Halvarras

Agreed - although the Bachmann 25 was a revelation in some ways upon release, not least its running quality, the underframe treatment was not vastly different to the way Hornby had tackled it, which was a disappointment. Also those Class 24-style grilles are just another reason why some modellers, including those in the esteemed 'emgauge70s' group, have preferred to use Hornby bodies on Bachmann chassis. Quite an endorsement for a bodyshell tooled up a quarter of a century earlier! I nearly did so myself when I only planned to model 5180, but a decision to add D7657 meant the two locos would have looked too different, so I relented. My 5180 is based on Bachmann's 25034 so I've had to carry out the gangway door mods, as well as remove the train heating boiler water tank (with roof mods) and create the later exhaust port (the real 5180 had this done as early as 1967) which freed up the original round port to transfer to D7657, followed by a swap of boiler grilles/blanks. I'm aware of their shortcomings but both locos now having these details corrected is why I won't be replacing them. And each only cost me £50 brand new too.....

I'm sort of glad you've partially hidden this peculiarly unsettling sight under the trailer........every time I looked at it I kept thinking "exploded steam loco boiler" 😲! [Shudder!!]

This reminds me - and because thread drift can be fun 😁 - that Traction magazine celebrated Issue no 1 with a string of images showing Class 44 1, Class 45s 11 & 111, Class 47 1111 and Class 04 11111 (being devoid of serifs the latter almost resembled a bar code...... "What's a bar code?", says 11111's 1950s BR driver. Ah, you need an optical scanner to........oh never mind 🤭)

Certainly true of diesels (can't confirm or deny the nickname, not 'my' region), although when the Class 91 electrics were modified and renumbered 91 011 became 91 111. 31 111 had probably been despatched by then though (I know very little about '91s'..........and now I come to think about it I don't think I ever actually saw one!!)

Gosh, you have been busy. Again! Several steps up from press studs, that's for sure 😃! Methinks this one is going to look spectacular.........

And D5021 also Bsyp with BR lion-and-wheel emblem using their new tooling - twin pack material 😉?! Maybe not, thinking of the £...... Regarding Model Zone's D5218, this model was a disappointment because it used the tooling for the BR Blue '25' with welded-up end gangway doors, as well as boiler compartment grille blanks (I did a straight repaint of a Hornby model years ago and it was more accurate!) Kernow's weathered two-tone green Class 24 D5072 suffered similarly with an incorrect later 'de-valanced' underframe and those blanks again. I've often wondered whether these glaring errors were done deliberately for some reason...........anyway, hopefully any future releases of these subjects would be taken more seriously.

I built an MTK Hawksworth SK kit as W1719W in blue/grey in the late 1990s (have previously posted a pic elsewhere on RMweb, probably MTK thread), I would certainly buy a Hornby one myself to accompany my Kernow blue D600 'Active'. I've considered the possibility of repainting one but the chances of getting the glazing out without damage*, and even if I could refitting it without cracking the paint around most if not every window opening (because the glazing fits so tightly), puts me off the idea. As does 'simply' masking off all those windows - no thanks! As a stand-in I have a Hornby maroon Hawksworth SK for the catering trolley service, as illustrated on page 33 of 'The Heyday of the Hydraulics', D604 'Cossack' at Redruth with 1V33 down 'Cornishman' on 19th August 1967 with one of these immediately behind the loco (D604 must have been just days away from its 3-month South Wales holiday). *Many of these models exhibit 'dimpling' on the lower sides where excessive glue has softened the thin shell!

Already?! Reminds me that maybe 35 years ago now somebody handed me a pair of thick plastic Derby Lightweight bodyshells (presumably Kirdon....??) with a request to see if I could create this Ultrasonic Test Unit on Hornby Class 110 chassis. The mission was accomplished, despite having few photos to work from - consequently the wheelskate thingy was basic but it looked the part as a layout model. I finished it in blue full yellow livery but can't recall much else about it now, especially how I tackled the transfers, other than I somehow managed with what was available at the time. I often wonder whether the multitude of models I completed during the 1970s and 1980s, either for myself and subsequently passed on, or following requests like this one, are still out there somewhere. One of the reasons I kept an eye on Hattons pre-owned listings, just in case. Needless to say it never happened......!

Ta-daaaaa!

I saw these vans working up through Cornwall quite often in the early 1970s, always at the head of the 6B59 Ponsandane to Tavistock Junction freight service. The topic @Downendian links to above suggests that these were in use for National Carriers Ltd (NCL) traffic. I took very few photos which included them but here are a couple dated 21st & 23rd May 1975 when 25306 was in charge on both days - first approaching Saveock, the summit between Chacewater and Truro, and then passing 47247 on the down 1B45 ('CRE' I believe) at Truro. The first shot appears to be a Diagram 800 followed by two 801s...... ......and this one has two 801s followed by two 800s. I think!

Another lovely job, and a change from the usual BR green and blue (one door excepted!) May I enquire as to your reasoning for completing the two vehicles separately in this way? Back in 1997/8 I converted two Hornby Class 29s into Class 22s using A1 Models conversion kits but I deviated considerably from the instructions (including using chassis from Lima South African overhead electrics) - I knew 'doing it my way' was going to create a lot of extra work and that if I did them one at a time the second one may never get finished as I couldn't face doing all that again, so they were worked on side-by-side. This had the advantage of batch-producing the Plastruct and Plasticard parts (which you may have done here of course) so although they took around 9 months to finish I felt doing them 'in parallel' rather than 'in series', as it were, was both quicker and easier overall. In my case one was finished in green and the other in blue, so it didn't matter too much if the surface finishes differed slightly, but with a 2-car unit using the method you've employed with this project I'd be concerned that the surface finishes may not match - due to slightly different paint/varnish thinning, different atmospheric conditions, etc. You do seem to achieve a consistent finish with your MTK output so I'm sure it will be fine, but I'm still still curious about your 'one then the other' approach to this build - personally I may have found my motivation for Round 2 somewhat lacking 😊!

