Body Work

It's been a while since we've had any model railway updates here.  Which, mainly, is because very little has happened of late in that department.  After getting frustrated with wiring issues, I decided to give things a rest for a while.  Away from the track work and wiring, however, there have been a couple of minor developments.  First off, remember this:

Yes, I know, this restoration seems to have been going on forever, (it has).  But I finally got around to ordering some decent lining transfers, which you can see above, (you can also see the results of trying to use the last lot I had on the tender).  The trouble is that their arrival has left me even less satisfied with the paint finish on the locomotive and tender.  I'm now seriously considering stripping it again and starting afresh with new paint.  Possibly even trying to spray paint it.  My dissatisfaction has been amplified by my acquisition of this:

This is a slightly battered Hornby Dublo West Country body I bought cheaply on eBay the other day.  The paintwork is in remarkably good condition, with only a little wear to the boiler lining and the printing on the nameplates.  The main problem is that the leading top corners of the smoke deflectors have been slightly bent inwards, which shouldn't be too difficult to rectify.  While I can never hope to replicate the quality of the factory paint finish on the one I'm trying to restore, (for one thing, the shades of green used successively by Hornby Dublo and Wrenn on the model are both too light), it did bring home the inadequacies of my efforts so far. 

But, you are doubtless asking, what is the point of obtaining this new body?  Well, originally I had the idea of using it to replace the body on my other Wrenn West Country, the one factory numbered and named as a Merchant Navy, rather than risking blemishing said body with a renaming and renumbering attempt.  But, after further contemplation, I decided to use this new Dublo body as the basis for a long-term project.  Two rail Wrenn/Dublo chassis for these models have started appearing at relatively reasonable prices, so my aim, eventually, is to obtain one for this body and construct, from spares, a new, more accurate tender, (I have most of the parts needed already).  In truth, it will probably end up with the tender from the one I'm restoring, which is actually accurate for 34005 Barnstaple, the real loco the Dublo body represents, with the restored one getting the new tender.  The Merchant Navy will retain its current, entirely inaccurate, identity (once I've finished repairing its chassis).  In the meantime, the newly purchased Dublo body can run on the chassis of the loco being restored and borrow the Merchant Navy's tender.  Which all seems complex, I know, but makes perfect sense to me.  The upshot is that, in the long run, I should end up with three Dublo/Wrenn rebuilt Bullied pacifics in working order.