Loco works

As part of my current 'finishing things' purge I've made some progress on a couple of locos and a coach.

 

Gloria has had a coat of matt varnish to calm the gloss paint down a bit and looks much better for it, a spot of subtle weathering and she'll be finished. The coach just appearing in the picture above is one of my PD VoR bashes and I have just changed the bogies to KATO ones which run much better than the supplied PD versions. I have these bogies under another coach which runs very well so I have been meaning to swap these over for a while. A brief test suggests success so I will convert the other coach in the same way. The only fiddly bit is gluing the new 009 couplers onto the n gauge shanks.

Coming along nicely is the Narrow Planet Hudswell Clarke which will be known as Alice. A working chassis has been cobbled together and basic paint work is complete.

My plan is to have her in Southern Railway livery as I think it looks quite like the L&B Manning Wardles only smaller. In my world the SR bought her for shunting and light duties in the early 1930s and come the auction when the L&B was shut Lord Stoner bought some rolling stock and this loco; I thereby have an excuse for running SR livery L&B stock and also having a small rake of re-liveried L&B coaches. My railway, my rules.

The other loco which has been in for a service is the rather tidy little Kerr Stuart alike from 2A-Rail. It is a 3D print on a Minitrains chassis but I had managed to get it to sit not quite level on the chassis. Having fettled it level I then found the rear coupler was too high so snapped it off and re glued it on at the correct height.

 

It needs a spot of paint on the rear buffer beam now but otherwise 'jobs a good un'.

The railway had a visitor this week in the form of a Minitrains Boehler loco in black which we now have back in stock. It is seen in the above picture with my modified one which started life as a green one. I prefer my one.

Alice is caught in a patch of sunlight, it looks rather stormy out to sea