel number 80. To cap off the day I paid a visit to the nrm's library. I have never been before and I was very impressed with it - I will definitely be visiting it again!!!! Whilst there I browsed through many old BRM magazines and Railway Modellers. I also had a cheeky look at some of the industrial books for a bit of inspiration. To top the whole day off I saw the royal train!!! It was untimetabled on RTT and we had no idea it was even there until we saw it emerge out from a siding. Totally taken by surprise and the fact that we were half way through our lunch meant that we were a bit slow to get our cameras out (we thought it was a Grand Central HST from a distance for some reason!) but we did get a snap of it leaving the siding. Right now I will crack on with the repaint progress and get it up here tomorrow hopefully. Until then, happy modeling.

Hahaha. Does actually kind of suit the layout. If that was repainted then I reckon you could get away with it as a freelance diesel shunter.

Like the colors of that grass. Nice and toned down just like the rest of the scene. Well done.

I've used that method before for making the end of oo gauge shovels. Fiddly work to do! If you are using the oven for vac forming then you will want to be careful not to burn the plastic or worse set it on fire!

Here is part 2 of the refurb pug project. So last time I had completed the very basic body detailing and now I begin to fine tune the detailing, make some more custom parts and prepare the model for painting. I felt that the cab was missing some detailing inside so I have made a reverser lever (I will make one to go along the boiler and to the valve gear as well at some point). The lever was made out of 1mm plasticard off cuts and will sit in the far right hand corner of the cab. After that I turned my attention to making some extensions for the coal bunker. I extended the height with some 10 thou plasticard bent to shape and held in place with some pound land super glue. I also made a false floor in the bunkers to allow a real coal load to be put in without taking up too much space. To accommodate the false floor I had to file and cut down the cast metal chassis. The dremel would have been very helpful had I had any metal cutting disks (I always seem to break them - Oops!). Coupling hooks were then added. These are modified off cuts of those old Dapol/kitmaster kits. Nice and simple to do an look quite good for what they are. They are fitted to both front and rear buffer beam. Now I didn't like the look of the molded Caledonian railway smoke box dart so that had to go. A new one was made out of a finely cut up staple. Here it is being glued with the assistance of a blob of blue tack. And off with the old smoke box dart. This was removed with a Stanley knife and a file. The hole was made for the wire insert by pushing a thumb tack into the smoke box door. I did this a couple of times so I had a fairly deep hole for the smoke box dart to be glued into. Then the smoke box dart was fastened in place with a drop of pound land super glue. So that's all for this post. Next job is to make a start of prepping it for paint, choosing the paint and actually painting it hopefully. Thanks for looking everyone.

But of a detailing project for you all today. So since my Hornby sentinel is going away for repairs for a while this leaves me with just my pug to run on Drum Lane. It's the more recent Hornby release of the Caledonian Pug but its detailing is still pretty primitive. Well time to change that. Firstly I added plasticard to make the front bufferbeam level and made some lamp irons out of staples. I'm fairly happy with how that turned out. Next up on the list was to file flat that ugly joint between the two halves of the boiler. This was done with your standard nail file. on the sides of the cab there were these little plastic bits that stuck out. I have no idea what they were but they looked like some dodgy lamp holders/brackets/irons and i didn't like them so they had to go. The bulk of the plastic was cut of with a sharp knife and the rest was then filed flat. So the last bit of detailing I have done for this post is filling in the gap at the back of the cab. Now I believe that some caley pugs had tenders built for them from adapted wagons and such so the gap at the back of the cab seems prototypical if you run your pug with a tender - but I don't. It just looked wrong so I have filled in the gap with some 10 thou plasticard. Right so the plan is to finish of some other small but essential detailing works before giving the pug a good repaint and also to have a look at trying to sort out a brake van for drum lane as my current one is just too big and cant get around the corners. Thanks for looking/posting and I hope to get some more progress up soon.