They refuse to die

 On the 3 foot 6 website in the RTR section for the last couple of weeks has been a  model of Dx5454. This model (if  I'm correct) has an interesting history.

 

This appears to be one of the etch edZinc Dx's from Dunedin in the early 1990's. Why Zinc? because the guys that had them done worked for the Otago Daily Times and that was the tech that they had access to at the time.

 Spotting notes include;

-A flat roof. Other models tend to have a bulge over the dynamic brake grills behind the cab. I managed to get the rooves on my models bent but it was a huge faf and really not for the faint hearted.

-Ditto the flat top of the nose (which is also quite square with 3 holse in the front and no raised detail).

-The front and rear headlights are flat (should angle back). again it took a lot of work to fix this in the ones I built.

-Deep windows (the zinc was awfully thick).

-It has the signs of being assembled by Kelvin Barry in Chrictchurch. the Dunedin models had the front and rear headstocks as part of the bogie so that the couplers would not pull trains off going round curves. these models also often had a name written inside the long hood so that Kelvin could keep track of who he was building them for.

Takeaway notes for this are that Zinc is a pig to work with, and these old models just keep cropping up.

It's also left me wondering what had become of John Rappards old layouts, both Port Chalmers and the Dunedin and Otago Central.