Great Waterton

Bachmann include the gangway door covers in the 158 detailing pack now so it must be possible.

Yeah I would suggest it's this, because as far as I'm aware Northerns' 153s never received their current white livery. HOWEVER, from memory there have been at least two (possibly three) variations of bodyside branding and logos. It's well out of my 'era' but I seem to remember Northerns' website being on the side at one stage (although it might not have been on all of them). I'm pretty sure my Hornby model was like this. Happy to be corrected naturally.

A solid choice I'd say. Good for the smaller/branch line/terminus layouts that a lot of O gauge modellers have, in the same way the Dapol Bubble Cars are. I'll be watching this with interest. I wonder if good sales could coax Heljan into doing the whole Sprinter and Super Sprinter family...

Thanks Tony, seems like an awful lot of bother for something that should really be simple!

I'm quite interested in the incoming Inverness 37 but I've read several times on here that it's difficult to have both the ploughs and pipes fitted at the same time without running issues. Can anyone confirm if this is the case please? Many thanks.

I have a soft spot for my Dapol 150/1 conversion. 😂

I'd say that's a given, but it's clearly a Rail Blue stripe in other photo's too. In fact it looks pretty rough. Was it hand painted and/or done in a rush? 😂

Here's 37430 at Oban in August 1992. It has some kind of saloon behind it which I assume is the "BR ScotRail" one Dapol are doing. It's very difficult to say from old photographs and the artwork but the blue stripe looks more like BR Blue to me rather than the lighter ScotRail blue used on most of their other stock at the time. Could this be why it looks a bit off/fake? I seem to remember some early ScotRail livery stock using BR Blue instead of the later, lighter shade. Could this be a similar situation, depending on when it was repainted?

I certainly understand where you're coming from. As a very demented and strange individual I enjoy looking after our Lima motors. They're almost pampered! 😂 I can't be the only one that likes the smell either... But on the other hand the updated Hornby motors have never let me down yet (watch them all blow up now...) despite getting a lot of use, and they much quieter, so I guess it's a bit of a catch 22 situation.

I'd love to see those models back in Railroad form. Unfortunately I'm not sure we'll see the 60 though because I doubt Hornby would want to steer sales away from their 'premium' model, especially with the upcoming Cavalex/Accurascale( ? I can't keep up) one too. I'd buy the ex Lima ones in a heartbeat. You know exactly what you're getting with them. 👍 The 117 might be an interesting one though, given the cost of Bachmann's top of the range version perhaps there would be place in the market for a cheaper and simpler one. I'd certainly buy more despite having all the Lima ones. It's nice that the 110 is coming back in a previously unreleased livery too, another one on my shopping list. ☺️ Controversial opinion here but the 142 Pacer should also reappear in the Railroad range. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't (yet) given Hornby's recent track record for releasing similar things to other companies what with Realtrack's 142 on the horizon. Maybe next year.. Provincial Blue and Regional Railways please Hornby. In fact let's just chuck them all in here: 101, 117, 121/122, 155, 156! I'll stop short at the Dapol 150/2 as that looked terrible even when it came out. 😂

Oh I see, so it's essentially been printed wrong on the model, on a bit of a slope by the looks of it.. I can't tell if LANDS is also in slightly bigger text that EASTMID. A shame that these daft (and presumably avoidable) issues creep in so often. My Dad has the original release of these from a few years back, when I'm next round there I'll be having a good look. 😂

My interest is mainly sectorisation with a few exceptions so can someone please explain this "stepped logo" business on the EMT power cars? 😂

I don't think they'll mind.

Railroad 156 in Northern Spirit livery. Railroad HST in GNER (blue doors). Railroad Bubble Car in Regional Railways. Also the 142 moved into the Railroad range and seeing the light of day again. 😊

Definitely different factories.

I do quite fancy one of those purely because it's so different! I imagine it would have to sit in a siding though as I can't think of anything I'd run it with.

When it's moving on a layout and being viewed from "normal" distance I think it would probably be passable, although that being said if I'd bought one for even discounted RRP (I wouldn't buy one as it's off region and off era for me) I'd probably feel a bit disappointed. It also won't help that a lot of the 153 body profile is covered in rivets. I'm often left bewildered how Hornby can make such a superb job of one model and then make a complete hash of another.

The blue and grey ones have always been a bit of a minefield full stop. Some of the TFOs had the first class yellow stripe that was too large and some of the TSOs and TFOs had the grey window section too dark a grey. Some of them have had tinted glazing, some of them haven't. On top of that, some of them have said "Inter-City" and some of them "Inter-City 125". Similarly the catering vehicles have had "Restaurant-Buffet" or "Restaurant-Buffet 125". Presumably this is Hornby's way of releasing some as loco hauled trailers and some as HST trailers. If it's of any use to you, Hornby are scheduled to release a brand new rake of HST Mk3s in the blue and grey livery at some point in the future. At least, they're in the current catalogue though they haven't appeared yet. These will have the new tooling and updated couplings etc and one would HOPE the livery would be matching and consistent throughout...

I've recently picked up the ex Lima Railroad 37s that Hornby have released, ("Comet" and "The Northern Lights"), and they both have a newer sealed type motor. Performance is very good indeed and far exceeded my expectations; once properly run in they handled the loads a Lima one could and would probably manage more. We had ours running with a rake of 10 Lima Mk1s (Summer Saturday seaside special) and 22 Lima PTAs (purely as a test) and there were no signs of struggling or slipping or even overheating. The motors themselves are very quiet too and much quieter than my new Bachmann 158s! That also goes for the ex Lima Railroad 125s as well. I don't know if these motors will be different to the ex Lima 47, but I would assume not? As a side note, we found that after a few hours use there were faint squeaking sounds coming from the loco's. The kind of noise old Hornby motors make when not lubricated or when they've dried out. A quick drop of lubricant in the correct places as per the Hornby instructions solved this issue instantly. Of course all these ex Lima releases are not perfect by any means compared with the "high end" stuff however they're very robust and solid (there's nothing to fall off which is delightfully simple and refreshing) and a wonderful starting point for detailing, weathering and painting etc. And this is what we like to do. It's incredible the difference it can make. I'd also argue that the colours used are actually more accurate than a lot of Hornby's "premium" releases... I look forward to adding the next releases to the collection. Well done Hornby, credit where it's due. 👍

I like the image of the weathered blue 20. That looks a fantastic base for adding a few little extra flourishes such as dirt in the panel lines and adding buffer grease etc.

For what this is, i.e a bit of harmless fun not to be taken seriously, I like it. Purple is my second favourite colour and this particular shade is lovely, it fits the shape of the 66 nicely. Alas I'm not a member of the collector's club so I shall wait until one appears on eBay for £999. 😆

A long and happy retirement for Mr. Kohler. 👍 Let us hope that his successor is equally passionate about the hobby and that they share the enthusiasm for TT:120.

I'm considering one of these, do they really run that bad? I run DC on flat track. It won't be coupled to anything else, just running on its own as a 2 car set.