young37215

I had not picked up on the periscopes which I will cut off of my 3 conversions. The roofs all need another coat of grime so covering a few scratches created by cutting should not be too challenging. The brake end pipe work is somewhat confusing, I was intending to create my own to replace the unrealistic Hornby molded pipes but when I started looking there are differing arrangements. Whilst many have full length pipework, a number have abbreviated pipes. For example, 1985 and 37049 with only a short section of pipe. The same arranagment can be seen in the 1985 picture I posted yesterday. Most confusing, as has been said before it seems a picture of the individual BSOT is required if you want detail to be 100% accurate. Can anyone explain what the pipework at the brake end did? better still why did the pipes get cut back? The 1983 picture of what looks like SC9000 (the top window painted white) suggests full pipework. The abbreviated pipes on 9001 soon after conversion The same on this unidentified BSOT

Presumably an inspection train for the purposes of checking the viaducts between Crianlarich and Bridge of Orchy. It is an interesting consist, I am not sure how I might go about making a model of Gozunda but the thought of modeling the train is appealing.

Very brave to strip the paint. I agree that the Hornby blue is a poor representation of BR Blue but I have always resisted the urge to change it simply because I do'nt think I get get anywhere near the factory finish. You have me thinking that I might try a thin white wash and see if that has any effect. On a point of detail, I think that 3 end steps should be removed leaving only the bottom 2 which is just about visible on the picture below.

I am not sure what I was thinking when I started rabbiting about Commonwealth's for 9015, from everything that has been seen to date it had BR1's for its entire WHL career. I suspect I was confusing 9015 with 9005 which was built with Commonwealths and which is included on the Railtec 3025 transfers. I had identified a new R4773 CK with Commonwealths but at £40 I was hesitating; a good job I have woken up!

A challenge today, what is the first wagon which looks like a modified Salmon to me and what is it carrying in these two 1985 pictures?

I am with SC55015 on the Commonwealth's, another picture of 9015 taken June 1988 shows it still on BR1's and it was withdrawn by the end of the year. I added most of the transfers to my 2 other BSOT conversions. The window panel for 9001 was fitted but not for 9015 where I want to find some earlier pictures because I am not clear on the colour or wording that was applied to the panel on conversion. Later pictures show white 'Buffet' on a black background, for some reason I have in my mind a white background was originally applied. I have not done any of the internal work and will run both coaches for a while to see if I notice the different internal arrangements.

No mistakes, clearly 2 of the vans and judging by the open wagons content, in what appears to be a Fort William bound train. Lets hope there is more detail with the picture in the forthcoming book.

The picture is dated 1985, not 1988 which judging by the largely ex works 37401 seems about right. Given the speed restrictions on the WHL, I doubt BR1's caused any issues. I think that we have collectively established that the introduction of 37/4's signalled the end of the steam heat BSOT fleet, dual heat 9015 and 9016 excepted, and they had all gone by the end of 1987. My personal interest begins to wane after the replacement of steam heat and for WHL4's 1981 - 1985 time window, BSOT's are all I need to worry about. How many I create is something I am still thinking about. SC55015's galleries provide excellent research material for the WHL modleller. If we can get a few more pictures of other peoples conversions and an outline of the work that they undertook I think we will have created a fairly comprehensive and practical guide to anyone wanting to do their own conversion in the future. Of course finding a suitable Hornby BSO to convert might be more challenging!

I sent my cash off to the SDEG boys yesterday. Based on their previous editions I have high expectations for the class 37 book. Having arrived at Ardlui, 37049 runs around its train and shunts the loaded Dogfish into the siding to await an engineers possession when they can be emptied. This additionally gives me good reason to move the Tamper to Ardlui.

There was a door added between the converted toilet and the area behind the counter which is visible on some of the pictures earlier in this thread, one of which I have copied below, and the diagram shows. The diagram also shows how the counter top was rebated to allow for the trolley to be inserted. I chose not to rebate the counter top because I wanted the wider top as part of the structural integrity of the cut out area. It also seemed to fiddly to bother with!, whether the same can be said for O gauge is for your judgement. From the internal pictures I have seen it is clear that in preservation the rebated counter top has been replaced

