What is now on the the bench was recently a figment of imagination.

[gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

I've been busy with transfers and painting the underframes and bogies. The transfers have been coated with Johnson's Pledge to seal them in place and the bogies and underframes have been painted with Humbrol 85 satin black.

I have ordered some oval buffers that will be fitted along with buckeye rubbing plates and couplings.

One underframe painted, one to do.

Diagram 130 end loading car flat with removable sides.

Diagram 131 end loading car flat

Half of the ten car flats that I've built so far.

Gibbo.

[gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

The postal vans have had lettering and emblems applied to all ten of them. I did have some old Replica white lining transfers however the sheets were several years old and seem to have become embrittled over time, when I attempted to use them the lining broke into lots of small pieces. I have ordered more form Railtec which ought to arrive soon enough.

POT 30279, a stowage van with net recess from diagram 2176. This van did not have sorting racks being entirely unfitted inside and was the only one of its kind. Interestingly there was a POS diagram 2185 of which three were built in 1954 that had no provision for nets but were fitted out with sorting racks a lavatory and a wardrobe, they were numbered 30300/1/2. I shall run these two types of van next to each other in the formation once completed.

 

Gibbo.

[gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

The lining transfers for the Postal Vans arrived today but I've been busy with my next project which is cutting and shutting all my old Hornby APT-P stock into variations of the proposed test trains as seen on this site:

http://www.25kv.uk/APT.php

I bought one of the ew Hornby APT-P sets just a few weeks ago and so I've been spurred into action with my cut and shuts. I will have enough bits to build up into the Q, R, S, and T versions of the train seen toward the bottom of the above linked website.

Cut and shuts so far, we have:

• Power Car X3*
• Driving Power Car X1
• Driving Van Trailer X 2
• Driving Semi Powered Van X1
• Semi Articulated coach X2
• Articulated Coach X6
• APT-U Development Coach X1
• Driving Second Class X1*
• Trailer Guard First X1*

 

There is a complete five car set which will be left original and of the above marked * are as original also.

 

See if you can make sense of the photographs !

 

 

Power Car and driving Power Car.

Driving Semi Powered Van.

Driving Power Car.

Driving Van Trailer.

Semi Articulated Coach.

Articulated Coach.

APT-U Development Coach.

Confused ?  I was but after a couple of days its getting clearer !

Gibbo.

[gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

The white lines have arrived for the Postal Vans and I've applied one side of eight of them so far. I'm having a rest from them for a while before I go crossed eyed !

Along with the white lining the buffer heads for the Motorail car flats arrived also, I had  a break from the lining this afternoon to fit them. The next job will be buckeye rubbing plates of which I mad and fitted one out of twenty need for the ten car flats.

The new buffers and rubbing plate. The buffer stocks have been shortened to 1.5mm long to represent the buffers in their retracted position.

Gibbo.