Wednesday January 9th - first week of 2019 gone already... We met last night at Colins, Colin, Patrick and myself. Charles is excused as he is committed to Pilates on Tuesday. We may try and reschedule - see how it goes.

No modelling done last night, but we did have a session of 'show and tell'
Back at the end of December Pat and I went to the annual Toy and Train Fair in Carmarthen, and amongst the other things that we bought, Pat managed to acquire a 00 gauge Fleischmann loco for a knock down price. He wanted it mainly for the chassis.
Last night we were shown the work in progress:

Pat had removed the Fleischmann body and replaced it with a part 'Smokey Joe' body and a scratch built cab. In the picture below you can see the chassis:

Quite an improvement on the original Hornby nether regions that the Smokey Joe sported. The motor is a bit more sophisticated as well, sporting both a choke as well as the usual capacitor. They help to improve motor start up as well as suppressing electrical interference : 

Pat has been  a busy boy since Christmas, because he produced yet another gem out of his bag last night - a scratch built GER J70 tram loco.
Quite a rarity, as only 10 were built for service with the LNER, and none survived into preservation.

This is Pat's version - the body is made out of Plasticard, and at the moment just resting on the body, and still to have a smoke stack and other paraphenalia added:

And this is what the body is concealing:

Colin, meanwhile, has finished his 009 engine shed:

Viewed from the other side, with one of his locos about to enter:

This loco has been named 'Mari'  - any longer name wouldn't fit on the boiler! The name plates and makers plate come courtesy of Narrow Planet, and painted by Colin himself.

Mari of course is yet another of Colins growing fleet of narrow guage motive power. We are still trying to persuade him to build a dedicated layout for them to go on!

After a  supper of pizza, sausage rolls and Mariannes delicious salad, we settled down to watch some old railway related DVDs and Videos ('Videos'... they were that old!) but then so are steam trains - over 50 years ago now. Two generations have grown up since the end of the steam era...

This elderly gentleman is feeling tired.
All for now, Shaun.