taybridge

OK, so here's the current state of Test Car 2, with fading light stopped play and time for a glass of red.. plenty of touching up still to be done at some point, still not so bad B)

Cheers Gary -- will no doubt be back again next year! The rail lines are a tourist gold mine... in summer there could easily be a train each day from Devonport to Hobart (and reverse in the afternoon) to take tourists and foot passengers from the Spirit of Tasmania ferry early morning arrrival directly to Hobart town centre...

I wonder who designed the central line with the buffer stop? Must have been the shortest route in the country...

I highly recommend a trip to Tasmania (during summer ). Loads of cherries, raspberries, nice wines and cheeses, and we always bring back steak and salmon in chilly bins. Take your car over on the ferry and it's easy to tour around and bring back the goodies. There's a campaign on-going to bring back passenger trains in Hobart, and the railway preservation folk think there's a very good chance of new access arrangements being legislated that will mean passenger carrying railtours can be brought back onto the mainlines...

Happy New Year Peter - yes we are well and expecting our baby in late April, so preparing for that and not able to do much in the way of the layout. Just about to paint the Test Car roof and underframe. Coming along nicely. Was in Tasmania over Christmas and picked up a few scenery items in a local model railway shop as I'm getting some ideas for some layout enhancements. Also took some photos of the railways over there... fascinating and the new grey/yellow Tasrail livery is very cool! Worthy of their own rmweb topic so here it is: rmweb topic for Prototype Tasmania Narrow Gauge Worth modeling... but not much RTR available...

By the way my jaw dropped when I read that Hornby is to release a Gresley buffet in blue/grey, having resprayed one a few months ago! But then I am guessing they won't be changing the window arrangements so I can pick my jaw up again My effort...

It's a beautiful day here in Melbourne, so I've masked up Test Car 2 in preparation for spraying the red window band! Following that I'll get on with the roof and underframe...

Here is a photo of Test Car 2 in the works - you can see what I mean - loads to do...

... blue now completed ... Still got red window stripe, yellow/black gangway doors, underframe and roof to go ... phew. Doubt I'll get that done by Christmas!

Test car 2... image on traintesting.com White undercoat completed...

Dismantled the coach... bit more difficult to get the body off the underframe as the person in the factory had used glue at all four corners... sigh. Don't they realise that the customer probably wants to dismantled their handiwork?

Bought another southern region green Mk1 Brake/second for converting into a Test Car

Now for a departmental living and messing van... ex LNER gresley sleeper. Original is here from early-mid 80s. I haven't seen any other modellers doing these.... there are a lot of excellent departmental prototypes to model - lots of pre-grouping coaches in interesting colours and they were kicking around all over the place... check out Paul Bartlett's most excellent photo record, e.g.: BR Easter Region Departmental Coaches SR Departmental Coaches There was a Gresley baggage car in Perth half BR blue and half stripped back to teak! My work in progress... yet another work in progress ... going to have to finish something at some point

Don't know about plain blue, but certainly blue/grey and red.. photographs by Paul Bartlett Great resource, that!

NNX courier van update:

Conversions really are great fun, I agree Ian. Doug.

NNX courier van work in progress... These Southern region coaches are great! No lining and virtually no markings to remove!

Day off work! Popped in to town (Flinders Street station) and bought a Bachmann BSK in BR Southern Green. Converting into an NNX Courier van: NNX Courier Van - Paul Bartlett image All the plasticard and filler work completed. Will paint next weekend B)

Thanks Stewart, hope your hip is getting better, good wishes from Melbourne with a big to cheer you up. Glad you like my layout, though it's only loosely based on GlasgowQS of course... it's got a loco depot and DMU depot right outside the station throat and I'm considering adding a dedicated parcels depot to the south of platform 7... anyway, we'll see how that goes over the next year!

STEP 9 Airbrush the roof, underframe, bogies and corridor connections, and pop everything back together again.. This one's been cleaned so the coach sides aren't mucky. B) Still a fair bit to be done in the future - including numbering and the thin white line around the grey window band.

It's time to ask the manufacturers for a new Mk1 sleeper model! B) B) B) B) B) B) B) I'll happily trade in my 2 x Mk3 sleepers for a mix of mixed and first class Mk1 sleps.. The first couple of times I travelled in Mk3 sleps I didn't sleep well because of the aircon. Too NOISY and the air was too, I don't know, dry?! Didn't have that problem with the Mk1 sleps, mind you I was about 5 at the time Best overnight train sleep I had was a DB 6 berth couchette from Munich to Hamburg. Went to sleep in a full cabin, woke up and on way in to Hamburg and I was the only one left. Dunno where everyone else got off - I certainly didn't notice. That reminds me of Munich station on the night of departure. I walked right out to the end of the platform must have been about 10pm, trains coming and going under the stars, fabulous!

You'll be at your 50,000th topic view soon... now that's a milestone! A real achievement, and a credit to you

Thanks Peter! No worries just yet, as I have absolutely no idea what numbers to put on 'em! Doug.

Love the shot of the 33 in dusk light... still can't get over your half constructed/deconstructed wall to the left of the platform. Genius!

STEP 9 Tomorrow... airbrush the bogies, underframe, roof and corridor connections, and re-assemble for completion.