Hi Guy's
Just had a little bit of a play with one of the new On Track Models VLCXs. I made a couple of Modifications mainly to make it fit in with my fleet of wagons.
I will do a little bit more work to the roof. The roof would be the hardest thing to weather up on these Vans. It is hard to get the right look. I masked up and resprayed the Red to give it a faded look which was Floquil Zinc Chrom Primer with a little bit of Floquil Aged Concrete mixed in. Most of the rust spots are Floquil Tuscan darkened with a little Floquil Engine Black.
The Modifications that I did are as follows;
I removed the step under the doors. In my era there wasn't many VLCX left with this step in place. They were a bit more common on the first series of VLCX's(1-135) with the timber floors but the ones with steel floors, they were rare to have these steps. These steps were probably a feature of all the vans when first built. The pack that I got which was VLCX-3 had one of first series and two of the later series (136-660). On the first series one I am going to leave the step on.
One my 2 second series Vans I have also removed the striker plate from above the Couplers. On the second series vans this doesn't seem to be a feature. I have left it on the first series van as they are on them but probably not as large as featured on the model. I have also moved the coupler box in by about 1.2mm. It is now basically flush with the end of the Vans.
I added KD number 58 couplers.
I added a mix of AR kits and SEM bogies to the Vans as I have standardised my fleet using only these bogies.
Anyway that is a bit of look at these nice Vans
Cheers Justin Moy