War Department (WD) Bogies

 Tryng to make this a quickie I have taken a leaf out of Matt's book and have been trying to build in bulk. To that end I have spent some time each day working on the bogies for the coaches and for the two wagons that fell into my shopping cart at the same time.

The bogies are very straightforward. First there is the matter of cleaning off the flash, of which there is a reasonable amount. Once done it was a case of adding the brake blocks, slightly tedious to have to glue 24 of the same thing but you get into a rhythm.

The next phase is to organise couplings. I use Greenwich couplings and these can be easily fitted by cutting and filing a groove in the top of the bogie (one has a very fetching matching groove in the underside. Don't ask!). Once done, I file off the paint from the underside tail of the coupling and then superglue them in. I usually do build Greenwich coupling in bulk and discovered that I did not have a sufficient supply for this project so there was a temporary diversion when I spent spare time on Christmas Day folding and building the couplings. Now that is definitely an item best built in bulk! 

Lastly, the brake assembly needs putting together. Here I fought the tempation to 'improve' it and lost. The pillar is fine and was glued on as is but the shaft on the brake wheel is just too long and the plastic shaft too fragile. I replaced the shaft with some brass wire. I also drilled out the handwheel to take the wire. They were superglued together and, once dry, I cut away some of the brake wheel shaft. This assembly was then glued to the pillar. It's definitely better to have less of a blob under the wheel but some of them are not as level as they should be.

After that it was a case of painting. I elected to hand paint so I didn't get paint in the axle boxes nor the rubbing plate but that meant tediously painting them first with primer (Humbrol Number 1). This struggled in a couple of palces to stick and I realised I had not washed the parts to remove any moulding remover but it wasn't too bad so I persevered. The topcoat was with a Games Workshop "Base Corvus Black". This is a good contenter for a colour that isn't too black but neither is it obviously grey. Again, this was tedious to put on.  

Here they are, a collection of bogies sat on the diorama, just!

Ashover Temptation

 I recently helped out at the Great British Model Railway Show, operating The Clydach Railway by Richard Holder. Next to the layout was another exquisite layout by David Wright based around the Ashover Railway. I did a bit of research and decided that this could really form the basis of a quickie layout for the simple reason that the stock is all available as plastic kits and the engines are mostly available as ready to run from Bachmann.

More research and more spending has resulted in the necessary books, engine and kits arriving over a period of a few weeks - "another parcel for you" was a repeated refrain in our house!

I've made a start on the Meridian coaches. The kits have been around for a few years and are very popular. Studying them closely I realised I didn't like how the chassis was formed and so, despite the desire for it to be a quickie, I took the opportunity to extend my 3D printing learning by producing my own chassis.

In the picture you can see two Meridian Ashover coaches. The left one is from many years ago and sits on N gauge bogies. The right coach is the Meridian kit with my own chassis sat on the WD bogies that are provided. The locomotive is "Bridget", the excellent Baldwin from Bachmann.

Hopefully, that will get me back on track to it being a quickie!