Px48 in 009: ready for painting...

Can you believe it? The PX48 I started in November 2013 nearly 5 years ago is finally ready for paint. Last seen on the workbench before I moved, when I'd added pipework to one side in January 2015 it not has both sides with a complete complement of plumbing as well as handrails, couplings and some work in the cab and tender...

It's a funny looking beast and if you trace the history of my model you'll realise I have taken a little artistic liberty to fit the chassis - rather than have a strange gap under the cab, I shortened the boiler when it was first assembled. I don't think this has negatively impacted it's appearance, but I'll leave that up to you to decide.

The pipework is a mix of brass wire in 0.3, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.7mm brass wire, a few whitemetal castings and Hornby Class 31 buffer beam valves (of all things). The air pipes are also from the same set. I added circular etched water filler lids from one of my old O&K kits on the cylinders. The cab received a section of Talyllyn coach roof and a larger footplate, as well as a little detailing to the front of the tender inside the cab, where the coal drops through etc. Just something to catch the eye, I'm not certain it's accurate as I couldn't find any photos of the tender front. On the rest of the tender as well as handrails, I added beading to the 'cab' cutout, a false floor inside the tender and a water filler hatch.

I'm planning to spray it all black before picking out the tender and cab sides in green, and then red footplate edges and buffer beams...

Obviously all this effort on a locomotive, it needed something to pull! I bought this coach from Shapeways some time ago but never got very far with it. Today I modified the Graham Farish BR2 bogies by removing the couplings and added Greenwich ones, and constructed something to use a as a coach floor once it's painted. The roof and sides are one, so once painted I will glaze, and then add a rudimentary interior and finally the floor.

Size wise it's a good match with the locomotive. I'm not certain without going through books again whether it's a Russian or Polish (or even Romanian) design, but it's a short length which suits the potential shunting plank concept layout (more on that shortly).

Finally, a glimpse with the other relevant locomotive, the Romanian Lyd2, which I've had to fabricate a replacement roof for today as I'd lost the original. A can of San Miguel succumbed to the knife and worked a treat. Now to decide what colour to paint it, and the coach. More soon...