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Ex LMS Jubilees – updating Mainline and early Bachmann split chassis models


Silver Sidelines

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One of my all time favourite models is Mainline locomotive Mars.  I kept my original purchase from 1983 and a couple of years ago I upgraded the model with a Bachmann mechanism.  I think it is still an attractive engine with its Fowler Tender.  The Mainline model of Mars was relatively expensive, I am guessing to cover the cost of the ‘new’ improved Fowler Tender which I think was all new tooling – that despite Mainline getting access to the older Airfix 4F / 2P designs.

 

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45698 Mars – Mainline model with Bachmann mechanism

 

I have been taking an interest in the reported sightings of Jubilees on the Port Road as discussed on Dan’s RMweb thread about his model of Stranraer Harbour.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/140736-building-the-station-stranraer-‘themed’-loft-layout-1959-64/

 

During the 1960s Mars was frequently recorded at Carlisle – with a Stanier Tender!

 

1289598599_45698MarsFairburn42244.jpg.1c0fdc81900da8bddcbb8a1299f0451a.jpg

 

Thank you Pete (Courtesy ‘Fairburn 42244’ https://flic.kr/p/cuXpsw)

 

Where did Mainline’s Fowler Tender come from?  A further search of people’s images confirms that back in LMS days Mars was paired with a Fowler Tender which it kept until the late ‘50s.

 

 

355955309_45698Mars.DavidWard.jpg.73a944997f4a5c948e55bb879da5b744.jpg

Thank you David (Courtesy ‘davids pix’ https://flic.kr/p/bwbHo2)

 

Other pictures indicate that Mars received its Stanier Tender and Late Crest  as early as 1959.  Therefore Mars as portrayed by the Mainline model would not be correct for the Port Road and Stranraer in the 1960s.

 

One Jubilee model that is recorded as being at Stranraer in the 60s was Orion.  I bought my original Mainline model new in 1981 for £17.95 only to sell it in 2007 to raise funds to buy one of Bachmann’s new unrebuilt Patriots.  Moving forward I have purchased another Mainline Orion.  It has been given a Bachmann mechanism, cab glazing and brass safety valves.  I think a good model.

 

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45691 Orion –Mainline model with Bachmann mechanism, cab glazing and brass safety valves

 

I need to share a couple more images of Orion number two.  First there is a view taken from the sales details and then a view immediately upon receipt.  It would seem that Orion owners should have an Aga!

 

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Mainline Orion – advertising detail

 

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Mainline Orion – on receipt

 

Jubilee Amethyst is another of my original Jubilees that I kept from new.  Bought in 1985 it was given a Bachmann mechanism around 2013.  As time goes by I am beginning to think the 1950s BR livery scheme with lined black engines and red and cream coaches was actually very smart.  I think I now prefer it to the all maroon coaches and Brunswick green engines.

 

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45700 Amethyst  - Mainline model with Bachmann mechanism

 

After the demise of Mainline Palitoy, Bachmann reintroduced the Jubilee fitted with a ‘can motor’.  One of these early models that interested me was Invincible which I had photographed at Carlisle Citadel in 1962.

 

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45715 Invincible at Carlisle Citadel August 1962

 

The first Bachmann Jubilees came with cylinders fitted with plastic slide bars.  Other will confirm but I suspect the wheels were also over wide and chunky.  I gave my model of Invincible a new mechanism and some black coloured ‘247’ etched plates.

 

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Bachmann Jubilee 45715 Invincible with upgraded mechanism and 247 etched plates

 

There was one other ‘old’ Bachmann model with a Fowler Tender that had eluded me.  That was 45568, Western Australia.

 

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45568 Western Australia- Bachmann model with refurbished cab windows

 

The Bachmann model that I tracked down turned out to be a bit of an oddity.  It was little used and had bright wheel rims and motion.  However it had bright metal slide bars and thin profile wheels.  As a result I haven’t upgraded the chassis – although I have replaced the nylon gear to the centre drivers.  Furthermore all the chassis fixing screws for both the tender and the engine are cadmium plated cheese head screws.  In all the years I have been playing with Mainline and Bachmann models the chassis fixing screws have always been blackened counter sunk screws.

 

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Bachmann 31-152 aka 45568 Western Australia – the odd cheese head body fixing screws

 

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Bachmann 31-152 aka 45568 Western Australia – the odd bright metal slide bars

 

For comparison I have included a picture of an early Bachmann Jubilee / Patriot chassis with black plastic slide bars.  (The early Scot chassis was similar but the wheel balance weights were crescent shaped.)

