Good tidings to all at this festive time of year. In the last couple of days I’ve been preparing the work room for the arrival of the layout. Tim Horn has worked exceptionally hard to bring my rough ideas into reality. From here, the real work can begin on turing this into an operational layout, with the eventual goal of having the layout on the exhibition circuit, however I intend to take my time with this, I see no need to rush this project.
In the meantime, I’ve been working on another 74XX. This one is somewhat special in that 7428 retained her GWR livery until withdrawal on the 31/10/1962. Although she retained the livery, the photos I have show her in typical Croes Newydd condition (filthy), although the Great Western Railway initials are still very prominent (I read that shed staff highlighted it with chalk over the years). As this started life as a Bachmann GWR 64XX, it didn’t have a smokebox numberplate, so I made one from some 10thou plasticard.
Weathering was done using several reference colour photographs, and the effect I feel works well, with the green livery slightly hinted at ‘just’ under the grime.
To finish the scene, Modelu‘s figures bring the whole thing to life. You may notice the lamp missing from along the running plate, the reason for this is I will testing some prototypes of Modelu’s 3D printed lamps in the next few weeks.
Those that follow this blog and are interested in these Pannier tanks, may like to know that the Railway Modeller article on the subject of my 74XX conversion, will be in (I believe) the February issue.
Finally I’d just like to wish the followers of tfmodelling, a Very Merry Christmas, and all the best for the New Year.
Best Wishes
Tom