Dyfrdwy Tramway: Brake van in primer...

The tramway brake van has been on the back burner for a few weeks whilst I got to grips with the last of the Hudson Hunslets amongst other small scale commissions, as well as preparing for and attending ExpoNG...

As it is, now things are calming down a little (although Warley is only a few weeks!) I've been priming and starting to paint the brake.

The seats now have latches fitted, before the whole model was sprayed with Halfords grey primer. The roof was covered in a sheet of A4 paper soaked in PVA to simulate a canvas covered affair, before being primed and then a first coat matt black applied.

With the paint hard I decided I'd better give it some running trials out on the tramway. I have added some weight to the chassis, which has improved it's performance, and after a quick tweak of the back to back of the Slaters wheels (the Peco set-track points seem quite tight for them unless you ease them out a little) she ran well and looked the part. The Simplex also has become my new favourite, after I replaced the PDF worm driven custom chassis with one of my own design, modified from the Hudson Hunslet concept.

The plan is for an olive green body, with the wooden end panelling weathered quite a lot, along with a dark grey chassis. We'll see how that pans out in the coming weeks... More soon...