D400 and a Footbridge

Time for me to highlight some of the locomotives, rolling stock and other features that we have added to the layout during the past few months and I will begin with another Class 50 (and the fourth member of the class to be added to our fleet) as well as a beautiful station footbridge - both seen above.

We acquired the Class 50 in the guise of 50037 'Illustrious' which came with faulty, non-working Hornby sound decoder.

This we duly removed and sent back to Hornby with a covering letter and, amazingly, within a few days it was back with us, fully working. 

You do have to hand it to Hornby, their Customer Service department is second to none - absolutely brilliant.

Well, this now meant that we had three large logo Class 50s when we really wanted a blue-liveried member of the fleet. 

So, with the help of Alex at Mikron Models, who found a blue body for us and swapped it and then weathered it, we now have D400 in original blue livery - nice. 

The sound is still that of Hornby's and it is okay but not as good as the Howes and SWD sounds that we have in our other Class 50s.

She is seen, here, passing through Manxton at the head of an express heading for Davemoor.

The second photograph shows the footbridge that spans the four tracks at the aforementioned station. This was needed to allow passengers to cross from one platform to the other, there being no subway at the station. It is another masterpiece by Alex who produced it from drawings and measurements that we gave him. 

The bridge is, basicaly, a Dapol kit, with extensions, and it has been painted and weathered to look, well, stunning!

This station is coming along nicely now and just needs the addition of lights and station nameboards and a barrel crossing to be complete.