Class 25 Br blue

The last couple of weeks have seen very limited modelling time, with only a handful of evenings of painting and modelling.  One project that has been sitting in the boxes of models that I am painting has been a class 25 body shell from Bachmann.  Over the previous weeks whenever I have had some spare paint in the air brush I have done a little on this model, in a very non directional, non focused way!

Finished class 25 of Pottington Quay

So after several months the project reached completion, almost without noticing.  I am about to repaint one of my earlier Class 25 efforts, so I took the chassis off this locomotive and attached it to this finished body shell.

 

The locomotive from the other end

The class 25 had various shades of faded yellow and faded rail blue applied in hap-hazard way over the body shell, before an overall wash of dilute weathered black/frame dirt mix.  Most of this was wiped off, trying to leave to the bits that had settled in all the nooks and crannies.  Then various shades of weathering colours were sprayed over the model, trying not to overdo it, but blend all the various components together.  This is the end result - certainly better than my first efforts at air brush painting!

Close up of the body side, showing some of the tonal variation, with lighter and darker areas of rail blue visible.

Potting Quay - the quay front

This update shows the the progress so far on the Pottington Quay micro-layout.  The quay front has advanced and is starting to look (a little) like a quay front.  The photographs show the developing scene, although there is a lot of modelling to do, to blend the various parts together.  The two sections of the old stone quay wall have been built, although only one has been painted.  The section on the right hand side of the iron wall section is only part way through being painted.  The pile driven quay front is the Noch kit that has been part built, but the top has yet to be painted and is only resting on the wall in this photograph. One of the next jobs is to get this top section painted and then glued down.  The area behind the quay wall needs to have a lot of DAS clay placed onto the baseboard, to continue the cobbled area of the quay front, although this has yet to be started.  In front of the quay wall are the mudflats that have so far had some plaster bandage added.  These now need to be painted and some  inter-tidal mud and water added.

The goods shed has been pretty much finished but has yet to be glued in place, as a web cam is going to be installed into the body shell with a floor.  This structure also needs a lot of ivy and moss to be added to complete the derelict late 1970s/early 1980s look. On the top of the quay front is an old warehouse, which can be seen placed on top of the quay in red brick.  The model is a Bachmann barn and this is going to have some bits added to it and be re-painted as a warehouse.

Lurking in the background is the first section of the platform to have been constructed and this structure has made some significant progress over this weekend and is now nearing completion on the build.  Placing all these components on the layout has started to give an idea of how the overall scene will look.  There is a lot of modelling to go, but once the buildings have been glued down the rails can be painted and ballasted, and then this will start to look much more like a layout.  As ever, there is not enough time in the week to get as much done as I hope to, but it is an enjoyable project and although progress has been slow, it is inching forwards.  Hopefully the next update will not be too far away, although the next few weeks require away working in Greece for a couple of weeks (its a tough life!), so this might stop the momentum for a while.

The quay wall with a (white) mudflat in front

The completed goods shed before addition of greenery to finish that abandoned look.

 Pile driven quay front and station in the background.

Up close of the completed section of quay wall.

Section of the quay wall showing some larger gaps where the dressed stones are starting to weather.

Overall shots of the layout so far.

Class 45 with DCC sound on parcels service and layout progress

The progress on Pottington Quay has been pretty slow in the last few weeks.  As ever work has been busy and this has meant that time for modelling has been limited.  However, this weekend the baseboards saw a bit of plaster bandage laid down and the station platform was started.  I quickly realised I do not have enough SR cast concrete legs to finish the platform extension, so I am going to have to order some this week.  The platform is a tight squeeze with the car park behind it.  So tomorrow evening is going to be spent getting the position of this right.

Right now the biggest delay to progress on the layout, other than time, is a lack of buildings to place on the layout, in order to ballast around these.  There is a slight feeling of a lot of bare baseboard at the moment.  However, the goods shed is just about finished and a small section of redundant platform has also been built for this.  The quay wall section is almost complete now as well.  So later this week when everything has dried, been painted and glued in position I will show the progress of the layout so far.

Until then, my sound fitted class 45 is shown hauling the parcels service into the station area.  The bright blue CCT is the new bachmann model and clearly stands out - this needs toning down but has had a clean and now is in the paintshop.  I have another two CCTs, one BY van and two more 12t parcels van already built and waiting for painting.  Scaling up the size of the trains relative to the layout I have no idea how these parcels wagons are going to fit onto the layout!  The other video is a class 47 bringing in a shot engineers train.  At the front is Cambrian salmon wagon I built years ago, and I am going to experiment on this with some mig weathering powders, as the finish leaves a lot to be desired.