Belle Project - Off to a good start!

The recently announced Belle loco project from The Sodor 'OO' Works, has started it's first stage of work, the donor locomotive, a Hornby Dublo 2-6-4T has had the body removed and  the smoke-box door, carefully filed down. This wasn't very easy since the body of the tank is die-cast, and takes a lot of very patient time to get it smoothed out, because it's such a chunk being taken off, it took me roughly 3 to 4 hours to get it done properly.







As you can see here, the smoke-box is quite bulky because of how the metal has been molded, but the face from the trackmaster Belle, fits nicely now, whereas before, it stuck out a fair way.
The body is going to be having a good render, for the addition of the water cannons, bell and headlamps.

The chassis is also going to have the rather bulky plastic pony wheels replaced with metal ones, from a Bachmann Gordon loco (Broken) for better grip and weight.

The next update will show how she looks after primer and slight rendition.