Bron Effans

Work continues apace on the DMU with the arrival of the second Kato chassis for the second car of the unit.  It was very apparent, even on the ambulance bogies, that I would need to rethink the coupling situation and come up with something more effective. Fortunately, there was some brass rod left over from the Vale of Elan build which I created a basic bar coupling between both power units. This was attached to each of the N Gauge couplers to allow the bar some movement when traversing the sharp bend on the points.  I am happy to report that this has proven successful and the two power units provide a fairly rapid acceleration and steady crawl. The next step is to finish the bodyshells. I have had to order a new roof for car 2 as I have damaged the original but that’s only a minor issue.

I have been continuing to work on the DMU as it has been a really interesting project for me. Both cars are now more or less assembled and the first few layers of paint have been applied. I have had issues with the Railmatch BR Green paint owing to the fact that it is water based and has taken several layers to get right.  Both cars are shown below. The few people that have seen it have been impressed with the initial efforts, some commenting that it has the look reminiscent of a Class 319. There is still a long way to go with this model, as I am waiting on delivery of the second Kato chassis so that it will have a consistent look and will be able to fully move under it's own power with ease, Car A is currently on an ambulance chassis. I need to sort out some front skirts for both cars to replicate battery boxes and form snowploughs for the front, just like a BREL sprinter which is the look that I am aiming for. The lead car is currently on an ambulance chass...

I have begun construction of my third freelance rolling stock project for my layout. I took the decision to retire the banana and repurpose the chassis for another project. I had purchased the bodyshell for the 009 gauge railbus from Budget Model Railways and had swapped some components around so that I could create a two car DMU for the railway.  I began the construction process in a slightly different way to aim for some uniformity of the two carriages. I painted all of the components in their base colour before assembly to make sure that the two carriages would look identical. Past experience with these 3D printed kits has taught me that they are very simple to construct.  I used my regular method of applying a base coat of cheap acrylic before using railmatch colours to create the final finish. At the time of writing this is how the model is looking. I would like to pass on my thanks to both Mike and Douglas at Budget model railways for all of their ...