The Evil Bus Driver

That's good, since one of my 'off scene' destinations is intended to be Reading.

Might be worth looking at some of the old footage of the 50s on 8 mk2s at Waterloo and see how some of the consists are made up. There do seem to be two brake coaches and often a BFK in there.

I've just noticed one of mine is NSE branded rather than Inter City. Not a problem as I can get a blanking patch and alter them (I'm mindful of the warranty, of course) although certain rogue thoughts have now turned to building a small 1980s era layout... that's the era of my childhood too 🤔 On other things there's a third detail bag with yellow thingies in it in the IC branded ones, on a sprue. Destination boards perhaps? They do appear to have writing on them. It's all part of the fun figuring these things out though.

I haven't been brave enough to venture 'into the bag' as yet. I reckon once I've got a few hours free I'll set up a test track* and run mine. I'm planning to build a portable test track. More on that soon.

I've just finished making up my 2D rake, with one (Mainline) exception it's all Airfix. It took ages to get the TSOs due to their relative rarity.

Excellent! Thanks for the info. I must admit my look at them on my test plank was a bit quick since I was laid up with the horrible lurgy that's been going round. I'll give mine a closer look once I get a few minutes. Now we need to ask for some 2As at this quality.

Mine just arrived and they are beauties! Great Underframe detail and two accessory bags each plus a wafty stick. There's a selection of different coupler options plus various pipe details in the bags. The free running of them is a dream. So smooth! I'm looking forward to running them on more than my maintenance plank though. The detailing is exquisite, even picked out are the little hinges and flat metal parts on the gangway doors. The buffers are modelled in the retracted position, as is correct except for on the end coach (one of which might have been a mk1 BG anyway) Another win for Accurascale!

It certainly is a House of Goodies at the moment 😀

Of course those are Cig/Vep/REP/TC type gangways which are slightly different to LHCS ones, both in shape and construction. LHCS had a rounded arch and a rubber cover, REP types had a shroud and square section walkway. AIUI the door was rail grey.

Your premises must be like a TARDIS with all these shipping containers arriving.

Wasn't 158701 the one that had to be rebuilt due to chassis issues? Regarding the mk2 stock were these an earlier variation of the 2a as often they are shown with a mk1 style sliding gangway door crasher than the usual double folding end doors. Or am I missing something?

Mine arrived on Wednesday and its a work of art!

Mine can't be too far away then. My 3 preorders are with Rails so they're probably going through a huge number of boxes full of wonderful things...

So it's looking decidedly coach-ey again. I've taken off any old glue I could. It's not perfect but this won't be a front line coach so it doesn't matter. It'll be fine for shunting it in and out of a siding or around a yard. The new end is fitted. I didn't realise CC did the ends as spares, even if they did have the address of our infamous friend, Mr. Dunn on the label. The new end in situ. Starting to retake shape. I have some M3 screws on order and corresponding nuts and washers to fit the bogies. These will need bearings and decent wheels. I've got a feeling there are a fair few wheel purchases in my future. Then the interior. I'll be building this up on a piece of plasticard and basing it off a Bachmann FK interior, suitable edited to fit the CC Underframe. The coach will be primed before the glazing goes in. It'll be finished jn blue and grey although I'm not sure if it'll be regular or that nasty washed out blue when a coach has been out of service for a long time. It's not quite time for that yet. Can you believe I still have all the glazing? Somewhere. It all fits nicely in this box, except for the roof and corridor partition. Of course, emptying the box out to use it for storage was delicious too. 😋 That's about it for now.

OK I'll find the minute bits of plastic that represent them. And a Magnifying glass and tweezers 😳

Many thanks. It'll be painted blue and grey so were the brackets still in place by then?

I'm awaiting the Email from Rails. Any day now.

Something dropped through my letterbox today...

😁 💸 💰

Yeah maybe put it at 50 or 55 it'll probably go. I've been outbid every time I've gone for one.

I'm looking at probably 30 to 40. Bit skint at the moment though mainly partly due to going shopping on Accurascale's website hehe

Mk2a coaches. I'm not paying £70 to £100 on Ebay for a second hand Bachmann TSO

Not to mention of course that the ship has to go a slightly longer way to avoid the Red Sea so I'm guessing it'll take an extra couple of weeks on top. Worth it to avoid having our locos used for target practice though.

Excellent news. Hopefully we'll all have our grubby mitts on them within a week.

I visited the model railway club at Woodford Halse with our club not so long ago. They've got a great layout that spans three rooms. I went and took a look at whats left of the station. Not a lot but you can see the bridges and the bricked up entrance. And on some aerial pictures you can see where the turning 'wye' for the loco shed was.