 

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Early Bachmann Chassis for Jubilee or Patriot

 

At a first glance the old Mainline and Bachmann locomotive bodyshells are identical.  However when the Mainline bodyshell is fitted with a Bachmann mechanism the cab sits too low and a packing washer is needed beneath the cab.

 

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Packing beneath the Mainline cab when fitted to Bachmann chassis

 

The need for the washer becomes clearer when the Mainline and Bachmann mechanisms are compared – the Mainline mechanism is made to sit 1mm higher (why?).

 

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Mainline versus Bachmann chassis

 

The cab glazing can be another issue with these old models.  Most frequently the clear plastic for the right hand side (the side that lies in contact with the polystyrene tray) becomes stained yellow.  The yellow colouring is Bromine which was added to the plastic during manufacture and which with ageing leaches to the surface of the plastic.  (I would say the plastic lenses in my spectacles are beginning to show the same issue!)  A trick that I have successfully used to remove the discolouration is to immerse the stained item in hydrogen peroxide solution and leave to stand in bright sunlight – you do need some good  ultra violet radiation.  My bottle of peroxide solution was bought at the local chemists as a weak disinfectant / mouth wash and is marked ‘20 VOLS available oxygen’.  Two days of immersion with bright sunlight works wonders.  I did notice here in Scotland that with poor sunlight I had left the bits in the solution for nearly a week and thought the clear plastic became slightly smokey.

 

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Cab glazing after one day in hydrogen peroxide solution – still some residual yellow colouring. (Note the flower arranging glass nugget to hold the plastic below the surface.)

 

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All clear glazing after two days treatment in bright sunshine

 

One other issue that affects all Bachmann Jubilees, Patriots and Scots, and probably the Mainline and Replica versions is that the chassis fixings for the top motion bracket can break.

 

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Broken Bachmann chassis fixing

 

The key to gaining access is to remove the circlip on the centre driver.  I used one of my wife’s fine brass dress making pins.

 

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Dismantling

 

With the motion detached the plastic moulding for the support bracket can usually be pulled out from the mazac chassis. This allows access to the tiny screws that hold the metal parts to the plastic and to the chassis fixing holes which can be cleaned of residual glue and broken plastic. For the cleaning I used the blade of a tiny instrument maker’s screwdriver.

 

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Cleaned

 

I replaced the broken fixing pins with a short piece of copper cut from the earth wire of some surplus domestic mains cable.

 

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Ready for reassembly

 

I guess the clever part is drilling out a hole in the plastic moulding to accept the copper wire.  The Bachmann plastic is very soft and a suitable size hole can be created using the same instrument maker’s small screwdriver as I used to clean out the holes in the chassis.

 

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Nearly 40 years difference, Mainline Mars from 1983 and Bachmann Baroda from 2012

 

I do like my Jubilees!

 

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to 'Fairburn 42244' and 'davids pix' on Flickr for allowing me use of their historic images of 45698 Mars.

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15 Comments


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Very interesting,  those Bachmann wheels with the finer rims look good, the older chaasis look ok as well, nice to keep  them running.

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49 minutes ago, railroadbill said:

Very interesting,  those Bachmann wheels with the finer rims look good, the older chaasis look ok as well, nice to keep  them running.

 

Thanks Bill - there are a lot of good old models out there that can be tweaked to keep up with the latest offerings from the retailers.

 

Cheers Ray

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28 minutes ago, Silver Sidelines said:

 

Thanks Bill - there are a lot of good old models out there that can be tweaked to keep up with the latest offerings from the retailers.

 

Cheers Ray

An interesting article in this months RM on resurrecting old models. 

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1 minute ago, MikeParkin65 said:

An interesting article in this months RM on resurrecting old models. 

 

Thanks Mike - sounds as if I might need to look at a copy.

 

Cheers Ray

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40 minutes ago, Silver Sidelines said:

 

Thanks Bill - there are a lot of good old models out there that can be tweaked to keep up with the latest offerings from the retailers.

 

Cheers Ray

Agree with you, Ray, you're encouraging me to dig out 2 couple of old mainline royal scots from the box and get them running again...

J72 (bought about 1979 or 80 I think) on it's second chassis gets a run from time to time as does mainline class 4 and 22xx.  In fact a few locos I've kept from that era which hadn't been used for years and never ran that well, now run much better with a bit of cleaning up and adjustment, Airfix castle being a recent case in point for me!

