97406

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.

I’m in a way glad they’ve been put back. I can see myself going for a few of these.

The tightest curves on my layout are on the Peco double slips and it works fine. I had lowered the loco a little too much and they caught underneath, so I raised it up again a tad using 20 thou shims of Plasticard under the tops of the bogie towers. You may need to fettle the tops of the bogie details, but it will go round tight curves. The bogies rotate smoothly.

As for getting a 40 up to scratch with what is available at the moment, here’s what can be done with the Bachmann class 40 plus Shawplan screens and West Hill Wagon Works’ chassis detailing kit. I could go even further and add a Shawplan fan grille, but I tend to stick a thumb through them if I’m not careful! If the KR 40 turns out as good, I will be getting a few.

A night time shot

Some visiting Scottish traction.

Class 86/0 and 86/3

Looking good, Will. Well done if you've managed to get the Shawplan screens to sit in the Accurascale apertures at both ends which looks to be the case. On the 37 I backdated, one end went in like a dream, but the other end just wouldn't play ball, so I opted for the back plates instead. Nice to see a plain blue 37 with plated over headcodes and cutaway bufferbeams too. A rarity in the recent RTR 37s, but it can be modelled from one of the celebrity blue releases.

37130 heading off to its next duty.

I'm absolutely delighted with the Class 40 chassis detailing kit. It works wonders with the Bachmann 40 replacing the overscale bogie jumpers and adding the missing chassis detail. Most of the Bachmann bufferbeam pipes are fine so you also get a set of vac and air pipes for the spares box to boot! A good idea for a separate kit would be the 'Eiffel Tower' bracket and the steps for the locomotives that had their boiler water tanks removed from in between the bogies. This one has the bracket off an early Bachmann 40 but they're hard to get hold of without buying an early 40 and breaking it apart. This one has had the windscreens replaced with the Shawplan etches and Laserglaze.

A shot from the days when I used to shoot black and white pictures and develop and print them out myself using the old chemical method (simulated).

A mid-eighties banger blue moment. Happy days!

I've been trying out the West Hill Wagon Works Class 40 chassis pack. Mainly for the bogie jumpers and MW cables, but also the neat lifting points. I'm pleased with the result and much better detail than my scratchbuilt chassis details.

By way of an alternative, I recently upgraded a couple of non-sound 37/0s to sound using an Accurathrash speaker and the Legomanbiffo Accurascale 37 decoder (due in part to the AS one being out of stock on the website) and they work fine, as do the official AS ones. It’s great to have 2 different sets of sounds, and I’ll be dabbling with some of the other Biff 37 sounds for my other 37s in due course. No 2 locos were the same in real life and it’s great to be able to replicate this.

I’ve just remembered the bit about the pickups - see the italic text in my original response

It’s fiddly. I presume they use a jig in the factory. If not, just imagine doing that all day!