94XX in 00 gauge.

[DCB]

I have a varied collection of 00 scale 94XX, Farish,  Farish on Triang Chassis with Romford wheels, Lima, Lima on Bachmann Chassis, Wills on Triang chassis with and without Hamblins wheels and none of them look much like a 94XX.   Grafar on Triang chassis with Romfords is probably best but embarrassingly narrow, (32mm instead of 34mm)  Lima and Wills jointly awful.

Two questions. 1)  Is the Bachmann 94XX a reality or a pipe dream.  If so is it scale width?  The Tanks and cab should be 3" wider than the footplate, very noticeable when seeing 9400 in the flesh at Swindon Museum.

2) Does anyone do a 94XX kit the right width. Wills is 32mm should be 34mm.   I am wondering about brass overlays to widen the loco.

Any ideas gratefully received. 

 

[Miss Prism]

I wasn't aware of the incorrect SEF/Wills body width, but it would seem a lot of extra work to add 2mm to the tank, cab and bunker width. Suggest await the Bachmann, which Bachmann say will arrive next May.

 

 

 

[melmoth]

1 hour ago, DavidCBroad said:

The Tanks and cab should be 3" wider than the footplate, very noticeable when seeing 9400 in the flesh at Swindon Museum.

 

 

But - and it's all subjective - how noticeable at normal viewing range on a 4mm/ft model? (See also the discussion about 'narrow' clerestories elsewhere). Personally, I'm quire happy with my Lima/Bachmann hybrid, but as Miss Prism says above the Bachmann model ought to be worth waiting for.

[The Johnster]

I have a Limbach hybrid, and live with her shortcomings.  She's been worked up a little, with new buffers and drawhooks, cab steps filled in on the right hand side of the bunker, glazed cab windows and a backhead from the Bachmann 57xx chassis, along with a crew and real coal; an old Mainline 57xx body provided new tank fillers.  She's numbered as 8448, a Tondu loco for all if her short life (1954-9) with etched plates. 

 

There are, it must be stated and admitted, unsolvable problems with this model.  The Lima plastic body moulding is actually quite good and fairly close to scale, and responds well to detailing, but the wheel spacing of the Bachmann chassis, while correct for a 94xx, is not correct for the incorrectly proportioned Lima model which had splashers positioned for their J50 chassis, so the splashers are slightly out of alignment.  She needs a proper smokebox handle, and there is a hole in the rear buffer beam to accommodate the Lima chassis.  The profile of the Baccy chassis is correct for a 57xx but wrong for a 94xx, which had longer frames inherited from the 2251 which it is basically a tank engine version of.  Worse, she has the cover ahead of the smokebox between the frames which is correct for 9400-10, and for the Lima prototypes to be fair, but not for my loco with is a BR built 'production model' version without this cover and the tops of the cylinders exposed.  Modifying the model to represent this would be a major undertaking and involve some fairly brutal surgery in an area already structurally weakened by the amount of plastic that has to be removed to fit the Bachmann chassis in.  it looks enough like a 94xx for my purposes, though.

 

She's not the worst model on the layout; that dubious honour goes to a Hornby 2721 which has been also been worked up a good bit but has a completely wrong chassis based on the generic Triang Jinty, which is also wrong for a Jinty.

 

I have been waiting for the Bachmann 94xx for some time (haven't we all), but it is apparently going to appear next May despite earlier setbacks.  Pre-production samples actually exist and have been photographed, and the model looks to be very good indeed.  I built my Limbach about 18 months ago in order to at least have a 94xx running on the layout while I was waiting for the Bachmann model, which is to be produced in both versions, enabling 8448 to be accurately portrayed.  When the new Bachmann appears, the Limbach will be retired and the chassis will go under a Bachmann 57xx body, but I'm glad I built it; it will 'do' until the new loco arrives in May.

 

Your problem is that you already own half a dozen 94xx of varying quality and provenance, all of which AFAIK are only correct for the first GW produced batch.  The Bachmann is not a pipe dream (though if you'd asked me a year ago I might have suggested differently) and I am reasonably confident it really will turn up next May or thereabouts, and it will knock all your other 94xx into a cocked hat in terms of scale, detail, and running, and you'll no longer be happy with them except for their retro charm...

