I next turned my attention to fitting the interior lighting. I had originally intended to make up a false ceiling which I would drill holes in to hold the LEDs and run the connecting wires above the ceiling and under the roof. I had pre drilled 2 small holes at the top of each partition to take the wires through. While looking at these the thought struck me that I could run 2 parallel lengths of brass rod through these holes and then solder the LEDs to them. This avoided the need for a false ceiling. After removing the bogies, the wiring from the battery box was led through a hole in the floor of the guard's compartment and was then soldered to the two rods, making one positive and the other negative. Wiring from the LED tail lamp was also connected up to the battery box. I then suspended 6 yellow LEDs between the two rods (one in the guard's compartment, three in third class and two in frist). I bent the LED pins at right angles and then soldered them to the rods (long pin is positive). Once soldered, the excess length of the pins was snipped off. The lighting was then tested and it worked fine. The on off switch is on the cover of the battery box and is easily accessible under the coach.

I had purchased a sheet of brass from Worsley Works to make the roof but I have put this to one side for a future project and I cut the roof from a sheet of thin ply instead. I sprayed the inside white, to help reflect the LED light down into the coach interior. I then glued the roof in place with 'Serious Glue' and held it in place with a lot of elastic bands until the glue set. After that I covered the roof with a sheet of office paper cut to size to represent canvas and to hide the wood grain of the ply, this was glued on with diluted PVA adhesive. I made a pair of rain strips from 1/16" strip wood and fixed these in position with PVA.

I then glued the Brandbirght coach door handles on with cyano glue and did the same with the handrails made from brass rod. Two rather nice Brandbright offset flexible brake pipes were then attached to the coach ends, unfortunately I had to cut the lower part off of the one at the end with the swivelling coupling to allow it to pass underneath without obstruction.
It was then time to paint the roof, I used satin black paint in error and so once this had dried I applied a coat of matt black. Then it was time to apply the transfers, once these were dry I applied varnish to them and had a bit of a disaster. The varnish reacted with the paint and started removing it!  I managed to bodge a cosmetic repair with the aid of a spray can and the result is acceptable but there are a few blemishes. Once that was sorted the the bogies were reattached after greasing the bearings. Job done!

Once the top coat of paint was dry, I painted the underframe, solebars and headstocks in acrylic matt black. It was then time to turn my attention to the interior. I don't go in for super detailed interiors, once the roof is on, even with interior lighting most of the detail cannot be seen. I do however like to have a fairly realistic representation of an interior. I made the third class slatted seats from a hardwood moulding obtained from a DIY store, this was left over from making the seating for the Schull & Skibbereen coaches in 2009. 

I made the legs for this seating from 1/8 inch plastic tube pinned in place with brass rod. The first class seating was made up from various bits of bass wood, shaped and sanded to represent cushions and I then fitted wooden ends with arm rests made from plastic angle strip. I also made a small bench for the guard using the remains of the wooden moulding. I made a rug for first class by taking a photo of the rug in my hallway and printing it on to card.
The first class seats were treated with sanding sealer and then painted with acrylic matt paint and I stained the third class benches. Once these benches were dry I ran an indelible marker pen down the grooves to emphasise the slatted nature of the seats. 

The seating and rug were then glued in place, followed by the glazing which was cut from a GRS coach glazing strip. Once that was done, the passengers were glued to their seats. After fixing the guard's seat I fitted a brake standard into the brake compartment and glued in the guard, with the added reinforcement of a brass pin up his leg and into a hole in the floor.  I used Evo Stik Serious Glue for fixing the seats, passengers and glazing, once the roof goes on I don't want anything to come loose and rattle round inside. I have made the daring or possibly foolhardy decision not to make the roof removable as it is easier to fix it permanently.

With the underframe detail complete, I then added a strip wood rail to the top inside of the coach body to add strength and provide something to glue the roof to. I also glued in a pre prepared additional roof support midway along the coach. The bogies were then hand painted with primer. Once the strip wood was treated with sanding sealer the coach body was sparyed inside and out with red oxide primer after first masking the floor with paper held in place with blu tack (the floor will be stained with oak wood stain). I left this for 24 hours and in the meantime I applied the top coat to the bogies, Humbrol 33 matt black enamel.

When the primer had hardened fully I masked out the windows with paper and covered the roof void with masking tape and then sprayed the body with Halfords Rover Damask Red as the top coat. I gave the body a good 4 or 5 coats of paint allowing it to dry between coats.

