Lipstick on a Pig - DXR 8007

DB says: DXR 8007 was always one of my favourite locos... until they recabbed it a couple of years ago.

I built this model in late 1993 based on some early plans in the Rails magazine and had the thing in service on Otaki to Cass before the real 1:1 thing had it's bugs ironed out. It's not a bad model either - well, when viewed from underwater anyway - it's paper and plastic construction with haphazardly scribed grills are hardly Boulish, but it did look the part.While I know the real 8007, which was TranzRailed, fitted with a replacement fuel tank (I believe the aluminium one developed cracks) and banished south well before the end of the 90s; hauled the TranzAlpine at least once, I'm not sure whether it's ever been on other trains on the Midland, but what else am I going to do with it? ...Rebuild it into a DX? So I'm pulling out my Modellers' Licence (which now that I look at it, seems to have expired in 1981; and is that Rhys' signature at the bottom?) and pressing it into service on the Coal Route.One of its obvious flaws was the far-too-deep blue suit the model originally wore. A little too 'Dancing with the Stars' for my liking. A thin wash of gull gray as in the above (non-clickable) pic, followed by a thin wash of Southern Blue mix (Tamiya sky blue with some white in it) had things looking a little more stylin', and some TranzRail decals completed the package.This was originally built on a Bachman Dash 8 and has sat on a (too-long) Kato Dash 9 since 1997, but it hasn't turned its wheels over much in the past 10 years. We did give some of those early Bachman mechs a fair workout on that old layout - the drive worms were prone to wearing themselves down so much that they wouldn't sit in their plastic bearings anymore.Now on a new (albeit as yet un-DX-ified) Atlas Dash 8 chassis, she almost looks ready for action again.In the image above, courtesy of the Scary Closeups dept, we see the bullbars even have the correct ribbing on the main posts. Yes, as usual, things look a little better from the mandated NZ120 viewing distance don't they!