 

Currently priced on the Baccy website at £124.99, which will be the most I have ever paid for a single model railway item, but which seems not unreasonable these days for a big 0-6-0 tank with plenty of detail and an awkward shape/lots of daylight under the boiler and the tanks.  Whether Baccy can hold to this price is another matter, of course!

 

 

[DCB]

On 06/08/2019 at 15:50, Miss Prism said:

I wasn't aware of the incorrect SEF/Wills body width, but it would seem a lot of extra work to add 2mm to the tank, cab and bunker width. Suggest await the Bachmann, which Bachmann say will arrive next May.

 

 

 

The Wills body is pretty awful.  I am tarting one up for a friend. The screw hole under the back of the chimney is a masterpiece of crazy design.  I checked the Wills body against the Russel drawing and pondered whether it would be easier to make a model of a 16XX from it than a 94.

The lack of bulk really bugs me. The 94XX is a massive lump. There is a good 3/4 view of locos  leaving our terminus and a head on view up the final approach.   Having the width right and the buffers and cant rails in line is probably more important than on most layouts, much more noticeable than correct wheelbase etc.

 My Farish/Hornby 94XX does give the impression of a bit heavy lump, which the Lima/ Bachmann now deceased with a burned out motor never managed. Just wondering about trying the Lima Body on a Triang chassis as we have a spare with Hamblings wheels.

I guess tonight's job is file out a hole in front of the smokebox on the Farish or renumber the brute to the first 10 as the lack of a cover on the BR built locos passed me by.   As did the reason for building 200 94XXs when 350 HP diesels were already in production. .

[Il Grifone]

I gather they were an order that British railways inherited and couldn't cancel, but why the Great Western ordered so many is a mystery.

[JimC]

The number of 94s ordered almost exactly matches the number of pre group absorbed tanks due to be scrapped over the time period they were ordered for.  In that sense the reason is obvious: they were a cheaper alternative to more 56s.

As far as work, the GWR had few dedicated shunting engines, almost everything took a turn at traffic work which diesel shunters couldn't hack. But you can certainly argue that the GWR should have foreseen that DMUs would take over short haul passenger traffic.

 

Anything beyond is speculation of course. I've seen people speculate that it was to keep the loco builders busy after the war  was over, you could speculate that the GWR wanted to spend their reserves in the Western region rather than have it diverted to other regions where they had less money, there are endless possibilities. Its hard to imagine BR couldn't have cancelled the order if they'd been prepared to pay a penalty, but I wonder if it was only when policy changed and BR decided to rush the changeover to diesel that they started to look surplus to needs.

Edited August 8, 2019 by JimC

[The Johnster]

The production run should indeed be viewed as the last gasp of the GW’s ongoing program to replace the last of it’s pre-grouping fleet in South Wales, where the majority of the class were allocated.  The high profile use of them on Old Oak-Paddington ecs work is a bit of a distraction!

 

The real commitment to diesels did not occur until the 1955 modernisation plan, and it is perhaps a little unfair to criticise BR’s ordering of steam engines before that date.  The production 94xx were ordered in ‘47, and the last built in ‘54.  BR(W) in 1948 had the need to replace a variety of pre-grouping museum pieces with a modern steam loco; the 94xx must have looked like a worthwhile effort at that time!

 

It is easy but simplistic to regard 0-6-0 tank engines as shunters, but the 94xx were conceived as heavy trip and transfer freight machines, the sort of work that the various 1955 plan Type 1s were intended for a decade later, ‘road switcher’ jobs in US parlance. 

 

Nobody in 1948, or for that matter ‘55, could have predicted that this work would have vanished by the mid 60s.  The 94xx were the most modern steam locos for this role, and it may be significant that no modernisation scheme Type1s appeared on the WR. 

The D95xx were intended as a replacement for the 94xx, but the work dried up as they were being built!

 

The result was that neither the 94xx nor D95xx look like value for money in hindsight, but were both ideas worth pursuing at the time.  

   

[Il Grifone]

I suppose it has to be viewed under the conditions of the time. We had no money for imports (including diesel fuel) and exports were all important. (This situation continues until the end of the Korean War.) Thus it made sense to carry on with steam. With the threat of nationalisation, I would have thought the GWR board would have decided, "Let them sort it out", but perhaps they didn't foresee an LMS takeover. Steam was expected to continue into the eighties, but, despite what the BBC programme said about Britain lagging behind, the government (rightly or wrongly) made the decision to eliminate steam as quickly as possible and we were the the first large European country to do so.