The next job to tackle was the underfame detailing. I glued in a couple of cross beams made from strip wood and one longitudinal beam for fitting the brake rod support and the battery box. I made the truss rods from brass rod and tube and fashioned some dummy turnbuckles from plastic tube with the centre section cut out using my old Expo drill. Brake rodding  was made from plastic rod and plastikard, the brake cylinder is the top from a toothpaste tube. Although I have included this level of brake detailing I have decided not to fit brake shoes to the wheels on the grounds of a), it's too fiddly and b), they would be barely visible as the bogies sit well in board from the ends of the coach. I may decide to fit brake shoes at some time in the future if I feel that way inclined. The final bit of underfloor detail is the battery box. This is a working battery box which will contain 2 AA size batteries to power the coach lighting. I mounted the box on its side and added some plastic strip detailing in order to represent the real thing

Two partitions were made from basswood and also treated with sanding sealer. These were glued in place to create separate first, third and guard's compartments. Brass rivets were then super glued into the previously drilled holes. Some cast lamp irons (from the bits box) were glued on. Further exterior detailing was added as follows: door hinges for the outward opening guard's compartment (fine plastic rod), drip strips for the inward opening passenger doors (quarter round plastic strip sanded flat on the curved profile) and fitting brackets for the end steps made from flat strip with dummy rivets made from short sections of plastic rod. All the plastic strip is by Evergreen.
I intend to run the coach with the guard's section at the rear and at this end I have fitted a scale T&D chopper coupling from a John Campbell cattle wagon kit. Once the exterior details were fitted, the steps (included as part of the etch) were folded up into the correct position.
To mount the bogies I cut some wooden cross pieces, drilled in the centre to take some threaded rod, 2.5mm dia. just because I happened to have some. The rod was anchored with a nut and then the bogie mount (is it called a bolster?) was super glued in place over this with the rod protruding through. The assemblies were glued in place under the coach floor and the bogies were then fitted on to these and secured with nuts.
Due to the sharp curves on the TBLR I have fitted the coupling at the loco end to an extension arm supplied with the bogie kit. I extended the arm with a scrap of brass so that it protruded beyond the headstock and fitted an Accucraft chopper coupling to this, minus its mounting unit. This coupling follows the centre line of the track even on the sharpest curves. I have positioned this coupling as close to the headstock as possible so that a near scale appearance is achieved on straight track at least.

In a change from my previous practice of using a dedicated gallery style web page to record my various loco and rolling stock building activities, I have decided to keep a blog for all future projects.
Tralee and Dingle composite brake coach 13 is my first build for 2012. The brass etched sides and ends were produced for me by Allen Doherty of Worsley Works. He scaled the parts up for me from his 7mm scale kit of this coach.
I started construction with the bogies, which are castings by Garden Railway Specialists ref AM325. The wheelbase of the bogies is a little longer (57mm) than the 52.5mm of the T&D originals, 3ft 6ins in full size, but they were the nearest match I could find. I drilled out the axleboxes to 5mm and fitted brass bearings to the enlarged holes. I have used GRS 30mm diameter spoked wheels. The bogies were assembled using 10ba brass screws and nuts and I have left some slack in these to give a bit of compensation when running on uneven track. I also glued some lengths of brass channel between the axlebox keeper plates (see photo on the right) to bring the appearance closer to the T&D originals.

My next job was to cut out all the parts from the Worsley etched sheets. I did this using an Expo 12v drill fitted with a mandrel and cutting disc. The underframes or solebars of the T&D coaches are flush with the body sides and this is included in the body etch. Allen has thoughtfully included blind rivet holes on the inside of the solebars which can either be left as they are, plain, or if you like rivet detail these can be drilled out. I opted for the full rivet detail and drilled out the holes before glueing 6mm x 12mm basswood strip to the inside of the solebars. I then glued the etched brass droplights in place behind the windows, not noticing there were two different sizes until I had glued a large one behind the smaller guard's door in error. luckily this came off OK and the droplights were all then correctly fixed in place. Once the droplights were on I was able to fit the window bars in place using fine brass rod. I then made internal linings, to waist height for the sides and full height for the ends, plus the internal partitions from 3mm basswood. The linings were superglued to  the inside of the brass parts. The wood was treated with sanding sealer and then the sides and ends were assembled using epoxy resin.
A floor (3mm basswod again) was cut to size and glued in place sitting on top of the solebar wood strip and headstocks (buffer beams) (6mm x 12mm basswood) were glued on the inside of the brass ends.