WCML100

agreed - bring on the turbos! would love to see what you have in store for them!

They get about everywhere! Always an excuse haha!

They are wonderful coaches. The maroon is a difficult one - in the natural sunlight they look pretty good to me, however under artificial light not so much, they look too red. It has been discussed at length on the accura mk2b thread, they are no doubt closer than the Bachmann west coast maroon however (more of a brown colour than maroon) so not sure what to do with my bachy ones now! Oh and I do like a grubby 33 with some ploughs!

So finally, a finished project to show you all. Well… a revisited project, now fully finished. JGA 19232, the lone JGA of this type to make it into DB red, was a repaint I did some time ago - but I did always want to revisit it for weathering. I also made a couple of improvements including adding the hand rails beneath each buffer (not sure on the technical term for these), which was a massive miss on the standard tooling from Bachmann (including a few other minor points!). I used a spare detail pack from one of the original Hornby KFA releases where these hand rails did not come attached to the wagon but within the details bag (they do on the more recent releases of that model!). The slight ridge on these made them a perfect fit with a dab of glue. A very simple cheat code but one well worth it I think! I will be trying to find some further spares of these for the remaining 3 JGA’s within this rake. The next mod was to add a prototypical looking aggregates load, as I wanted to model this rake loaded. I used the main type within a pack of the Woodland scenics Gravel (Buff fine) that was going cheap in the Hattons clearance sale. Enough to do 5-6 wagons if you fill them out a bit! I added in some spare polystyrene and then some plasticard to top it off and then the load with what I think is a fairly realistic look, with 3 ‘mounds’ over each hopper within the wagon. I am really happy with the appearance based off prototype images of this particular wagon and the rakes it has been in that I am aiming to replicate. The type used, not only replicates the prototype well but is finer than the ballast, giving a different shade, separating it nicely to the ballast at track level. Lastly, as I wanted to model this not long after it had been repainted, only a light weathering was required. I used a mixture of weathering powders to ‘dust’ the solebar, create patches along the most upper panels (copying a prototype image of where the build ups were), and also getting stuck in on the ends where a lot of debris builds up very quickly. Again all copied loosely from images of this wagon soon after it was deployed back into work after its fresh lick of paint. The hopper doors, chassis and the bogies needs a dusting to take the shine off the glossy looking black too. So a quick spray of my trusty Railmatch Weathered black aerosol did the trick. I then painted the axle boxes in to EWS red (using a brush and Railmatch EWS), again matching the prototype. I also created some faint streak lines where these are welded and seem to show up very quickly! All of this was sealed in with some Railmatch Matt Varnish spray. So here it is in some natural light, I am very pleased with outcome and look forward to completing some tweaks to my orange RMC JGA’s to go with this. The aim is these will be mixed in with HOA’s (hopefully arriving soon from Revolution) and eventually one or two IIA’s for good measure. All based off the rake that used to work out of Hayes Tarmac. As always, love to hear your thoughts!

Maybe when Hornby make one in TT scale we can pinch the working lamps from that!

Sorry I should have been more clear - I meant they are pretty identical externally. The interior is, as mentioned above non fixed and 100% different.

From what I have found in my research, they look pretty identical. Maybe some minor differences that I am not aware of however. I am sure someone can confirm either way…

Fantastic news!

Some great photos Tim! great progress and work as always! I look forward to seeing the 707 progress!

I assume this is for all accurascale products and not just the 66? If so.. great news!

Seriously good stuff this! love it!

Interesting to note - but all examples you have included are MK2a's and not Mk2b's...

That looks ace mate! I too have also bagged a Rapido OAA, lovely model! Your rendition looks fantastic. Debating whether to do mine with mesh doors or not! Certainly less hassle without the conversion for sure! Do you know if there were any other examples that made it as far as the mid 2010’s with their original wooden sides still in tact?

Looking good Jim! where did you buy the MOD side opening containers from? The look great!

Another extension? 😁

i think as its never been done before where as the others (which are all similar) have been in some form or another… Accurascales main selling point for the first run was they chose examples of which hadn’t been seen in RTR form beforehand.

Great News!

I look forward to seeing your renditions of these Mick! I have started to sort out my JGA’s in preparation for mixing them with the HOA’s!

Another new arrival in the fleet are these amazing Accurascale MK2b coaches in West Coast Maroon colours. These will be used in a secondary West Coast Railtour rake, seperate from the other rake used for Flying Scotsman. The two coaches are 5747 and 5748. These are most definitely the best coaches I now own. The close coupling is brilliant, with a very small gap between coaches. The detail is wonderful, including the under frame and windows, yet still feels incredibly robust. The lighting is great and the interior finish is the best I have seen in RTR market. Well worth getting some if you can! I certainly will be adding the MK2c’s to match when they arrive. So here, enjoy some nice sun-kissed photos of these amazing models.

