A warehouse, a trout and a 121

I have returned to Devon at long last, and thank goodness for that. Working away from home can be fun, but I definitely get homesick if I am away for too long. Getting home has meant that I have progressed a little on a couple of projects.


First coats of paint on the Pottington Quay warehouse

The warehouse for Potting Quay has advanced a little bit, with some coats of paint applied. This is by no means finished, but is starting to resemble a passable representation of a dockside warehouse. The stones have been given a base-coat of yellow/brown, and the roof slates a dark grey. There are a few (many!!) imperfections noted on the body work, so a bit of selective filing and the like is required to finish off the body. However, it is starting to shape up. It is by no means perfect, but I am enjoying the process of making it.

On the theme of Pottington Quay, after seeing a great video of a blue warship hauling about 6 mk1s over the north Devon railway to Ilfracombe in 1970, I have decided that the upcoming Pottington Quay has to have a through running single branchline. I know I change my mind everyday, but Pottington is set between Barnstaple Town and Braunton, so I can imagine that the line was preserved. The other consequence of this is a warship has been added to my shopping list for the layout!!

All the projects I have on the go at the moment are slightly longer term and require more time than I can currently spend on playing trains. As a consequence I decided I need a quick project, one I could finish in a day or two, or certainly within a week. So I have taken the couplings off the departmental trout wagon I recently purchased and added some 3 link couplings. In common with most rolling stock now adays, this simple coupling conversion is quite a hassle, having to remove a considerable amount of plastic from the underframe, including the plastic housing for the screw that holds the tension lock coupler in place.


Trout ready for weathering

After removing a few of the screws I considered taking the trout wagon apart. Having the hopper separated from the body would certainly aid painting, but it seemed something of a riddle and I felt certain I would damage it, if I tried. So for simplicities sake I left the wagon whole and went about cutting away the parts of the plastic underframe, to accommodate a 3 link coupling. I also scuffed up the finish on the hopper using a fibre glass pencil, to promote some uneven colouring on the body. It is subtle, but it is visible. The wagon is is now ready for washing and then weathering. I hope to finish this off with a couple of evenings modelling next week.

The other project I made a little headway on is my class 121 detailing. Some of the front detail was added and the chassis was completely separated from the motor unit. When all the detail is added I will weather the chassis and bogies before installing working lights into the DMU body. I might go for the express models kit for this, although I currently have a blackcat kit for the DMU lighting. My aim is to get this and the class 119 in service by xmas, but that is less than a month away, so we shall see....


Detailing on the class 121