Towbridge Junction

Extremely nice work, the cab ends look spot on to me and the unit is looking good already. Look forward to seeing the completed unit soon 👍

Thanks very much! Hopefully I'll have enough progress on a couple of locos to make a new post fairly soon 👍

Hi, Thanks for the feedback. That's something I'd never noticed before, but should be a fairly simple job to do. I've ordered some more DB Red paint so shall crack on with that when it arrives. Certainly a detail worth getting right on this loco! Cheers, Laurence

And the second loco to come off the workbench recently is this fabulous DB 60, a repaint from Jon Gavin dating from around 2016 if my research is correct. (Photo taken from Jon Gavin's flickr) I found this loco and a few others going on eBay and since Jon Gavin's work has always been an inspiration of mine for many years, I couldn't really turn the chance down to own one of his locos. When it arrived I was very happy with it, but there were a couple of issues that bugged me with it. Firstly, the headlights would not work at all on either end and the wheels were far too shiny for my liking. I also thought I could do a better job with the white pipework on the bogies, but as I discovered this is incredibly fiddly indeed! After I spent many evenings resoldering wires from the N/D switch on the fuel tanks to each lighting PCB and rebending all the contacts to nurse the headlights back into life, I decided to paint the wheels and thought I'd leave them there since it would be close enough and would remove the 'Hornby Chrome' look. However as time progressed I felt more and more inclined to have a go at redoing the bogies and finally bit the bullet recently. Below is the loco now. After going over the bogies in frame dirt and then a light coat of weathered black, I had a go at redoing the white pipework on each bogie side. It is fair to say any modeller who can do this to the incredibly high standards that they do certainly has my respect! I thought the best approach was to lightly apply paint to the tip of a cocktail stick and slowly build up enough coats to have a smooth, neat finish. This was very fiddly to do, however, and was very time consuming overall. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with the job I've managed to do and am finding great peace of mind knowing that, for the time being at least, I won't have to do another one of these bogies for a while! Uploading these photos I've noticed that the colour match is certainly not perfect, but in person the loco does look a little more matched than these photos show. I suppose I could always use the excuse of it being 60062 after a recent bogie swap, but it will certainly do for the time being. Anyway, that's all from me for now. I'm not sure how soon the next complete project will be (as the hot weather and other life commitments always seem to be getting in the way of modelling these days!), but I'll be sure to post any progress as and when it's made. As always any feedback let me know, Cheers, Laurence

