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I've been repainting stock, building wagons, constructing buildings and falling on my On30 feet this winter. This loco and coaches came in a "novelty" livery. That has been removed and repainted black and olive green, DCC has also gone in. Moving up scale to 1:48 (staying at 16.5mm gauge) I decided to look into wargaming models. There is some really good stuff at what they call 28mm, which is the hight of the figures. Later cut MDF at reasonable prices that make very impressive models. A quick couple of coats with aerosol primer and a little black paint on the windows and this station is straight out of a western movie! In the foreground is a lumber wagon, that started life in 1980 as a Hornby Freightliner flat. So far I've only bought one wagon, the tanker, mainly to give me a model to copy. The 4 wheel wagon is a 30 year old Hornby wagon with the body removed and replaced with a larger scratch built open frame. Kadee couplers were also added. The 8 wheel gondoliers started life as an American HO box car. Again the body was removed and a new one created from Correx, Plasticard strips and coffee stirrers. Being american it came with Kadee couplers so there was very little cost over the £5 I paid for the secondhand wagon. Last week, doing my weekly shop in Lidl I came across some novelty bird feeders. They were in the shape of houses, which looked impressively close to 1:50. Finescale they were not, but they did have an American model village vibe about them. I bought 3 at £7.99 each. When I got them home I removed a few features that weren't required, mainly the hook you would hang it from, and they really looked the part. I went back to lidl and bought another 5, so I have 2 of each design. I want my On30 railway to be a lot less serious than my other modelling projects and these literally cheep and cheerful "models" are certainly less serious. I've made a start on "improving" them by repainting one into light blue, but appearing from adding a chimney or two I won't be doing much to them. They may inspire further constructions in this style.

Switched my weekly shop to Aldi this morning. They had bird boxes of a similar design, albeit not quite as good design, but for only a fiver. I bought 3. Plenty of fettling to be done.