A Helping Hand

Having done a bit of research of my chosen subject, 47489 Crewe Diesel Depot Quality Assured, I discovered that the 47 had white handrails. Initially I thought I'd just painted the moulded effect that is already on the loco cab side (as seen below) but, pretty quickly, I decided this was a little lazy and, if I was making the effort on the loco face, I might as well do so on the side.

The picture above is how the loco looks 'out of the box.' It's ok, in all fairness, but I thought 'why not give it a go.' I'd read somewhere on line that 26mm staples do the job as grab rails and so, armed with a small needle file, I set about filing the moulded detail.

As you can see below, the right hand one (my first go) is a little rougher around the edges than the left hand side one. Both sides needs plenty of tidying up with a bit of 'wet and dry' (and I'll now need to repaint too - something I was hoping  to avoid) but generally I'm pretty pleased.

The holes for the staples to go in where drilled with a small twist drill and a 0.5 drill bit and they made short work of the job. I've only placed the staples in loosely for now, as there is far more work required around them required before I reach that stage.

In addition, I've ordered a buffer beam detail pack from Bachmann and am debating how to go about adding the front grab rails. Thought process on that is to be continued...