More Trains of Thought

I was going to do so much today.  In the event, I spent an inordinate amount of it asleep, exhausted by my semi-return to work this week.  But I'm tired of talking about the state of my health and work.  Suffice to say that the post I had tentatively planned for today has been postponed as I simply don't have the energy or patience to write a lengthy piece right now, (it was another schlock movie write up, which will now appear at a later date).  Besides, I've spent far too long this evening looking at model railway stuff on eBay.  As always, most of it is wildly overpriced - just because something is old, doesn't mean that it is valuable: Triang, seventies and eighties Hornby, Airfix and Mainline items were mass produced, meaning that many still survive in the market in working order.  As I've mentioned before, the best bargains can come amongst the mislabelled items.  Often you'll find yourself the only bidder.  Likewise, items which would otherwise attract collectors if they hadn't been modified or repainted can often go for reasonable prices - I've bought both a Wrenn rebuilt West Country and a Hornby Dublo R1 for a song because both had been repainted, scaring off the collectors.

Anyway, today I've been perusing kit built locomotives.  To be precise, badly made kit built locos.  White metal kits often prove the graveyard of modellers' aspirations and the completed or semi-completed outcomes can sometimes be picked up cheaply.  Usually, rescuing them isn't too difficult.  More often than not, it is a case of completely or partially disassembling them, then rectifying defects before reassembling them.  In many cases, there is no problem with the assembly, but the paint job is hideous.  Again, fairly easily rectified by stripping and repainting.  One such item which attracted my attention today was a supposed 'kit built' 'S15'.  Now, I have no intention of bidding on it as, for what it is, it is already over priced.  But its construction interested me: according to the seller, it was built by combining a Wills N15 body kit with an old-style Hornby 'Flying Scotsman' chassis (minus the trailing truck), and a Triang L1 tender.  Now, for many years I've had a Wills N15 body and tender (quite well constructed and painted by myself, in my humble opinion), for which I've never managed to come up with a chassis.  (There was a chassis kit, but chassis construction is beyond my abilities).  So, the thought occurs to me that maybe I can pull the same trick - you can often pick up the old-style 'Flying Scotsman' chassis quite cheaply.  The valve gear would need modifying, but it could be a way to finally complete that N15.  Another project looms...