MR PJ

I'm not a fan of either loco type, but as touched upon in an earlier post the Spanish built 67s don't sound the same as the North American 66 as the 67's silencers had to be modified due to issues with balancing the weight of the loco over a bo-bo chassis. 66's are so heavily silenced they produce little noise at all on full bore, 67's are less heavily silenced, but sound similar when idling. Ironically 66's have been subject of a lot of complaints from drivers over the years due to the the noise and vibration within the cabs.

The 24's have exactly the same axle as a 25, but why replace an entire axle? You can easily slide off the wheel to replace the gear. I am sure the gear wheels are pretty standard throughput the BachFarr range. Can the brass gear wheels from the 2FS range be transferred to standard axles? Or the back to back altered? Not thought of that option before, but not been necessary with any of my 24/25 fleet yet, as no split gears as yet.

Yes, stating the obvious there really (cases of loco's hogging shed space for years with glacial progress tends to create animosity from other groups) , but having kept an eye on developments with this particular loco over the years, it was announced, some years ago now, that they hoped to have go this in the shed at the K&ESR for restoration. As to why this didn't happen I don't know - but if any attempt is going to be made to restore 25244 it's going to be even more of a real to do it in the open air.

John, If you read through some of the previous posts, many of the parts had been removed for safe keeping elsewhere on site. Regards, Paul.

I think I would take some of the figures being banded about with a pinch of salt, only the wealthiest loco owners would go for a full contractor restoration - and contractor's prices can vary enormously anyway. With a spare power unit on site, the main costs will be the repair of electrical machines etc - if they do require removal and full re-winding/varnishing etc it may be costly - but shopping round can save money. For example a few years ago, a defective Derby/Sulzer generator was repaired/overhauled for approx. £5000, I am informed by the owner (he does have a good range of contacts for this sort of work). Another issue may be tyre thickness/flange wear and whether the axle journals are in good condition, but as the loco has been moved around recently I suspect at least the latter may be okay. Don't get me wrong - its feasible this could cost £250,000, but that's based on the assumption the owners are complete novices and contract out all the work to contractors at the very highest prices. However, it sounds like the owners - though pushed for time like everyone else - know a bit about loco's, but it would help if the railway itself can lend them a hand. The main thing now is the loco getting undercover accommodation as soon as possible so that work can be started. Regards, Paul

I too hope there is a future for 25244, as they are nice loco's and useful on preserved railways being a small loco. I did manage to salvage an old schematic wiring diagram for a steam heat early series Class 25/2, I think I have a couple of copies in the back of a wardrobe at home somewhere - if I could get in touch with the owners somehow they would be welcome to have a copy. I did have a look at some pictures of 25191's restoration at the South Devon Railway (a loco in similar external condition), which are quite interesting - indeed the cabs had to come off to get to what remained of the cab floors. To be fair it looks like some attempt has been made to keep the elements out of 25244 as best as possible- but not only bodywork - items such as electrical machines will need attention. They can be repaired by the likes of Bowers, but it can be quite expensive. Cheers, Paul

I could see this coming a few years ago. A group of diesel preservationists, having already restored a Class 25 made enquiries about the purchase of 25244. Even at the time (20 plus years ago) they felt this was going to be a big restoration job, but having a good number of spares, experience and the enthusiasm it would have been up and running some time ago now. The owners response was that its most definitely not up for sale (not even at a ridiculous price), and they fully intended to restore it at some point. Make what you will of that... Photographs of the loco a few years ago showed it sheeted up, though in the long-term this can help trap moisture. From what I remember the owners did have a replacement power unit. Problem here was that it's from a 25/3, which has a 12 pole generator and is not compatible electrically with a 25/2. This would mean the original 10 pole generator would need to be transplanted onto the new power unit - not impossible, but needs specialist skills to balance correctly. Nothing is impossible, but I unless someone decides to do something very soon with this loco it will just end up mouldering away like 45015... Regards, Paul

Yes, you may be right, it was transferred to ED in November 1986. I am not sure of its overhaul date, but may well have been allocated straight away to Eastfield, one way or another it would have appeared on the Highland Mainline anyway. There are photos of it with ploughs, so it certainly did retain the brackets, not that there would have been any reason to remove them on overhaul Cheers Paul

