In works... Class 85

Having caught up with the maintenance backlog with Widnes Road, and before I get drawn into too many other daft projects (for daft projects see: starting yet another model railway layout...) I felt I ought to get around to building the DC Kits class 85 I picked up at the Perth show back in July.

This was inspired by this photo; taken by yours truly back on the 24th February 1990 in Wolverhampton and which I recently scanned for my fotopic site (see http://www.widnesroad.fotopic.net/).

Unfortunately when I opened the box it seems that the resin body had been damaged at some point in the last eight months, the buffer beam and one buffer was broken off and in three pieces. So what was planned as a leisurely evening modelling; i.e. filing a few random bits and maybe building the chassis turned into the more involved task of reconstructing the buffer beam, reinforcing it and filling the cracks with 'Rocket Powder' and cyano (a fabulous modelling product I couldn't live without, see: http://www.anticsonline.co.uk/923_1_1220504.html)and replacing the damaged buffers with far nicer turned brass ones I 'happened' to have lying around.

Task completed, I turned to the roof area and hit a major snag. The almost complete absence of decent photos of the roof area of a late 1980's class 85. The kit instructions didn't include any pictures and the diagram to my mind seemed to contradict the text and the few poor quality images I had managed to find. After trawling through my own photos, fotopic, and my usual reference books (including the usually reliable 'Main Line Electrics') I've hit a bit of a modellers block. Shall I make a few 'assumptions' based on best guess, or put the model on hold until I get a definitive answer. Watch this space.

If anyone actually reads this nonsense, and happens to have an answer / pictures as to where the various insulators and switchgear on the roof goes, drop me a line. Ta.