Evening all, While I crack on with the 73/9 (and many, many other bits and bobs!) I have a couple more project locos to show that I've recently completed. First up is one of the 4 66s in my collection, 66847 in Colas Railfreight livery. I found this Hattons 66 going for a very low price on their website back in February, in a pre-owned and fairly poor condition. After thinking about it for a while, I decided it was just too good to miss and bought it to have some fun with. When it arrived with me, it was clear that a fair few jobs needed doing on the loco and it was missing several fine details such as axleboxes, sanders, steps and various fine pipework. Fortunately I managed to find some of these missing parts loose in the postage box the loco was sent in, and sacrificing a few spare bufferbeam valences from my other Hattons 66s managed to source much of the missing front end details. The loco had also been DCC Fitted, which was a nice bonus, and the previous owner had attempted to weather the loco and had fitted a driver. Here's the before shot stolen from the original listing: First things first I decided to turn my attention to the bufferbeams. Although the original one was only missing one of the fine steps on the secondman's side, the bufferbeam itself was damaged and the areas next to the headlight clusters had both snapped off. This annoyed me too much and, since this loco came preowned and was missing its accessories pack, I chose to rob the spare fully moulded bufferbeam from my other Colas 66 (66848) and use that. I've always found the glue Hattons used on these was never the strongest, so I spent an evening taking the best parts from both beams and gluing each one into place as best as I could. At this time I also added a few of the missing parts, reattaching some of the brake details and sanding pipes to the bogies and sorted out the axleboxes. Bizarrely, this 66 didn't seem to wobble too much when running and as a result I only had to reattach a couple on each bogie, the rest seem very happy to stay on the loco. I also chose to attach the bodyside cab steps to the chassis as opposed to leaving them attached to the loco body to aid body removal and (hopefully!) prevent future damage to them when replacing the body. I also reattached the etched grille detail on the roof and made sure all the handrails and finer details were firmly in place. Next up came the job of tackling the loco's cosmetic appearance. I've always wanted to weather my other Colas 66 but never wanted to ruin it since it's in such good condition, so it was enjoyable to experiment on this Colas 66 to find out what looks best. I started off by painting the entire chassis in the usual Frame Dirt and Weathered Black mixes, but never really thought it looked right, so went back over the bogies and chassis frame in more Frame Dirt. I added all sorts of matte and gloss greys and blacks to the fuel tanks and used a few photos I have of the real loco as a rough guide. I painted the bufferbeams in a similar mix, but went less heavily for any frame dirt or sleeper grime, concentrating those colours towards the bottoms of the parts before going over them with some weathered black. I also painted the buffers, couplings and pipework in the appropriate colours. While doing this, I also had a go at doing some basic weathering of the exhaust and built up several layers of various greys, reds and blacks. It's certainly not the finest work, but it looks ok from a distance and will do while I brush up on my airbrush skills! As is probably quite obvious, I chose to remove all the bodyside weathering the previous owner did. Most of it seemed to be some sort of weathering powder and could easily be removed just by wiping the body with a cotton bud, but there were several places which put up quite a fight to remove. Although I managed to get most of it off, leaving behind quite a nice used but clean look with remnants of the weathering still in panel gaps and around the nose ends, some of the weathering ended up taking a lot of the Colas Railfreight lettering with it. Therefore, I had to very carefully re-apply some of the lettering, at first using a uni posca black paint pen, but finally using the edge of a cocktail stick with gloss black paint on. I'm probably the most happy with this part of the project, since it isn't too noticeable until you get very close to the bodysides. I chose to leave the driver as he was, since he was painted fairly well and I plan to return to a lot of my locos fitting crew anyway at some point in the future. Overall I'm fairly pleased with how the loco's come out. There are a few rough edges, but I think it looks much better now than when I first got it. I'm quite happy with a few of the things I experimented with on this loco too, such as painting the internal grille detail in frame dirt to get rid of some of the obvious blackness inside the loco, something that stands out in the sunshine. This certainly has inspired me to have a crack at my other 66s now! Any feedback/areas for improvement feel free to let me know, Laurence

Cracking work, that UTU looks fantastic 👍👍👍

Thanks very much, I'm glad you like it so far! Thanks also for the feedback about the grille surrounds, I had a look at some of my photos of the real things and see exactly what you mean. These surrounds were the second attempt at these parts after I managed to crack the first ones while filing down the edges of the holes. I reckon a third attempt is needed, since the holes also seem a tad too large in proportion to the rest of the body! That's a great idea about the grilles as well. I struggled to find anything suitable since most loco grilles are much smaller which is why I had settled on using this special wire mesh (apparently intended for making fly window nets out of!), but it's much too thick for an ideal representation. I completely didn't think of using class 60 grilles, they seem to be a very close match and will no doubt be a big improvement on what I currently have, so I think they too may be in order! Thanks very much for the positive feedback and the advice, Laurence 👍

