A Royal Mail van and the parcels train

Over the last few years I have built a good number of parcels wagons, so it was high time I got around to finishing a few Royal Mail vans for the layout, to ship the parcels away!  So over the last week or so I put a little weathering over a Ford 400E Royal Van van.  A simple little project, which just required dismantling and then a bit of airbrushing.

Finished Royal Mail Ford 400E van.  At last something to get rid of these parcels! 

These models have a very good gloss finish on them, so I started with a bit of satin varnish, to give the paint something to adhere to.  Then it was a question of some light airbrushing, with a few different shades of grime.  Some varnish sealed it all up before reassembly.  A simple little project and now I have something to sit in the station car park ready to ship the parcels away.  I need a few more of these done for the layout, given the amount of parcels stock I now have!  Speaking of which, at the recent show in East Grinstead, I took a couple of pics of the Class 25 on the parcels train.  

Class 25 bringing the parcels and papers.  Barnstaple still had a very healthy parcels traffic into the 1980s.

The other end of the train, on the short parcels turn that day.

A 12T fruit van ready to roll

Week 3 of lockdown starts and I sincerely hope everyone is bearing up OK.  These are trying times and modelling is a good way of light relief to occupy some hours and take away the current stress.  Recently, I have managed to finish off the detailing of a few RTR wagons.  The Charlton layout already has far too much rolling stock, but doesn't everybodies layout?  So first up is a Bachmann 12T fruit van.  I need a series of 12T vans for the delivery of fertiliser to the provender store and currently have an operating rake of 3.  This will increase over the next couple of weeks as I finish off more wagons.

12T fruit van finished and ready to roll on the layout.

As per normal I fitted three link couplings to the wagon and then proceeded to give the wagon a good wash. First the wagon was treated to an all over bodywash of sleeper grime and weathered black heavily thinned, taking care to remove the majority of this wash after application.  The wagon was then detailed using an Iwata airbrush, applying Railmatch enamels.  Various shades of rust, weathered black, sleeper grime, frame dirt and white were applied to the underframe.  The body was predominately detailed with weathered black, on the upstanding ribs, door hinges, etc, and sleeper grime more generally across the body.  This was all sealed up with 3 coats of satin varnish.

I realised that I had far to many projects on the go at once in the painting boxes and it was taking far too long to finish anything.  Effort was being divided between multiple models, meaning nothing was getting finished. So over the next few weeks I am concentrating on a few specific models to get them finished off, before tackling some more complex projects, not least an earlish BR blue class 37, which the DCC sound decoder arrived for today.  At least, for once, I have plenty of time on my hands.

LNER CCT in BR Blue

I hope everyone is safe in well, in what can only be described as trying times.  Personally, this first week of lockdown has been difficult for me, being separated from loved ones since last week.  However, in amongst all the doom and the endless days of being locked in, I have finally found some time to do some modelling.  I guess it is important to always find a positive, although the situation is clearly very serious.

So this week I finished off a LNER extra long CCT, in classic BR blue parcels livery.  This project can only be described as a complete and utter nightmare!  The building and painting stages were relatively straight forward and I was feeling very smug with the progress.  However, I managed to completely and utterly wreck the application of transfers (I thought I was beyond this!!).  After this, I had to spend a lot of time sorting out the silvering, trying to disguise it with more weathering.  This lead to a large number of varnish coats being applied with various shades of sleeper grime or frame dirt added.  Anyhow, I currently live in a very dusty house, so the more coats you apply, the more dust you trap, which is of course exactly what happened.  Then when it was finished and I was putting the wheels in I dropped it and scratched the roof!

Finished CCT in BR blue.  It doesn't look too bad I guess.

Close up showing the excellent detail of the Parkside moulding.

Another close up showing the added handrails and detail.

The model is the Parkside kit, build with a few extras added, such as handrails.  I painted the wagon using Railmatch enamels applied from my airbrush.  The transfers are from Cambridge Custom Transfers.  I never seem to get these quite right and my applying of them was poor. So the verdict - I am glad it is finished.  The weathering is now too heavy for my tastes, but at least it is finished and runs.  The overall paint finish has to much dust trapped in it for my liking and the transfers still look a bit iffy.  It is one to re-visit maybe in a few years. However, I find once I have finished a wagon I forget about it, so maybe in a few months I will pick it up, put it in the track and think - this is not too bad!  I took some close images of the sides whilst taking a pick too, which really highlight the quality of wagon moulding by Parkside.  Overall a 6 out of 10 on this project for me, but another wagon finished and ready to go on the layout.

East Grinstead Model Railway Exhibition

This week I have been exhibiting my layout Charlton at the East Grinstead model railway exhibition.  Give the country is in a state of hysteria about Coronvirus, visitor numbers were healthy.  There was a really good range of layouts at the show and I met and chatted with a lot of people.  Charlton performed faultlessly again and I am feeling pretty confident about how I put the layout together.  It is its fifth show with virtually no maintenance and it continues to operate really well, although I need to fix a couple of minor things.  However, Charlton is a fiddle yard to terminus.  This is great fun to operate at home for an hour or two, but in an exhibition hall it is a very tiring layout to operate.  Footfall in the exhibition tailed off in the later afternoons, so I had some time to shoot a few little videos.  One of the things I liked about operating the layout this weekend was I have finished the third passenger coach.  This means the run around loop doesn't work, as the train is too long.  So I now have another locomotive stabled in a siding to run onto the end of the train and pull it away.  Not really prototypical, but much more fun to operate.