The Bachmann Farish 47's do seem to have some problems with the close proximity of the bogies to the buffer beams, which leads to more derailments than other 6-axle models (e.g the 37) and may be a source of some of the poor current collection problems reported on this and N Gauge forum. The slack adjusters do tend to catch on bumpy track, but have a tendency to fall off at times anyway... I have improved performance a bit by removing an ETH bracket from the buffer-beam that overhangs and can catch the bogie on curves. This has pretty much eliminated the tendency to de-railments, but another issue is the centre-axle having no pick-ups which doesn't help current collection (and sometimes the centre axle can be fractionally lower, which means the outside wheels can't collect current very well). This can be resolved, but I think that such niggling faults puts the average modeller off, as why should they have to modify RTR loco's in the first place?

I agree that it may well not be a straight body swap-over, as there will need to be some modification of the chassis to take a Next18 de-coder and the aforementioned speaker enclosure, plus features such as cab lighting may mean that the LED arrangements are somewhat different. There have been a number of posts about poor running of the 47 chassis, the 57 chassis is very different - and some have commented that these are better runners - so perhaps Bachmann will be taking note and making a complete update to the chassis. Regards, Paul

47018 in Railfreight livery is of interest to me as it was a Haymarket loco, and being re-painted at the back end of 1986 just about fits into my 1980-86 modelling period! Great that it will be sound-ready too. I do have a bit of a dilemma as I re-numbered one of my many blue examples to 47018, so can't really have a doppelganger running about on the layout at the same time (might make the controller explode! ). I think that may be re-numbered to 017 which survived in blue quite some time. The "Dutch" livery ZKVs may be of interest, although probably need some holes cut in the side to be prototypical PW wagons (this was to prevent overloading of spoil). Of course - dependent on sales - re-liveries may well be on the cards, as Bachmann don't tend to set everything in stone for the entire year ahead. A blue livery disc-headcode 40 might well be on the cards, or perhaps a green split-headcode model at some point I reckon, as the model seems very popular. A bit disappointing that a later bodywork 25 is still not on the cards. Maybe they are waiting to re-tool the chassis for sound too in the long-run? Cheers Paul

Dave, Just hope you haven't gone to a loan shark to finance the EP samples....

Hi Matt, Looking at pictures of the prototype I can see what you mean about the lack of relief on the coil and leaf springs, they do seem a little shallow, but perhaps that's looking at a photo that's quite blown up in size, I don't know? From the photos of real 40's the springs often seemed to have gathered surface rust and scale very quickly, so I think that an application of rust colour might help bring them out against the bogie sides, which will remain black, or slightly weathered. Still, I agree it looks like a massive improvement on the original Farish offerings and looking forward to my two arriving in the post. Cheers Paul

Hello, Apologies for going back to an older project, but here is the 37/0 again, this time installed in an Farish 2mm scale model. Just need to work out what CV I need to dim the cab lighting a little! But its really good stuff, with the rather rough sound of the 37/0, and I do hope that these excellent sound projects add to the funds of the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway (haven't visited this railway yet, but its on my "to do" list). https://youtu.be/IU3XIC65MDw Cheers, Paul

Hello, A large number of correspondents on this thread have been terribly derogatory regarding this project. Its easy for all the keyboard warriors out there to find a thousand and one reasons that this project is verging on lunacy etc, etc, but the fact is that people have had a bit of vision to get this project off the ground, and work has actually begun already. Britain's preservation scene would have never got off the ground at all given the level of negativity exhibited on this thread. Yes - this project faces its challenges, but it is in a very attractive area, not too far from Snowdonia, so does have a catchment area for tourists. In fact is does have more potential than some other smaller preserved railways. If through trains to the Conway Valley - or even excursions from the mainline - could operate, then the line would have a very bright future indeed. Resorting to insulting people -as some have on here - for having a bit of enthusiasm or vision is quite frankly appalling behaviour, This project has actually got off the ground quite quickly. Having been involved with other preservation societies (where even putting in a passing loop or platform can take years) this is actually happening at a very fast pace. From small beginnings great things can grow.... Cheers, Paul