Evening all, Felt I was overdue a bit of an update to one of my current projects that's really taking a lot of time. If you follow me on instagram, you'll have already seen this loco and these photos a few weeks ago, but I felt it would be worth posting it on here too while a few smaller projects are completed in the meantime. After years of waiting for one in oo gauge, I've finally succumbed to temptation and started converting a Dapol class 73/1 into a class 73/9, specifically one of the GBRf examples in the 73961-73965 number series (Most likely 73962 Dick Mabbutt, since this is a loco I regularly see and can find transfers for). I really did underestimate this challenge when I got it, thinking it would only take me a couple of months to do. Oh how wrong I was! Before I start mentioning the modifications I've done, here's what the donor loco for this project looked like when it arrived with me at the end of March. It was very much the cheapest Dapol 73 I could find (being a touch over £60 with postage) and was in need of a bit of TLC to get it right anyway, so I didn't feel as bad cutting bits of it up. The loco was weathered by its previous owner and was missing a few bogie details (and one of them was put on back to front) and has a few PCB issues meaning it works intermittently. Now onto what it looks like now. I'll try and summarise briefly what I've done in the 3 months since. I’ve: stripped the paint back fully, halved the side grill on the left hand side by the No.1 end using plasticard, removed the high intensity lights and installed some MU sockets from a scrap Lima 59 bodyshell, filled the fan moulding with more plasticard, removed the grill detail mouldings from the side grills and enlarged them significantly, removed the top roof grills and central roof beam, filled the old exhaust and gaps around it, cut a new exhaust slot, added a custom exhaust (made from a class 59 exhaust with some plastic tube), scratch built and installed a new fan unit by layering up plasticard and drilling a hole (this will also fit a spare Hornby class 31 fan I have in my spares bin. Yet to be fitted though!), added etched grills (from some fine mesh) to the roof and side grills, scratch built internal ribbing detail using super fine plasticard, scratch built the grill surrounds, removed the central section of the cantrail gutter, filled in the body side steps and finally cut new roof grills into the body, along with a rectangular one where the old fan was. I've also spent a few evenings making some headlight mountings from several layers of plasticard, sanded back to match the curves of the nose ends, but I am yet to fit them while I settle on a solution to how to light the model (the body screws are located immediately behind where these lights would be, meaning I'll be using PCB mounted LEDs from Track3D Railway Parts and hoping I can cut a channel just large enough into the chassis to not have to relocate these fastening screws!). You'll have to excuse the masking tape holding the side grills in place, I'm not 100% happy with them (I think the LHS grill surround is slightly too large, and the RHS looks wonky to me) and I plan to paint the internal piece separately when I reach the painting stage. There is plenty left to do, but the majority of the body modification work has been completed. I still need to drill the 4 rectangular slots into the fan assembly and do a lot of work on the ends, but otherwise I think I've captured most of the details of the prototype. I had thought about attempting to remodel the side grills (the real things having rectangular surrounds), but this might prove a little too fiddly for me to scratchbuild. So far I'm really quite pleased with how it's looking, I think it's starting to look more recognisable now. I've found that computer screens have always been cruel to my work (the big screens showing all my work's flaws a lot more clearly!), and viewing it on the computer shows a few imperfections already. Most notably, my top marker light holes are completely off centre on both ends and will definitely need redoing before I can insert the light tubes. Also, it seems like I've mounted the MU sockets ever so slightly too high on each end, though this I can probably live with since it's only slight. All the polyfiller will need neatening up too, but that will come more easily once I prime the loco. Everything else though I'm quite happy with, especially since everything has been done by eye so far because I cannot find any drawings of the real locomotives to get reliable measurements from. As is probably obvious, there's a huge amount of thing left to be done to the loco. I have not started modifying the chassis yet, but plenty of work will need to be done to replicate the new equipment on the prototypes. I will also need to scratchbuild new pipework for each end (I'm planning to use wire that I'll bend into shape for these) and of course the hangers on each end for these pipes. If I do settle on 73962 I'll also need to replicate the mounting bracket on the No.1 end for an emergency ladder which can in real life be fitted to the loco to allow it to run on the GN lines through the tunnels (or so I'm told!). This I'm less sure about how I will model, since it will be very small and difficult to scratchbuild, but hopefully I'll find a way soon. The bufferbeams will need attending to as well and all the missing details will be replaced. After all that's done I'm hoping to move onto the electrics and install light to the loco. I am fortunate to have several spare light clusters from scrap class 150 body shells so I will be using those for this loco and as previously mentioned I'll be using the lighting circuits from Track3D's class 166 lighting upgrade kit. I'll also have to address the running problems this loco originally came with, but that's something I can worry about later! I hope you like what I've done so far, this really has been weeks of work so far. If there's anything I've missed or anything you notice that's wrong, please do let me know. All the work I've done has been using photos I took of the real things, so I'm sure I'll have missed something! Thanks very much. Any questions let me know, Laurence

