Mark 2b, By Accurascale and IRM!

[SRman]

I have been using the Accurascale supplied magnetic couplings on the Accurascale Mk 2Bs, and Hunt couplings on the two Bachmann Mk 2As that are currently forming my West of England rake. The Hunt couplings with a combination of lengths are now forming the connection between the Bachmann and Accurascale coaches. The set has been running like this for a few days now with no problems to report. The corridor connections are touching on the straight sections.

 

 

 

[dj_crisp]

10 minutes ago, SRman said:

I have been using the Accurascale supplied magnetic couplings on the Accurascale Mk 2Bs, and Hunt couplings on the two Bachmann Mk 2As that are currently forming my West of England rake. The Hunt couplings with a combination of lengths are now forming the connection between the Bachmann and Accurascale coaches. The set has been running like this for a few days now with no problems to report. The corridor connections are touching on the straight sections.

 

 

 

 

That's interesting. Did you use the standard coupling with the magnetic coupling? When i tried the supplied magnetic coupling i had a much larger gap whereas yours looks great on the straight.

[Accurascale Fran]

4 hours ago, P.C.M said:

I finally received my MK2b today and it's a very good model but I think the Trans Pennine  blue is too dark. I know it was mentioned a few pages back that it's a good match but I think the   Bachmann MK2s are  a better match to the real thing from pictures I looked at. I will have to paint the roof too as I am pretty sure they were not blck on the real thing.

 

Hi @P.C.M,

 

Some photos to highlight the shade of our blue and demonstrate black roof colour. Both photos credit and copyright of Tim Rogers.

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

Fran 

Edited April 9 by Accurascale Fran

[Haverail]

On 08/04/2024 at 11:16, Stu7 said:

I am still waiting for my order to be dispatched. Anyone else still waiting? 

My order is going through a bit of a mare. The delivery to the retailer got stuck in the DPD depot then sent back to Accurascale. They sent it back to the retailer but he only received half of his order. I feel sorry for the retailer who is getting a lot of flack from other customers and of course it is the customers who are having to wait while the mess gets untangled. I'm in no rush for mine but there is a worry that at some point the retailer or Accurascale are going to say sorry lost in the post here is your money back and all the spares have been sold off.

[McC]

2 hours ago, Haverail said:

My order is going through a bit of a mare. The delivery to the retailer got stuck in the DPD depot then sent back to Accurascale. They sent it back to the retailer but he only received half of his order. I feel sorry for the retailer who is getting a lot of flack from other customers and of course it is the customers who are having to wait while the mess gets untangled. I'm in no rush for mine but there is a worry that at some point the retailer or Accurascale are going to say sorry lost in the post here is your money back and all the spares have been sold off.

 

That specific issue is a DPD documentation glitch and our team and our DPd account manager are on the case. All orders will definitely be fulfilled 👍 Hope that helps reassure and our apologies for the screwup. 

[Melton Works]

Really looking forward to my two class 50s I have on pre order and any future revised livery class 50s. Until then, I will have to make do with my rework of 47708 to haul my WOE set...

[SRman]

10 hours ago, dj_crisp said:

 

That's interesting. Did you use the standard coupling with the magnetic coupling? When i tried the supplied magnetic coupling i had a much larger gap whereas yours looks great on the straight.

 

I didn't change the pockets and just used the supplied magnetic couplings straight out of their packet. Initially I used some Hornby short magnetic couplings which also worked well but left a very small gap on the straights. What didn't work with the Hornby couplings was the Bachmann to Accurascale join: the levels of the pockets were different and I had to mix the coupling lengths as well. Accurascale do supply alternative pockets which are set further back, but I haven't experimented with those at all.

 

[SouthernMafia]

20 hours ago, Accurascale Fran said:

 

Hi @P.C.M,

 

Some photos to highlight the shade of our blue and demonstrate black roof colour. Both photos credit and copyright of Tim Rogers.

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

Fran 

 

How long did the rooves stay unweathered shiny black though? A few weeks? Appreciate these are not weathered models, but some more accurate roof colours as per day-to-day service would be welcome, from all manufacturers. I've bought a couple of Halfords grey spray cans to have a go at starting to distress the rooves.

 

Re magnetic couplings - I've actually fitted mine upside down to hide them better. I don't know which way is correct but they work both ways.