I have been intending to do 37037 for a while now, it is the one long standing split box Eastfield 37 that I do'nt currently have. I was unaware of the oval/round buffer situation on 37037 so that is useful info. The current 37108 has the incorrect roof profile and seemed a logical candidate for renumbering as 37037. However having seen others filing/sanding off the rivets to create a plain, welded roof profile, I am pondering doing the same with my 37108 which I would like to keep as it is one of the earliest split box 37's transferred to Eastfield. My latest plan (which is about version 999) is to renumber 37022 as 37037. One of my two 37027's can then be renumbered as 37022 with a little work. The good news is the details of the Scottish steam heat class 37's should become a little clearer with the impending release of the SDEG book, I was delighted to receive an email advising this should be available in late Spetember. 37112 heads for Glasgow with the 1254 from Oban which includes BSOT 9000 amongst the 5 coach rake. I am still uncertain on the 5 coaches, I suspect that the rake will be reduced back to 4 in the near future.

Based upon SC55015's pictures and research, my choices for the 2 additional BSOT conversions will be SC9001 and SC9015. Having learnt from my first conversion I hope that subsequent conversions will be a little quicker. I will need more red stripe transfers from Railtec and replacement Commonwealth bogies for SC9015 but otherwise I am ready to start work. Commonwealth bogies might be a short term challenge, based on my efforts to find some I find that Hornby spares appear thin on the ground. A set were sold on Ebay June 2023 but there are none around that I can find at present. Worst case is I will run SC9015 with BR1's in the short term and hope to find replacement bogies at a later date. The 1986 WTT records all passenger working as vacum braked except for the sleeper so the BSOT's could continue working albeit they might be a bit chilly. A number of the pictures in SC55015's gallery show 37/4's hauled services through to 1988 indicating that the BSOT's remained in use. A look in the Longworth coaching stock book shows BSOT withdrawls started in 1985 with the fleet largely gone by the end of 1986 with only 3 surviving into 1987. How catering was provided post the BSOT I do not know, a trolley without a designated space?

If only I was running the 1985 timetable this would be a great idea, unfortunately its the 1983 timetable! Adding the engineering train path into the WTT has been a great success. Not only does it add some interest, it forces the movement of rolling stock which otherwise can easily sit in the same place for weeks at a time. A largely ex works 37049 is seen heading north from Arrochar with a loaded ballast working. 37049 was a late East Anglian transfer to Scotland but is a model that several manufacturers have produced. I have been pondering renumbering to a more traditional SCR loco hence the lack of weathering but with the addition of the recent Accurascale 37027 I seem to have run out of suitable candidates!

Thanks Ian. I am going to try the cheaper option of 'scrounge Doug's and see how it performs' approach as a first step. 37039 arrives at Ardlui with 8D10 The loco failed further south refusing to respond to commands from the controller. I fear I may have suffered a chip failure, of late I have noticed that the bodyshell gets quite hot even when stationary and wonder if the over 10 year old ESU Loksound V4 has expired.

Yes, at this time. I plan to selectively add static grass detailing once I have got all of the landscape structure in place. In between applying transfers to the BSOT conversion, operations continued. 37175 heads north from Crianlarich with 7B02

I am not that familar with coach formations post the 37/4 introduction but would guess that the BSOT'S were only in use for the summer, no heat period. I think I have a 1987 WTT somewhere to see what it says, it certainly looks like trains remained vacum brake which would have meant the BSOT's could have been included. For the winter timetable trains were much shorter without catering. Railtec transfers arrived yesterday and were added to SC9000 to complete my efforts on the conversion. The red stripe should be longer but this would have meant using all of the smaller stripes leaving me without any for the next 2 conversions. I'll have to thinkk about how to manage this because the larger red stripes look to big. The location of the old number will get another coat of paint and I hope that a final coat of matt varnish will reduce its visibility as well as sealing the transfers.

Following in 27041's footsteps towards Oban and seen on departure from Ardlui is 37114 with its charter train.

