O Gauge test Track and O gauge musings

I have recently been clearing out a lot of OO gauge unstarted projects from my modelling boxes and selling these items on ebay. I have been guilty of buying way too much rolling stock for projects that I never get around too and having a declutter has been good (and made some space too). The thing I like about O gauge is that the rolling stock is a little more expensive(!), so it makes one really consider what they are going to buy. I have been talking to my partner for weeks about what locomotive I really want to get next in O gauge, when I stopped and thought - exactly what projects do I have to finish for my O gauge layouts? Well the answer was, rather more than I had started!

So in an attempt to not buy more than I need, I took out my O gauge locomotives that I have not started to detail. There is a quite a lot there. I have a warship about to be detailed and a class 33 about to head into a bath of superstrip (just waiting for a delivery). Alongside this I have a western and a hymek to detail, alongside a class 122 that I have dismantled and made no further progress on. And of course there are many more coaches and wagons waiting in the queue. So the upshot, I really do not need to buy more rolling stock! However, I am sure that it will happen of course. As modellers we all like to have projects we cannot wait to get around too and buy (probably) too much stuff. Taking out these O gauge locomotives was great fun. They are seriously impressive and imposing models. Looking at them made me really excited about running my O gauge layout, although ideally I would like to buy a few more locomotives to complete my western diesel fleet (class 31, class 37, class 47 and 50!)....

O gauge western waiting for detailing.

A class 35 Hymek; I am undecided whether I will repaint this into BR Blue.

A class 42 warship; this is the next one to work through detailing and DCC sound chipping. This locomotive will be finished as D810 Cockade - one of the later lived class 42s.

Anyhow, moving onwards, the microlayout continues to make slow progress, whilst the main layout has not been touched for almost a year (erghhh) - house renovations have taken their toll. However, I have a plan for completion of the text track; I am just waiting for some plasticard to arrive to build a a small platform, alongside building the goods shed.  Then I hope to move swiftly on to painting the track, installing point motors and ballasting. The main layout will really start to be detailed the other side of summer, so there is plenty of time to get stuck into some modelling, before crakcing on with the main layout again.