Locos, locos everywhere

Its been a busy week and I've had a dose of man flu too... don't worry I will survive.

Having been determined to finish the three locos I have on the go before starting work on Eigiau I did exactly not that. Well, what do you expect? I have finished off the Jung diesel which I'm very pleased with. It still runs very badly but I have some resistors on order so I'll give those a try and see if they make any difference and if not I have a Portram bogie waiting in the wings. Its too nice a loco not to have it running.

Eigiau, Jung and baby Ruston

I've painted the Jung in a fetching shade of green and I like the way it looks, I've weathered it with paint so far but it will get some attention from weathering powders too, I don't want it to look derelict just busy and slightly unloved.

The green machine

I found a horn which I've added and the windows are glazed with glue n glaze. The other loco I've finished off is Poppy which now has its name plates which arrived from Narrow Planet with Eigiau.

Looks lovely but runs like a turd

Fortunately, the Minitrains chassis runs very nicely so Eigiau will enter the capital fleet as soon as it is finished. The kit as it arrives is delightful with the body as a very neat 3D casting and a sheet of etched parts. Also included is a different Minitrains chimney which is great for the standard O&K loco but Eigiau had gained a more British looking chimney by the time it arrived at Penrhyn. My model will be in Penrhyn Quarry condition so I decided that I needed to change the chimney, fortunately I found a better looking whitemetal one in the box of bits. The question was how to fit it? I looked at sawing the Minitrains part off and trying to insert the stubb into the casting but decided that this wouldn't work. What I ended up doing was to glue the chimney onto the 3D body and insert a bolt from underneath the chassis and open out the hole in the body to allow the fitting of a brass nut. I opened out the hole with a series of broaches and then files and then glued it in the hole. For once one of my bright ideas seems to have worked.

Apart from this I've added pipes and gizmos as best I can from scraps of wire and styrene. On the real loco the smoke box door has a wheel and a lever so I used a Markits part with a brass wheel from a set of etched ones. The Markits version is deigned for standard gauge locos so needs trimming for the smaller size loco.

Three little maids

Some black paint and some name plates and a crew and it'll be finished. Lining? Maybe I'll have a go or maybe I'll chicken out and go for weathering...