[G-BOAF]

17 hours ago, Haverail said:

My order is going through a bit of a mare. The delivery to the retailer got stuck in the DPD depot then sent back to Accurascale. They sent it back to the retailer but he only received half of his order. I feel sorry for the retailer who is getting a lot of flack from other customers and of course it is the customers who are having to wait while the mess gets untangled. I'm in no rush for mine but there is a worry that at some point the retailer or Accurascale are going to say sorry lost in the post here is your money back and all the spares have been sold off.

Unless you are Hornby[1], you hopefully don't sell off all your spares before a) all retailers have had stock and b) any retailer warranty repairs have come back. Even if AS are sold out, retailers may take longer to shift/dispatch stock, and warranty replacement items should, I would argue, still be available to cover this. Otherwise huge disincentive to buy from retailer, which (as again Hornby have shown) is not good long term.

 

[1] who for a long time seem to have taken a 'sold out and no spare items, nor spare parts, sorry, now please go away'

 

[P.C.M]

22 hours ago, Accurascale Fran said:

 

Hi @P.C.M,

 

Some photos to highlight the shade of our blue and demonstrate black roof colour. Both photos credit and copyright of Tim Rogers.

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

Fran 

Hi Fran, I have had a look at the blue and think the Bachmann is probably a tad light and yours a bit dark. 

I had a look at coach roofs too. It does seem that your pic shows a black roof but it think most came out with a dark grey which weathered down to an almost black. 

I took a few pics with the phone so not great quality but certainly show coach ends being black and the roof dark grey.

[WCML100]

3 minutes ago, P.C.M said:

Hi Fran, I have had a look at the blue and think the Bachmann is probably a tad light and yours a bit dark. 

I had a look at coach roofs too. It does seem that your pic shows a black roof but it think most came out with a dark grey which weathered down to an almost black. 

I took a few pics with the phone so not great quality but certainly show coach ends being black and the roof dark grey.

 

Interesting to note - but all examples you have included are MK2a's and not Mk2b's...

[SulzerPeak]

1 hour ago, P.C.M said:

Hi Fran, I have had a look at the blue and think the Bachmann is probably a tad light and yours a bit dark. 

I had a look at coach roofs too. It does seem that your pic shows a black roof but it think most came out with a dark grey which weathered down to an almost black. 

I took a few pics with the phone so not great quality but certainly show coach ends being black and the roof dark grey.

I remember well the first trans pennine coaches being introduced used to travel on them a lot. They had black roofs.

[Roy Langridge]

2 hours ago, P.C.M said:

Hi Fran, I have had a look at the blue and think the Bachmann is probably a tad light and yours a bit dark. 

I had a look at coach roofs too. It does seem that your pic shows a black roof but it think most came out with a dark grey which weathered down to an almost black. 

I took a few pics with the phone so not great quality but certainly show coach ends being black and the roof dark grey.

Having re-done the roof on a Class 205 DEMU, they go the other way, start black and weather to grey. 
 

Roy

[GD]

2 hours ago, SulzerPeak said:

I remember well the first trans pennine coaches being introduced used to travel on them a lot. They had black roofs.

[SulzerPeak]

1 hour ago, GD said:

Try as you might they were black, plenty of images on google,without light reflections!

[Flood]

So last Friday I decided that I was going to have another set of NSE coaches but this time it would be a full 9 coach Waterloo - Exeter set. Having looked through one of my friend's old spotting books I decided on a rake and then noted which build batch the TSOT came from.

 

For those slightly interested 118 Mk2C TSOs were built, of which the first 64 (5498 to 5561) had the style of toilet windows used in the Mk2, Mk2A and Mk2B builds. The remainder had toilet windows shorter in height so a vent could be placed above on one side, this is the style that Accurascale will be modelling.

 

The TSOT in the rake was 6503, which was originally 5510 so came from the first batch. Time, therefore, to start chomping away at an Accurascale Mk2B TSO to make an early style Mk2C TSOT.

 

First of all the roof vents were removed and 5 thou sheet used to make the access hatch on the roof. The breather pipe at that end was also moved about 2mm to fit in the new hatch. There is also an additional circular plate at that end, which is just off the centre line (see later post on next page).

