Covkid

Fantastic news Accurafamily. The only real interest to me was the Andrew Barclay and what a gorgeous little loco that is. Very glad is it and the other Hattons projects are safe in the hands.

Talking of decoders, no mention of a lift off roof panel for easy access to the decoder socket

The class 30 had different shaped exhaust ports and no grille in the bodyside central door. When reengined the roof got the rectangular slotted exhausts similar to class 37, 40 and 50. The bodyside door grille was introduced for ventilation I believe

I think they said the project has been running for "several years" and the chap in charge of the project was assigned to it a couple of years ago. Sounds to me like Bachmann were working up the project before Accurascale made their official class 31 launch, and Bachmann have stuck to their guns and announced it today The point is Accurascale have a policy of reasonable prices which they tend to stick with. My order for a single Accuracale 31 ~ i think is £267 for a DCC sound version which I assume includes an Accurathrash speaker. If the SFX version of a Bachmann 37 is £351 witnessed yesterday, then the Bachmann SFX 31 will NOT be cheaper, maybe more. I wonder how many modellers will be buying the SFX for the auto uncoupler function. Good luck Bachmann, but I think you may have backed the wrong horse. There is no doubt you will be expected to produce a "modern image" loco so I wonder whether you perhaps ought to have tooled a class 81, using much of the content of the existing class 85, or better still gone for the Class 120 Swindon Cross Country - using a lot of content from the existing class 117. Interesting times

YEs. Heard that yesterday from a chat in my LHS - Topp Trains of Stafford (same county).

Ahh fair play. Mine was an NCB one.

So what is wrong with the current Bachmann 03 ? The Next18 mechanism runs like a dream with a decoder in it

No. I imagine 99.5% of Mk1s were blue & grey in 1978 when the book was published. Additionally, I have no idea whether coaches were swapped between regions at all. Perhaps "Robert CWP" can help ? My input was just helping with CK and BCK numbers from the 1978 book

The 170s have flitted around so much during the time the Bachmann turbostar has been out of the catalogue. The small Anglia fleet were transferred to TfW then migrated to EMR at Etches Park. The London Midland 170s became WMR 170s with a change of livery, Some were repainted in EMR purple whilst still operating for WMR. Six of the 3 car WMR class 170s lost their centre cars to XC, so those 1706xx became 1705xx, whilst the XC 170/5 were renumbered as 170/6s with their "new" cars. The XC Turbostars are about to enter a refurb programme with another livery of red and white or red and silver I believe. The nthere is the Northern livery and the Scotrail Saltire livery as well as the various transitional badging of the EMR fleet as they were gathered from WMR, TfW, Scotrail and SOU. certainly more liveries than Bachmann can shake a stick at !!!!!

Cannot disagree with any of that. The hobby is very discretionary, and it is up to the purchaser what they think they can afford or not afford. There is nop need to bleat about i on railway fora because we all know "the price of fish" . 2023 saw me invest a sum of money in a model I wanted, and which had not been available to modellers even as a kit. No grizzling about costs, it's what I was happy with - one man's meat etc. My issue would be paying £57 for a basic kid's football shirt, but having to pay more to have the relevant club logos ironed on.

I thought the 04 was retooled prior to the 03, but obviously wrong. The Next 18 version of the Bachmann 03 runs like a sewing machine and the Deigitrains soundfile on the Zimo decoder is sublime. You can barely detect movement of the loco on speed step 1 EDIT Just looked back to 2015 on RMWeb and it seems the rechassisied 04 was cancelled by Bachmann. Two versions were planned but exited from the catalogue.

If it is any relevance to the OP, the 1978 RCTS book lists the following CKs with "W" prefixes 15647 15811 15820 15862-868 15870 15880 15886 15887 15897 15905 15910-912 15934 15944 15973 15996 16076 16113 16199 16206-219 16223-225 16245 Ditto BCKs 21072 21129 21152 21173-75 21183 21185 21187-88 21190 21192-94

Strictly speaking Bachmann have already retooled the class 20, the "skinhead" 24, newly tooled the headcode version, and are currently on the class 25s. But they may be a little out of your timeline. As a transition era LMR man those are my bases covered. I have to be patient that once the two class 25s already announced are released then further 25s will be announced in 2025. Really, the only diesel I would like to see from Bachmann is the LMS jackshaft design 7080-7119 which became 12003-12032. The vast majority were withdrawn in 1967 and at least one got BR blue, but they didn't receive a TOPS classification.

