bazza.

Hi BassettLoko. If my memory serves me right, this topic was discussed on this forum about 5 months ago. In short, the first batch of 2BIL units had a smaller Guards/Luggage area, a third class 8 seat compartment in place of the 4-seat coupe on the later units, and electro-magnetic control gear instead of the electro-pneumatic control gear on the later batches. The first photo shows two of the models that I made from the then very basic BSL kits about 45 years ago. Each kit only contained two white metal ends, two pre cut aluminium sides, a two part aluminium floor and and wooden roof. The first BSL kit that I built is at the rear of the photo, now sold I belive as Phoenix kits by the Southern Railways Group, this kit was built as purchased as a model of a 4COR unit. This model was hand painted by me as 4COR unit number 3155. In the foreground in the same photo is the second BSL kit that I made. Now filled with a bit of confidence, and with the help of a Skinley Blueprint, I built a buffet car and turned the 4COR kit into a 4BUF unit numbered 3075. This time I spray painted the model, and as I think that nothing looks like glass than glass, I used 1mm slide glass fro the glazing. For the 8'SR bogies I first made my own master of the bogie side frames in plasticard, then re-cast this in manganese-bronze as a master, then used this master to make my own 8' SR bogie side frames. The second photo shows the third model that I built from a BSL kit. This time also with the help of two Skinley Blueprints, two new 6PAN/6PUL fronts, I built a corridor 1st coach and a pantry car to make a 6 PAN unit number 3022. As before I spray painted this model with Humbrol BR SR multi-unit green, 1mm slide glass for the glazing and my own SR 8'bogies. All three units were and still are powered with second-hand Tri-ang motor bogies, with the original side frame detail filled off and replaced with SR powed bogie detail, re-wheeled to P4 standards, and the original Tri-ang 3 pole armatues replaced with CCW 5 pole armatures. When compared to and placed along side the new Hornby 2BIL, I think that my old emu units don't look to bad. Must get round to painting the Hornby 2BIL destination number box white.

Hi Rick, Excuse my ignorance but what or who is AFAIK ? Regards Bazza

Hi Colin, Could the Precision Paint number be : B108 BR Southern Electric Stock Green (Dull) Bazza

More than likely they would have copied NRM unit 2090 ! Regards Bazza

I'll second that for Newhaven MkII in P4. Has any one used slide glass for coach glazing ? For many years to eliminate the prismatic effect of mounded clear plastic, I have used 1mm thick slide glass for my coach glazing. Easy to cut and shape, a bit fragile, but looks like glass because it is glass. Regards Bazza

Hi Colin, I look forward to following your topic on the 2BIL, and as I have purchased one of Hornby's 2BIL models, I think that I have a sort of vested interest in your project. Like you, due to the lack of informationat the time, in my case no internet, few SR emu books, and 12,000 miles from the prototype, at the time over 40 years ago when I built my 4COR, 4BUF, and 6PAN models, they have many faults, made all the more oblivious after following your excellent 4COR build topic. Perhaps it is time for me to retro-fit roof lighting conduits and more underframe details to these models Re. the SR geeen paint, some years ago a colleague in the UK sent to me a paint swatch containing genuine BR malachite Coach Green No11 paint. This paint originated from the Eastleigh Loco Works Paint Shop. Thje paint on this card it is the natural paint colour finish without varnishing. At the same time this same colleague sent to me a Dulux shade card for "Woodland Fern1" 90GY 08/187 which in his opinion was very close in colour to BR malachite (Coach Green no. 11) and went on to say that SR carriage paint schemes consisted of a total of about 12 coats of primer/paint/varnish. And apparently carrages were revarnished at one to two year intervals, and even SR malachite paint from the 1940's when revarnished became daker and yellower until it could appear indistinguishable from the newer BR malachite green. Preparations for the revarnishing process in some cases involved removal of the surface coats including lining/lettering without interfering with the basic body colour. Over the years I have used this colour swatch from Eastleigh paint shop as my colour reference point for BR malachite green. It is very close in colour to Humbrol HR113 and Railmatch 307. So I'll skip your section on removing the glazing and perhaps give the Hornby 2BIL a light spray of Humbrol satin varnish no. 135 which tends to yellow with age, bearing in mind that no two sets of multiple units or rakes of carrages were ever the same colour in sevice. Regards Bazza