Great fun!

cheers Bill

Edited by railroadbill
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13 hours ago, railroadbill said:

Great fun!

 

 

Its a challenge and if something breaks you can usually find a similar model on eBay that you can use for spares.  That in itself is a whole new interest.  Bachmann technical department sells the nylon isolators / axle joiners for their split chassis models.  Peter's spares (and others) sell the equivalent bits for Mainline and Replica models.

 

As to the Airfix Castles they were great.  I have a couple of their tender drives fitted into much newer Hornby Counties.  They seem to be indestructable although I could never work out why some were so much noisier than others.

 

I shall wait to hear more.

 

Cheers Ray

 

 

 

 

Edited by Silver Sidelines
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I too have a soft spot for Jubilees. My old Mainline locos have been modified by the addition of a fall-plate, cab doors and closer coupling of the tender. I've also painted out the crude boiler lining. The fall-plate is made from a bit of old toothpaste tube (from pre-plastic days) but the foil from the top of a wine bottle can sometimes be used if it's substantial enough. This is wrapped around a length of guitar string (say 12thou), two tiny holes are drilled into the inner side of the cab side-sheets and the string is sprung into place. Guitar string is "springy" so works well. Cab doors are bits of plastic card glued into place. The tender drawbar is shortened and a new hook made from a bit of cocktail stick. The result is closer coupling and no obvious large gap between cab and tender.  

DSC_0025.jpg

DSC_0026.jpg

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23 minutes ago, steamfinale said:

....... My old Mainline locos have been modified by the addition of a fall-plate, cab doors and closer coupling of the tender. I've also painted out the crude boiler lining...

 

Thank you SF - that really is rather neat and clever.  Just a little thing like bringing the tender and engine closer makes a huge difference.  I don't like taking a knife to my models.  With the B1 family of tenders the 'hook' is a separate screw on moulding that can be replaced.  The Bachmann Stanier and Folwer tenders are rather more 'cast in plastic'.

 

I am well impressed with the arrangements for the fallplate.

 

Thanks again

 

Regards

 

Ray

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2 hours ago, steamfinale said:

.......I've also painted out the crude boiler lining.

 

 

Hello again SF

 

Your mention of the lining encourages me to add a couple of pictures of my Jubilee Connaught which has a centre black line to the boiler bands.  All other pictures of the model on the web that I can find show a single orange band.  I have drawn attention to this matter previously.  This model was purchased second hand. The shade of green used by Bachmann on Connaught is similar to that used on Patriot 'REME' - which had a black centre line to the boiler bands - just like my model of Connaught.  I am convinced that the lining was completed before the handrails were added and therefore was added in the factory - a nice touch.

 

Cheers Ray

 

49909445597_ab697ecc71_5k.jpg

 

49909445252_fba9f95d0d_5k.jpg

 

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On 17/05/2020 at 21:48, Silver Sidelines said:

 

Its a challenge and if something breaks you can usually find a similar model on eBay that you can use for spares.  That in itself is a whole new interest.  Bachmann technical department sells the nylon isolators / axle joiners for their split chassis models.  Peter's spares (and others) sell the equivalent bits for Mainline and Replica models.

 

As to the Airfix Castles they were great.  I have a couple of their tender drives fitted into much newer Hornby Counties.  They seem to be indestructable although I could never work out why some were so much noisier than others.

 

I shall wait to hear more.

 

Cheers Ray

 

 

 

 

Ray,

Didn't realise you can still get axle isolators to repair split chassis, that could be an interesting project.  The old split frame  locos I've still got that run from time (class4, 22xx that were renumbered, coaled etc. for an SDJR set up) haven't done enough mileage to wear excessively, but I was given a couple of old Scots that need overhaul some years ago. Temped to dig those out having read your blog. I've got a  J72 that's on it's 2nd chassis, with the worm drive can motor, that runs ok.  Gear train noise is one of the worse characteristics of the pancake motor ones, imho.

I bought a number of Airfix 4Fs around 1980-81 during the recession then and after Airfix had gone bust and they were being sold off really cheap. Coal in the tender, renumbered to SDJR ones and tender drawbar shortened (I agree that does improve appearance of tender locos). Also painted the chunky driving wheel rims black. Having done all that I was of course loath to dispose of them later.

More recently I've had a couple of them running again, and what I'm finding is that after a lot of running they just run smoother and quieter. Look ok crawling round the layout on a long freight train.  i read somewhere that the Airfix tender drive was designed to have an operating  life of  400 hours or so. I've also had an Airfix castle running, wasn't very reliable when i got it years ago, but with some TLC and just letting it run, it's now settling down very well.

cheers Bill

 

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10 hours ago, railroadbill said:

....... I've got a  J72 that's on it's 2nd chassis, with the worm drive can motor, that runs ok.  .......

