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I think Max will walk the drivers championship again as even if it is closer with the other teams, only RB has a clear no1 driver. Both George and Oscar have shown they can finish races in front of their more illustrious team mates on a regular basis which is something that Perez is less capable of doing. The constructors will be tighter and if RB look like they won't win it, expect Perez to be out...

I had to drive to one of my fulfilment centres in Burton on Trent today and the M5 was particularly full of curtainside lorries at 5am this morning so great for doing some research. My particular area of interest was the locking bars and hinges on the rear doors as I don't have any reference pics of the rear of the trailer I am modeling. The most common arrangement was 2 vertical locking bars on each door with the handles one above the other. My first job was to liberate the 4 handles from the lower section I had cut out under the doors I then made some doors out of thin plasticard which was overlaid on the original doors. After a bit of trial and error I managed to mark up the doors for the bars which are made from 0.45mm rod. Next to follow is hinges and some end pieces for the bars. Up front I chopped away the lower part of the front and replaced the removed section with a flat sheet. Not pictured but the upper section has had a skim of filler as I start the process of smoothing it out to represent the fibreglass fairing of the prototype trailer.

The Wickham looks great Richard!

If you still wants some chairs Dave I have some C&L spares from when I did 4mm you can have? PM and I can bang them in the post.

As the tractor unit is in primer, I decided to make a start on the trailer. The trailer as supplied at first glance looks a close match (barring replacing the box underneath with side guards) however as ever it is not always that simple. From behind the rear lights and under run bar are very continental looking so will be replaced and "Long Vehicle" plates will be fitted. It is also fitted with doors which have the locking mechanism hidden however this wasn't very common on UK built trailers in the 1990s so the doors will be adapted, I will reuse the handles if I can. At the front the the front panel was flat on my prototype trailer on the lower section while the upper part was a fibreglass fairing. The plan is to cut away the lower part and replace with flat plastic card then fill and smooth the top part. First stage was to dismantle it. 3 screws and the pallet box hold the die-cast chassis in place. I will leave the floor in the body as I can't access the triangular head screws in the deep shafts. The chassis will be detailed as it is basic, I will probably scratchbuild some axle casing and add some winding mechanism to the trailer legs. The rear lights etc were easy to remove, I need to Chop off the retaining plate from the chassis, which hopefully will be easier than the chassis mods on the tractor. In other news Jo has sent me some of the artwork he has modified to test fit which will be tomorrow nights job and I am looking forward to getting stuck into.

I was very tempted when I saw it at Crewe. Looks gorgeous.

Loads of little jobs today as the physical modifications come to an end. I had been scratching my head over what to use for a fuel tank as Stratos were fitted with cylindrical fuel tanks which was unusual by the time as most other manufacturers (including sister company Pegaso) used rectangular tanks as for the same chassis length you had a greater capacity of fuel, especially important for 6 wheel tractor units which had to accommodate the extra axle in the same chassis length. The ex fuel tanker tractor unit I am modeling had quite a small tank as it would return to its base depot at night and thus was not required to do long distances and it is desirable to minimise weight on a tanker anyway as they meet the maximum legal weight before they are full. In the end I decided to repurpose a recently purchased 3d printed oil drum which was spare. I sanded off the existing detail and made some new tank straps from plastic strip Once dry I made some fuel tank mounts and a filler cap On the otherside I made a step below the battery box from 0.7mm brass rod and scratchbuilt the cat walk from some 0 gauge chequer plate. This is a later addition as when the tractor unit was a fuel tanker it would very rarely be uncoupled from the tank trailer and so removing the cat walk saved weight however this would be impractical for the vehicles later life. Also nearly finished is the air intake, some further sanding and filler required but it is getting there. A further modification was to move the exhaust pipe to behind the front bumper, with the exit just under the step, another fuel tanker specific requirement. I repurposed the original exhaust silencer and some pipework. Final modification was to convert the mirror setup from left hand Drive to right hand drive. This entails moving the extra wide angle mirror from the UK drivers side to passenger side, I was lucky to be able to carefully cut the mirror of the original mirror arm After I took the above it has been taken into the garage for a coat of primer so I can see any bits needing more filling etc.

Hi Dave, I iust had a look and can see what you mean. The Oxford one is the near identical AEC version, the grille is the only difference but it seems Oxford have yet to do a Bison, sorry for the confusion https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/products/aec-ergomatic-tipper-london-brick-company-76tip005?variant=36067073753243&currency=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_O_glvu5gwMViYCDBx2xsg8wEAQYASABEgKlWfD_BwE

Yep, I would go with Bison, the Oxford Die-cast model is is good model of it. Your Neighbour is referring to the fixed head 510 engine, which weren't great, a horizontal version was fitted to the Leyland National bus and was legendary for its ability to produce smoke and breakdown.

They look nice little projects Chris, in my experience Slaters are pretty good sending spares quite quickly. Hope you have a good new year.