Hi Colin, Good to see this new topic, it should be a good forum for modellers! Although some said that it might not be possible, I have successfully converted my Hornby 2BIL to P4. It was intersting reading your coments about the Kirk 2BIL kit, as I was thinking of using the Hornby 2Bil to pull/propel one or even two Ian Kirk dummy 2BIL kits. Do you think that the Ian Kirk 2BIL model has far too many detail inaccuracies to correct as compaired to the Hornby model? I am looking forward to following your project, but I will skip the bit about removing the glazing, as I am modelling the period 1955 to 1965 ( 2Nol to 4CIG) all passenger stock will be green, and no need to repaint my 2BIL. Even though Hornby's SR green on the model is a slightly lighter shade of green to the Humbrol HR113 BR Multi Unit Stock Green hobby paint that I have used on my models of SR electric units. All the best Bazza

Hi, After a delay of about two weeks, I finally got round to modifying the power car number S10700S of the Hornby 2BIL set to P4. It took me about two hours one night and was no harder to modify than the driving trailer comp. To start with, Hornby had made the 8' SR unpowered bogie of the driving motor brake about .75 mm wider than the same 8' SR bogie in the driving trailer comp, which made the re-fitting of the Alan Gibson P4 wheels into the bogie a lot easier. It was just a matter of re-fitting the P4 wheels, cutting the ends of the bogie with a fine razor saw, and re-bending the Pb pick-ups. For the power bogie, I first removed the Hornby wheels, gears and axle from the bogie, and then with the help of a gear puller, I removed the wheels and gears from each 2mm Hornby axle. The next job was to put the Alan Gibson 26mm long pin point axes into a laith and shorten the axles to 22 mm. I then I re-fitted the Hornby gears and Alan Gibson P4 wheels back on to the now 22 mm long Alan Gibson axles and refitted the whole assembly back into the Hornby power boge. Finally I filled about .25mm from the inside face of the power bogie side frames and refitted the side frames to the power bogie. I am really quite surprised and imprested that the Hornby 2BIL model is capable of pulling or propelling it's self plus two extra Bachmann Bulleid coaches, at scale speeds of up to 70mph on P4 wheels with flanges of only .4 mm in place of the original Hornby wheels with a flange of 2mm. Boy, this close-up shot distorts the photo of the power bogie All the wheels are parallel, honest! . One axle omitted to show Pb pick-ups extended Hornby 2BIL on P4 track (Note to me: Must improve my photography) but it does look good sitting on P4 track! Opps! forgot to remove that silly coupling pocket on the front of bogie.

Hi Richard 1962' In answer to your question! My preferred height for Kadee couplers on my UK 4mm scale models is 14 mm. First, I did try to mount my #4 Kadee couplers at the height recommended by Kadee. At first I cound not find any any old rulers in my houshold, when I finally found one I nearly went cross-eyed trying to work out 25/64", seriously do people still use fractions of an inch? I gave up trying to mount the coupler at 25/64" and mounted it instead at 10mm which is only 0.0781mm higher than the recommended height, confident that the coupled would silll work at that height. Suprise, suprise, the coupler It did work at a height of 10mm, but while a Kadee coupler looks right at that height on North American stock, visibly it looked wrong on my UK 4mm scale coaches, and even more so when not in the droped position on a Bachmann 4CEP or 2EPB. Instead of being out of sight below the coach corridor conections, the kadee coupler when mounted at 10mm seemed to dangle below the corridor conections like they had fallen off the model. As the drop-buckeye coupler is mounted on the buffer beam at the same height on the buffer beam as the side buffers on real UK coaching stock at a height of 3'-5 1/2" (1054mm), I cut into the coach buffer beam and remounted my #4 Kadee couplers at a 4mm/ft scale height of 14mm. Result, they work well and most importantly they look correct when mounted on a model coach, and when coupled to other coaches. Bazza

