More O Gauge progress and a finished BR 12t Plywood Van

I have made some more headway on various O gauge projects over the last few weeks, although modelling time is at a premium (why do I always end up saying this!).  The layout continues to edge forwards, with the quay wall all scribed and the dry brushing started.  I have made some platforms for the hand operated point levers and with the track painted, I am going to start ballasting this week, once the point levers are installed.  

The scribed quay wall, which is now being painted.

The trackwork has all been tested over the last couple of weeks, trundling a class 08 up and down the layout and it all seems to work pretty well.  I am  going to get the Heljan class 03 sound chipped this weekend for a test run. The 0-6-0 wheel arrangements are relatively inflexible and some of the curves on the layout are pretty tight. So I just need to check that everything works OK before committing to the ballasting. I am certainly looking forwards to having a sound chipped locomotive to play with - having got rid of my OO gauge layout, where all the diesels were sound chipped, running trains without sounds now feels a little one dimensional.

Painted trackwork and quay wall, ready for ballasting to start.

I have also managed to finish off adding a bit of life to a rtr Dapol 12T plywood box van. This van had some details picked out on the underframe alongside some body weathering, via the airbrush and railmatch enamels. It is quite a good model and I am pleased with the finish on it. So now I have four whole wagons ready to use on the layout! I also have a slaters 12t van nearly finished, it just needs a solebar to be replaced and the painting finished, whilst a vanwide has sat on the modelling desk for about 3 months waiting to be finished. In my opinion, this is the most pleasing aspect about modelling in O gauge; each piece of rolling stock takes quite a long time to build and detail, and they are reasonably expensive. Therefore, I do not have masses of stock, but I am slowly taking my time to build everything. This is proving to be a lot of fun and I am now settled on this way of modelling, certainly for the near future.  I am keeping all the OO gauge stuff I have detailed, but I selling off a lot of the OO gauge stock I acquired but never got around to using; which has provided some funds for my O gauge adventures.  In some ways it feels like a relief to get rid of clutter and old models that I never got around to using.

Finished O gauge van.