Looks a nice project! Yep there are very few Stratos left in the road as even the newest ones will be 18 years old. A couple of bits of progress on the model, firstly with the rear light clusters. Seddon used generic rear light units which were the same used by all the British manufacturers at the time as well as some trailer manufacturers. I scratchbuilt 4 units as I need 2 for the trailer as well. These were fixed to scratchbuilt stays which also held the number plate on one side and a Seddon Atkinson badge on the other. With the chassis nearly finished (except the diesel tank) I made a start on the dashboard conversion. This is one of the hardest parts as the dash is handed so unlike some of the earlier conversions I have done, the bits are curved I basically kept the top vent rail intact and then chopped out 4 sections containing the glove box, heater,switches and dashboard then re ordered them. It is not perfect and needs some more filler but will be passable when completed. With the build advancing well, I have also started work on gathering the artwork for Jo to the transfers. It is actually quite hard to find square on photos of things like the grille but persistentence paid off and I was lucky to find other photos of my reference truck. Some of the artwork was hand typed but Jo has better skills and software than me to finesse some of the bits. The photo below show bits I printed on paper to get the sizing right (the images below being slightly too large so were subsequently reduced)

Top job, it is looking very much like a class 26 again, wishing you a merry Xmas! Just one question, how will you manage to make the join water tight between the fibreglass dome and the new steal work, is there a particular sealant you use so it is flexible?

Having made most of the upper part of the fire screen, I started to modify the air intake which is bespoke to tanker specification tractor units. The lower part of the air filter assembly is encased by the fire screen but parts of the original Pegaso assembly can be modified to fit. I chopped the lower part of the air filter stack and glued it to the filter assembly while the upper half was temporarily put in place after being cut down. This was attached by a rather rudimentary bracket in real life, a piece of plastic strip will be used for this. The lower part of the air filter was encased in the fire screen. This was fibreglass in real life and was sloping so I have used various strips of plasticard on top of which filler will be added. I also went through the stash of photos I had, taken in the early 90s to see if I could find any helpful reference pictures and dug up this archive shot of me in front of a Strato! It was taken in 1992 at Truckfest South West. I would love to have modelled this truck as it belonged to a family friend who I owe for getting me into logistics however it is very different to the IXO model so not feasible unfortunately.

Yep, saves waste Jo!

The project has been progressing reasonably well, focused on the cab which has received a lot of filler... As per the last post under the high roof sleeper was a plain flat roof which looked nothing like the original. As removing the battery box was hard work and the roof locates the glazing I decided to modify what was there rather than cut it out. I filled and rounded the recessed edges and filled the holes. On the chassis, I have put the rear mudguard assembly back in place and secured the battery box in its new location Visible in the above photo is a screw holding the cab on which stands out like a sore thumb, more anon.. I decided to detail the roof of the cab next. I retrieved the roof hatch from the original raised roof In addition to the roof hatch, I also made a headboard for the front and added some strengthening ribs. While there has been some complexity with my chosen prototype lorry such as the need to add the headboard, one 'gift' it has given me has actually worked in my favour. As the lorry was originally a fuel tanker, it was fitted with a fire screen at the back of the cab, the purpose being to shield the hot engine parts from anything flammable. The fuel screen of course requires scratchbuilding but is handily shaped to cover the cab screw. I used plastic section and strip to build it. The photo below shows the section on the cab being nearly finished, I still need to build the part on the chassis.

The dent above the coupling hook is a prototypically nice touch

Lynx models do wheels which may be suitable, failing that it could be something @mudmagnet models might be interested in?

The weathering looks pretty good to me Nick, I think the wheels were standard lorry wheels so must have been an interesting job for the local ATS tyre fitter when the tyres needed replacing..

Final visitor was 37029 which while rare has visited Westbury albeit after the time I modelled it.

Some of the Peasevern Yard fleet got an airing as well 08950 suits either era, being quite long lived in blue 03382 would have been a rare (if ever?) visitor to Westbury D7017 on the other hand was a regular

I took the opportunity to take the display outside and take some photos of the loco fleet. First off some photo's of the usual resident, 60029 I tried a head on shot but need more practice on this Some general shots

I found a few photos in my dads attic earlier from when he went spotting at Westbury. He used black and white film up until the 90s D7017 in it's last few weeks.. Eastern region interloper 37029 One from the early 90s, a newish 60029 just before the depot closed with an unidentified class 56 in the back ground I managed to use some photo software to convert a couple of them to colour as well

Too early to say for sure, I think with the current UK team in place, Heljan have upped their game recently (eg the retooled 37, 55 and new 73) and thus any all green version will more than likely have doors.

The Edward Gleed book on the class 60s is worth a read and is insightful. As has been mentioned basically the build to deployment timescales (13 months) were unrealistic for a new frame up design of loco as politically the order was destined for a UK builder, effectively ruling out the class 59. Once the niggles/faults were sorted they seem to be reliable, the problems came when the power units got up to 20,000 hours and they were prone to major failure.

Fill from bottom, as you say to prevent foaming. Where I think people get confused is they see what look like top loading gantries/pipework in pictures but this was used for cleaning of the tanks. I spent some time working with (Road) Milk tankers, everything was piped in/out at ground level. To clean the tank you would need to go on the top, open the lid, attach a "spinner" which looked like a T piece which would then be connect to a closed loop high pressure cleaning system which forced cleaning fluid up through a pipe into the spinner which then cleaned the tank for about 15 - 20 mins. Once clean/drained you had to go back up and remove the spinner etc and you were ready to load again.