Something else I've been working on recently (not a class 73 for once!)... A loco I've had for years now but never had detailed is 67002 in Arriva Blue livery. I bought this loco very nearly 6 years ago to the day and have always liked the livery but found it very boring, so I decided to have a bit of fun with it. Ever since doing my other class 67 (67013 in DB Schenker livery, which is in my first post) I've wanted to do a similar job on this loco but wanted to include a few differences to break up the monotony a bit. So I painted the whole underframe, bogies and wheels in railmatch Frame Dirt, making sure to leave the brake discs unpainted to replicate the prototype. I then went over the fuel tank to add various different streaking in various finishes of blacks and greys and added some railmatch Oily Steel to the tops of the steps on the bogies. Turning my attention to the No.1 end, I fitted the bufferbeam valence and filled the gap with polyfiller. I then added the knuckle coupler and all the pipework and coupling hook, and painted the end in weathered black over a coat of frame dirt, picking out the pipework in the appropriate colours. Next up was the cab, which was a very fiddly part to get back in place. Nothing too special but I thought since the class 67 has a large windscreen it would be worth trying to pick out some of the panels and controls/dials. Admittedly quite hard to see, but I used a few photos of the real cab of 67002 to work out which panels to paint. The real cab seems very grey, so I only painted a couple of panels in weathered black, picking out the dials in a black paint pen. After about half an hour wrestling to get the cab interior back in place, I then could turn to the roof and went over the panel gaps in Humbrol black wash. I also painted the exhaust in a mixed red shade trying to replicate that on the real thing, painting the red over areas of roof dirt to add a more varied appearance. I'll need to airbrush on some proper exhaust streaks to the roof, but otherwise I'm quite pleased with how it looks. Finally, I used a bit of modeller's license to add an EWS Maroon cab window surround. In real life this did happen, but to 67001 and not 67002. I'm really pleased with it though since this adds a new element of interest in an otherwise plain livery. Overall I'm pleased with how it looks now. It matches my DB Skip now and looks much more presentable now its silver buffers and shiny black bogies have gone! That's all for now, I might post with another couple of projects soon as I make progress with them but it's early days still. Any feedback or questions let me know! Laurence

