Sunday, 19 July 2026

Sunny Sunday (10) - GVT loco trial run....

 Looking good in the sun-shine, the GVT loco...

running round.....

nice to get to the point where I have the loco running 😀

LocoWorks - GVT Loco (4) - mostly complete ?

 The fiddling, fettling and faffing continues....

Strengtheners added to the interior of the front....


the top of the front was not level, so a little bit of plasticard added.....

strengtheners for the cab sides....( I knew those mini g-clamps I bought 5 years ago would come in useful)
Initial tidy up of window size and shape....

strengthener for the front of the cab...
beading round the cab door area ...
The back of the cab strengthened..
Improving the cab door definition and adding a door knob..
making the frame for the roof... (which lifts out, so I can put the roof on and take it off)

Roof top added and a view of the whole loco...
mostly complete, but quite a few things left to do..
  • trim on underside of roof
  • internal cab detail (backplate, coal bunker etc)
  • front and back cab window frames
  • fill in the holes and sand off
  • a simple way to secure the chassis to the loco body
  • some loco crew
  • aftre that its off to the paint shop ....

Sunday, 12 July 2026

Sunny Sunday (9) - Single Fairlie ....

 I've got round to cleaning the track on the garden layout.  Over the last week I've had a short session each evening with the track rubber.

Today I got out the track powered Single Fairlie loco for a run ... (some 'sticky' track needed cleaning, after that all running well...)




LocoWorks - GVT Loco (3) - Skirts...

'The Side-Skirts' 

I re-inforced the thin cardboard skirts with some 0.5mm plasticard, then put some bracing in....

I made the inside strengthener 2mm wider so that I could add a strip of beading to the bottom of the skirt
nice to get the front part of the loco body back on and secure..
Beading round the top of the side skirts added plus the hinged access panels.....
the beading at the rear of the loco, I'm going to have to fill that hole up (it was where a large on/off switch was)

Bracing...

To make the upper part of the loco more robust I've put a cross piece in to brace it, and fixed it to the side tanks for extra strength.

Wednesday, 8 July 2026

New arrivals...

 A Sylvan Families tram, £5 at a charity shop - could be the bare bones a small rail-car

Two Hartland Loco Works tank wagons, they need some assembly tweaking.

Sunday, 5 July 2026

Sunny Sunday (8) - short mixed train again ....

 Diesel loco with van and bogey coach....




Wagon & Coach Works ....

A wagon....

A Hartland Loco Works small wagon; its a kit, quick snap together assembly

all done in a few minutes... this one is going to be made into a small guards van 


Coach Transfers

slowly but surely putting on the transfers (from Endon Valley); took me about 15 minutes per side... 
looking really nice now