I purchased this lovely little tank engine on Sunday. I was at the KLOGGIES Summer bash, and there was about six traders present. One of them had this engine on sale for £150, a good price I thought, nearly £75 saving on a new one from Minerva, and after giving it a test run I paid up.

It was in an unlined maroon livery and effectively in new condition. I have a small collection of Industrial tank engines that used to run on an old layout called Norfolk Coke and Tar Ltd. I gave it to my Son when I finished with it, he re-invented it as Grubb Lane, and it is still on the Exhibition circuit.

All of my Industrial locos are Black and weathered, here it is after three days work, on and off due to being about 35C for last two days. I have left the wheels spokes maroon, just to be a bit different! It is still to have a light weathering,

Dare I say it, yet another purchase from the Heljan/Accurascale Sale by Graham in Australia. This is again one of Grahams favourite locos and one he saw regularly when he was based in the UK in the 1970’s and early 80’s.

It again has been given a medium weathering. The nameplates are Fox and the transfers Railtec.

This is a freight Class 27 purchased in the Heljan/Accurascale Sale by Graham in Australia and delivered to me. It arrived with an early seventies head-code, numbers and letters. I have done a temporary fix with some old marker dots, but some better ones are on order.

As this was a freight loco, it has been given a medium plus weathering.

Yet another Class 37 from Heljan/Accurascale Sale. Again purchased by my Son for his Ashwell Moor layout. While weathering this Loco I needed to remember it was used on some Passenger Services as well as a few freight workings. I therefore did a wipe of the sides after the weathering was complete, this restored a cleanish finish and quite a pleasing difference.

Here we have a Dutch Class 31 with isolated ETH. It is another Heljan/Accurascale buy from their current sale. This was purchased by my Son for his Ashwell Moor layout.

All my usual methods used, no re-numbering etc required – straight out of the box! This is a medium weathering.

This is a recent O Gauge bargain from Heljan/Accurascale sale. It was purchased by my Son and I was given it to weather. Class 56’s in this livery were quite rare, I believe there was only 5 or 6! Liveries moved on very quickly in the Mid 1980’s.

This is a medium offering, but reflecting its use on Coal Merry-go-round (MGR) trains. The ‘wash and wipe’ was a big part in weathering this loco, especially in the grills.

This is for my Friend Graham in Australia. It was one of his favourite Locos, so much so, he has an original nameplate from this Loco.

This is a medium weathering using my normal methods. This was a new Loco purchased in Australia, the nose aerials were not required as the Loco is modelled before their use.

Nameplates were from Protoneo and the transfers are by Railtec.

Well, enjoyable but very frustrating project – but lack of spare parts and even the correct paint has made it stall. It will now be put to one side and hope Ebay or a future swap-meet will come to my rescue.

Anyway, this is as far as I got, pictures below, enough said!

More work on the O Gauge Heljan Bodyshell. I have now added all the hand grips on the roof and given it a coat of roof grey, very time consuming, but has to be done!

I have removed the lamp brackets I originally fitted and replaced them with less steam engine looking ones. I then gave the Warning Panel another top coat of yellow..

I have come to a couple of conclusions about this conversion – I put the roof cab grills in the same position as the Skytrex ones on the donor loco – I now feel that they are slightly too big and should have been a bit higher on the cab. To late now – but we live and learn – even when you are 77 years old.

I have some spare Headcode Disc’s – so will fit them. As far as getting a complete Heljan window pack and a Heljan roof fan and grill – I have no idea!