Evening all, Felt I was overdue a modelling update and while I work on a couple of much more in depth projects (I'll happily post these if anyone's interested, but they're far from finished and are certainly taking a lot of my time!) I have a few 73s I've recently done some bits on. First up is GBRf 73205. This is a loco I've had for a while and weathered early on, but I was never really happy with it. So when browsing Fox Transfers' website and discovering etched nameplates for this very loco, I thought I'd come back to it and neaten up a few areas. I tried to replicate the weathering on the real GBRf 73s as they're seen today, so painted the chassis, roof and grills in Frame Dirt. After I neatened up this weathering in a few areas I came back to the roof and painted the 2 panels in a beige sort of colour I'd mixed up, which makes it look a lot better in my opinion, and painted the cabs. I also removed the unnecessary moulded pipework from the bufferbeam, filling any holes for redundant pipework, to make it in line with a real 73/2. I haven't fitted any pipes to either end since I like to sometimes double head this with my other 73s. Finally, I also fitted the etched nameplates, which really do make a difference to the loco's looks. Here're a few photos of the locos as it looks now. It's certainly not perfect, but I'm happy with how it looks at a distance which will certainly do for now! The next 73 is another I had yet to post about, since it was a project loco of mine just before I got RMWeb, 73101 in its unique Pullman Livery. As is now a standard procedure, the whole chassis inside was painted in weathered black, to get rid of the prominent light grey plastic layer from the factory, and the cabs were painted and detailed carefully. Since I wanted to use the loco both in its 90s guise and its early 2000s state with EWS (not accurate I know since it changed names), I decided to weather it a little more than I would ordinarily for a loco like this so I painted the whole chassis and wheels in Frame Dirt. I also went over the roof in a light grey to tone that down and painted the bufferbeams in roof dirt to blend them in slightly better. I also picked out some of the moulded pipework and added various details as needed from my spares. Recently though I've come back to add the etched nameplates which have come out nicely on this loco. Unusually the factory printed plates are smaller than the etched ones, it usually happens the other way round meaning I have to remove the printed plates before fitting the etched plates, but that means there are no obvious signs of any work done by me which I'm very pleased about. Here it is: I'm quite pleased with this loco. Certainly is miles ahead of my old lima one, that's for sure! The final 73 for now is my second oldest Dapol 73, 73102 Airtour Suisse. This is a loco I picked up second hand and had been previously weathered (It looks similar to Olivia's trains' weathering, but I can't say for sure) and, for the most part, looked good. There were a few areas that bugged me though, such as the wheels which were unpainted, and at each end there were obvious signs of masking to cover the windscreens. This masking meant half the windows/window surrounds were filthy, the other half completely untouched, and some of the masking lines even went off at strong angles. To fix this, I used a cotton bud dipped in enamel thinner and carefully set to work trying to clean up the lines a bit. I was careful to miss the glazing when doing this and am much happier with the resulting look to the loco. As per usual, the cabs were painted and I added the various details to one end, trying to colour match the previously applied weathering. I also removed the printed nameplates as best as I could while the thinner was out, trying not to remove too much of the weathering to avoid noticeable blobs of black around the plates, and fitted the etched plates. Overall it looks quite rough and ready now, and the windscreen surrounds will definitely need addressing in the future, but I'm much happier with the loco now. Here're the photos: That's all for now. As I say, I've been working lots on a few long term projects that are still very much in their early days yet, so progress on smaller projects has been slow. I might do a post introducing a couple of these big projects at some point though, since I'm very excited about them, though they'll have to be mid project style shots instead of the finished articles I normally post! Cheers, Laurence

Wow this really does look superb! Just discovered this thread but I eagerly look forward to seeing more 👍👍👍

Ah very good, they really do look superb. Yes that's the problem with Shapeways, plenty of stuff but for plenty of money which is very offputting these days. I remember seeing that conduit in several photos of the real thing when doing my research. It looks like the window arrangement changed on one side as well at the same time it lost its conduit. Certainly interesting to see the variations it has had over the years, especially since one of my long term projects is creating some of the old Serco liveried test stock, so maybe one day I'll attempt to do it in late 90s/early 2000s condition!

Thanks very much! That's a key detail I had completely missed when converting these, and looking at photos of the prototype (especially 999550) there are all sorts of aerials and equipment missing from the roof of my coaches. Did you scratch build all the fittings for yours or were you able to buy some pre-made from somewhere? Your 977997 really does look fantastic I have to say, as does the rest of the NR stock that runs on Deadmans Lane. I've been watching lots of it from the recent Ally Pally Exhibition and am particularly keen on having a go at modelling 73138 having seen it parked up on the layout in several shots. Keep up the excellent work 👍 Cheers, Laurence

Wow absolutely fantastic work! I absolutely love those 37s, especially 37042 😍 Always been in awe of this thread for years, but only recently set up an account to be able to post. Keep up the fantastic work, I look forward to seeing more fantastic locos in the future 👍👍👍

Just discovered this thread, some absolutely fantastic work on here. I eagerly await seeing more, I already feel inspired to dig out my old Hornby HSTs and give them similar upgrades! Keep up the excellent work 👍👍👍

