Mk 1 Full brake bogie options

[unravelled]

Would B4 bogies have been fitted to any Mk 1 full brake vehicles by 1965?

 

I bought a couple of the nice cheap bachman regional railways full brake vehicles, with the intention of respraying them maroon to add to my 60s parcels stock. Of course they have B4 bogies which may not be appropriate, and need a swap.

While I'm asking are there any other major features of these models wrong for maroon?

 

It's all RMweb's fault. If I hadn't read all the great stuff on here i wouldn't worry about such things...

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[Flood]

Searching through the Railway Observers from 1969 onwards the first information I found was in April 1971:

 

"Branded for 100 m.p.h. operation:... ... Most of these retain their original bogies, and are under special maintenance to make them suitable for 100 m.p.h. operation. They are branded 'SM' to indicate this. Some, however, have been given B4 bogies. Those known are 81478/9/82/4/6-8/91/2/4/7."

 

So that makes only eleven with B4 bogies. They were all blue and grey by 1971 but there are only 84 maroon BGs listed by then anyway.

 

So I'm sorry to say I have no idea when these eleven had their bogies changed. Parkin and the Railway Observer article state that the original allocation of the batch 81478 - 81497 was the Eastern Region and the Railway Observer also states that they had not been reallocated so they should have been Eastern Region vehicles through the 1960s. I doubt that they were maroon with B4 bogies but certainly some chocolate and cream passenger stock got B4s so it impossible for me to say for certain.

 

The only other feature you may find is that some batches of Bachmann Mk1 BGs had an air brake distributor on the underframe (as shown in the yellow box on the photo below), you probably will not need this.

 

[unravelled]

Thanks for that. Pretty much what I'd expected, so I'll have to dig around in the bogies box. The underframe info will be useful too.

I'm even more embarrassed considering I've an inherited set of ROs which I didn't think to look in. I must dig them out and put them to good use.

 

Thanks again

 

Dave

[royaloak]

I am certain there would be no shortage of people willing to swap Bachmann BR1 bogies for your Bachmann B4s if you are short of BR1s.

 

I wouldnt mind swapping some!

[griffgriff]

Too right... a set of Bachmann B4 spares cost double that of a set of B1's... I recently bought a Regional Railways BG for the bogies alone. Swapped them for some B1's and at some point in the future will respray it (not sure into what though )

[robertcwp]

At least one BG ran with B4 bogies from the trial batch whilst in chocolate and cream. Have a look at photos of The Red Dragon from 1962 or thereabouts. I have also seen a photo of a maroon one with B4 bogies in the Tees-Tyne Pullman.

[mark54]

There is a photo dated 18th Feb 1967 in "Diesels in the Pennines" colour album by Derek Huntriss of DP2 on the White Rose Pullman at Leeds Central. The first coach is a maroon BG with B4 bogies.

[unravelled]

Thanks for all this information. I'm convinced that the BGs in an ordinary (if there is such a thing) parcels train around Oxford in the mid 60s woud be unlikely to have B4 bogies. So bogie swaps will be needed. Whether I can reuse the B4s in house is another matter, especially as the model in question has cam mounted couplings.

 

Cheers

 

Dave