I really miss the regular loud diesels that you could hear rumbling in the distance from miles away. The current crop of over-silenced locomotives just doesn’t do it for me, Class 68s being the exception.
For many years my only exposure to a Hymek was a Triang one until I visited the East Lancs Railway where there was D7076 freshly restored in green. It was a lovely site and sound. It is a shame they didn’t last in squadron service.
37s weren’t originally all that popular in the North West due to the prevalence of the 40s, but that soon changed after the 40s had all but disappeared and 37s started being shown some love at Crewe works, being refurbished and painted in nice liveries. They have basically the same cab and I’ve spliced Bachmann 37 cabs into a Lima 40 before. There was that sweet spot between 1985 and 1987 when you could still have 25s and 40s alongside the newly-released 37s. 47s also became more interesting with Large Logo, Railfreight and the especially nice Executive and Scotrail liveries, all of which I have in the fleet. The aforementioned Banger Blue 47 with plated headcodes is all I am after to complete the collection.