Bare in mind that after January 1989 all WHL trains except for the sleeper had gone over to Sprinters meaning the coaching stock was available for other work. BR continued to withdraw life expired Mk1s and what was left was used as and where required. If I recall correctly, there are several pictures showing Network South East liveried rolling stock working the Far North. To find SCR stock on the Western region does not come as a surprise to me. Based upon the pictures that I have looked at, I would say a high percentage of trains of the 1980's WHL era contained a BSOT. For modelling purposes I would like to include a BSOT in each of the 5 rakes used on the WHL. However the booked load was 6 coaches and having selectively compressed my stations, I only run load 4 which means that I either have 2 brake coaches in a 4 coach consist or just the BSOT on its own. I am trialling load 5 on the 2 Oban rakes at present but am not convinced that the extended train looks right on WHL4. At inception the BSOT fleet was split between Eastern and Scottish regions. I believe that the Eastern used them on Liverpool Street Cambidge services and they were trialled on the Birmingham Norwich services. Presumably these fell out of fashion for some reason as the P5 Coaching Stock books show the evolution of the BSOT fleet on creation and their migration to the SCR during the early 80's. I suspect that the railway journals of the day will have an article or two on this; is anyone aware of such an article? Can we get our collective hands on a copy. From Robert Carroll's Coaching Stock Groups collection, the 1982/3 CWN's for peoples reference. There are other years available on Robert's IO Group. ScR_1982-3_PTM Carriage workings.pdf

The CWN's are your source of reference for the definitive allocation but from a glance at the 1983 CWN, virtually every WHL, Far North and Aberdeen to Inverness trains includes a BSOT. Odd balls like the tea time Fort William Mallaig round trip did not but mainstream services during the summer months all include a BSOT.

Trying to create the atmosphere of the west highlands is what WHL4 is all about and it is nice to receive such warm compliments; thank you. There is a track plan on page 35 of the thread and a video of the layout on Youtube. 27041 continued on its way to Oban passing through Crianlarich where it made a brief stop to exchange single line tokens. What with the breakdown train and the Ayrshire charter, Oban will be a busy place when all of the trains arrive.

Over the last couple of days I pushed on with my SC9000 conversion which by the end of yesterday I had in service albeit for testing purposes only because it is not yet finished. A coat of white paint was applied to the internal buffet area. By the time the white paint had dried I had discovered the pictures showing the blue interior in SC9000! A first coat of blue was then applied, this may need a second coat depending on how it has dried and covered the areas. The 10g piece of lead is also visible, there is another 10g at the opposite end of the coach. I found that I had transfers to do the renumbering and the window in the brake area was painted white to create the unique feature of SC9000. The red stripe and 'Buffet' signs are outstanding intil the new Railtec transfers arrive. A few passengers were added and the screen blocking the window behind the buffet counter was covered over using card glued in place with Glue and Glaze. The bodyshell was refitted and the coach placed in service at the rear of an Oban train. Only then did I realise that the number should be under the first window, not the toilet. Fortunately I have'nt sealed this yet which should allow it to be moved to the correct position.

Some more excellent research material. Whilst looking at the above picture which dates to 1986, I found another BSOT gallery with a few new pictures (and a larger number of duplicates). Of prticular interest to me is that most of the BSOT's are located at the end of their consists which is in line with the carriage working notices. I'll also need tp get the white paint out again for the window on SC9000 which I had not noticed previously. https://www.flickr.com/photos/151135632@N04/galleries/72157713849495897/with/49774164058/

Also getting a run out was a charter from Ayr to Oban with 37114 heading the Sealink stock on its way west just south of Ardlui. Annoyingly the actuating wire that controls the signal in the last picture snapped in half and needs replacing. It had been playing up for a while, at least now I understand why it was playing up!

Pictures of the inside of SC9000 in the early 1990's courtesy of Peak Rail Association. The colours of the coach end are interesting appearing to be laminate with aluminium framing presumably on top of the original wood panelling. The point has been made on the Coaching Stock IO Group that SC9000 was one of 4 conversions from a 1956 build BSO with predominantly wood panelling whereas the other 14 were from a 1963, predominantly laminate panelled build. The fact that SC9000 was converted to BSOT in 1981 and withdrawn in 1987, suggests that the panelling seen in these pictures is probably that of the original conversion. With SC9000 and SC9011 we have pictures of the buffet areas of both 1956 and 1963 built coaches, how close the other coaches were to these I doubt we will ever know unless pictures can be traced but I feel sufficiently comfortable with the information I have to settle for my version of SC9000 as I have converted it. What I have also found is that by 1984 13 of the 18 BSOT conversions were allocated to the SCR to cover the operational needs of the West Highland and Far North lines.

Several choices, personally I only have experience of Megapoints which I use to control around 75 servos on my West Highland layout. There is a thread, the best thing that I like about them is the Youtube videos which have proven to be a really powerful aid to my understanding of how to use the kit. The Vendor has a good reputation for being helpful and I have first hand experience of this. Good luck with your research