A Model Railway depicting Thurstaston station on the Hooton to West Kirby branch on the Wirral Peninsula

As progress has been painfully slow over the last few years, especially in getting any models to a finished state and photographed for inclusion in the Model Photographs page, I have started additional pages to show work in progress. As well as showing what I'm working on, it will show progress on some of the various items before they progress to the Model Photographs page.
As the number of items in progress has increased, and I'd like to show some of the stages in the build of some of the items, I've split the original single workbench page into three for locos, coaches and wagons plus an extra for trains of as yet incomplete stock.

Please get in touch if you want more information on anything here or on any other page.

	GWR B-Set #1 This is of the D109 Brake Thirds from the 4 coach B-Set rake. The basis is the Comet kit with some replacement and additional parts, running on Bill Bedford bogies. Since the photo of the whole train being tested, the bodies have been undercoated and one side sprayed cream, awaiting the chocolate.  The other side will be newer British Railways crimson.
	The first photograph is the body and roof of one of the D141 Composites after spraying with the cream. The other photographs show the two sides of the same coach in February 2020.  The first is the completed GWR side with lining and lettering done by Jeremy Suter.  I will tone this down to reflect a coach that is approaching time for repainting. The second shows the first British Railway Crimson livery with the numbers at the left hand end of the coach. The coaches will look a lot better with interiors and wheels.
	The underframes have a lot of added detail - 4 trusses, brake linkage, steam heating pipe with drain valve, replacement battery boxes.  The D141 composite is at the front, D109 at the rear.  The key differences are in the battery box positions and the inclusion of steps under the guard's door of the D109, which are in line with the dynamo.
	GWR B-Set #2 The GWR B-Set rakes used on the Wirral were of 2 different diagrams.  The slightly later D109 / E141 ones are covered in GWR B-Set #1 above using the Comet kits.  I wasn't aware of any kits for the older D98 / E131 and wasn't relishing building another 4 from kits anyway so was delighted when Hornby brought out an RTR version of the coaches, even with the correct running numbers for the Wirral based rakes. It's generally considered that the Hornby 'crimson' is way too dark so a repaint will be called for.  I hope to do the minimum with the bogies as the short 7' wheelbase should run ok even with P4 wheels.  The couplings will need to be replaced with something a bit more prototypical and I'll check for any other enhancements needed.
	LMS Push Pull set The Driving Trailer for this set is an LMS built non-corridor brake third of Diagram 1856, Lot 688 of 1933. There were 17 coaches in the Lot, but from phtographs no two seem to be the same, especially over time. The model is largely based on a photograph of one taken at Bradwell on the Newport Pagnall branch in 1962 which shows many of the details that I like.  This includes having 4 connectors for the lighting and engine bell circuits. The model started as a full Comet kit but now has a Palatine chassis which is better suited to the prototype's rivetted underframe and Palatine bogies as I wanted to avoid having a sprung bogie under the cab with the sanding gear sitting very close to the rail head.
	The second coach is a Briitish Railways built non-corridor composite of Diagram 1921A, Lot 1576 of 1950. Whilst they are nominally all LMS Period III vehicles, there are a large number of detail differences over the Period III build time from the LMS in the 1930's through to the British Railway builds of the early 1950's.  These are not documented in detail in the published books so I have tried to follow photographs.  I think that the combination of details incorporated in the model are only found vehicles from this single Lot. Again, it is a Comet kit, this time with Bill Bedford sprung bogies.