Yeah agreed. These are both shot in similar lighting positions in roughly the same spot for comparison. There is still a colour difference between the Bachmann MK2a and the loco… Accura MK2b: Bachmann MK2a: It certainly makes for interesting viewing 😂

Hi all, a quick question! Just been catching up on this thread and had a few questions. It was briefly touched upon on the two engine types in these units (perkins / cummins). Is it easy to determine which units have which type of engine? Also can anyone confirm if there is 2 versions of the sound file from Bachmann to reflect this? Or is there just one generic file on the factory fitted examples? Or is it one engine type or the other? Thanks in advance

WCRC examples arrived with myself Friday. I had a good look at these over the weekend to determine my overall thoughts. The more I look at these, the more I think that Accurascale have got the colour correct. And feel the camera does make them appear ever so slightly lighter than to the naked eye. They must be the best RTR coaches we have seen in 00 gauge, the detail and precision on these is something else. The close couplings look and work wonderfully too. I am very much looking forward to the Mk2c’s in this livery to arrive on Greenford too! *ps some MK2d’s would be very welcomed!

Time for a big update on some progress on the layout with plenty of work being done over the last few weeks I will begin with the Upper station level. I think I may have mentioned previously but we just weren’t happy with the height of this board. When comparing with photos, the top of the locos on the lower level were in line with the height of the rail head on the upper. This was definitely too much when looking over these photos where it was much more mid height of the body side that it should be level with it. So we removed upper section and the struts supporting it. We then cut some new ones which were to the height we thought looked much better on the eye (this took some time that by the time we had decided b&q were almost shut for the day!). This has now all been put back into place and definitely looks better on the eye now. Unfortunately during this process we had to rip up the eastbound central line track (the line towards the front of the upper level), as it was directly above the screws holding this board into the old struts. The bay line also sustained a little bit of damage when we were doing some work previously when adding the legs and the board alignment pins and clips. So, after a quick trip up to AGR model railway store for some new track to replace the old, the sleepers were removed, all the sprue clipped off and thrown away and the sleepers re-attached and spaced correctly. We then re-added the droppers to the bus cable underneath. One thing we never got round to before was doing any of the sprue removal, sleeper spacing or droppers for the westbound track over the back of the board so this was all done at the same time. We also took the opportunity to give the eastbound line a little bend inwards at the west end of the station which is prototypical, and something we missed previously. With the height of the upper board and its track now in place and ready to be glued down, our attention then turned to the next board. First to tackle was the bridge section going over the road for the upper section. Previously there was nothing in place for the level here. So we replicated the same height as just made on the station board to carry over. Next was to then position and glue into place the bay line incline so it could meet the Greenford branch chord under the two Central line bridges at the other end of the layout. With the height now reduced were purchased a 2% woodland scenics incline riser, where we previously had a 4%. This was enabled by the reduction of the height on the upper section and in turn allowed for a more gradual incline on the approach to the station, which over all looks more realistic. We aligned this to where we were happy with the angle and then started to glue this down with a layer of cork too for the track base. Once this was all fixed into place and the glue dried, we then cut the track to fit, with the usual sprue removal and sleeper spacing before soldering the droppers on the underside and drilling holes for these in the baseboard. On the back of this, I felt like it was time to finally re-tackle the cork on the chord that connects the font lines (NNML) and the Greenford branch and bay. This was ever so slightly out of line since we re-aligned the down main last year. So the old was ripped up and promptly replaced and alignment all tested. The usual base layer of cork was cut followed by the track underlay also. I went a little further than previously as we have decided on the final alignment where it meets the bay line (more of this to come) - but the main reason for this was get everything together for the bottom of the incline of the bay so all the heights were in keeping. Next job will be to finalise the track laying over these sections. After further research, it looks like the sleeper and chair type was neither the bullhead or flatbottom type that peco produce so we have ordered some code 83 and pandrol chairs which mirror the prototype in this location best. We will also be using this track type east of the junction too. One of the other items we looked as was cutting out and lowering a section under the incline of the eastbound central line. After one of our site visits, we noticed the ground level under this incline (where there is arches over the surface) was a fair bit lower under the rest of the track heights around it. So we have cut this out and lowered this. We will revisit this once the arches are in place and use plaster cloth to mould the levels together over the different heights and around the supports for the arches. We recently filmed a video showing @Chris37044’s Class 150 (soon to be a 950) testing out the new incline and freshly laid bay line… The next things on the agenda will be getting the bridges sorted. The abutments may prove a little of a challenge as they quite individual and not the same as one another, but something we need to do to allow the terrain to added. We will also look to start glueing all the track down on the upper station board now it has been sorted. We are also looking at getting the signal box custom built along with the semaphores required for the layout. These are key points to really setting this location so we are keen to get these as accurate as possible. If any of you know anyone who can help with these please do let us know. That is everything covered (I think!) more rolling stock updates on the way soon!

Thats it. My bad! I blame the hangover from last night! 😅

i think dcc concepts dcc supplies maybe worth a shout. I think they handle all of dapols ‘spares’ as well as returned stock sold off cheaper. worst case put the body up for sale, im sure it may come in handy for someone else so it isn't wasted 👍🏻