Hey Mr DJ, put a record on...

DB says: Yes, I have a pair of the South Island stalwarts. I'm sure they aren't the only NZ120 DJs in existence, but DJs are rare because of the chassis challenge. These two aren't perfect, but they are OK when viewed from 2 (or maybe 4) feet away.

3021 was the last model I made from the Otaki to Cass era, so it has some decent nose detailing, but I don't like the look of it as much as the other one (but I don't know why - the shade of blue and the overweight Letraset numbers perhaps). 3067 was my second 'proper' NZ120 model, so it's getting on a bit, having put in many exhibition miles over the years, and isn't in great shape these days (not that it was then either) because it's been opened up a few times for repairs.

Huh?

The challenge with using a widebody Kato chassis to represent a skinny 'hood unit', is that my DJs have no 'body shell' as such - the mech innards are too wide as it is let alone having a structural sheet of plastic fattening up the hoods even more. The 'sides' are thus paper-thin plasticard (actually I think 3067's are paper - photocopied plans) glued directly onto the mech and the side sills, roof, cab, hood doors etc are all attached to the core.

I shaved the metal sides of 3021's widebody mech down a bit with a file so it is closer to scale width, and I have parts for one and a half more as yet unmade DJs floating around somewhere that several people have attacked with mills and files over the years. DCCing the two will probably require trashing the 'bodies' but that day must one day come as they sound terrible on the '00' DCC analogue address.Other than the slimming down, and the bogie-mounted sandboxes (six each side) being removed with a sharp knife, there were no other changes made to the Kato chassis. They're not perfect, but they do make me miss the once ubiquitous DJs in their nice TMS blue livery.