Robin Brasher

I have just received my model of 1108. I am very impressed with the detail, the windscreen wipers, the fan in the roof and the chrome plated door window tops. The motor is concealed by the real motor housing. I am modelling the Swanage Railway and I originally bought an MTK kit that I never got round to making as I never imagined anyone would make a ready to run model. Most of the units that ran on the Swanage Railway from 5th September 1966 to 1st January1972 were three car sets and the following have been spotted: 1101, 1104 Sept 66, 1105 green 25 March 1967, 1108 July 1969, 1110 1st January 1972, 1111 June 1970, 1113 18th Feb 1967, 1114 Oct 1968, 1128 Aug 1969 and 1129 June 1969. It looks like Kernow are not taking any more orders for the BR blue one which should be ready in 2014 so it looks like I missed out on this one. I hope they make some BR green and BR blue 3 car sets.

There is an excellent article about the Hornby 2-BIL EMUS by Evan Green-Hughes on pages 80 and 81 of the March 2013 Hornby Magazine. This has a picture of one aat Clapham Junction and two near Woking. All the pictures I have seen show the 2-BILs working in multiple units but if the train divided at Woking it should be possible to see them as two car units heading to Alton and Portsmouth Harbour. There is a review on pages 76 to 79 which says slow speed control is so fine that they were able to make the 2-BIL take 30 minutes to travel 6 feet.

I look forward to seeing you. I am on stand 60 Sussex Vintage Model Collectors. I am disappointed about the way Hornby is treating us. A few years ago Simon Kohler told us at the Wimborne Railway Circle that he thought that the discounting by Hattons was unsustainable but I do not see what his problem with Hattons is. Hattons pays Hornby promptly and gives its customers a good service. Coming back to the 2 BIL it seems that the emus were the first items on which the Southern painted the roofs grey. All the coaches had white canvas roofs. Does anyone know how long the 2 BILs were in Maunsell green?The Hornby prototype must have been one of the last items to have been painted in Maunsell green. There have been no comments about the interior. Peco used to supply interiors for the Kitmaster coaches in authentic colours with carriage prints and passengers reading newspapers. Is there a demand for this level of detail? I have not got my emu that I preordered from Hattons yet but for those lucky enough to possess one how many coaches does it pull? I am interested to see how many people on this site live away from 3rd rail territory. I used to live near Chelsfield station in Kent which is why I am interested in emus. I liked the noise of the generator and the carriage prints. The Visit the Dorset Coast Go By Train poster inspired me to visit Swanage. I live in Swanage now and one of the reasons I chose to model the Swanage railway was because it was easier to model than Chelsfield with its generating station and third rail and the lack of model emus.

Thank you for the two points about current consumption and the cost of purchasing a four car multiple unit. I look back with horror at the amount of money I have spent on model railways over the last sixty years and the sum of £500 pales into insignificance compared with the total. One problem with the way model railway locomotives are sold now is that you often have to buy items immediately in case they sell out and go out of production. For instance I pre-ordered one 0 gauge locomotive and 5 00 gauge locomotives over the last 2 years and they all came at once last December leaving me with a bill of £800. In 1957 one could buy the Tri-ang 4-SUB motor coach from the money received as a birthday present and then buy the dummy trailer cars and suburban coaches to make up an eight car set over the next six years. The total cost did not seem so high then, I was able to spread the cost and I just needed to walk to my local model railway shop, to get models after I had seen the magazine reviews and to see and test them before I bought them. Judging by the photographs the Hornby 2-BIL looks like a good model but I have pre-ordered it blind without seeing a detailed review showing how accurate the model is in terms of colour or dimensions and what its performance is like. I do not want to repeat my experience with the Hornby Maunsell Pull-Push where I waited for the reviews and then found it had already sold out and the next version kept on being pushed back so I would have to wait at least another year before getting one.

Thank you for this information. I am sorry I put Victoria. I meant to put Waterloo but the V headcode had Victoria fixed in my mind for a long time before I read the posts in this topic.

There are some interesting pictures of 2-BILs in Southern EMUs in Colour by John C Morgan published by Ian Allan in 1994, ISBN 0 7110 2318 2. On page 10 is a picture by R C Riley of four 2-BILs travelling south from Clapham Junction on 10th September 1961. The headcode is 32. I would be interested to find out where it was going. The leading unit has a cycling lion crest and the whole train is in a darker shade of green than the Hornby model appears to have. It seems more like the Bachmann emu colour. The sides look pristine but the front end and roof seem to be heavily weathered with a layer of brake dust. Model railway coach roofs always look too bright and as soon as a friend buys a model coach he repaints the roof a realistic colour ruining its second hand value. Perhaps there is a market for a weathered emu. To model the train would cost a fortune: about £500 at the full retail price but if members of a railway club each bought one set and then ran them together it would be possible if the controller could stand the strain. When Tri-ang made their 4 SUB a dummy unit cost 9s 11p as against 49s 6d for the motor coach so an eight coach train was within many people's budget. If Hornby-Dublo's criteria was adopted any model locomotive should be able to pull 6 coaches so only one motor is needed for three 2-BILs. There must be a market for dummy motor coaches because all the photographs I have seen of 2-BILs show them with trains of at least four coaches. According to the August 1957 Railway Modeller the Tri-ang R156 4-SUB could pull eight coaches with a little slipping on a 1 in 20 grade so if the model railway magazines are not going to test the Hornby 2-BIL for haulage capacity I will take it to the Isle of Purbeck Model Railway Group test track to see how many Hornby Mk1 coaches it will pull and report back together with a comparison of the performance of the Tri-ang 4-SUB against the Hornby 2-BIL. In the Railway Modeller review of the Tri-ang 4-SUB the Railway Modeller suggested that Tri-ang made some 3-rail track to run it on but I am going to see if I can buy some Peco rail with insulators to put on one of the four test tracks to give it a more realistic appearance. The latest wish list survey result may show there is a demand for 3-rail track. The Tri-ang 4-SUB had an illuminated V destination board showing it was going from Richmond to Victoria and provision to fit a bulb in the dummy unit for the red blank board. This a feature I would have liked to see in the 2-BIL. Looking back through this topic it seems that R3161 may appear in quantity on 18th February so it should be ready in time to meet the demand at Modelworld iin Brighton on 22nd February. I have waited 56 years for a companion for my Tri-ang 4-SUB so waiting a few more weeks will not matter much.

I have found the reviews in Model Rail very helpful. I would like you to include in the review how many Bachmann Mk1 coaches each locomotive will pull. This information used to be in some reviews and you used to do this in Model Railway Contructor. I realise that this information may not be needed for a two car emu with no dummy units to pull but it would give some indication of the performance of the motor. I have read that only a small number of Hornby emus have arrived so that would explain why Hattons has not received any and neither have you. I hope they arrive in time for Modelworld at the Brighton Centre from 22nd to 24th February as this is a large exhibition and some of the 2-BILs operated in this area. I have seen a picture of one at the Hove tunnel.