Slowly plodding on with this coach, I removed the rest of the glazing from the same side as the 'rectangularised' window, cleaned up and glued a thin strip of 'Plasticard' above and below the window openings to create a base for raising the cill and lowering the top of each window. This is necessary to allow space for the thin cream painted line above and below these windows, but as it will be awkward to shrink the openings by maybe 1.5mm, I'm filling in by more than is required and then filing down to size. This is something of a longer way of doing it, but trying to work with thin slivers above and below each window would be hard work I reckon. This is where the strips are glued in above and below the windows. Note the protective paper padding on the side I'm not yet working on.
Once the inner black 'Plasticard' had set, I glued in two thicknesses of white 'Plasticard' shaped to fit above and below each window, fixed to the black where it overlapped above and below. This brings the infill to about flush with the bodywork outer.
Next step was to fill any gaps etc around each opening with the 'Squadron' putty. Once this has set, I'll be filing down the excess 'Plasticard' above and below each opening to get back to the size needed, and the glazing will then be shortened in height slightly to fit the more squat opening, but I'll leave refitting that until after rubbing down, repainting the cream paint, and doing the same on the other side of this coach. As can be seen, there is far more work required on this coach compared to the last one, and having now sourced (but not yet received) the three remaining coaches I need, there may well be another which needs the same treatment. Luckily this week I've not needed to go anywhere or do anything much else, so have been able to make progress unhindered by life in general.......it'll not last, I'm sure!
I've now reached the point where all 5 Pullmans are ready for reassembly as the bodywork/paint modifications are complete. The only thing holding up the proceedings is fitting passengers and I'm now in the process of painting these, but anyone who's done this with 00/H0 figures will know that it's a slow process and it's easy to lose the will to live with a monotonous job like this. I need somewhere between 80 and a hundred seated passengers, and these are unpainted as there seemed no point in buying ready painted ones as the colours are far too gaudy and would need repainting into 'Funereal garb' as I can recall that back in the mid 60's there was still great respect for the likes of Churchill. I did have a slight problem with some of the decals from Fox Transfers, as the last car in the queue ("Perseus") names just broke up. This was very odd as the adjacent "Carina" decals on the sheet had gone on perfectly without problem, but an email to Fox resulted in a replacement sheet being created and despatched to me by First Class post, and these decals went on perfectly with no problems. I've always found Fox Transfers to give 'by return' service and faultless products and this is the only time out of dozens of orders from them that I've ever had a problem, so it's nice to know they have great customer service in the unlikely event of a problem. It's also resulted in a further order for a lining set for the still ongoing "Lord Nelson" loco kit in my 'Pending' tray!
As part of my research of Churchill's Funeral Train, I discovered that the "Winston Churchill" loco returned to London 'Light Engine', the complete train (and presumably the mourners too!) were taken back to London by 'Western' no D 1015 "Western Champion", at that time apparently in the Maroon livery, so despite not being a GWR afficionado, it seemed like a good excuse to buy one (though I actually do already have one in Green!), so in due course I found a suitable candidate for name/number change in Heljan D1007, "Western Talisman", listed by Hattons as being "Like New" in their 'pre-owned' stock. It did look quite good when it arrived, although to be honest, "Like New" was a bit optimistic as one or two odd flaws were apparent on closer inspection. Worse was to come though as on running it on my rolling road, any resistance at the wheels resulted in one complete bogie ceasing to run. Rather than go through the faff of returning the loco, I decided to investigate and in due course discovered one of the drive knuckles at the gear tower of one bogie was cracked, which was allowing drive to slip and the bogie to cease running as resistance was applied. A quick stripdown and reassembly, removing and refitting the offending drive knuckle with a spot of 'Threadlock' has cured the problem and it now runs without problems. This isn't the first time I've had supposedly "Like New" loco's from the 'Big Two' retailers and found problems, and it does make you wonder how much in the way of checks their respective staff do on a loco before putting it up for sale on their "Pre-Owned" websites. I don't mind paying a fair sum for a 'used' loco but I do want it to be properly described, not that I'm suggesting any dishonesty, just not a thorough enough inspection, and this loco cost me (including postage) just over £100. Anyway, after a new set of name/number plates, addition of a 'second man' at the opposite end, correct route indicator numbers and individual cab lighting fitted, here's the loco as it is now. Front end was already 'detailed', and I now just need to replace the NEM coupling with a Hornby 'close coupling'.
Just read through the whole thread Keith. Great project indeed ! Back in the days of YMRC, I had a pack of 100 little people that I used for passengers in my son's coaches. These figures were all standing, so out came the scalpel and off came their legs ! In the end they didn't look too bad at all, after all, you couldn't see if they had legs due to the window sills and tables ! Cheers, Gary.
ModelU have just launched some especially made seated people in packs of 5.... I don’t think they are cheap though.. https://www.modelu3d.co.uk/product-...untry/1948-1968-tc/passenger-packs-1948-1968/
In 00 scale facial features are virtually indistinguishable, certainly from the 3ft rule point of view, so the Chinese models (which are nearer H0 scale rather than 00) at 200 for £13.19 including "Express" postage from China (about 10 days, which bearing in mind the current situation isn't bad) is pretty cheap, though at this price they are unpainted, so a rather monotonous job awaits with the paintbrush. On the plus side, if like me you are "Confined-to-Barracks" for the foreseeable future, then at least it helps to pass the time! Keith.
About the only plus point I can see from enforced 'Self-isolation' is that I can at least get through a few more of my 'projects', and this one is now finished, having finally painted all the seated passengers and fixed them into the 5 coaches, which allowed me complete the whole train and get it assembled. Here it is ready to run.
....and from the front, although I have yet to fit the three route indicator discs in the 'V' formation to the loco front.
So that's this 'little project' completed, but to be honest, the final result isn't really indicative of the many hours of work that went into modifying the Pullmans from what they originally were into a 'close as possible' rendition of the actual ones, "Carina" being the one which needed major surgery, though none were easy and required some head-scratching at times to convert since no-one has actually made the proper cars for this particular train. So on to the next project I guess! Keith.
Nice looking train Keith, great work. Now I would be sending pics of these to Hornby to see if they can reproduce them, just like the Steam Punk chap did with his models... Cheers, Gary.