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You can’t beat a bit of pareidolia

There must have been a boom during and after the pandemic where many (and I) got back into railway modelling after a long hiatus. This meant that a lot of us missed the earlier (and by today’s standards) less than ideal models, the early 40, 25 and 37 versions being case in point. I suspect the returns from recent investments in high quality models from them, Accurascale, etc. have been boosted a lot by there being an influx into the hobby. Whilst some modellers will tail off as life has returned to normal, many, myself included will stick at it with a pipeline of preorders and new models to cherry pick. It’s an addictive hobby. Bachmann’s new models are excellent. There have been a few faults, all electrical which I’ve repaired with a little soldering but otherwise they’ve been good, if a little crudely assembled (ditch the screws, please!), and some of the detail is a bit chunky compared to the likes of Accurascale or SLW, but I have bought, and will keep buying their models and they scrub up exceedingly well. Their spares department is good as well, and crucial for those of us who don’t run things out of the box and infinge any warranty very quickly! 😀

Not all do. Edward Colston for instance. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-67370120

The April Fool from Rail Enthusiast magazine comes to mind. Names included “Boy George”, “Roland Rat” and “Arthur Scargill”, possibly all ‘earmarked’ for Class 31s. There was a veneer of credibility by the ‘joke’ application of “Railtour Enterprise” nameplates to a 31.

They were very common in that area in the 70s and early 80s. Many of the trains also passed near my house not too far from Skelton Junction, Timperley, the Tunstead to Northwich ICI hoppers being an example which they shared with the 25s. My love of 40s and Rats comes from growing up there. The noise scared the bejesus out of me when I was 4 or 5 standing on Navigation Road station platform with my Mum. The whistle of the 40s seemed the most unlikely noise for a diesel to make at the time!

I’m keeping an eye out for these landing in a couple of months as I think I’ll go for a couple of sound fitted blue early body examples, one to stay as-is and one to be renumbered, probably with the headboard clips and central lamp bracket removed on the former nose end doors. These will go nicely in a fleet that I am building up including Heljan and SLW examples. It’s nice to have a selection of decent 25s to pick from.

I reckon you should have a crack at a 40!

That 45 looks smashing, possibly the best one yet. Really captures the look well.

You’ll be fine. The Heljan 86/2 prototypes in the new Rails video have nice yellow headcode plated over headcode boxes on the grey cab fronts and this matches the 86/4. With the Bachy 85, it’s easier to forward date the older variants, cab-wise at least as the headcode box is a separate piece of plastic, filling in the gutter rail recesses and adding new gutters from plastic strip. There’s also a slight difference in the underslung equipment between the early/late ones, but the 85 that I forward dated stuck with the old ones until I acquired another 85 to convert to an 81. I didn’t notice it particularly before the swap.

The headcode panels just pop out so you can easily fashion a bit of glazing and use one of the headcode prints available on ebay and the like. Conversely my 86/0 and 86/3 have plated over panels and sealed beam markers that I made from plasticard and styrene tube with a little acrylic rod for the lenses.

I had a nice surprise when I checked out this month's (May's) edition of BRM Magazine. This pic's been published! Page 34.

I missed out on the last 2 runs so I deffo had to preorder a couple. One will become D5705 in its preserved condition and I’ve also gone for the banger blue one, too. 2 ‘Objects’ of desire!

Potato plus bread equals a chip butty!

The Class 28 is being rereleased and that actually does look like a potato in real life! Gotta love the ‘Object’.

Mine ended up with Hornby cabs. Anyhow I think we should probably stop making this thread veer off too far from the 47 😁 I shall claim the naughty step for making it do so in the first place!

Much if not most of their stuff is pretty damn good. The 45’s windscreen shape and the small-but-noticeable issues with the 47 are off-putting for me, but then I have a small depot layout and like to take close up pictures of the stock. I would imagine that many with larger layouts running trains in the landscape will have differing priorities and not be so obsessed with viewing stock from close quarters. The Heljan 45 and 47 do look like real 45s and 47s, just not 100 percent so.

The 25 just gets away from it, and is light years ahead of the original Bachmann 25 which doesn’t look much like a 25, cab-wise at least. The main faults with the cab on the Heljan is the 2 central windscreen pillars are a little too vertical, and the gutters are a tad close to the tops of the windscreens, but this looks to have been disguised on the second batch by the paint job. They do fulfil my ‘need’ for some Rattage and will be kept on when the SLW and new Bachmann ones arrive. They have both had sound fitted too, which is nice! First and second series examples below.

Yes, it is a decent and fair review. After umming and aahing about getting the NSE example, I changed my mind. Heljan need not worry, as instead I went for a couple of their latest batch of 25s instead which are discounted and they do look the part whilst I wait for the Bachmann and SLW examples which will be joining them. I’m also looking forward to the 86/2s and Class 104 DMU.

Is that Shatner’s bassoon?

There’s a shipment of Accurascale Class 37 oval buffers and screw couplings on its way to go on my fleet of 40s which are getting their chassis fettled at the moment so there will be a little bit of Accurascale in my 40s very soon!

Tell me about it with the lifting points! My head was a little bit floaty after making several sets using MEKP to stick them together!

Thank you. I’ve actually used that thread as reference for my updates so nice to meet on here. You went a little further than me with the fiddly details which is impressive too. I get about 80 or 90 percent there and I’m happy with it. I have a fleet of 9 Bachmann 40s in service with a central headcode one on the to-do list. As mentioned before, I’m always in the market for more!

On the subject of Class 104 conversions from the Hornby 110, I came across this last night. https://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/project_class104.html I’ll almost certainly get a 2 car Heljan unit but the conversions on that thread look amazing!

Thank you. I can actually model any time from the late 70s to the early 90s with the cutoff being up to (and including) the triple Railfreight grey sector livery. My favourite time is the mid eighties when the IC executive and original Railfreight liveries started to appear but most traction was still in blue livery. There was also a few of the 40s and 25s still around too.