The brick walls are standing

By this time I was hoping to have started building a model of one of Thaddeus Lowe’s electric railcars based on the Stanton drive. It turns out I had a problem with the drive when I was testing it. It comes wired from the factory for DC use so that you can place it on the rails of a DC system and it’ll go. When I placed it on my DC test track it ran haltingly and required frequent coaxing from ‘the-hand-of-god’ to help it along. Cleaning the track again didn’t improve things. On what would turn out to be its last run, a thin plume of smoke came from the housing as it sat and refused to move. I immediately shut off the power and that was that. I sent the remains back to the manufacturer. I don’t know if it was defective, or if I did something very wrong, but I’ll post an update when I know more.

So, I’ve decided to try and finish up some projects that are languishing on my table. I started the Le Tablier Rouge back in the winter and it’s been side-tracked a few times. But, recently I glued a piece of clear plastic behind the front façade to give it some ‘glass’; the side walls were painted a mixture of white and gray; some service doors were cut into the back wall. After that I glued a few 2mm x 2mm styrene strips to the back wall and floor, and then proceeded to glue the brick walls to the floor to get the shell to stand-up. I should have added more bracing to the walls before raising them, but I wanted to get things upright in order to see progress. I figured if I could see the walls standing, I’d be motivated to continue with the build in a more speedy fashion :-) I can always add more bracing later.