Hi Oldddudders, What a good idea. I have just started to convert my Hornby 2BIL from 00 to P4/S4, using some of Alan Gibson excellent P4 coach wheels. First I removed both bogies from the body of the driving trailer comp. body, and removed the Hornby wheels from each bogie, Next I filled about .25mm from the inside of each bogie sideframe, you can not file much more than this as the side frame are very thin to start with. Then with an Exacto razor saw I made a saw cut on each end of each bogie (the Hornby trailing SR bogie is already open at one end) By cutting two slots on at the end of each bogie, the bolster that connects the side frames together, turns into a sort of torsion bar, allowing the bogie side frames to flex a little, and giving the side frames a slight amount of movement for compensation to the P4 wheels. I then refited the bogies with the Alan Gibson P4 wheels and reconnected the bogies to car S12167S. To test this simple conversion worked, I towed and propelled car S12167S to and from my model of Barnham Station to my stageing yard a few times without a derailment. The time taken to convert this coach to P4 was about an hour. Photo of S12167S being towed and propelled. My next task is to start the slightly more difficult job of converting the driving motor brake S10700S to P4. Has any one out there already converted the Hornby 2BIL to run on P4/S4 track, or has any one modified the model to correct the so called shortcomings ? Regards Bazzer

Hi Xerces Fobe2, I totally agree. I am also very happy with my Hornby 2 BIL. The only person that I know how could hand make a more accurate model of a 2BIL would be Colin Parks. But I doubt if he would want to build more than unit, or two at most. Where as Hornby have made hundreds of 2 BIL models in three different liveries to date, and I would expect, many more different liveries to come. I could not hand make or assemble a Ian Kirk kit of a 2BIL that would be more accurate than the Hornby models that have been released to date. I am looking forward to my second Hornby 2BIL unit # R3162AX which should be available some time after 22 July ........and as discussed on my post 737, should be unit number 2142. Bazza

My 1956 station plan of Barnham Junction, shows that the loop was bi-directional. The time table from that date shows that a up Bognor Regis to Portsmouth train carring head code 12 departed at 5.29 am from Bognor Regis and would have arrived into the down loop platform 1 at Barnham Junction at 5.35, then half a minute later the 5.27 from Littlehmpton carrying head code 13, arrived, coupled up to the Bognor train, then 3 minutes later both portions departed at 5.38 am as a down train to Portsmouth Hbr. carring head code 12, arriving at Portsmouth at 6.33. In reverse my time table shows the 11.08pm as the last up train from Portsmouth went direct to Bognor Regis via Barnham Junction carring head code 12. It's advertised as arriving at Barnham Junction at Platform 3 on the Up Main at 11.53 pm, then it would have drawn forward to the trailing crossover at the east end of platform 3, then reversed back into the down loop platform 1, then at 11.58 it depart down to Bognor Regis still carring head code 12, arriving at 12.04. At that time of night the main line would not be busy. The Up bay platform was un-numbered and I believe, only used for parcels and freight vans. I'm impressed that the time table only allowed 3 minutes to manually couple two pre-war emu's together, and only half a minute to uncouple. Regards Bazza

Hi JohnHC, I can only find a time table for one down train and one up train from Bognor to Portsmouth per day. Bognor Regis dep 5.29 am up head code 12 Barnham Jn arr 5.35 Barnham Jn dep 5.38 am dn head code 12 Portsmouth Hbr arr 6.33 Portsmouth Hbr dep 11.08 pm up head code 12 Barnham Jn arr 11.53 Barnham JN dep 11.58 pm dn head code 12 Bognor Regis arr 12.04 Regards Bazza

Hi Olddudders, There is a rumour going round that the next DCC-fitted Hornby 2 BIL unit, painted in BR plain green livery as R 3162AX will be set number 2142 due out in a few months time. Regards Bazza

Hi Mr. Qwiwer, Also have a look at the forum started by 250BOB. "Running DCC fitted locos on DC. -quite unbelievable..!" This might also help you. Regards Bazza

