I recently took delivery of a Dapol Un-numbered Class 08 in O Gauge. As my move from OO to O continues, I decided to recreate a Loco that I had already done in OO. Here are the results of my latest creation.
The O Gauge Loco is still to be weathered. The OO will be put up ‘For Sale’.
O & OO
O Gauge
This is not a new Loco, it was purchased about six months ago on a famous auction site. It was in GWR Green and numbered, however it was not a good runner! It was put to one side until I had more time. After recently spending a little time working on the connecting rods and the motor I was able to get it working perfectly, my £200 investment now looked a very good deal! I repainted it BR Black and added a ‘247 Developments’ number set and HRMS transfers. It still has to be varnished, coaled, crew added and weathered. It will be the loco for my Push – Pull WR Crimson and Cream coach to form an auto train.
These wagons were made by Graham and Painted and lettered by myself. They still have to be Varnished and Weathered, but this will be later.
CDA
PFA
Just arrived is another O Gauge Loco, LNER No.4000- Gresley K3. This Loco will be re-numbered as 61801, an East Anglian Loco most of its life, being shedded at 31A,31B and 30A, it will be fully lined in Mixed Traffic Livery. These Loco’s worked a lot of the fish trains out of Lowestoft down the East Suffolk Line. This loco remained a RH Drive Loco all its life.
My latest Loco has arrived, it is a Thompson Class L1. It is number 67706 and at this time was a Ipswich 32B Engine. I saw this engine when I was 8 years old working the Felixstowe Branch in 1957. I consider myself very lucky to get this Loco, as it certainly brings back very happy memories.
I will add coal, crew and lightly weather at a later date.
This project will be a joint project with my friend Ian. It will be a Terminus Station based in the transition period, roughly 1955-1965.
The baseboards are now made and are formed of three Grainge a Hodder laser cut boards. Two boards are permanently joined together and for 6′ x 16″ Scenic board, the other 3′ x 16″ board will form a separate detachable fiddle yard.
The boards have been ‘corked’ and a backscene added to the scenic board.
I have spent the last few days putting the finishing touches to Dark Lane. It is now 99% finished with just a little weathering and blending to do. This may have to wait awhile as modelling in the shed this time of year is weather/heat related! Anyway I thought I would show the progress in a few photo’s.
The four Hybars are just Dapol out of the box models. I have to say that I wish Dapol had made the bars themselves out of brass or a similar metal. These were probably at least the tenth or more wagons of this type I have weathered and all have had mis-shaped bars. I replaced the ones on my own wagons with brass alternatives to give a better appearance – sadly the plastics bars are to flexible!!!
The three tube wagons are scratch built and painted by Mike to a very high standard. I have only weathered them to a light-medium standard.
I purchased this wagon with the bogie crudely attached at a recent Exhibition. I thought that it would be a good addition to the stock for Dark Lane my LT layout.
The wagon is a Ex Midland one plank that had additional blocks for carrying bogies.
The bogie was weathered and a chain added to attach the bogie to the wagon. The wagon itself was made and painted to a reasonable standard so I just weathered it to a light – medium standard.
Just completed eleven various wagons, all were RTR and were light to medium weathering. Wash and wipe then airbrushed, all springs and couplings picked out in dark rust along with hinges. The dogfish wagons were sprayed inside with various colours and then 7mm ballast dropped in while the paint was still wet, the ballast is then taken out to give this effect. The two tank wagons had different colour spillage to reflect the different contents.
