pheaton

Interesting....I put in a best offer last Wednesday and it didn't ask me to do that....must have literally just come in?

Anyone know if these have arrived at barwell yet?

a full asbestos survey was done, very little was found, what was found has been sealed up.

i did have quite a long chat with Roger yesterday, after inspecting the generator on 015 and told him to talk to Dave Hesketh, to determine if he has the tools to remove the auxiliary armature from 015 to allow 132s brush alternator to be bolted to the main shaft....its an avenue he is exploring. its a massive leap of faith to an unknown generator which will need a lot of money spent on it before it can be used, but it could save substantial money on repairs compared with the full armature rewind that 132s main generator needs.

yeah dogs danglies but needs 82k spent on it before it will make a noise again!

final cutting wont be until January, i was in it yesterday purchasing some parts from it that will keep 45149 running. To be honest its too far gone even for a cosmetic restoration. in fact most of it will be keeping other locomotives running for quite some time.

yeah but without the stench... copydex however doesn't age well with exposure to sunlight it will discolour quite heavily whereas pva is very stable

The cantrail grills on atleast some of the generators are different they only have 1 strengthening rib rather than 5 and look quite distinct. Have a look at a photo of 47401, and you will see what I mean.

If your going to quote me...do it properly...dont just cherry pick the bits you disagree with... I agree civil servants are lower paid than there equivalent private sector colleagues...having worked in both industries.....however... The civil service pension outstrips a typical equivalent role private sector pension by quite a margin in terms employer contributions, few private sector areas allow for full Flexible working, few private sector areas allow for the amount of holiday the civil service offers. Job security is also higher in the civil service. bearing in mind....the last private sector job I worked in....the employees (some of which had been there for 40 years) were taken offsite to be told there was a 97% deficit in their pension funds.....something which the civil service (with its government backed pension) is immune from. and before anyone asks I work in one of the most restricted areas of the civil service... and have done for the last 12 years. oh and our union is not worth the paper its written on.

Civil service jobs are generally lower paid...but however do have a more generous pension and better working conditions compared to the private sector...

There have been quite a few published layouts in various modelling mags over the years that make use of set-track throughout.....

Sounds like motor overload protection kicking in, its possible that your 60 is drawing too much current, I would try switching the motor algorithm to the alternate setting, but it could be the grease is too old and is causing issues. 56 suffer from this, so could need a good strip down oiling and clean.

Got two sound deluxe ones on order will post a review and videos

surely though....if the signal release is interlocked with the crossing (which given its protecting an A Road you would have thought they might have done this time?) a white light shouldn't be required?

IIRC Waterloo during diversions between reading and paddington

Im sure at the time the release price was somewhere more palatable, seem to recall the 140 mark....which at the time...a controller with similar capabilties...eg 4amps + 1amp aux output and full cv capability was a lot more expensive...so at the time it was a lot of controller for the money...

If you looked closely at the lima class 47 bogie (which was pretty damn good for its age) you will see that on the main springs there are flat plates with 4 holes in, which are on the prototype.....LIMA (until vitrains) were the only manufacturer to model that in the bogies, Heljan didnt (afaik) Hornby...well lets not go there, and Bachmann didnt on the first tooled 47 (which pre-dated the vitrains model) and the second retool. When the vitrains 47 came out they modelled it.... this and if you looked at the construction methods...it followed lima esq procedures very well (such as the paint methods, the glazing also is very lima in its simplicity... the control board is also very similar in its style to the Lima 67... interestingly...close inspection of the 37 body shell shows that the exhaust ports appear to be a separately tooled item....which gives the impression they may have been planning a slug....(37/9) the 47 also...has a separately tooled engine cover which implies possibly plans for a 57??? but only the hobby co really knows the answer to this... on that though...i find it quite difficult to believe that hobby co would finance a new tooling on a model that had already been issued by 2 leading manufacturers (47) and one that feature wise was inferior to the existing bachman 37. So i would be willing to bet the toolings already existed....

Someone...i think you have had by far the best advice so far from @Nigelcliffe and @ITG the other posts show that one mans chalk is another mans cheese, IMO when the elite came out at its original price point, you were getting a lot of controller for your money, in terms of its capabilities and its power supply, and on that front it blew the dynamis out the water. I did own an elite for a long time....never had an issue with it, but i will fully agree the interface isnt the best, this can be remedied somewhat with the Hornby PC offering but thats just adding the cost to a controller for an issue which might be resolved out of the box by some of the controllers specified. if i went back in time...would i buy an elite again...yes i would...but only at its launch price...Hornby jacking the price up considerably put the elite out of favour with controllers with a better interface...but in some cases inferior capabilties. I replaced my elite with an ECoS, and an ECoS mobile.

Indeed can't find a photo of one in ll on class47.co.uk

I might be wrong but i think 711 is the original tooling.....it was announced a while back...and i suspect it will be the incorrect headlight (for the livery) All the Bachmann shots i have seen show it with the high intensity headlight....rather than the lucas rally special....