That is a good shout for a variety of reasons Both of the ex Corris locos carried several liveries over time, and are Talyllyn and Corris - but would need different mouldings to suit th different cabs / doors etc, The No 4 was quite a popular industrial narrow gauge design so imagine would be popular for "fictionising". The Corris coaches in both clerestory, and "normal" roof shapes are very "light railway" and would easily stand plenty of "fictionalising".

I agree. I also wish Richard would hand the announcing job over to someone else. He is a really nice bloke but does not have great oratory skills..

And another from Richard Norris - this time caption reads This was a regular runner during the summer of 1991 for the purpose of elctrifying the Cross City line.....31271/119 Kings Norton-Lichfield City via a reversal at Burton upon Trent Saltley 06-09-1991

Another useful Flickr pic by Dave Gommersall of 31113+31125 on a Kings Norton based electrification train

What you need is a beat up class 31, as used extensively for ballast work in the West Midlands back in the day. There is more than one manufacturer of class 31s, but I have an order with Accurascale !!! EDIT Not sure if this link will work but here is a Flickr image of a West Midlands electrification train of the type the "special" wagon was used in. The Flickr user is Richard Norris and the caption reads A nice colourful image in fine evening light.....31119 (D5537) +31101 (D5518) Northfield OTP Depot-Lichfield City via Burton on Trent electrification train Saltley 12 June 1991

CDL was a design to lock coach doors whilst in motion using air and electricity. I don't think it was interlocked with brakes, and was controlled by the guard. Door interlock or traction interlock was built into newer designs of trains

Have to agree with "ADB" 57009 is a class 57 converted from a class 47. Although there were a few detail differences compared to the class 47s when initially converted, DRS went through a programme of rebuilding the cooler groups on the class 57s, so the operating fibreglass slats on the Serck grilles were replaced by a stainless steel structure. I think WCR have given a very sympathetic nod to "GJ Churchward" , and I appreciate the individuality they have brought about - irrespective of nameplate shape, size, pattern and placement some folk on here are critical of

Very important traffic in the Black Country. I straight away recall an image of a class 128 Diesel parcels unit hauling a maroon Mk1 BG on a pigeon special My father in law bred champion racing pigeons, before I married his daughter, and I remember him telling me about his widowhood breeding method many years ago.

Am I the only one left wondering why, if when retooling the motor car, Hornby didn't make a hatch underneath to house the decoder / blanking plug ? It is stuff like this where Hornby could be a leader in model innovation, particularly as they have their own brand of decoders

Another useful Flickr image by Adrian Hancock shows 37051+20045 on the sleeper. Here is his caption 37051 + 20045 Tyndrum Upper 08/08/1983 06:00 Glasgow QS - Mallaig. Due to the lack of Sunday services on the WHL at the time, the first train of the day on a Monday was often one the the through steam piped Eastfield 20's (20045 and 20085) to give some extra oomph. On this beautiful day in the middle of a Scottish rover we had 20045. Quite why we got off here rather than go to Fort William I don't know - probably to get a bag of crisps for breakfast at Tyndrum garage.

Interesting project Ian Futers is very inspirational - first discovered this nearly 30 years ago when we established the Austrian Railway Group, which was borne out of a small group of people who did a sort of "round robin" picture portfolio sent to each other. I enjoyed playing with Ian's numerous layouts - both Austrian and Scottish themed. Regarding West Highland line class 20s - we must remember the locos which were retro fitted with a steam pipe for helping out on rhe sleeping car train. The pair I remember were 20045 and 20085 but I think there were actually three. If you go to "spannerman37025" on the Flickrsite he has a cracking shot of pair 37012+20045 on the Up Fort William - Euston at Rannoch. This is the caption attached to the photo 37012+20045 37012 and through steam piped 20045 wait departure from Rannoch with the 16.10 Mallaig to London Euston which they will work as far as Glasgow, some train spotters were desperate for a cab ride , this one even had his own uniform, he still has one today, officially, but the one in the shot would be a tight fit now... 3/5/83

And that neatly sums up the situation Phil The only part of the "oughties" electrification programme which seems to have worked well was the electrification of Walsall - Rugeley via Cannock. The passenger service was mostly half hourly 2 and 3 car DMUs which operated between Birmingham and Rugeley, and were repalced by 4 car class 350 EMUs. I believe one or two loco hauled charter trains have operated over the route but AFAIK an AWC pendolino has never operated over the route except maybe as a test unit. There was a brief period when the Cannock line was given an hourly service to London Euston but reliability of the service collapsed and the operator reverted to Birmingham International as the turnback point. So why was the Cannock line chosen to be electrified despite being purely a half hourly local passenger service, when the Oxford - Banbury service is arguably as busy ? The silo mentality of UK electrification demonstrates the inability of the DfT etc to actually make the industry work for more than one customer.