(France and Germany were still using steam in the seventies and Italy still had locomotives in reserve but 'on the books' into the eighties. I can personally vouch for the first and last. I used to travel between Liguria and Turin by train (FS tickets were cheap unlike BR) and parked locomotives could be seen in the distance from the train, somewhere about halfway between Savona and Turin. Later I was surprised and delighted to find a whole line of them near Ventimiglia.   (Unfortunately I didn't have my camera....)

[tomparryharry]

I also doubted the 94xx Baccy model. But, it has been seen in the flesh, albeit in 'works primer'. I haven't seen the model myself, but I'm not about to doubt the honesty & integrity of photographs posted on here. As to accuracy, I've no doubt that the model will be pretty much spot on.

 

Will I buy one? Probably. That has to be balanced against the existing Limbach models I possess, each capable of looking & working  like a 94xx, and they all pass the '3 foot rule'.  

 

Ian.

[The Johnster]

Oh, I reckon you’ll be persuaded to shell out for the Baccy, Ian.  The Limbach is not the worst solution in the world, and better than any previous RTR.  The Graham Farish was about standard for the 50s when it was introduced, and ran fairly well,  but had serious body casting  issues and a risible safety valve cover.  The Lima was reasonable above the footplate but dreadful below it, the wheel spacing having implications for the Limbach version.  

 

Both attempts lacked underframe or cab detail, and the Lima has a massive hole in the rear buffer beam for the chassis to fit into.  The buffers and general level of detail were awful, though a moderately skilled modeller could work them up a bit, as we have both done.  Only the first 10 locos are represented, out of a class of 210, and the Wills/Southeastern kit is similar in this regard. 

 

Baccy’s loco represents both types, is highly detailed, and will run very well if their usual type of mech is used.  It is also reasonably priced by current standards (assuming B can keep it down to their estimate), and daylight will show in the correct places under the boiler and tanks.  The frame profile will be correct.  

 

My Limbach will be withdrawn from service as soon as the new Baccy arrives, and I’d be surprised if yours di not suffer the same fate.  The 57xx chassis from it will see further service as 5707, for which I already have the body, so I’m effectively buying 2 locos!

[terry.ecmr]

My Lima body on a Bachmann chassis, shown on 'Earl's Court'

 

Front plate converted, bunker steps removed (on other side), etched plates.

 

£32.00 for the chassis, £10.00 for the body, plus paint, plates etc.

[The Johnster]

Nice, and more accurate than mine which carries numberplates claiming it to be 8448 of Tondu despite having the cylinder cover ahead of the smokebox that was a feature of the first 10 locos only.  These plates will be transferred to the Bachmann model when it appears, and the 57xx chassis has a 57xx body to sit on top of it which will represent 5707 (Tondu) and have the top feed and associated pipework removed.

Edited August 14, 2019 by The Johnster

[timbowilts]

Of course if you work in EM, as I do, your only route is SEF kit or Lima body on a “stretched” Comet 57xx chassis

Tim T

 

[melmoth]

22 minutes ago, timbowilts said:

Of course if you work in EM, as I do, your only route is SEF kit or Lima body on a “stretched” Comet 57xx chassis

Tim T

 

 

What about the High Level kit?

[timbowilts]

11 minutes ago, melmoth said:

 

What about the High Level kit?

As a poor pensioner it’s not in my league 

[Hilux5972]

On 07/08/2019 at 02:50, Miss Prism said:

I wasn't aware of the incorrect SEF/Wills body width, but it would seem a lot of extra work to add 2mm to the tank, cab and bunker width. Suggest await the Bachmann, which Bachmann say will arrive next May.

 

 

 

I wouldnt hold your breath haha

[The Johnster]

I'd be very surprised and disappointed if the Baccy, which has been put back several times already hence Hilux's comment, does not actually turn up next May or ballpark.  Pre production samples have appeared and a good bit of money has clearly been spent on the project, which Baccy will want to start recovering as soon as they can.

 

That said, we are all at the mercy of the Chinese.

[Mallard60022]

On ‎10‎/‎08‎/‎2019 at 16:59, The Johnster said:

The production run should indeed be viewed as the last gasp of the GW’s ongoing program to replace the last of it’s pre-grouping fleet in South Wales, where the majority of the class were allocated.  The high profile use of them on Old Oak-Paddington ecs work is a bit of a distraction!

