This is the latest to go to the paint shops, its a Hornby Railroad class 40, or to some of us who have been round the block a bit, Lima. Its pretty much ready the undercoat being Halfords plastic grey primer. The windows will be removed prior to the painting rather than masking them, with final fitting before weathering. The cab and bodyside windows are from the Shawplan range (Cat No EEFG4001) as are the other shiney bits. This model has had a significant amount of extra underframe detail added which was a bit challenging to keep it practical enough to run over second radius curves, which it still does. The detail is all impressionistic, quite a bit of time was spent looking at images of the 40’s and then making something that looks like it should, but is far from a copy of the real thing. One thing I would like to do is change the wheelsets out for finer scale versions. Unfortunately due to the axle diameter there isn’t a drop in replacement set. What was quite interesting is finding that the main bogie axles run in square bearings, so the Hornby 42XX/72XX models aren’t breaking the new ground that some have thought they are. This means Hornby have been using this system for approximately three years at least, with no obvious repercussions.

The body has some issues, though not as many as the Bachmann version, I’m referring to the original Bachmann model, not the latest version due for release this summer, the pre-production shots of that showing a much improved model. The paint for this model will depict a late green version with full yellow ends and DXXX number series. Hopefully it’ll get to stretch its legs across a good section of the S&C which is being modelled by a mate. Joining it are a couple of Bachmann 105 units which will be converted to the large headcode box variant http://www.flickr.com/lightbox/ One thing I’m short of is clear images of the underframes as these had different chassis’ fitted with Rolls Royce engines.

In the next week or so the exhibition diary will be updated, the layout doing its final shows this year.

Not Everyone
Works For Peanuts …