Aside from hammering Football Manager recently, I've also kept the modelling mojo going with a kit build, modifying a couple of Hornby 'Caledonian Pugs' and planning my new layout.
Firstly, a recent post said I'd taken inspiration from a trip to the Telford Steam Railway. Well, with that in mind I set about recreating their shop, which is located in an old 'van' wagon. I purchased a Dapol 'meat van' kit and set about building it. Once I'd got to that stage I focused on the interior. Using scaled down pictures off the net (a bookshelf, display case and some Hornby train set boxes) I made a representation of the shop interior.
Although you can barely see it with the roof on, I know it's all in there and that's the main thing. It's not finished yet though; the doors need filling smooth and a sign whilst I also need to weather the thing.
Some of you may recall the loco I repainted and called 'Amy.' Well, I've never been that happy with the either the colour or the standard of paint job I gave it. So I sanded it down and repainted it blue. Whilst doing so, I found the other Caley 'Pug' and decided I'd make a small fleet. The result can be seen below. The other loco is yet to be named and numbered, I'm heading towards 'Sophie' and '10' at the moment.
I've ordered a new loco too. Nothing too flash though as it is Hornby's rather inaccurate RailRoad range Bagnall Shunter. I'm not too fussed about it's inaccuracies though, but for £18 figured I could repaint it (and name it 'Alexandra' with the number 1877 courtesy of Narrow Planet) to make a rather fabulous private industrial diesel shunter. In my mind I have visions of it shuffling in with a couple of battered mineral wagons on my new layout... which is still very much in the planning stages - although the two locos above are posed on it's early stages!