 

The real commitment to diesels did not occur until the 1955 modernisation plan, and it is perhaps a little unfair to criticise BR’s ordering of steam engines before that date.  The production 94xx were ordered in ‘47, and the last built in ‘54.  BR(W) in 1948 had the need to replace a variety of pre-grouping museum pieces with a modern steam loco; the 94xx must have looked like a worthwhile effort at that time!

 

It is easy but simplistic to regard 0-6-0 tank engines as shunters, but the 94xx were conceived as heavy trip and transfer freight machines, the sort of work that the various 1955 plan Type 1s were intended for a decade later, ‘road switcher’ jobs in US parlance. 

 

Nobody in 1948, or for that matter ‘55, could have predicted that this work would have vanished by the mid 60s.  The 94xx were the most modern steam locos for this role, and it may be significant that no modernisation scheme Type1s appeared on the WR. 

The D95xx were intended as a replacement for the 94xx, but the work dried up as they were being built!

 

The result was that neither the 94xx nor D95xx look like value for money in hindsight, but were both ideas worth pursuing at the time.  

   

Absolutely buddy. OK so some SR 'I knows more then you does' will shoot me down in flames, however the modification of Bulleid Pacifics was costed for them to be still in use in the mid to late 70s and I do not believe it was 'just an accounting' ploy! 'Even' the ER coud have extended the livesof their excellent A1s. The Standards were also all a complete waste of money, as things turned out, and their lives had been planned to be at least 10 years more than they lasted. It was the indecent haste of an intransigent, centralise BR management and the usual carp Government Department for whatever it was back then, arse licking the road lobbyists that caused all this. OK the Railways needed to be smartened up but they were smart in 1958/59/60 ish; what went wrong? (I know what I think but...… ). The only thing I will concede to being important was the Clean Air Act and its requirements. If again the situations beyond our control (big question mark here) in the world regarding oil had not been really awkward around that time, then conversion of loco's to oil would have been a decent option. Imagine Oil fired 9Fs for example sitting in newish depots such as Thornaby.

Right, I shall shut up now and go away but the nonsense about how 'great' the country was back (the early 70s were sh##e) then sits in my gut like a bad curry and I shall finish here, other than to say I really hope the Baccy 94XX appears in time for me to at least admire it.

Good morning,

 A. N. Noyd; BO, CBA; Tunbridge Wells

 

[Barry Ten]

This evening I've finished the second of my two Lima/Bachmann 94XXs.

 

 

I had some plates in stock for 9449 so I decided to model the open frames at the front.

 

My earlier GWR-liveried one was done about 10 years ago, using a split frame chassis, as opposed to the more modern type in the black one. 

 

 

 

Other than the minor differences in the chassis fixings and frames, I don't think I did anything differently between the two models.

 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Barry Ten

[br2975]

On ‎10‎/‎08‎/‎2019 at 16:59, The Johnster said:

The production run should indeed be viewed as the last gasp of the GW’s ongoing program to replace the last of it’s pre-grouping fleet in South Wales, where the majority of the class were allocated.  The high profile use of them on Old Oak-Paddington ecs work is a bit of a distraction!

 

The real commitment to diesels did not occur until the 1955 modernisation plan, and it is perhaps a little unfair to criticise BR’s ordering of steam engines before that date.  The production 94xx were ordered in ‘47, and the last built in ‘54.  BR(W) in 1948 had the need to replace a variety of pre-grouping museum pieces with a modern steam loco; the 94xx must have looked like a worthwhile effort at that time!

 

It is easy but simplistic to regard 0-6-0 tank engines as shunters, but the 94xx were conceived as heavy trip and transfer freight machines, the sort of work that the various 1955 plan Type 1s were intended for a decade later, ‘road switcher’ jobs in US parlance. 

 

Nobody in 1948, or for that matter ‘55, could have predicted that this work would have vanished by the mid 60s.  The 94xx were the most modern steam locos for this role, and it may be significant that no modernisation scheme Type1s appeared on the WR. 

The D95xx were intended as a replacement for the 94xx, but the work dried up as they were being built!

 

The result was that neither the 94xx nor D95xx look like value for money in hindsight, but were both ideas worth pursuing at the time.  

   

3400 - 3409 were delivered between 31/12/1955 and 31/10/1956 and ostensibly allocated to Cardiff East Dock but were placed in store at Barry as there was no work for them.

