Last Sunday we attended the Whitwell and Reepham O Gauge Day with our layout ‘Dark Lane’, it was a very enjoyable day, so friendly and with excellent demonstrations.

I had no intention of buying anything, but at the end of the day I found myself making an offer for a Black 5 that was for sale on a Demo stand, we agreed a very reasonable price.

I already have a Black 5 that was allocated to the Midland Region and had always wanted a Scottish variety with a different dome and top feed arrangement. This purchase gave me this wish, but a number change and an early BR logo was required as I model Scottish Steam from 1948 – 54. I researched all possibilities and the number change decided was from 45042 to 45116, a St Rollox Loco until 1957, when it moved south.

I also did a few touch up jobs and then a full varnish, when the varnish is dry it will receive a light-Medium weathering as the Loco lining could be better. I was not happy with the coal load in the tender, so this was replaced with real coal. The first photo is of the original loco before I did the conversion.

After putting photos of both my Class 09 shunters on here recently, I had several people ask if I could post a photo of them together, so they could assess the differences. Please find said photos below.

I have to say I have done a little more work on both Locos since publishing the earlier photos, In my mind a Loco is never finished! I think this degree of ‘Fade’ was quite normal, especially BR Blue shunters that could go many years without a re-paint.

You could go even further and paint one of the engine room doors in a different shade as typical of a quick replacement from a scrap or unused loco – just a thought.

After my recent Class 09 in very distressed condition, I decided to finish this one with a light weathering. This is just a re-numbering and weathering after adding all the high level pipes.

I would classify this finish as ‘six months from its last repaint/overhaul’

I have now finished my O Gauge STD tank. I have coaled the Bunker, added a crew, painted the back-head, painted the fittings and pipes as the prototype with brass and copper metallic paint, glazed the windows and given it a very light weathering.

That was quite a job, but was so satisfying. I found a photo of the prototype about a month out of works and tried to weather it as the photo.

This is a item I purchased nearly two years ago, it was plain black with red buffer beams and made by Bachmann Brass. I have to say that lining locos has very much taken a back seat recently, at 76 years old, I am not as good as I used to be, hence I kept putting it back for fear of messing it up.

Well, I picked up enough courage to have a go today, it went reasonably well, but one side is slightly better than the other, it took me seven hours to do what I used to do in half the time. I used Johnsons Clear floor polish (the old type), to get good transfer adhesion, the transfers were mainly Fox, with the logos being HMRS.

I can not say that I enjoyed doing it, but I did it, and that is the last loco I need to do for myself. I still have a lot to do to the loco, I will post again when it is completely finished.

I picked a Loco that was used on three different Regions of BR so that I can run it in all as necessary.

In my last post reference Class 24’s, I said that they were all finished – wrong! The day after our group member Nick asked whether I would weather one for him, how could I say ‘no’.

Slightly different to all the others I have done, BR Blue in PRE-TOPS. After research, I came up with D5008, just after it was repainted into blue. Because of what it is, it is Light on the body, but medium on the underframe.

As I said in the previous post about this Loco – a quick turnaround so that it can be displayed at the Mid Suffolk Light Railway August Bank Holiday weekend.

I added a red connecting rod to make it a bit different – other than that, it’s as previous photos. It has been given a light/medium dusting on the body and a medium underframe weathering. A crew has been added and wheels cleaned.