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More Class 37s - 37057 and 37???


The Fatadder

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After selling off the body from another of my 1980s Class 37 fleet (37674) I was all set to buy a Bachmann 37114 body as a basis for a project to model 37057 in EW&S livery circa 1998.  Firstly its is @James Makins fault for reminding me about this particular engine on his recent postings.  37057 is a bit of a special loco to me, this being one of the first diesel models I bought as a child (if not the first) shortly after Hornby released it in 1997.   However I am a sucker for a gamble on an ebay basket case, and spotting a non runner Bachmann 37/4 with spare 37/0 body.  A request for some split box ends later has hopefully sorted out a swap for the required ends.  In addition there was the 37/4, both bodies were coated in some truly awful weathering, while the 37/4 had a damaged chassis from a bodged DCC sound install (along with no buffers).

 

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The state of the bodies as they arrived

 

Looking at the "weathering" it appeared to be water based, after a couple of hours of scrubbing the bodies are now a lot more presentable. (Although I have somehow managed to loose one of the cab windows after it pinged somewhere across the living room upon removal from the body!)  

 

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Much more presentable

 

The Plan:

37057: 

  • Roof modifications: Add the NRM roof pod, rivet detail to No2 end panel, remove air horns & fill in recesses, add Extreme Etchings roof grill
  • End modifications: The ends which I am swapping for are for the partially rebuilt version with welded up nose doors.  This means the door seam, and hinges will need adding from Evergreen strip / Archers rivet details. 
  • Respray into EW&S livery (I am hoping I have enough EWS Gold left in the tin, else it will get held up until May and the Bristol show.)  It will be sprayed at the same time as 67003 also into EWS.
  • Nameplates from Shawplan, transfers will be from Railtec

 

The other 37:

  • The first job is settling on an identity, particularly as this was an unplanned model.  There are 4 potential options that I am considering: The most likely option is another Transrail liveried 37/6, which would certainly complement the rest of my Cornish 37 fleet (which certainly has a bit of an EWS bias at the moment).  37671 Tre Pol and Pen and 37674 St Blazey Church would be the options (both of which I have previously owned as a mk1 37/6 in 671s case and as the just departed Railfreight model in the case of 674).  However the other option would be an Intercity liveried model, one of my favourites carried by the Class 37.  The choice would be between 37431 in petroleum branded Intercity Mainline, or 37685 in Intercity.  The down side with both is that I have never seen a photo of either in Cornwall.  At the moment I am tending towards the Transrail option, though whether this will last long enough to gain its nameplates is a different question.
  • Assuming that am going to go with  671, the ends will be swapped with those currently on 667 (which corrects both models)
  • The usual Extreme Etchings roof grill will be installed
  • The nose grills at one end of each side will need replacing, (the same is needed on a few of my EWS locos).  The problem is that no one has done an etch with modern design techniques and both the Shawplan and Hurst parts looking rather dated in comparison with Bachmann tooling.  Its a shame a new part along the same lines of the work  Brian did on the Deltic doesnt exist...  I have ordered some Hurst parts and will see how it looks...
  • Nameplates from Shawplan and the last of my Fox Transrail logos
  • As previously mentioned it was sold as a non runner, this was because the previous owner had made a complete mess of a DCC sound install (but clearly had stripped out the chip!)  They had attempted to fit a much larger speaker into the fuel tank, but their soldering was pretty poor (so one wire had broken off) and the hole for the speaker was not large enough causing the sides to bow out.  The speaker will be tested (and may replace the stock Bachmann speaker in 37207 (my only sound loco).  The chassis will still need further work, buffers are missing and will be replaced with Hornby 50 parts wile detailing the buffer beams.  It then just needs a 21pin blanking plug (or more likely a new PCB) to get the loco running.

 

 

 

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