.

Some were even dropped on Salop shed, and remained there less than a tomato season.

.

They graduated to Radyr, where they did little, other than trips to Caerphilly, shunting Aber on the way and most famously, tripping to Creigiau Quarry.

.

The GWR had already ordered its' 15101 series of diesel shunters when the initial 94xx were ordered, and there were existing, almost new 8750s that could have done the work of the proposed 94xx panniers - methinks this was possibly a case of the former GWR managers flexing their muscles one last time ?.

Edited September 8, 2019 by br2975

[Miss Prism]

Not exactly typical 94xx work... a work-stained 9453, missing its smokebox numberplate, with a Hawksworth autotrailer leading its short train (the second coach is a Collett brake third I think)

 

[The Johnster]

I’d have to say, again, that 94xx were never really intended for shunting work, and they were designed to be replacements for pre-grouping South Wales 0-6-2 tanks.  The 15101 diesels were, OTOH, designed solely for shunting, and there was a perceived role for both in 1947. 

 

It is arguable that the 8750s still being built until 1950 were capable of most of the 94xx work, and had better route availability.  Moreover, Canton drivers I spoke to in the 70s were universally of the opinion the the 57xx/8750s were better engines all round; they couldn’t see the point of the bigger 94xx despite it’s higher BR power classification.  

 

Radyr’s 94xx also found employment as Penrhos bankers; I had several cab rides with them in the summer of 1965.  The 94xx were by no means a failure, which is why over 200 were built, but the work they were built for disappeared in little over a decade; this could not have been foreseen at the timethey were built!

[JimC]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I’d have to say, again, that 94xx were never really intended for shunting work, and they were designed to be replacements for pre-grouping South Wales 0-6-2 tanks.  The 15101 diesels were, OTOH, designed solely for shunting, and there was a perceived role for both in 1947. 

Yes, the GWR had very few locomotives that were single purpose, as the early DM shunters undoubtedly were with their limited speed. Even Castles were expected to do fast vacuum freight turns.  I agree completely, the 94s were a cheaper alternative to more 56xx, not an alternative to 57s.

[The Johnster]

Whether anyone should have been building inside cylinder 0-6-0s in the 50s is another argument; only Swindon was doing this (I'm discounting Leader's power bogies as irrelevant).  The 15101s were DE, not DM, btw.  All the big four had 350hp DE shunting engines at nationalisation, and more on order, all broadly similar designs which eventually developed into the 08.  This was a departure on the GW from the general principle that all the locos should be able to work all the trains, but the trend had already been set with the 67xx/6750 panniers.  An 08 type shunting engine can run for 24hour shifts in big yards, saving 2 steam engines and requiring much less prep and disposal work, a clear advantage but they were far too slow for work on running lines (not that that stopped BR using them for this post-steam).  The initial allocations were thus to big 24/7 marshalling yards and hump yards where they could be used most intensively and efficiently.

 

As an interesting 'what if', suppose the 94xx had never been designed or built.  BR would, in the early 50s, still have had to replace about 200 life-expired pre-grouping South Wales locos, and presumably have had to have designed a Riddles standard outside cylinder loco to do the work, as there were no suitable diesels for another 7 or 8 years (and the idea of an 800hp Type 1 on South Wales work does not fill me with confidence; even if they could pull the trains which I doubt, they'd never have been able to stop 'em...).  Probably something like a smaller wheeled version of the 3MT tank, rated at about 4F.  This would have been no more use than a 94xx, and probably more expensive to build, and the drivers would have still wanted more 8750s...

 

An 8750 has a roomier cab and much better forward and rear visibility than a 94xx, which may account for some of the locomen's views.  They were considered to steam more freely as well.  A 56xx is more expensive to build than a 94xx of course, but is a different beast, significantly more powerful and, with bigger tanks and bunker, capable of an out and back trip from Cardiff to the top of one the valleys, beyond the 'range' of a 94xx with the size of trains we are talking about.  The post-war GW seem to have considered the 200 it had to be enough.  South Wales working involved pulling hard on the uphill outward working with the empties, but pulling hard downhill with the loaded as well as much of the journey was down steep banks with brakes pinned down on the wagons (nerves of steel you 'ad to 'ave boyo, nerves of steel).  94xx were capable of trips to the nearer collieries, but some of the work was still too heavy for them.