Rails to Black Rock

 Having made the new plain ends to the carriage I dug out some reference material and realised that the original model has an ornate panelled sole bar. I thought I could probably just overlay it with plasticard but this would leave it proud.

 So after several deep breaths I took a razor saw to it and cut the sole bar away. 

 I found this very slow and tedious and plucked up courage to score a deep line with a Stanley knife and then bent the sole bar until it snapped off.

 I had left about 1mm to file down. This allowed me to check that the top and bottom edges were parallel.

The two side panels were then glued together.

 New sole bars were made from Evergreen plastic section and superglued to the bottom edge of the carriage sides

 A new plasticard end was made using microstrip.

 A Worsley Works etched bogie has been built with shouldered pinpoint bearings. Unfortunately its too wide and the wheel set doesn't fit. The bearings will need to be removed and packed out.