 

The earliest Mk2C TSOs had two different style of roof vents before Roevac vents were finally decided upon, which were subsequently used on the air-conditioned Mk2 stock and the loco hauled Mk3 stock. The first vent style used is described in British Rail Mark 2 Coaches as a 'G' vent, the next vent tried being a 'GM' vent. I assume these were G modified as they were very similar to a 'G' vent but shorter in height. Now a GM vent is near enough the same as an English Electric loco cab roof vent so I made up six of these (from Shawplan) and then added 20 thou to increase the height, in order to simulate G vents. Most sane people probably wouldn't even care.

 

These were then added to the roof and left to dry.

 

I then turned to the interior and cut out one bay of seats and added a counter.

 

The roof was then primered, Archer's rivets were added to the edges of the roof hatch and then primered again. The small handles on the hatch were easier than expected (when a brand new drill bit is used).

 

The screen between the counter area and the seating was made and painted and the rest of the interior also painted.  I could have smoothed things up a bit but more on that later.

 

So all the basic work had been done. A blast with Halfords matt black sorted the roof, a blanking screen for the window behind the counter and a strip stating Buffet for the window opposite, followed by a red stripe and a quick renumber and we have the below:

 

 

 

 

As for tidying up the interior wall before painting, you can't even see the counter let alone what the wall looks like!

 

All in all it took just under a week and I'm very happy with the result. Oh, and I've just straightened that footstep shown in the last photo.

 

Now, should it really be in this thread or the Mk2C one?

Edited April 16 by Flood
Tidying up.

[Melton Works]

2 hours ago, Flood said:

So last Friday I decided that I was going to have another set of NSE coaches but this time it would be a full 9 coach Waterloo - Exeter set. Having looked through one of my friend's old spotting books I decided on a rake and then noted which build batch the TSOT came from.

 

For those slightly interested 118 Mk2C TSOs were built, of which the first 64 (5498 to 5561) had the style of toilet windows used in the Mk2, Mk2A and Mk2B builds. The remainder had toilet windows shorter in height so a vent could be placed above on one side, this is the style that Accurascale will be modelling.

 

The TSOT in the rake was 6503, which was originally 5510 so came from the first batch. Time, therefore, to start chomping away at an Accurascale Mk2B TSO to make and early style Mk2C TSOT.

 

First of all the roof vents were removed and 5 thou sheet used to make the access hatch on the roof.

 

The earliest Mk2C TSOs had two different style of roof vents before Roevac vents were finally decided upon, which were subsequently used on the air-conditioned Mk2 stock and the loco hauled Mk3 stock. The first vent style used is described in British Rail Mark 2 coaches as a 'G' vent, the next vent tried being a 'GM' vent. I assume these were G modified as they were very similar to a 'G' vent but shorter in height. Now a GM vent is near enough the same as an English Electric loco cab roof vent so a made up six of these (from Shawplan) and then added 20thou to increase the height, in order to simulate G vents. Most sane people probably wouldn't even care.

 

These were then added to the roof and left to dry.

 

I then turned to the interior and cut out one bay of seats and added a counter.

 

The roof was then primered, Archer's rivits were added to the edges of the roof hatches and then primered again. The small handles on the hatch were easier than expected (when a brand new drill bit is used).

 

The screen between the counter area and the seating was made and painted and the rest of the interior also painted.  I could have smoothed things up a bit but more on that later.

 

So all the basic work had been done. A blast with Halfords matt black sorted the roof, a blanking screen for the window behind the counter and a strip stating Buffet for the window opposite, followed by a red stripe and a quick renumber and we have the below:

 

 

 

 

As for tidying up the interior wall before painting, you can't even see the counter let alone what the wall looks like!

 

All in all it took just under a week and I'm very happy with the result. Oh, and I've just straightened that footstep shown in the last photo.

 

Now, should it really be in this thread or the Mk2C one?

Well it originated from a 2B and it will be running with 2Bs, so I would say it belongs here! Very admirable work here.. impressive and fills another gap.

[Flood]

18 minutes ago, Melton Works said:

Well it originated from a 2B and it will be running with 2Bs, so I would say it belongs here! Very admirable work here.. impressive and fills another gap.

Thanks for the kind comment, and everyone else's appreciation.

 

I'm an idiot, I completely forgot about one of the selling points for these coaches...

