Last day of my seven in seven weathering challenge – this loco was a North Eastern Loco when wearing this livery, but did get a transfer to Stratford (30A) in the late 60’s – early 70’s.

Its now getting a bit cool in Garage where I spray, so as I do not spray in cold weather Loco weathering will give way to a few Wagons and possibly another layout. Lets hope for a mild winter!

Challenge six of seven is a Class 20 in interim livery of green with full yellow ends. Again I never saw this engine in this condition, but luckily saw it when blue in TOPS. This is another loco in light to medium weathered condition.

I tend to have relatively clean sides of Locos after weathering. The main reason is when picking up Loco with misted weathered sides it is easy to scratch or leave finger marks from oily hands. Some people use cloth gloves for this process, but I have not really gone that way.

Day four of my challenge and one of my favourite Locos. It has different positions of the BR symbols than most other BR Blue 37’s of this era. When in this livery it was based at Stratford (30A later SF) and was a common performer on my Local GE lines.

Day three of my challenge and my final Class 31. This time it is a Green example with small yellow panel. After lots of research I picked this number as it was one of the final class 31’s in this condition before submitting to BR Blue. I have a photo of this loco in this condition at Kings Cross in 1969.

Day 2 of my self imposed challenge and here we have Class 37 D6749 in an interim livery of Green with full yellow warning panel. It came from the North East to Stratford (30A) in 1969 and became of my favourites.

Day 2 -17th Nov

The Golden Ochre Heljan Class 31 (30) D5579 is now weathered to a light to medium standard. I have noticed that on some photos when in this condition it had Stratford 30A Oval depot plates – I will try and source some and add them to the Loco. The Electric Blue Loco D5578 also had the depot plates.

I have set myself a little challenge – a loco a day for this week – below is Monday 16th.

These two 31’s are the first two of my recently purchases Heljan Locos from the 2nd batch. I will not go through the problems encountered after delivery, but these two loco’s needed a lot of remedial work due to poor packaging in transit.

I consider both locos to be weathered in a light to medium level after researching colour photos.

Two Locos from two different eras. Both are weathered to a light to medium standard.

Class 31 – 31205 as running in the late 70’s.

Class 37 – D6720 as running in early 60’s

This is a story of delight turning to horror. Between us my friend and I had ordered four of the just released Class 31 from Heljan in O Gauge. Imagine my horror when on opening the boxes and finding three of them damaged because of poor packaging. This was the first time I have ever had damage on a Heljan loco (although I know others that had) and immediately rang my supplier, sadly I seemed to be one of many, I was asked to return the three damaged locos for replacements. After testing the locos all were excellent runners – I made the decision that I was going to do the repairs myself and I asked for a discount from the supplier/Heljan – I was refused as it was not Heljan policy. I thought that was an awful decision but decided to keep and repair anyway as the replacements could have the same problems.

The damage on these loco included – Buffers torn off, bogie sides loose, Buffer Beam details fallen off, bogie ends missing and couplings broken. I have now repaired the lot and now have excellent locos, I guess it took me about two hours and I am happy.

The photos below show the finished Locos, the one that was not damaged and a 37 that I am also doing. They all need to be varnished (over the transfers) and then weathered.