New Road. An update and something else new.

Another week has gone racing by. I have to be honest, I got slightly waylayed this week.

A friend of mine got talking about Class 74s, in reflection this has caused me to turn my attentions to something else. Not a great deal has been done to New Road, in fact this is the total of a week's worth of modelling on the layout.

No, it's not for a wind generator ( Not sure why they call them that, they don't actually generate wind, do they.) It's for a possible Art-deco awning for the platform.

What has he done this week? Going back to Class 74s ( did I say in a previous post about being given a rather nice photo of one in Poole yard?)

I bought one didn't I. One of those offerings from Silver Fox Models no less.

http://silverfoxmodels.co.uk/class-74-bo-bo-british-rail-crewe-new-2/

It arrived and bearing in mind it's rather an old model now, and the upgrade I did with Lima's old Class 31 well, It couldn't be that difficult could it.

I have set about improving it somewhat. 

This is as it comes out of the box.....

.......the other side

Handrails, grills, roof vents, jumper cables, air horns, buffers, draw hooks are all cast as a big lump.

Of course, me being me, what did I do? I stripped it. I had a lot less body than I started with, gone were all the moulded detailing bits. I even cut out all the grills on the sides and roof.

Sorry, forgot to take a photo.

Hay-ho.

So, there was no going back now. In fact, my Class 74 is looking, well I think rather good.

I can't recommend Colin J. Marsdens' book enough, The Electro-diesels classes 73 and 74. It has a wealth of photos and details on both classes.

The one thing missing on the model is it's 'nose' as can be seen from the patch of filler I have tried to replicate it. Not sure that it shows up in the photos to well.

 Replacing the mesh grills with something better was another priority.

Where to find mesh so fine?

Hannant's came up trumps with there variety of etch meshes (you have to give it to these model tank builders) S-09 etch seem to look right.

https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/index.php?search=mesh&pricer=1¤cy_id=2

Some wonderful turned brass air horns from Markitts.

You may also have noticed that I have removed the buffer beams, these will be replaced with some from DCC Supplies ie; ones for a Class 73, for the life of me I couldn't find buffers, they are huge.

Some of the parts still to use

Replacement wheels from Alan Gibson, jumper cables, even managed to get hold of a cab interior.

It's going to keep me busy for a while yet and we don't even possess a chassis for it.

Annoying really as A1 models are out of stock on etched roof grill and fan sets well, the one I need anyway, otherwise she would have been in primer by now grrrrr.

That's it for this week, hopefully a roof grill will turn up and we can send her for paint.