 

Edited April 11 by Flood

[robertcwp]

I have been doing some coupling experiments. My Mark 2b stock needs to be able to couple to Bachmann Mark 2a stock and assorted Mark 1 stock such as Bachmann BGs and RUs and Hornby RBs and FOs. I tried Hornby magnetic couplings but the NEM boxes on the Bachmann 2a stock are so far back that they don't work. I could use Hunt ones but am not keen. I tried changing the 2b coupling mounts to the short version that came with the carriages and they seem fine but then I found that a short Bachmann tension lock in the standard Accurascale mount gives much the same spacing. So, for now, it's short t/l couplings for me.

[Michael Hodgson]

On 09/04/2024 at 18:40, Haverail said:

My order is going through a bit of a mare. The delivery to the retailer got stuck in the DPD depot then sent back to Accurascale. They sent it back to the retailer but he only received half of his order. I feel sorry for the retailer who is getting a lot of flack from other customers and of course it is the customers who are having to wait while the mess gets untangled. I'm in no rush for mine but there is a worry that at some point the retailer or Accurascale are going to say sorry lost in the post here is your money back and all the spares have been sold off.

I appreciate your concern, and my own experience of Accurascale has been completely trouble-free.  However they are inevitably dependent on other companies such as couriers who can potentially let them down, and we've all had problems with the behavious of some couriers.  That's why I think their practive of not releasing their unsold stock immediately is so good - it gives them a buffer they can use to honour their promises when such things happen.  Announcing more availability a bit later doesn't really cost them any sales, it just defers them slightly

Edited April 11 by Michael Hodgson

[Michael Hodgson]

ab

36 minutes ago, Flood said:

Thanks for the kind comment, and everyone else's appreciation.

 

I'm an idiot, I completely forgot about one of the selling points for these coaches...

 

Not my era, but that's terrific quality.  Does mean you have to fit a few passengers though!

[dj_crisp]

1 hour ago, Flood said:

Thanks for the kind comment, and everyone else's appreciation.

 

I'm an idiot, I completely forgot about one of the selling points for these coaches...

 

 

This is brilliant! 

Hmmm I was too late to order any 2cs and I have one too many 2b TSOs for my eventual waterloo to exeter rake. I might just have to do some copying :)

[BrakeCoach]

This is an out of the blue question, but does anyone know when Mk2 TSOT vehicles disappeared from service and what happened to them? Seems like there aren't any sectorization livery versions, hence the question.

Edited April 11 by BrakeCoach

[Flood]

To help out all those that will be wanting a TSOT here is the full list:

 

NSE 6500, 6502, 6522, 6527 small toilets and Roevac vents as per the Accurascale model to come

B/G 6504, 6506, 6511, 6520, 6523, 6524, 6525, 6528, 6529 small toilets and Roevac vents as per the Accurascale model to come

 

NSE 6501, 6513 Mk2B toilet windows and GM vents (like EE cab roof vents)

B/G 6505, 6516, 6519 Mk2B toilet windows and GM vents (like EE cab roof vents)

 

NSE 6503, 6517 Mk2B toilet windows and G vents (taller version of EE cab roof vents)

B/G 6507, 6508, 6509, 6510, 6512, 6514, 6518, 6526 Mk2B toilet windows and G vents (taller version of EE cab roof vents)

 

NSE 6521 Mk2B toilet windows and Roevac vents

B/G 6515 Mk2B toilet windows and Roevac vents

 

Obviously all those in NSE originally carried Blue and Grey.

[BrakeCoach]

2 minutes ago, Flood said:

To help out all those that will be wanting a TSOT here is the full list:

 

NSE 6500, 6502, 6522, 6527 small toilets and Roevac vents as per the Accurascale model to come

B/G 6504, 6506, 6511, 6520, 6523, 6524, 6525, 6528, 6529 small toilets and Roevac vents as per the Accurascale model to come

 

NSE 6501, 6513 Mk2B toilet windows and GM vents (like EE cab roof vents)

B/G 6505, 6516, 6519 Mk2B toilet windows and GM vents (like EE cab roof vents)

 

NSE 6503, 6517 Mk2B toilet windows and G vents (taller version of EE cab roof vents)

B/G 6507, 6508, 6509, 6510, 6512, 6514, 6518, 6526 Mk2B toilet windows and G vents (taller version of EE cab roof vents)

 

NSE 6521 Mk2B toilet windows and Roevac vents

B/G 6515 Mk2B toilet windows and Roevac vents

 

Obviously all those in NSE originally carried Blue and Grey.

I see, so no Provincial / Regional Railways TSOTs