 

 

How exciting - lots of projects.  The J72 has different nylon axle joiners to any of the other models - when you speak to Bachmann Technical Department they will ask you if you need the joiners for the J72 or any other model.

 

I too had a couple of Airfix 4Fs.  I remember changing the emblem on the tender on one and blackening the edges of the driving wheels.  One ran infinitely more quietly than the other.  No problem with haulage of the tender drive!

I still have one Airfix Castle which I converted to 'Swindon'.  As has been mentioned elsewhere it has a Collet tender body from a Dapol County.

 

6635395915_1eb93500e8_4k.jpg

 

I look forward to another update!

 

Cheers Ray

 

 

 

 

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Hi Ray,

 

Following our earlier discussion, here are my remaining working Mainline split chassis locos. They've spent most of their time in a display cabinet but get a run every now and again.  Because I'd done some work on them, like transfer boiler band lining on the tender locos, I kept these.  Must be about 40 years old now.

I just put a drop of Peco power lube (elecrolube as was) on each axle (plus valve gear/coupling rod  pins), does that sound best way to go with these? 

 

 

 

 

951065523_class4.jpg.a86bf4577e7ff44ea0862672e8e260c8.jpg

 

 

Mainline Std class 4  renumbered as 75027, sprung front buffers (!) ,  screw link coupling,  coaled tender.  the gap between tender and loco is small on these, does look better as mentioned above.

 

j72.jpg.d924cb55218286a6389643b84f708922.jpg

 

J72, this has a replacement Bachmann branded chassis with the worm drive "flywheel" motor, the original chassis just didn't work at all well.  Screw link couplings and coal in bunker.  Ran very well round layout when tried out today.  (The GWR vans are from Coopercraft kits which were my first lockdown project). The  loco came from Guy Norris in Covent garden in 1979.

 

22xx.jpg.f184f37e27ab4cc13cb3de1148df622b.jpg

 

Mainline 22xx. This  has the original pancake motor chassis.  Hasn't had very much running for years so plated axles should be ok. 

 

Scots.jpg.3ba10394032285beab7a473c198b98b2.jpg

 

2 rather tatty Scots I was given as part of a bartered bundle of stuff.  Came from a layout  owned by the late uncle of a friend's wife, so it would be rather good to get at least one working. They've been in the bottom of a spares box for 20 years or so.  The top one was a reasonable runner but has valve gear damaged on one side with missing rods. I couldn't remember the other chassis, which is complete but without bogie,  working at all but I've just managed to  coax it into life.  There should be enough between the two to make one working chassis and get loco running again.

 

If I make any progress with these I'll post on a new entry of my blog.

 

cheers,

Bill

Edited by railroadbill
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4 hours ago, railroadbill said:

 

.... does that sound best way to go with these?
 

 

Hello Bill

 

Some nice pictures - I like the track ballast.

 

Too much oil can be a problem with the old Mainline pancake motors - especially if it gets on the commutator between the copper and the brushes.   A little bit of oil on the axles might be useful if the engines have been laid up for a length of time.

 

The Class 4MT looks good with its sprung buffers.  The original buffers were in my opinion far too small.  It was a good model and the green version feature on the front of the Hammat and Morgan Controller box.

 

Getting on e of our 'Scots' running will be a test of your ingenuity!

 

I have popped in to your Blog.  I like the CCTs - I must go back and add some comments.

 

Keep watching

 

Cheers Ray

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Thanks for oil advice, Ray. These locos really hadn't had much running, so i felt just a smidge of oil on the axles would help to get them running freely, particularly as the plated axles on these old split frame models are often reported as having the plating wearing out. One reason for leaving them for occasional running, but your blog has now inspired me to use them more!  Bit of TLC and they can run more reliably than I remembered.   Mechs are all a bit noisy, especially compared with a recent loco like say a Hornby Star, that runs very quietly.

 

Also these are DC, but that's ok with the layout in DC mode  which it seems to be more often at the moment. Perhaps I'm just going retro. :-)

 

The mainline bodies for the standard 4 look good, in fact they were used by Bachmann with updated chassis, it took the  Hornby one to be better, and that was quite recent really.

 

Also by going through the box with the Scots in it, I came across  the couplings I was looking for, for the CCT vans I made, so that was very handy!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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