Making the most of Mk.2s
SO far in my project to create a Glasgow Queen Street-Aberdeen push-pull set, I have covered how I went about respraying and detailing No. 47701 St Andrew along with creating the Mk.2f DBSO (REM No. 154 February 2017). Prior to that article, I described the improvements made to a Hornby Mk.2e First Open that forms part of the rake (REM No. 137 September 2015). In this concluding part, I will do my best to convey how I went about modelling the standard class Mk.2 coaches that complete the set.
As I touched on in the previous instalment, there are several ways in which a prototypical rake of Mk.2 coaches can be achieved. It does all depend on how far you want to take it but, having decided that alot of my coaching stock is going to be sat stationary for quite a while and fairly close up to the public at exhibitions, I have made the decision to get the stock as good as my skills will allow.
Setting a standard
With all that in mind, let us move onto the next vehicle in the set. The third vehicle in from the DBSO end is Mk.2d Tourist Standard Open (TSO) No. 5623 in ScotRail colours. There are several detailing areas that I am going to describe that form a minimum standard for every single coach on Queen Street, so what follows is pretty much a full description of the work applied to all of the coaches in this rake.
The base vehicle for this Mk.2d is the Airfix/Dapol/Hornby model which, as before, I will refer to henceforth as Hornby as it is the current holder of the mould. The first job is to remove and discard the B4 bogies and then separate the body and chassis, remove the glazing and dunk the body straight into a ‘DOT 4’ brake fluid bath to strip off the paint.
While this was having a soak, the replacement Replica Railways B4 bogies were prepared. These come in four parts (two sides and two ends) so have to be glued together. Firstly, some brass bearings were fitted into the axle points and 12mm diameter ‘EM’ gauge wheelsets prepared, these being inserted at the moment of gluing the bogies together.
It is a bit of a juggling act
