A Happy New Year...

I'm sure there's a reader or two out there :D

Last couple of days small achievements:

• Body swap on the Bachmann Pannier - amusing how all the guides just assume you can get the couplings off. In fact, the mounts have to come off with, and it's surprisingly easy to break one, which I did. Trip to Trains4U tomorrow - Gareth reckons he has one in his spares box.
• Finished the weathering on the Lancashire Coke Co wagon.
• Had a very interesting read of a GWR steam in the 30s book - fascinating to discover just what a mess the average rake of coaches was - things like local passenger trains made up of a clerestory, a B set, two Siphon G's and a NE perishables van, and semi-fasts a huge mix of Colletts, toplights, clerestories... None of these perfect rakes of uniform, pristine coaches!
  
  

Getting my hand back in...

So, I 'found' a bunch of my old wagons to give to James today. He won instant brownie points by agreeing that some of them looked horribly 'plasticky' compared to some of the newer Bachmann ones he has, so we took a trip to Trains4U to pick up some Humbrol acrylic paints to see what we could do about it.

For starters, I grabbed one of a pair of Hornby Silver Seal 'Lancashire' 7 plank coal wagons, and started out by painting the inside an old wood brown, and picking out the outside metal framing in dark grey.

Considering its the first time I've picked up a paintbrush in anger since about 1990, it went well. It already looks miles better, but tomorrow I'm going to paint the underframe and make a start on weathering it.