GWR tunny wagon

Some beautiful good North Atlantic weather has meant that work has been very wet and tiring and this has limited the amount of modelling I have done. Projects are progressing, but nothing has been finished. However, in between detailing a class 50, building a 16t mineral wagon, repainting the class 25 and detailing a class 08, I have been painting a GWR tunny wagon, available from Chivers Finelines.

This wagon is very similar to a grampus wagon and the kit literally falls together. The livery this will be finished in is a very weathered engineering olive green. So far three coats of paint have been applied to the body and two to the chassis. Hopefully an update soon of the finished wagon.

GWR tunny

Bachman 20t Engineering Brake Van

Another engineering wagon is ready to join the southern engineering department. this one is the pre-weathered Bachmann 20t brake van, finished with an engineering code. This is an older Bachmann product and although a good model, has some dated features. the most obvious of which are the moulded handrails, rather then separately fitted wire ones.

Weathered brake van, now in the engineering fleet

The original Bachmann weathering is the best I have seen on a wagon, it is multi-tonal and fairly realistic. Rather than stripping it off, I decided just to weather over the top of this finish. I think that this is just about as much fun as you can have with an airbrush. I used railmach enamels, using a mixture of weathered black, sleeper grime and framedirt, and sealed with railmatch satin varnish. Overall, I think it is now a more realistic finish, although, with hindsight I wish I had replaced the handrails and the buffers. The only cosmetic surgery was the adding of the three link coupling.

Original factory weathered finish, not too bad...

But I prefer this finish

Other projects are waiting for a bit of attention. The class 25 repaint is waiting for decals, as is the southern tunny. A GWR tunny is in the paintshop and a 16t mineral wagon and sturgeon are in the process of construction. The class 08 detailing is ongoing and is currently at the point of having its cab detailed. So there is plenty going on, but absolutely no time. Work is flat out again, which is a good thing when you run your own business, but this will leave no time for modelling at all the next few weeks.

13t Engineering wagon and a class 08 with working lights

A long time has passed since my last post. Although I have managed to get around to doing a little bit of modelling here and there, modelling has certainly been second to pretty much everything else. However, this weekend I managed to finish a couple of projects and further some others.

Another 13t wagon in the southern engineering fleet

Firstly, I finished my second 13t mineral wagon, now being used within the engineers fleet on the southern region. This is the Parkside Dundas wagon kit, which I have finished with a mixture of weathered black, rust, sleeper grime and frame dirt. The transfers are model master decal ones. I notice that the sheet with the 'E' has probably seen better days,with the decal not properly adhering - however, I can live with that for the moment! I am pretty happy with this one and it is another one to add to the growing engineering stock.

The second project I have furthered is the detailing of the class 08. This has involved attempting to add to the Express Models lighting kit. This has been a slightly frustrating project, however, after many attempts, I am nearing the body detailing stage. I decided to add the lighting kit first, as previous experience has taught me that a lot of handling of the locomotive/fiddling around is required to get these kits working. I am now ready to add the buffer beam pipes and add further detailing components.

Hooray working lights!!

Lastly, all these photographs have been taken on the the next layout we are building - Pottington Quay. It now has some track glued down and is partly operational. So progress on all fronts. I have almost finished another couple of projects, so hopefully it will not be so long before my next update......

More on Georgeham Halt

Very little modelling got done toward the back end of last week, although I did manage to get a couple of trees glued onto Georgeham, from the Hornby skale scenics range.. A bit of height and greenery to back of the scene helps give the layout a little more depth....with a class 45 running light along the line.

Georgeham platform at night with light working

A couple of new trees make all the difference

Georgeham passenger service

A day off today has resulted in a bit of modelling and taking some photographs of some trains running on Georgeham Halt. Just a bit of fun, but..... a failed DMU has resulted in a passenger service being run between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe by a class 45 and a solitary Mk 2 BFK. Just a couple of shots of the service running into Georgeham halt, representing a 'plausible what if' scenario c. 1983.

Bachmann class 25 repaint - the next one..

A quick update on the repainting of another locomotive, this time a BR blue class 25 (just like the last time!!). Building on the lessons I learnt with the last one, I decided to pre-shade this one, painting weathered black along all the seams of the body shell, after it had been primed in white. After painting the ends yellow I have put on 3 shades of BR blue, but deliberately thinner over some parts of the body sides, to mimic faded paint. The photographs were taken after 2 coats, a further coat has been added this evening. Transfers, weathering and varnish to go. Hopefully, I will get an update up in a couple of weeks showing the finished article...

Original paint finish on the model

The variation in the livery on the body sides is an attempt to replicate faded paint

The roof of the locomotive shows the pre-shading beneath the BR blue

Departmental brake van and a GWR tunny

At last some modelling time!! This weekend I have finally had sometime to play trains and the first task has been to paint my class 25. This is coming along nicely and I hope will be ready for transfers next week. In between bouts of air brushing I have been building and converting some wagons.

Brake van with couplings converted, note the factory finished weathering

First up has been the coupling conversion of the Bachmann BR 20T brake van, now seconded into departmental stock. The model comes factory weathered and I must say I think it is pretty good. The roof weathering is a bit weak, but the body sides are pretty well done. The coupling conversion to 3 links couplings was a complete pig to do - in common with nearly all Bachmann wagons!! Once the holes were opened out a bit to accept the coupling hook, part of the underframe moulding had to be dremmelled away. Anyhow, it has all fitted back together pretty well and is ready to be washed and then have the weathered finish slightly upgraded!!

GWR tunny on on the work bench

The other project which I was working on yesterday was a Chivers Finelines GWR tunny wagons. I have built loads of Chivers kits and they are top quality. The build on this wagon will get finished this weekend and it will get washed with the brake van for spraying next week. I also have the sturgeon wagon sat on my desk and I also hope to progress this build today.

I have seen on the interweb that Bachmann are about to release a series of wagons as olive green departmental stock, such as the 13t and 16t mineral wagons and a PMV. These are all projects I have undertaken recently, building wagons kits and converting them into departmental stock!!! Hey ho, sods law I guess, although I think I probably prefer building the kits anyway.