31215 - took 'skinhead' Class 31 to a whole new level.....! (Flickr pic)

31111 donated a cab to 31444 which had started out as 5555. Just thought I'd drop that mind-boggling piece of information in here 🤪!

Plastic cab door handrails = early release too. Ex-47059?

Some more Tri-ang and Hornby Dublo chassis and parts up for grabs at Elaine's emporium this morning: https://elaines-trains.co.uk/index.php?pg=new Keeping an eye on Elaine's Trains website has become my new 'addiction' following the loss of Hattons, because you never know what's going to appear.......such as that Tri-ang clockwork NBL shunter body I mentioned last Thursday. Probably the wrong course of action then for somebody desperately trying to avoid adding new projects to The Pile..........🤭 However from time to time parts come up which could assist with completing projects already in that Pile and push them along the path to completion - that's my excuse anyway!

Slicing to make sandwiches would be closer to one of its nicknames........!

Not sure about that one myself, having no need for a '67', but your question did remind me of this one..... Bachmann's first release of their PNA open wagon (38-100) was incorrectly lettered "Railways" instead of "Railway". This was corrected on subsequent releases. (Perhaps if Railtrack had fully upheld their own advertised mission statement, regardless of the spelling, it would still be with us......)

Maybe not, but I know which one appears to be sitting on its bogies correctly compared to the real thing.......

I used to go to this show every year when I lived in Swindon, also the bigger Chippenham then Melksham then Corsham show - I'd known Geoff Endacott since summer 1987 I think, when we met in a marquee at a transport event at Avebury and I spotted the cover for his then forthcoming book 'Westerns Warships and Hymeks at Work' and got chatting about all things diesel-hydraulic - I was devastated to hear of his sudden passing on here. However I now live around 180 miles away so.........I hope it all goes well in my absence (again)! PS The wood for the layout I built in the 1980s came from CMA Calne, which I hope is still in business.......

Agreed, but the fore & aft pivoting provided by the 'yokes' takes care of gradient changes.

I've been telling myself the same thing for years, ever more loudly, but then up pops a Tri-ang ex-clockwork NBL 'D2907' shunter body and...........I've often wondered if one of these could be made to look more 'NBL'. Yep, it's in the queue! Perhaps this one will be my final razor saw, files and plasticard challenge then 🥴! Interestingly placing it on a 'D29xx' 4mm scale line drawing reveals that it's surprisingly accurate in some of its major dimensions - the upper bodywork is to correct length although the cab is 7mm too long (and the bonnet correspondingly too short, as well as too narrow) and the front and rear footsteps the correct distance apart too, in side view. A scale model of a D29xx is out of the question, but an NBL industrial 'might-have-been'........hmm....... 😜

Yes, I appreciate that, it was the fit of the components onto the top and bottom of this I was wondering about - if the holes in those are an excessively loose fit the resulting slack can affect the ride height, as was the case on my Class 28's 'Co' end bogie, which could be moved up and down about 1.5mm. I mourn those good old days too - in 2007 I had an original 47 with Mazak Rot (D1733) and Howes sent me a replacement chassis for the body which I just managed to save from splitting, but the only way I could get the old chassis out was snipping through these 'yokes' to release the bogies and hacksawing the chassis against an inserted piece of brass (to protect the inside of the body) at its weakest points, i.e. where these fit. Brutal but it worked. That left me with a complete set of running gear, except for the chassis block and the 'yokes', which sat in a box until last year when I managed to source a Heljan 47 cast chassis block (many thanks Elaine's Trains!) and reassemble the thing using these parts from a Class 23 'Baby Deltic' sprue I'd picked up during the intervening years, also from Howes (of course). All I had to do to get these to fit into the 47 casting was shorten the four 'blades' by about 1mm. I saw the Hornby mag review too and the head-on view is enlightening because you can clearly see the NSE stripes on both left and right cabsides - I don't think this should be possible? Or at least not to that extent? We know why the original had excessively curved cabsides but it's hard to believe that Heljan would apply the same curvature to a new model with a more accurate overall width...... no wonder the cab front looks slightly 'pinched'! But only slightly, after all the buffer centres have to be the correct distance apart which fixes the bufferbeam width, and if this were too short at its outer ends ETH versions with bufferbeam-mounted connections would have a bit of a problem on the driver's corners, so it can't be too far out. I think NSE 47596 looks fantastic, and I was never a big fan of this garish livery 😃! Although I will admit to preferring this later version. If I had to pick one......

Kernow's rear view of the model shows the glazing having been overpainted before insertion. Perhaps Hornby will choose the Fowler 0-4-0DM for their next small diesel shunter - if they were to come along to St Blazey to survey 'Peter' (love that wooden nameplate, very.....rustic!) I would hope that its current owner (M-Power Kernow) assists by removing those chipboard panels.......just in case.......😉! OK, that's a bit harsh - delete, delete <submit>....d'oh!

I had intended to go to this, my first exhibition in over 4 and and a half years and less than an hour's drive away...........and then our son chose this weekend to come down and visit with the family 🥴! Oh well, I might still make it, but my exhibition-going plans seem as jinxed as my last car (which was Gold Medal standard!)

During the 13 months since my photo it also collected secondman's corner numbers as well as 'domino' panels.