Good evening, Another loco and another 73 I’ve been working lots on recently. Undeniably one of my favourite locos in my collection is 73206 Lisa in GBRf livery, so when I was scrolling through eBay a few months ago and found another one at a price that was too good to turn down I thought I’d get it, have some fun with it and sell it on. Thing is I did a much better job on the new 73206 than on my original one, having spent much more time on it so I decided that, since having 2 identical locos was a bit excessive even by my standards, I would sell my original one. Now that loco’s been sold, it was only right to make sure I was 100% happy with 73206 V2.0, and thankfully I am quite pleased indeed with it. So here’s a list of all the things I’ve done to this new loco: - Painted the entire chassis block inside dark grey to improve the look through the grills/side windows - Removed the printed nameplates with thinners and fitted Fox Transfers etched ones in their place, eliminating the small bits of printed plate bleeding round the edges (a problem with my last one) - Modified each bufferbeam to be true to the prototype, removing various moulded pipework and sockets, filling in any holes with filler - Detailed up one bufferbeam, this time on the No.1 end (my previous 206 was the other way round) - Detailed each cab, taking extra care to pick out various dials/controls in varying colours, something which I think improves the look well. I also changed the headcode to 73 from the factory supplied 10 - Painted the inside walls of each cab an off white cream colour similar to one used in several loco cabs. I also painted parts of the cab insert that colour too. - Weathered the whole thing my usual way, being careful not to miss any bits. I also painted the wheels at this stage. - Picked out all the various pipework and painted components on the bogies and bufferbeams, weathering the steps, buffers, scratch plate and nose ends to help match them in with the rest of the loco - Went over each grill with gradual layers of Railmatch Weathered Black and Roof Dirt to help give it a clean but used look - Painted the whole roof in Roof Dirt and finally picked out the silver panels under each cab door, something that bizarrely Dapol’s 73206 release is missing, but its sister release, 73205, does have. Overall I’m extremely happy with how well this has come out. The quality of my painting seems to be much higher than my previous 73206, especially on the roof where the paint is smooth and full, instead of on my previous one where you could see some of the brush strokes and small parts I’d missed in bright sunshine. I’m really pleased with the cabs too, I think they make a good difference to the loco than in the unpainted grey Dapol supply the locos with. And seeming as I’m going all out with uploading photos of it, here’re a few detail shots too 😉 I’m sure you’ll be seeing plenty more of this loco in various uploads and videos in the future, but for the time being that’s all from me. I’ve been working lots on a number of projects, but none of those are complete enough to post about so they’ll have to wait for another day! In the meantime I hope you like 73206 V2.0, and if anyone has any questions or feedback, I’d love to hear it. Cheers, Laurence

Just discovered this thread, looks like there's some fantastic work here. Look forward to seeing more 👍

Cor!! Brilliant weathering and graffiti, looks just like the real wagons. Just discovered this thread, I look forward to seeing more in the future 👍👍👍

