Final tweaks

The roofs are all now dry and have been properly attached to the mail sorting coach and breakdown crew coaches. I decided to have a bash at repainting the roof of one of the mail coaches due to the amount of rust. Unfortunately the mail coach roof doesn't detach like the others so I had to mask off the whole coach, being careful to avoid overspray.

Thankfully the results aren't that bad.

Finally before all the new additions get boxed up ready for the weekend, there's this little gem...

It's a repaint with new transfers and it looks stunning. Way better than anything I could hope to produce! My original plan was to put this aside until a suitable scrap chassis turned up at a reasonable price but when I saw it I thought it was too good to leave on the shelf. Having inspected my two original black 2-6-4 locos, 80033 is the one that looks the worst, so I've temporarily swapped the bodies over. I may attempt a full repaint and re-transfer of 80033 now that I have more confidence with this kind of work. If my results are anywhere near as good as this one then I'll do 80054 too. 

I seem to be developing a tank fetish. There's something about 2-6-4s, I'm not a steam buff - maybe it's because I had one of these as a kid and realised then how indestructible they were. Ours ended up being jumped off a made up three rail ramp! They're easy to work on, they run well and give very little trouble even when double heading and they sound really sweet.

I'm still on the lookout for the highly desirable and very rare 80059. It's eluded me many times now, I've probably bid on more of these than any other loco and lost every time. The last one fetched almost £300. It was pristine and boxed, which kind of broke my own rules but just too much money.

If and when I do finally get my hands on one, if it needs repainting then it'll get sent away for a professional job.

For now though all the remedial work I'd planned, including the emergency board repairs, are complete. There's a substantial amount of track work fixed in place and cut to size, which will speed up the setup process. I'll investigate fixing more tracks on the day.