drgj

Thanks, baz. I'll check them out. Dave

Thank you, people. I am back on it now. dave

Thanks, sean. I soaked it in some brake fluid and all the layers of paint came off in one big sheet. Dave

A funny thing happened to this blue cct. I was looking at it and thought a little more weathering just with a little matt varnish might just finish it nicely. Famous last words! My airbrush went splattery and ruined it! Also the varnish dried frosty and white. I have had to strip it and start again. It took ages to apply those individual pressfix numbers! I had previously applied some railmatch satin varnish and that was fine. The matt stuff was a different make. The search for perfection can be destructive. Beware! dave

I had an earlier Bachmann class 40 (D325) but sold it a while back. I wish I had hung on to it. When they first came out I quite liked the Jouef class 40 but only from the side! It looked quite low slung and heavy in the side view but the front view required some added imagination! The imagination is always good for saving time and money. I noticed a fantastic model on here of Liverpool Lime Street station. It is incredibly well made. I do, however, remember that when I was young and with a good imagination, my trains would run into Euston, Holyhead or Kings Cross without requiring any modelling skills!

I finally finished this CCT. It was made up from a badly damaged Tarton Arrow Lima model plus some old Maygib 14mm wheels mounted on the brass inside bearing / brake block things I made up. These you can see earlier in this thread. I cut out some flush glazing from some old plastic packaging and fitted this after removing the raised edge around the window apertures and painting, etc .I just cut the old brake blocks off (very carefullybecause the plastic is brittle all over this model) before fitting my made up parts. The couplings I made up and they swivel like the originals but are smaller. The humbrol enamel I weathered it with seems to rub off a bit easily compared with Railmatch enamel I used before. The blue is acrylic Railmatch Rail Blue. The model actually looks better in the flesh! Those brass inside bearing contraptions were a pain to make. If I were to do another one I would just drill through the axle boxes from the outside and fit brass bearings. The little pip on the axle box is the right place for 14mm wheels if you want the buffers at the right height. It would be easy enough then to fill in the holes on the outside and replace the detail or just use some other axle boxes.

Did D211 appear in green with full yellow ends or did it go from small panels to blue? I am a little apprehensive about painting this loco as it is expensive and if I ever had to sell it I would lose more money I suppose! Also the white line along the top of the sides looks too wide so making the sides look not much deeper than the old model. I think the lines should reach down half way to the engine area windows (prob already mentioned). All a bit pedantic as it is a nice loco ( I haven't actually bought one yet, by the way!). Who remembers those commuter trains that ran out of King's Cross every evening in the late 70s? They were so long that you couldn't hear the sound of the loco until you had walked up the platform hoping to hear a whistling sound! . The 17:12 to Peterborough was supposed to be a booked class 40 although I had a 46 and 31s on this train. More reliable was the earlier 16:30 to Grantham. This seemed to have a 40 a lot more often. These trains were great because they stopped at a lot of stations giving a lot of good sounds as they pulled out of each one! The 2 minutes past midnight sleeper was supposed to be a 40 but not when I rode on it. dave

In mRB's photos the wheel diameter looks almost the same on both models. I think the Hornby/ Lima model is well finished and not that bad at all. dave

In North Wales in the 70s there was a driver who used to put the locomotive from idle straight to full power starting from a station. I remember his second man saying how he didn't mess about with gradual power increases. Can you do this with your loco?

I remember most class 40s in the mid to late 70s being very clean. Some I saw were actually ex works and gleaming! I think that 40 106 was repainted in about 78 so became shiny, too. The shed that had a reputation for not bothering to clean locos was Bristol Bath Road. Their locos were filthy!

Be carefukl with contact cleaner or switch cleaner because it makes a good paint stripper! Dr Gerbil- those are the sounds of a 50 I remember. The big engine plus the loud roar of the hoover system.

I remember the 40s being really loud. By the way I remember the class 50s being even louder at a station stop. I saw one recently on the Mid Hants and it seemed really quiet! Either I have gone deaf or maybe it was the original "hoover" equipment that was loud. Did that get removed?

Have just noticed that Bachmann are making a CCT this year. Will be a lot easier to buy one of these! Dave

I don't really know why I do this as they all look the same when they are racing round my track! Here is what I have done for the next one. I retained the Lima chassis but cut away the brake shoes. I made up these contraptions with scrap brass, inside bearings, comet brake shoes and solder. Please ignore the rusty axle! They fit over the central raised area that run down the centre of the chassis underneath. I may solder some wire between each pair of brake shoes. Because the original wheel bearing points are set low in the axle boxes the van sits with the buffers at the right height and the axles in about the right position behind the axle boxes with 14mm wheels and these things. I have sold the maroon one at the start of the thread but I keep pics of some of my creations. There are plenty I have sold that I wish I had kept. Dave

It will prob take me ages to do the next one but I have some pics to post soon! Dave

When I bought the parts they were called Fourmost but were originally called ABS. There is a set going on eBay at the moment. Type in "Four Most BR Van". Dave

This is a Lima CCT I detailed. I ended up rebuilding the main chassis from scratch out of plasticard with brass steps. I saved the brake cylinders and battery boxes from the original Lima model. The springs, axleguards and brake shoes are ABS (very nice castings) and the wheels 14mm. I added nem couplings to this one so I could run it with my other ready to run stuff. I sealed the roof to the body and added a new rainstrip. I thinned the body sides to give a near brass sides look. I used comet BR ridged dome ventilators on the roof which may not be correct. Finished with an airbrush with weathering but marred by curling transfers! I am doing another one at the moment but in a different way and I will post some pictures at some time.

Here is a photo I took of a class 40 at Kings Cross. It has a rounded headcode and the lower edge of the nose shows that there was once a set of nose doors. Conversions, I thought, had square boxes.

I had another look at some pictures and maybe with a change to the trailing wheels area and better looking front bogie wheels the Hornby model would look ok. I could add a rear frame extension and maybe a comet trailing truck. I am not very discerning and am happy if the general idea is ok. dave

What are the shortcomings of the Hornby Princess? I was going to get one. Dave

This is what I did to the boiler exhausts. Probably wrong! I also made the under body tanks look a bit more like an early loco. the Ultrascale wheels were already on this loco which started life as a green bashed up "Sir Daniel Gooch". I also transferred the buffer beams and valances to the chasis like on a Bachmann loco and in the process got rid of the curved Lima buffer beam.

In retrospect I should have coloured the edges of the glazing with a black pen before I fitted them.

I flush glazed the front windscreens on this class 47 by removing the glazing and simply cutting the parts that form the windscreens out. I then fixed them flush to the outer body with varnish. I left the side windows as they are.