I grew up with lima and its fair to say in my younger years (couldn't really call myself a modeller) my trainset had more lima than Hornby. this was the mid-90s. Bachmann could have been around but without the internet....and access to modelling press, i didnt know about them.....i knew about mainline (as i had a mainline brake van) From my point of view (bear in mind back then i didn't know any better) lima were the superior manufacturer to Hornby...yes lima made mistakes...(or more likely strategic business decisions) which led to derision from the railway press and modellers alike...(such as the 117 saga and dodgy class 50 bogies) but one thing i do miss is lima's livery strategy, in that they could have a model out in the livery within weeks of the prototype appearing.... from a personal point of view...i was quite sad really that lima went to the wall, they were trying to turn around their models (with the class 67) which ok wasnt exactly a success but how many times have we seen a pup from other manufacturers....the difference with lima was that it was the straw that broke the camels back! There was a rumour that the vitrains 37 and 47 were lima designed...and indeed closely looking at the vitrains 47 it does share some traits with the bogies which were very very lima, i think if they had got them to market before they demised...that would have been a major game changer for them! A number of lima models still find a place amongst my stable for example the class 31s have been converted to railroad chassis (because of the obscure liveries) which i dont think Hornby will ever release... the mk3s still run between my Hornby SD HST power cars..... unfortunately it seems lima were not able to keep up with the technological pace of Bachmann and Hornby and Heljan and Dapol....perhaps they were lured into a false sense of security that the models were still good seller's...as if one thing ive learnt is that the model is in demand....prices are high....Lima mk3 sleepers were fetching several hundred pounds each on ebay....117s 101s were all commanding very high prices for the time.... 37s and 47s were selling steady....because at the time...the alternative was Hornby.....Bachmann come along with there new 37 and....overnight the lima loco doesn't get a look in... Im sure a very long autopsy could be done on lima's demise...and you never know perhaps its as interesting as the demise of the graphics card maker 3dfx......or the rise and fall of nokia....

Work continues at pace since the last blog, mostly taking advantage of the good weather to carry on with the body work before the winter comes and its difficult to do anything externally in the wind and rain. All of the major welding has now been completed, we can see the cant rail area has had new steel put in place, the entire lower half of no 2 end has now been ground back and filled and a base primer applied (several more coats of primer are due yet. Extensive corrosion was found above the door, and this has also been cut out, this has all since been re-plated, the engine room door will be "modified" to prevent a re-occurrence of this , as water tends to run down the bodyside and pool on the top of the door. B Side radiator frame, corrosion had comepletely pulled the skill away from the frame causing a large ripple, this two has now been completely replated. The window frame steel itself in the door was found to be de-laminating which would have meant it would have been impossible to re-seal the window, this too has now been repaired More views of repaired steelwork below the vents for the boiler room control resistors And here you can see the aluminium strip applied to seal the bodywork against the weather, the reason for using aluminium is the cant rail grills and surrounding structure is aluminium, and replacing with steel would corrode the aluminium quite quickly, the aluminium is riveted with over 400 rivets, and also sealed with a NON setting sealant, which will keep the whole thing water tight, this is where the water ingress started which caused all of the corrosion seen in one of my previous blogs, a profiled finishing strip will hide the join between the aluminium and the steel, and the rivet heads will be ground flush and filled. Its very easy to fix corrosion, but its better to stop it happening again The bodyside windows have now started to be re-installed, however a shortage of the correct profile seal has stalled this, a lot of people dont realise its the simple things that can trip you up, originally this seal was £3.10 a meter and readily availiable, the distributor decided it was obsolete 5 years ago (despite it being one of the most common rail profiles) and now charges £15.45 a meter with a minimum run of 120m! One of the perils of putting a bit too much pressure on the glass when re-installing it :) The hole at the front has also had new steel applied. Elsewhere work has returned to the roof, where the grills have al l been cleaned out unblocked, and had new threads to retain the grills installed The fibreglass domes have also been sanded back and any damage to the gel coat repaired, more work is required on top though. A view of the locomotive roof with the engine room cover removed. Work has also been taking place above the radiators, the, holes that retain the fibreglass covers drilled and re-tapped to a metric size, you can see BCRW were not to good when it came to drilling straight holes! The fibreglass covers being repaired and re-painted, they will have there holes re-drilled, this is an undercoat they will be rubbed again down and have top coat applied later. Another major area of work is the fibreglass roof cover itself, which after 60 years is in a pretty poor state it was split, had many botched repairs and was falling apart. Re-enforcement of a corner of the section that had snapped completely Some examples of damage to the roof, from big holes to splits and a complete section that was snapped off A new aluminium section being trial fitted, also many "friday afternoon" repairs are evident as is splitting and cracking in the frame. The roof had split 3 of its 4 bearers, as the roof was originally created in a mould you cant replace these very easily and retain any strength, as a result strengthening plates have been fitted and riveted with special fibreglass rivets over the crack. The newly formed aluminium section awaiting and riveting into place A corner was also missing after a hard life this was also repaired The roof had cracked entirely across this section (due to the missing section that was repaired with aluminium) now that its back in place a patch and be applied with out the roof re-fracturing. FInally a complete new top skin was applied after the old one has been "peeled" off as can be seen one of the lifting lugs is missing, this one done by a passing tree when 043 has been on lorry on its many travels... A new lug made and awaits sealing.

AIUI EE were only supplying the engines, and the locos were always intended to be built by brush, and subcontracted out where required.

LION was BCRWs offering for the BR type 4 requirement, (which specified that prototypes had to be privately funded) it wasnt the test bed for the 12lda, the peaks predated lion by over a year, originally brush offered a class 47 with an 16cyl EE option which was substantially cheaper than the sulzer engine. There was a specific reason the option wasnt taken and that reason escapes me at the moment.... i seem to recall that lion was considered superior to the other type 4 offeringts (lion and DP2) but....BCRW were in a precarious financial position and there was doubt they could fulfill the order...so brush used the external styling of LION on the final type 4 design....thats all they have in common, the bodies of lion and a class 47 use completely different construction techniques.