I am now keen to be able to finish off a few of the other modelling projects and start planning a much bigger layout.  Fingers crossed that a house move later this year will be the last in a long line and I can start building something that I can keep permanently operational.  Until then, I have no further exhibitions to attend.  I plan to build a small layout (3ft x 1.5ft) just to keep me going and use this micro-layout as part of a bigger plan.....

Class 25 on a short parcels train.

A western bringing in the 3 coach passenger train.

A class 22 running around a branch freight.

Thanks to all at East Grinstead MRC who made this weekend so much fun!

Hornby BR Blue Parcels Passenger Brake C

Sometimes life just gets in the way a little and any shape or form of modelling has ground to a rather unimpressive halt.  I had plans at new year to finish quite a few projects, but little headway has been made!  Fortunately, nothing stressful or negative has happened, it is just life has been too busy over the last couple of months leaving virtually zero time for modelling.  However, today I fired up the airbrush for the first time in an age.  There were a couple of wagons pretty much finished that needed a blast of varnish plus quite a few other wagons are nearing completion which need a bit of tidying up here and there.  I have an exhibition coming up this week at East Grinsted, so I was hoping to get a few things finished for then, but I have run out of time.

Progress so far on the faded and chipped bodywork - taken in awful light!

Anyhow, pictured above is a Hornby BY wagon, called a passenger brake van C by Hornby.  I had forgotten I had purchased this many years ago and found it a few months back whilst looking through the boxes of projects I have not yet got around to. I decided to have a really good go at doing some chipped and faded bodywork on this.  So far this has been treated to some white paint stippled on from a paintbrush, with some removal via a cotton bud with white spirit. The wagon has had an all over wash of grime, before some work with the airbrush using faded BR blue and weathered black.  There is a little weathering to go, but it is starting to shape up.  Hopefully I can get this one finished soon.

Some wagons rolling on

So over the last couple of weeks I have been working away on a few modelling projects.  These are all ticking on, but nothing seems to be finished.  I made a royal mess of some transfers on a LNER CCT and and ling wagon, so I am currently trying to sort that out.  In the meantime I have finished just one other wagon, an ECC wagon.  It is the Bachmann offering and it is about all there is out there.  The underframe moulding is pretty coarse and chunky, but for expediency I have finished off about four of these now for the layout.  I think that even a poor wagon can be made more presentable with a little bit of weathering and work.  So with this one I picked out some underframe details, just to add a bit of life to the wagon.  All painting was done via the airbrush using Railmatch enamels.  I need some flat tarpaulins for these wagons as per the Meeth works, but it looks like I am going to have to go done the route of making them myself.  So some experimentation coming up....

Another ECC wagon for the layout - now to tackle tarpaulins.....

Another build that has progressing recently is the Herring wagon.  This is the Cambrian kit and I found it a bit confusing to get the underframe sorted out on this.  I spent quite a long time procrastinating about it, but last night managed to get it finally sorted.  It needs a little tidying up here and there, but can be washed ready for painting next weekend.  I currently have another herring wagon, a walrus and an SR 40t hopper to build, alongside a 13T open wagon in 0 gauge.  These kits have been hanging around a while so I am keen to get these finished and then start a new micro layout.  Further updates to follow!

Finished Herring wagon ready for painting (bar a little tidying up).

BR Mk1 CK coach with lights

This week I managed to finish off the BR MK1 CK coach lighting and detailing.  This is third coach finished for the Charlton layout.  The lighting is the Express Models lighting kit, designed to work off DCC.  It is a relatively simple fix to get this into the coach, requiring the cutting down of the internal partitions.  

Finished coach with the lights on.

The effect in the dark is realistic and adds a great dimension to running the layout.

The coach was taken apart and the glazing removed.  The roof, coach sides, chassis/ends and bogies were all detailed individually.  A three link coupling was added to one end of the coach.  Then the body and sides were given an overall weathering wash applied with a paintbrush, with the majority of the wash brushed off.  The sides, roof and chassis were then weathered using an airbrush, with various shades of roof dirt, weathered black, sleeper grime, frame dirt, rust and white added.  The interior moulding was cut down and the seats were painted red, with a handful of passengers added.

Coach taken apart for detailing.

Three link coupling added at one end.

The painted interior.

When this was all complete, the glazing was glued back onto the coach sides and the roof/coach sides joined together.  A small piece of plastic rod was glued to the join between the roof and coach sides and any holes filled with glue and glaze.  This was then painted black in an effort to stop light bleed.  The coach was reassembled with the lighting unit in place.  This was a bit of a tight squeeze.  The pick ups were added to one bogie and the connecting wires to the pick ups soldered on, once the bogies had been reattached.  I drill a small hole in the bogie to feed the wires from the coach to the pick ups.

Pick ups glued onto the bogie.  Note the hole drilled in the bogie to pass the pick up wires through.

The wires from the lighting unit trailing out of the coach.

Overall I am pretty happy with this coach.  There is a tiny bit of light bleed which is really annoying - I either missed it with the paint or the tight squeeze has forced the joint a little.  Either way, I cannot face taking the whole coach apart and it is only on one side, so I am going to live with it for now.  It is not too noticeable but maybe in a few weeks I will take it back apart.

The interior and the passengers visible.

So this is now three coaches with internal lighting and detailing for Charlton.  The three coach train is too long for the run around loop at Charlton, so it will necessitate some interesting manoeuvres, with a locomotive stabled in the siding.  I am doing a show at East Grinsted in March - so I look forward to running this coach then.  I might even get the BSK done in the meantime as well.  I am currently looking at developing the locomotive fleet further and have a Heljan Hymek and Bachmann Class 43 to get on with detailing, so there are plenty of projects to keep me busy.