97406

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!

Firstly, on one side of the wheelset, I used a pair of narrow nosed pliers to grip the brass square on opposite sides near the top so that it is in the correct orientation. I pushed it into the slot without it going all the way home. Repeated on the other side, then after feeding the pickups behind the backs of the wheels, I pushed the wheelset home. Took 2 or 3 goes each time with a lot of swearing. I do like swearing, though. Hope that makes sense. I really don’t want to take one apart to take pictures!

Unless you’re looking for a new party piece.

+ I liked the livery on the 86s and 90s when they ditched the slab yellow ends. I never liked it with the yellow ends on the 47s, in a sort of half hearted banger blue style. Whilst I hold a lot of nostalgia for banger blue, there’s much nicer ways of painting the ends of a loco.

Sounds like I might be in for a treat!

Of course, I expect the sound package to include ice cream van chimes, too.

I'm just going with the flow, with 3 on order and I'll wait. One of them is this little beauty from when I got into railways properly in the 80s. "A 99 and a Strawberry Mivvi, please!" Until then I have the second loco that I worked on during the pandemic when I got back into modelling - a Bachmann 25 with Hornby cabs. It's a bit rough at close quarters, but when the new one arrives it will get stripped and resprayed into banger blue. I've improved a lot since then through working on lots of detailings and kitbashes like this and learning all along. Here it is with some friends. The Heljan one at the back isn't too bad at all so may pick up one from the second batch to tide me over. I'll be able to do a similar scene with all banger blue 25s when the others arrive.

They’re not exactly a great selling point compared to other companies’ CADs and renders are they! Hopefully the CFPS will be wielding a pointy stick at KR to get it knocked into shape. I really hope so as it will put other manufacturers off from doing a 40 (some have said as much with other classes), though a blue box retool may happen at some point. The fantasy liveries tend to sell slower and end up in bargain bins, so assuming the detail is correct and the nose ends can be fixed then a little IPA and a respray may be in order. Alternatively, if the first batch end up right I’ll happily wait for the second batch and super detail the Bachmann 40s in the meantime instead. With regards to the shallow bogie detail, a little weathering helps a lot with that.

The basic proportions are right and they capture the stance of the real thing well. They are designed in such a way to make it easy to reduce the ride height and I recall discussing that this is by design. Also, Westfield Wagon Works have just released a chassis detailing kit to add the missing details and replace the comically overscale Bachmann details too which will make a damn good representation of a Whistler if you like to tinker!

I'm genuinely up for a decent modern Class 40 and if the KR one turns out good then I'll get a few. Until then the Bachmann one can be lowered and fettled into something decent.

To agree with 37081LochLong, Same here. I’ve had the odd chain come adrift and a headcode box end needing sticking back in place and that’s about it. Compare that to the fun I’ve had with the other side’s 37, mainly due to poor soldering of the pickups and jumper sockets in addition to chains coming adrift. Any issues have been fixed on both models and I have a decent fleet nevertheless.

No problem at all! I well remember Reddish and recall attempting to drive a 31 there at an open day in the early 70s (with much assistance from a driver and crying from myself! :D ). I've been admiring the High Peak Junction and Bluish threads. Back in the day I remember thinking 3mm scale would be ideal for modelling and in retrospect, much more preferable to the TT:120 stuff being released now.

A telephoto shot.

Thank you. I remember them being built along with the 89. I've always held a fascination with electric locos, growing up in Timperley with copious amounts of 25s and 40, then 20s and 37s over Skelton Junction as well!

Thanks, Rich - glad you're enjoying my tinkerings! Nifkin's Bridge exists in a parallel universe not too far from Crewe, and is seen here somewhere between the late 70s to early 90s (with a lot of blurring of the timeline due to Rule 1 considerations). This allows for all sorts of exotic locos such as Scottish 26s and 37s as well ex-works stuff coming off Crewe Works. It covers the period from my late teens where I managed to get into the railways proper, catching the end of the 25s and 40s, along with the beginnings of sectorisation and all the new liveries involved. It is a modular layout so it will fit into a bigger one in due course. In the meantime, I'm considering a small extension at the diesel depot end to add more stabling and a fuel point, but this will be designed so that it can then be incorporated into later extensions.

That could be blue sky reflecting off the black windscreen surrounds.

The newer section of the layout was designed so I could take shots of lineups of locomotives and here's a couple. Firstly some banger blue electrics... And some InterCity ones.