You know how it is...

I spent yesterday evening finishing off the cattle wagons and putting a few finishing touches to Moel y Gest. I was wondering how to do the wasp stripes on the buffer beams but in the end I've done them by hand; not brilliant but with a couple of washes of weathering over them they pass muster at a distance. The wagons look good and having put them with the rest of the train I need to attend to the other wagons so they all go together better, however the whole train looks quite butch with Grace Alice at its head.

So... did I concentrate on getting the new locos running properly?... Er, no. I started work on building a new loco. To be precise, Beddgelert. It has always been my favourite NWNG loco and I've had a kit in my drawer for years. It is a Chivers whitemetal kit with a Minitrix 2-6-2 chassis. Several doner chassis have come and gone since I bought thekit with none being good enough, however I got one from the 009 sales stand at NGN and I've been twitching to build it ever since; so I've started. It has gone together very well so far and I have the basic loco body and chassis mods finished. The chassis needs the motor wiring back to the pick ups and testing but fingers crossed. I did make a shortened version some years ago which was quite chunky but this is a big loco, shame the real thing didn't survive past 1906 as it would be a magnificent beast and probably useful on the modern day WHR. My story is that the IoSR bought the knackered remains and rebuilt it rather than it having been scrapped.