Here are some O gauge wagons weathered for three group members. Usual methods, but note the cattle wagon is to be used as a converter wagon with three links at one end and knuckle coupler at the other.
Various O Gauge wagons
Year: 2025
O Gauge Bogie Bolster E
Here are a rake of four bogie bolsters that have been weathered to a medium standard. These Dapol wagons are very good and I like them a lot, however one thing I now realise is that NO separate parts (mouldings) are glued on – all are push fit, and a few do not like handling very much. This is not a moan at Dapol, I think the days of securely fitted parts are over from all manufacturers, probably due to keeping the price down on foreign manufactured items! My advice would be check your stock for loose bits and pieces and glue on to avoid loss when handling.
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O Gauge Catfish – weathered
After the Dogfish, what else would you do! Yes, Catfish. All the same methods were employed, but this time I stepped the Interiors up a bit to a more rusty finish.
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O Gauge Dogfish -weathered
Here we have a rake of three Dogfish as running in the late 60’s – early 70’s. They have all received slightly different levels, but generally they are medium weathering.
As they are likely to run empty most of the time, I have given the inside of the hoppers special attention, with a rusty and general rough look.
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O gauge 31179 un-refurbished
Here is an older Heljan model of an original Class 31 as running about 1976 – 82. The only modification was the boiler filler and steps have been plated over, this was achieved by using a kit.
I has been weathered to a medium grubby standard.
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Five Heljan Class 24
Here are some Class 24’s as running in East Anglia in the late 50’s – early 60’s. Four are plain green and one has a small yellow warning panel. As I wanted them all to be a bit different, I broke them down into three types when weathering was added, see below.
Sadly Heljan put Silver grilles on the bodyside of the all green models, none that were allocated to East Anglia had them! So they had to be modified before weathering, the green with small panels was fine, no silver bits!
All The current Heljan batch of 24’s have the second type of exhaust port – all the below should have the original types – it was decided to leave them as purchased sadly – hopefully a detailing conversion kit will become available!
As the head code discs are push fit, it was decided that we needed to keep the flexibility to change them when the trains were made up, this way we could always have the right code displayed.
Light Weathering (D5024)
Medium Weathering (D5036)
Medium to Heavy (D5042)
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O Gauge B1 61054
This was a re-number and re-logo exercise followed by a medium weathering. This Loco was a 31B, Ipswich engine during the era portrayed. It could be found on anything from an Express to a humble Milk Train. This model is brass ready to run by Sancheng.
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Merlins Lane Wagons.
The O gauge stabling point also sees a few wagons coming in and out. Below are the main ones used on the layout.
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Merlins Lane another Exhibition
Today, my son John came to help me refurbish ‘Merlins’. It had been in store for the last five years and was very dusty, although covered. It has been invited to The Stowmarket Exhibition on Sunday 29th June and we wanted to test everything was OK on the layout and the Locos.
After a good clean up and testing, the layout is fine, no problems other than a small number of paint touch ups needed – that was a relief !
Now the locos were taken from storage and tried after wheel cleaning, Mixed results I am afraid, out of the ten locos, seven were fine and worked well, although none are fitted with ‘stay alive’, most were DCC sound fitted over 8 years ago!
The Little Loco Class 15 is very hesitant, but we are hoping that more running would help. Sadly my Heljan Class 37 and Class 33 are complete non runners due to gear issues. The 37 had new gears fitted for its last outing in 2020 and the 33 was similar, but that had received two sets over its life so far! Heljan can’t even get replacements correct – what a mess.
Although I am unlikely to be at the exhibition myself – please come along and have a chat with John and Nick.
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Multi purpose Layout- more work.
Today I have been working on my O Gauge multi purpose layout. I have built a concrete hard standing for the building and some vehicles, then made walkways. I used two layers of cork, Railmatch concrete enamel and I weathered using wood stain.
I then added a little extra ballast between the track and the walkways and re-weathered everywhere it was needed.