Evening all, Since RMWeb's back I thought I'd do the same and write about something that's been keeping me busy for the past few months. Undoubtedly one of my favourite trains, I've always been fascinated by the Network Rail PLPR and UTU test trains. I love the variations and non-standard modifications on each coach, so it was a natural choice to model in oo gauge. In 2017 I bought a Hornby Mk1 BG and a Hornby Railroad Mk2E TSO, FO and brake and quickly set about repainting them into a rough Network Rail livery. Thing is, I was never happy with the job I did. I never looked at the prototypes before I started painting, and I certainly did not modify any of the coaches structurally, opting instead to just paint various windows over which never looked good. Fast forward a few years until November last year when I ran my test rake for the last time. After looking at them, in a generally shabby and untidy state, I decided I had to redo them, but properly this time. So I quickly set to work, attacking my Mk1 BG first. When I initially did this coach, I hadn't given any thought to the prototype and as such there were many inaccuracies. First job was to remove the sets of doors that weren't needed anymore which I did using Polyfiller. Next I tackled the problem of the windows. Looking at the real things, several windows have been plated over and there are 4 characteristic grills which fill 4 of the windows on the coach. So I scratch built some window blanks, using normal plasticard for the plated over windows and evergreen Clapboard to replicate (albeit in an amateur sense) the grills. Plenty of sanding, gluing, filling and more sanding later, the coach was starting to look more like the real thing. A problem area holding it back, however, were the ends. The real thing has had its steps and some of its handrails removed and has a noticeable clean look to it, so I had a go at replicating this on mine. I found this unexpectedly tricky for some reason, but managed to largely remove traces of the steps and pipework, although the sunshine is cruel to my efforts! The final areas to address were the roof and underframe. The roof had parts of the handrail removed, which I found came out very well on one end of the coach, and 2 unnecessary mouldings (some sort of vents? I'm not sure) in the middle removed. I wanted to try adding the exhaust slots for the generators, but chickened out I'm afraid. The underframe was addressed too, I removed the unneeded steps on the chassis and swapped the bogies to be correct B4 bogies. I realise since doing this that there should be another battery box under the coach, so maybe one day I'll add that. After all that, the coach was painted using Halfords Fiat Golden Yellow and the usual underframe weathered black and frame dirt mix was applied. Oh, and I added some jumper cables to the ends from a class 37. Not 100% accurate I know, but hopefully I'll get away with it! Overall I'm really happy with this coach. It was a lot of work, but it looks close enough for me. Who knows, maybe in 5 years time I'll come back and do it again! The second coach to be addressed was my Mk2E TSO. I hadn't put any thought into it when I bought it, but one of my favourite coaches is test car 999550 with its unusual window layout. So I had a go at replicating it using this coach for it. Window blanks were made using the same plasticard sheet and the windows cut and shut until they roughly matched what I was after. Plenty of filling and sanding late and the coach was painted in the same colours as the Mk1. It was at this point, however, that I noticed a glaring mistake. As I say, this was a Mk2E and the real thing has the general chassis of a Mk2F, so I sacrificed the accuracy of one of my Virgin Mk2Fs for this coach. Swapping the chassis was easy since they're essentially identical, but I spent a few evenings ensuring that the underframe matched the real coach, chopping off unwanted boxes and adding a few in in various places to replicate the arrangement on the real thing. I also experimented with a couple of 2mm tower LEDs. They're not wired in yet, but they might add an extra level of realism to the coach when I come to run it. Brake discs were added too. Here's how it looks: I'm once again really happy with how this came out. There's a square window blank I'm not ecstatic about (second window in from the right), and I think there is plenty of room for improvement, but overall it does vaguely resemble the real coach. Certainly much better than how it used to look! Finally comes the turn of my Mk2E FO. This coach coincidentally already vaguely resembled a real thing, No.1256, when I first did it. Happily, 1256 is a coach I've seen several times with 999550, so it was meant to be. This had much the same done, window blanks made and and adjustments made to the underframe, but thankfully no more Virgin Mk2Fs were harmed in the making of this coach! Plenty of the underframe was chopped and relocated and one day I plan to fit lights into this too, since this coach has several in real life. Painting was the same, and the coach had brake discs fitted too. This one's still a work in progress, so there are a few rough edges I need to address, but here it is: As I say, there are a few bits on this coach I need to neaten up, but it looks ok when in the rake and moving round. As with 999550 it's in need of some jumper cables and some more work done on each end, but I'm largely happy with how it looks. Overall I'm very happy to finally be able to run this rake again with my 73s and 37s. They're not perfect, but they're coaches I don't often see modelled in oo gauge and it's nice to not feel totally ashamed when looking at them!

Thanks very much! Funny you should mention, I bought a cheap dual action airbrush last month and have been messing around with it with varying success. It’s definitely a learning curve, but with any luck I should be able to do my first full airbrush respray within the next few months if things go well. The results are very impressive I have to say, the finish is to a much higher standard and it seems much more flexible than using conventional rattle cans. Certainly hope to be using it a lot more in the future!

Thanks very much! Definitely agree, there’s something special about leaving your own mark on the locos, makes them much more unique and enjoyable to watch run once you’ve worked hard on them. I just hope I don’t ruin any of them!

