Amberleigh engineering works

Shot from the bridge, showing the entire layout and short engineering wagon

A lovely weekend was spent surfing and drinking. Great fun, but little modelling accomplished! Last week I spent a few evenings working on a some projects, with progress being made on my POA wagon. This will get finished soon.


The salmon wagon, finished in a plain black livery


The engineering train trundling past Amberleigh Halt

I also put a little train together on Amberleigh, consisting of a class 25 hauling a short engineers train, consisting of a lamprey, grampus, crab and salmon wagon, coupled with a SR 25ton brake van. This short train is loosely based on a lovely photograph of a class 22 hauling a similar train along the withered arm, shortly before it was brutally hacked apart by Beeching. The main difference is the modelled formation is a little longer and the class 22 has been replaced by a class 25. The lamprey and crab are Chivers Finelines kits, the grampus is from Parkside and the brake van and salmon wagon are from Cambrian. The transfers visible on the lamprey and grampus are some homemade ones. The lamprey one is an inkjet print onto decal paper and the grampus one is a tipex like pen onto some spare decal backing paper. I think this train looks great for a local engineers working, but a load for the grampus does need to painted.


The class 25 hauling the train, with the lamprey visible. Note the home made graffiti decal on the lamprey

Currently the whale wagon is 50% built, but I am Still waiting for the buffers from MG sharp models - it is really frustrating, but this project is going nowhere at the moment. I have ordered some detailing bits from PH designs and I am expecting these soon. These will be used to super detail a class 47/0. I also managed to get as far as test fitting the lighting unit in a blue grey MK1 BCK. I have totally deconstructed the coach and am looking to start the weathering of this in the next couple of weeks.


The SR 25 ton brake van at the back of the train

The other projects are the CCT and the PMV. The CCT is in the paintshop and if I ever get a full week at home this will be finished. I am up in York for a lot of next week on work, so I hope to take the PMV with me to finish the build on it. The class 108 DMU is also back in the paintshop, to have some weathering of the coach body and also to have a stab at refitting the decoders, which are currently too obvious through the windows. The other big projects I have on the go is the detailing of a class 121 unit. Oddly I have all the parts to finish this model, but other than undoing the body, little forward movement has occurred. Hopefully I will pick these projects up in the coming week, but time as ever is precious and limited.


General shot of the Amberleigh test track

In respect of the engineering wagons, I contacted modelmaster decals this week, regarding transfers for the whale, tunny, lamprey, ling and crab wagons. basically, these are a series of releases over the last 5 years or so. Having built quite a number of these wagons over the last few years I find it frustrating not to be able to finish these wagons properly. The good news is that releases for these wagons are imminent. I guess I had better build so more of them now.....


The grampus wagon. Again note the homemade graffiti decal