Hi Mr Gwiwer, Hornby R3162 is DCC Ready (no chip installed but can be fitted with any brand of chip if required), the unit number 2134. Hornby R3162X is DCC Fitted (it has a DCC chip installed) and the unit number is also 2134. Hope this helps Same here, best summer that we have had in Hawkes Bay for years. The down side, it has'nt realy rained since September last year. Good for us townees, good for going to the beach and an ice-cold beer, but heart-breaking for our farmers, their livestock, and their livelihood. Regards Bazza I might have to plead confusion. My order is for 2134 (BR green, current batch R3162 and with no X suffix to its serial number) so should be unchipped. One or two sources confusingly suggest it is "DCC fitted" and I may have overlooked the fact that reference is made to R3162X above. I blame the warm weather. It's been above 30C for weeks now and well above 20 through most nights! Love the weather but not what it does to my sleep pattern or memory.

I did'nt think that a DDC fitted model would work on old the old DC. Seems they don't I would take out the DCC chip before it gets damaged. Regards Bazza

That depends as much on the type of DC or DCC control that you have. I have just timed a model on my layout. I set the DCC (Atlas/Lenz) speed steps to 128, and by moving the contol at a rate of one speed step per second it is possible to accelerate a model like the Hornby 2BIL from rest to a scale 60 mph in about one and a half minutes and in that time it travelled over 50 foot of track. I could not time it any further as I had ran out of laid track. Most modellers would not take that long to accelerate to the 2BIL's line speed of 60mph, most would get to 60mph from rest by the time that the model got to the end of the platform and all the passengers had ended up in with guard. Bazza

I would belive that, I took my 2BIL straight out of the box last night, put it on the club layout, set the DDCspeed step to 128, and watched it travel at about 1 scale mile per hour.(1.1579ft/min) After a few minutes and I got bored with that and opened it up to a scale 60 mph, well done Mr Hornby. Bazza

Hi Tender, I still think that it could be a weight problem. I have just weighed my new Hornby 2BIL, the power car weighs 368g, but the driving trailer car only weighs 126g. After you experience with the model, I will definitely add extra weight to the driving trailer of my and future 2BIL's. Regards Bazza

Hi Purley Oaks, I know that we are not supposed to write about this, but I phoned though an order for a Hornby R3162X on the 1 March from the above and it arrived in New Zealand yesterday, and just in time for me to take it to my local model railway clubsThursday running night. It can't run on my layout yet until I get round to converting it to P4 gauge. I am still very imprested with this new Hornby model, in spite of the ommisions or small faults previously discussed on this web. When I took the 2BIL along to the club last night, I also took along a Bachmann 2EPB as a comparison. Out of the box, my never run by me before 2BIL, ran as well as my well run 2EPB. My only complaint is the horrible shiny whells of the Hornby model. Help!!! Now for all you who have purchased this Hornby 2BILmodel . When I took the two coaches of my 2BIL out of the box, two things fell off the model. The first item was a shoe- beam which I glued back on. The second item as me beat, I found it in the box after I took the two coaches out. It's black plastic about 10mm x 2mm x .5mm thick and looks like a guard iron for an N gauge locomotive. Does any one know what it is and where it belongs on the model ? Thank you. Bazza

Hi Tender, A coach should not tilt going through turnouts. Have a look at the king-pin conection from the bogies to the underframe. I increase the bearing surface of these two areas with metal washers to reduce coach body wobble, might work for you ! Regards Bazza

Thank you, Its confusing, as all EMU/Diesels seem to have carried in later BR days four different sizes of yellow warning painted panels, a small yellow rectangular panel, or a full yellow rectangular panel covering the lower third or half of the front, or all the front of the unit or locomotive painted yellow, or all the front and some of the sides painted yellow, and some times the same class of unit or locomotive had different sizes of yellow warning panels to others in that same class. When I was there, in the good old days, EMU's and main line diesels were painted green with high-vis black or red buffer beams. And why yellow! from a distance red, or orange, or chevron stripes are easier to see. BR must have purchased a special job lot of yellow paint. I'm trying to imagine a 2BIL with yellow/black chevron stripes, yuck! Regards Bazza

Going back a bit Paul, Visualy, did the underframes on the last batch of 2BIL's (2117-2152) look the same as the underframes on the earlier batches, or just made of heavier guage steel ? Regards Bazza

What is the non-acronym of SYP please ?