Now for part 3 in this introduction! Something a bit whacky, I had a go at trying to replicate the spotlights on 31233 since the loco I bought was missing most of its factory fitted ones. Unable to find anything exact, I found some generic unbranded 1:87 scale LED spotlights online and thought they looked roughly the right size. They're too large to be accurate, but they capture some of the essence of what I was going for. The rest of the loco was treated to the normal underframe weathering to match the rest of my stock. Not sure this'll be to everyone's taste! And now for a loco I'm still working on a bit now. I bought this body of 37884 off eBay and put it on a spare chassis I had. Unhappy with how it looked however, I decided to have a go at doing it properly so took to google. The buffers were swapped for Hornby class 67 buffers, a dummy dropdown tightlock coupler was added (I forget who makes it now, but it's very good), a mix of Dapol class 68 and the supplied pipework was added before the whole chassis was weathered, with wheel tick marks added as well. I also added the missing lamp iron and the 2 details above the marker lights (I have no idea what these are called!) taken from a spare nose end and painted. By a happy coincidence, Railmatch's weathered black is a very good match for the dark grey Bachmann used on this livery. The horns were also deepened by drilling into the surface with various sizes of drill bits to create some depth. I really like this loco, but there are a few details to finish off (The M.U. socket, tailights and swapping the marker lights to mention a few!), which I'm sure I'll post in due course. And that's about it for now. I'll post any progress as and when I make it with various locos and rolling stock, but in the meantime I hope someone enjoys what I've done! Any questions please ask, Laurence

Continuing from my first post... A few more locos to add. First up, a couple of Dapol class 73s, 73141 and 73206. I bought 141 in very poor condition with many parts missing, so repaired and detailed it up. Both locos were weathered in my usual way, with the cabs, wheels and chassis block painted (something I think makes quite a big difference to the loco's appearance). I very much like 73s, so these 2 are regulars in my videos and running sessions. 73206 was a fairly similar job, with some missing parts replaced and a general detail/weather, with the bufferbeam detailed correct to a 73/2. This was also the first 73 I detailed up. A 37 up next. Started off life as a Bachmann EWS 37411 model, nose ends from rainbow railways added and the whole model stripped and painted using a couple of spray paints. Still not really finished with this loco since there's still bits to be painted and parts to be added, but it's something a little more unusual. That'll do for a part 2. I'll add another few after this and then I should be up to date with most of the projects. Thanks for reading if you've got this far!

Hi, After many years being tempted, I've finally decided to get on RMWeb and share some of the modelling projects I'm working on. I'm very much not a professional when it comes to repainting, detailing, modifying and weathering locos and rolling stock and I have much to learn still, but I hope someone will find what I do enjoyable. A little about me. Some of you may already know me from my Instagram page trains_by_lorrydsb, or maybe even from YouTube where I have a channel called Towbridge Junction. But for those who don't, my name's Laurence and I model predominantly in oo gauge, with a very small amount on n gauge on the side. Although I have a very basic oval style layout which I run from time to time, I mostly just focus on the trains, running them outside whenever the weather's good enough. I'm interested in a wide variety of eras, but my main 2 are late 80s/early 90s and the present day and I'm a fan of classic traction and diesel locos. I quite often end up finding and buying cheap locos to have a bit of fun with, these I call my project locos. I prefer to use a minimal approach to my weathering, liking to keep the locos looking relatively clean but in use and not ex-works. I'm currently working on a variety of projects, but before I post anything about those I though I'd upload a few photos of some of my previous projects and project locos. I might make full posts about each one if anyone would like to hear/see more of any of them, but for the time being I'll stick to 1 or 2 per loco with a brief description of what I did. In no particular order first up is 67013. A simple weathering job, the front valence and dummy knuckle coupler was added, the gap between filled and then painted over, while the bufferbeam was detailed and weathered and the whole chassis and wheels were treated to a coat of railmatch frame dirt. Overall I quite like this loco, though there are a couple of things left to do on it. Next up another Hornby loco, this time in the form of 31452. I bought this loco cheap online and decided to try something a little different. The loco's chassis was weathered in my normal way (several coats of frame dirt followed by a quick coat of Weathered Black, with the axleboxes and pipework picked out), but I also had a go at replicating some of the patch paint repairs on both sides. The bufferbeam was detailed too, and Hornby's factory lighting fault was improved by changing the taillight lenses on both ends. Think that's about all I can manage to include in this post, so I'll do a follow up one with some more locos. In the meantime though if anyone has any questions or comments about the things I've done, please feel free to share Cheers, Laurence