Le train français des biens

Weathering the Y51100 started with a quick dirty wash to get some grime into those crevices. Then out came the airbrush to shoot an earth colour over the underframe. Next a dark grey over the top part and then some rush everywhere.

Exhaust muck appeared courtesy of some weathered black followed up by a bit of matt black. I went to town on this as I'd not been able to match the green paint on the horn as well as might have liked. No sweat though, where it is the normal colour with be filth after a couple of days away from the paint shop.

Finally, a nice mist of underframe dirt (dark brown - the colour we used to call "track colour") everywhere.

While I was mucking up the loco, I also worked over some wagons I'd been sent in the same package:



Doing an entire train makes the job a lot quicker. I filled a paint cup and then used it for each vehicle in turn.



The tank wagons are much improved by a bit of dirt. As supplied, the looked a bit toy like - the underframe could really do with some brakes to my eyes. Not being familiar with the prototype I can't be certain but at least the paint isn't as shiny now. Except where I put a bit of Johnsons Klear floor polish on to shine up the spillages anyway.

Steakyness is achieved by brushing the dirt vertically with an old brush and a bit of thinners, then re-spraying like that nice Mr Shackleton wrote in his book.

Horn and hole

Model locomotive chinmeys used to be supplied "blind", or blanked off at the top. The exceptions were those with a screw in the bottom to hold the body to the chassis. You still see this in some whitemetal castings but not often.

This might be a diesel but it still has something that looks a bit chimneyish for the exhuast fumes to escape. Quite a chunky pipe this, I don't know if it needs to be or is just the whim of the designers. Whatever, the top was solid and since we see model railway from above most of the time, I didn't feel this was satisfactory.

With some trepidation, I started to drill the metal. To my surprise it was quite soft. My scriber could be pushed into the centre of the soon-to-be hole and this guided a 1mm drill. Following up with a wider bit took some time but was still accomplished with hand power rather than electricity.

Emboldened, I thought I'd drill out the front of the blank airhorn. That wasn't so clever as the plastic body twisted as soon as the drill bit. I pondered the problem and then made it worse by snapping the thing in two.

Luckily I have a box of spare bits and this included a packet of rather nice brass airhorns. Drilling the the bracket I quickly put one in place with a touch of superglue. To be honest, I should have done this in the first place as it looks a lot better.

Soldering handrails

The biggest problem with this model locomotive were the missing bonnet side handrails. On the real loco they are pretty prominent so I couldn't just pretend their removal wasn't an in service modification.

Worse, the things are exposed and vulnerable, which is probably why they were missing. As bought they are moulded in plastic. Without access to an injection moulding machine, I knew it was time for some wirework.

Normally I make handrails for 4mm scale models from 0.45mm brass wire. 3mm scale models get 0.33mm so I guess I wanted something half way between these for 3.5mm. No chance, a quick measure of the existing ones showed that the 7mm scale wire - a whopping 0.7mm - was required.

Bending the top rail was complicated because the rails curve in towards the front steps. The verticals are complicated because the holes in the footplate and holes in the cab side aren't in line. As it turns out this worked to my benefit. I fitted the verticals leaning out and then the lower horizontal on the faces of these. The results looks pretty good as the outside edge of the horizontal rails are the same(ish) distance out from the bonnet sides.

All soldering was done with the wire in-situ thanks to the diecast body. Quick work, good flux (tried the non-acid stuff which was as usual, rubbish) and I didn't damage the paintwork. The handrails were flexible enough to be removed for cleaning in the sink followed by a blast of primer and thin coat of weathered black paint.

Cab work

There's not a lot of space inside this cab - it's mostly full of diecast lump covering the motor and circuit board.

I'd been sent a figure to fit in there but the trip through the post had decapitated him so I had to find a replacement in my stock of little people. Luckily I had a HO builder who, once chopped off at the waist, "sat" at the controls with his hands on the desk. The yellow hard hat and blue boiler suit symbolises the model industrial locomotive driver for me. An older prototype would see the mans bonce protected by a cloth flat cap.

Anticipating the future weathering activities, I masked the cab windows by pushing in some tape and then running a knife blade around the inside edge to trim it exactly to shape. Of course this meant I couldn't be certain the driver was looking through the windscreen properly so I should have left this for a little later.

Y51100

My next project is a bit of a departure - a French model shunting locomotive, Y51100.

The basic model is produced by NPE Modellbau but this one appears to be second hand, or at least has been in a wars a little. Along the sides, the prominent handrails are missing. Holes are included in the buffer beam for pipes but there aren't any in the box too.

A bit of digging around on the web threw up plenty of photo galleries such as this one which shows that shunters around the world are very similar. Boxes on wheels that get dirty. There's nothing special about French grime it appears.

This is a popular prototype for models. DJH produce a whitmetale kit and Joueffused to make a ridiculously cheap version.

My job is to detail and weather this model. The first step is to take it to pieces, as one of the "musts" is a driver in the cab. Access to the insides involves undoing a mixed bag of screws until the thing comes apart. The main body is entirely diecast but comes apart easily enough. Inside is a can motor with two worms driving both axles. A circuit board handles the directional lights and presumably facilitates DCC installation.